Open Season (23 page)

A particularly intriguing odor lingered on the morning air, leading her out of the field and into the woods that lined the field. Behind her, her owner cursed. “Goddammit, Lulu,
heel!”

Lulu didn’t heel, merely wagged her tail and plunged into some underbrush where the scent was
stronger. Her sensitive nose quivered as she nosed the earth. Her owner yelled, “Lulu! C’mere, girl! Where are you?” and she wagged her tail as she began digging.

He saw the waving plume and fought his way through the tangle of vines, briars, and bushes that grew under the trees, cursing with every breath.

Lulu grew more excited as the scent got stronger. She backed up and barked to signal her agitation, then plunged into the brush again. Her owner picked up his pace, suddenly alarmed, because she seldom barked. “What is it, girl? Is it a snake? Heel, Lulu, heel.”

Lulu grabbed something with her teeth and began tugging. The thing was heavy and didn’t want to move. She dug some more, dirt flying behind her.

“Lulu!” Her owner reached her and grabbed her collar, pulling her back, a broken limb in his hand in case he had to fend off a rattler. He stared down at what she had unearthed and staggered back a step, hauling her with him. “Jesus!”

He looked wildly around, afraid whoever had done this had waited. But the woods were quiet except for the breeze rustling the leaves; he and Lulu had disturbed the birds, and they had either flown off or fallen silent, but he could hear calls and singing in the distance. No shots disturbed the quiet, and no maniac with a big knife plunged out of the trees at him.

“Come on, girl. Come on,” he said, snapping a leash to the dog’s collar and patting her flank. “You did good. Let’s go find a telephone.”

Temple Nolan stared down at the piece of paper in his hand, at the tag number written there. He could feel the icy finger of panic tracing down his spine. Someone, a woman, had witnessed Mitchell’s death, though Sykes
seemed to think she had either not been paying attention at all or, in the dark, not understood what she was seeing, because she had continued calmly into the Buffalo Club.

He tried to believe that Sykes was right, but his gut kept twisting. All it took was one loose thread and someone tugging on it to unravel the whole setup. Sykes should have handled Mitchell himself, instead of taking along those two yahoos for help. They should have waited until he wasn’t in a public place before grabbing him. They should have—fuck!—they should have done a lot of things, but now it was too late and all they could do was contain the damage and hope it stopped there.

He picked up his office phone and dialed Chief Russo’s extension. Eva Fay answered on the first ring. “Eva Fay, this is Temple. Is the chief in?” He always used his first name; for one thing, it made people feel more cooperative. For another, this was a small town and word would get around that he thought he was better than everyone else if he insisted on using his title. He lived in a big house, belonged to the country club in Huntsville and to Hillsboro’s pitiful little excuse for one, he moved in a very exclusive circle, but as long as he still acted like a good old boy, they kept reelecting him.

“Sure thing, Mayor,” said Eva Fay.

The chief picked up the line, his deep voice almost like a bark. “Russo.”

“Jack, this is Temple.” The first name business again. “Listen, on the way in this morning I spotted a car parked in the fire lane over at Dr. Bennett’s office. I wrote down the tag number, but I didn’t want to cause any trouble for any sick folks by calling a deputy to give them a ticket. If
you’ll run the tag number for me and give me a name, I thought I’d just give them a call and ask them not to park there again.” No one could play the good old boy the way he could.

“Sure. Let me grab a pen.” The chief didn’t even sound surprised. He was becoming used to their little town. “Okay, shoot.”

Temple read off the tag number.

Chief Russo said, “It won’t take a minute. Do you want to hold on?”

“Sure.”

When the information popped up on the computer screen, Jack stared at it in disbelief. He sat for a minute, his face set in a hard mask; then he printed out the screen and took the sheet of paper back to his office.

He didn’t pick up the phone receiver, though. Let the mayor wait.

The car was registered to Dacinda Ann Minor, and the address was the one from which Daisy had just moved. The car was an eight-year-old Ford, so it was definitely her car. He hadn’t known her given name was Dacinda instead of Daisy, but, hell, if anyone had named him Dacinda he’d go by Daisy, too.

He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew one thing: the bastard was lying. His Daisy would no more park in a fire lane than she would run naked across the square. The woman didn’t speed, didn’t jay-walk, didn’t even cuss.

