Читать книгу Duke: Deputy Cowboy - Roz Fox Denny - Страница 11

Chapter Three

Duke woke up with sun streaming in his bedroom window, and he felt happily refreshed. Fading from his sleep-logged mind—an appealing picture of Angie Barrington smiling at him as she leaned over a corral feeding her horse treats to the magnificent, now-missing black stallion, Midnight.

He planted his feet on the floor and almost landed on Zorro, who lay not on his bed but on Duke’s bedside rug, something the dog had done as a pup before Duke bought him his own big, soft bed.

“Sorry, Zorro,” he muttered, hopping over the yawning animal to rummage in his closet. He gave up and retrieved a wrinkled shirt out of the dryer. Doing laundry was at the top of his hate list. If it wasn’t so expensive he’d drop everything at Jeff Woods’s Dry Cleaners. He knew plenty of single cowboys who did. Their jeans and shirts were always pressed and neat. But his part-time job covered rent, food and gas. Since the ranch fell on harder times, those in the family who finished in the money at rodeos, which was almost all of them, contributed what they could toward the ranch. His aunt juggled expenses. She had leased out some prime grazing land. In this part of the country, land was gold. Unfortunately empty acres didn’t put money in the bank.

When he wasn’t on duty he always wore jeans and black T-shirts. The family teased him for that quirk, too. But he liked black and it was a matter of convenience. Now he stopped to wonder if Angie would find him dull because he didn’t gravitate to flamboyant Western shirts like most other cowboys wore.

Still mulling that over in the kitchen, Duke opened the fridge and discovered his milk had gone sour. He spat in the sink a few times, dumped the carton and washed the smelly stuff down the drain. He settled for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, and drank water.

Suddenly, for no real reason, he remembered telling Angie he’d find a couple of kids for her to vet as possible pony-race partners for Luke. He got out the church directory and ran down the list of members as he ate. None of the families listed who had kids the right age jumped out at him.

Rethinking yesterday’s conversation with Angie, Duke wasn’t 100 percent certain he wouldn’t be wasting his time. She sure didn’t seem thrilled about the idea of Luke entering. Duke felt slightly guilty at the thought that he’d volunteered so it’d give him a reason to contact