Not only that, she hadn’t been at Dr. Bennett’s office this morning. He knew because he’d ended up spending the night, and she’d been fine. Glowing. A big smile on her face. He’d had to swing by his house for a
change of clothes, but her car had been in its usual parking slot behind the library when he got to the office.

So who was running Daisy’s tag, and why?

He thought fast. He could lie and say it was a stolen tag and did the mayor have a description of the car? Or he could tell the mayor it was Daisy’s car and try to find out what was going on.

First Todd Lawrence, and now Temple Nolan. Way too much attention was being paid to one little librarian, and too many details weren’t adding up. The niggling uneasiness had turned into a real itch between his shoulder blades.

What were the odds any of the town gossip about him and Daisy had reached the mayor’s ears? They didn’t move in the same circles. For all his comaraderie, the mayor didn’t socialize much with the townsfolk. He did the official stuff, but not much else. He was good enough at the common touch that most people didn’t notice, or they attributed the mayor’s absence from certain functions to his wife, Jennifer, who evidently spent most of her time sloshed. Jack had noticed that the mayor used his wife as a convenient excuse a lot of the time.

Jack picked up the phone and went with his instinct. “Sorry to take so long, but the computer is slow today.”

“That’s all right; I’m in no hurry,” the mayor said genially. “So who’s the culprit?”

“The name doesn’t strike a bell with me. Dacinda Ann Minor.”

“What?”
the mayor said, clearly stunned.

“Dacinda Minor—hey, I’ll bet that’s the librarian. Her name is Minor. Her name isn’t Dacinda, though—”

“Daisy.” Temple sounded as if he were strangling. “Everyone calls her Daisy. My God! She—”

“I guess even librarians can illegally park, huh?”

“Uh—yeah.”

“Want me to call and give her hell? She’s a city employee; she should know better.”

“No, I’ll call,” the mayor quickly said.

“Okay,” said Jack, knowing no such call would be made. “Let me know if I can help you with anything again, Mayor.”

“Sure thing. Thanks.”

As soon as the mayor hung up, Jack ran his finger down the list of city departments and located the library’s number, then punched it in.

“Hillsboro Public Library,” said Daisy’s crisp voice.

“Hi, sweetheart, how are you feeling?”

“Just fine.” Her tone changed, became warmer, more intimate. “And you?”

“A little beat, but I think I can make it through the day. Listen, someone said they saw your car at Dr. Bennett’s office.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “That quack. He pushes diet pills.”

Jack scribbled Dr. Bennett’s name on a pad so he’d remember to do some checking into the good doctor’s prescription-writing habits.

“I also heard that your name is Dacinda. True or false?”

“You’re hearing a lot of things today. True, as you would know if you ever bothered to look over the list of city employees. I was named after Granny Minor.”

“You’ve never been called Dacinda?”

She gave a ladylike snort. “I should hope not. Mother said they called me Dacey when I was a baby,
but within just a month or two they were slurring it into Daisy, so I’ve been Daisy as long as I can remember. Why are you so curious about my name?”

“Just making small talk. It’s been a while since I’ve heard your voice.”

“Oh, at least an hour and a half,” she said.

“Seems like longer. Are you going home for lunch?”

“No, I just talked to Aunt Jo, and she’s found a dog for me. I’m going to see the people at lunch; she already has it arranged.” Regret tinged her tone.

He wondered if she felt half as regretful as he did. But Daisy getting a dog was important, and he’d use the time nosing around, maybe shadowing the mayor for a while and seeing where he went.

“Listen, there are some things I have to check out tonight, but I’ll come by if I can. What time do you usually go to bed?”

“Ten. But you—”

“I’ll call if I can’t make it.”

“All right, but you don’t have to—”

“Yes,” he said, his tone more grim than he’d intended, “I do.”

He didn’t have to sound so glum about it, Daisy thought as she hung up. She wasn’t clinging to him, demanding his time. She’d been very careful not to ask when she would see him again, though she’d been certain she would. A man didn’t spend all afternoon and most of the night making love to a woman if he didn’t really like what they had together.

One good thing about living on Lassiter Avenue: no one was likely to care who spent the night with her. Since she had just moved in, no one knew her, or knew which cars were normally in the driveway. For the first
time in her life, she didn’t feel as if a hundred pairs of eyes were on her. She had felt free with Jack, free to be as uninhibited as she liked, to make noise when she climaxed, to stand naked in the kitchen eating peanut butter and crackers for quick energy. She could carry on her affair with him without the entire neighborhood watching to see what time he left her house, or clucking their tongues if his car remained in her driveway all night.

All in all, she was very satisfied with the way things had turned out, though one of the things on her to-do list today was
buy more condoms
—regular ones, without a hint of flavor. She was tempted to go back to Clud’s Pharmacy to buy them; let Barbara make what she liked of that! Jack’s stock with the women in town would certainly go up when Barbara spread the word that he’d used up six dozen in one week.

At lunchtime, Daisy drove to her mother’s house, picked up Evelyn and Aunt Jo; then they all went to Miley Park’s house to pick out her dog.

Mrs. Park lived several miles outside of Hillsboro, on a pretty section of land with a huge fenced yard around her small frame house. She came out to greet them, wiping her hands on her apron and smiling, accompanied by a grinning, tail-wagging golden retriever bouncing along at her side.

“Sadie, sit,” she said, and the dog obediently sat, but she quivered with eagerness to greet the visitors. Mrs. Park opened the gate and said, “Hurry, so I can close the gate before they get here.”

“They?” asked Evelyn as they obediently hurried through the gate. Mrs. Park quickly closed it just as a tangle of puppies came bounding around the corner of the house.

“The little devils are fast as greased lightning,” said Mrs. Park, bending to pat Sadie’s head. “As soon as they hear the gate open, they come running.”

Sadie got up to check her brood, nuzzling each of the puppies in turn as if counting noses. The puppies couldn’t seem to decide what they wanted to do first, jump Mama and try to get some milk or check out the newcomers. They pounced and bounced back and forth, little tails wagging so hard their entire bodies seemed to be waving.

“Oh,” said Daisy breathlessly, sinking onto the grass. “Oh!” There were only five of them, but they were so active it seemed as if there were a dozen. As soon as she sat down, they decided to check her out, and abruptly she had a lap full of puppies, puppies climbing over her legs and trying to lick her face, bite her hair, gnaw on her shoes.

Three of them were a mellow gold, and two were such a pale cream they were almost white. All of them were fat, bright-eyed balls of fur, with big, soft paws that seemed way too large for their bodies and baby fuzz so soft she just wanted to sink her hands in it.

“They’ll be seven weeks old on Thursday,” said Mrs. Park. “Sadie started weaning them two weeks ago; I’ve had them on just puppy food for a week now. They’ve had their first round of shots. That was a fun trip to the vet’s, I can tell you!”

“They’re beautiful,” Daisy said, already in love. Her eyes were dazed. “I’ll take them.”

Everyone laughed, and she realized what she’d said. “Well, maybe just one would be better,” she said, blushing and laughing at herself.

“I don’t let Sadie’s babies go unless I’m sure they’ll
have a good home,” said Mrs. Parks. “Goldens are lively dogs and need a lot of exercise. If you don’t have a safe place for it to run—”

“The backyard is fenced,” said Daisy hastily, suddenly afraid she might not be allowed to buy one of these adorable babies.

“Is it a big yard?”

“Not huge, no.”

“Well, that’s fine for a puppy; when it grows, it’ll need more exercise than it can get just playing in a small yard. Will you be able to take it for long walks, throw a ball for it, take it swimming?”

“Yes,” promised Daisy, willing to promise anything and do anything.

“They like human companionship. No, they
love
human companionship. Will someone be home with it during the day, or were you planning on leaving it by itself in the yard all day while you’re at work?”

Her thoughts hadn’t gone that far at all; she turned a beseeching look on her mother.

“We can keep it during the day,” said Evelyn.

“Do you have a lot of patience? The little devils can get into more mischief than you’d believe. If you leave something lying around, you can bet it’ll be chewed on, especially during teething. On the other hand, they’re eager to learn and please you, and I’ve never had one that was hard to house-train.”

“I’m very patient.” That was true, or she would never have waited thirty-four years to get a life. She picked up a puppy and laughed as its little pink tongue began madly licking in an effort to reach her face.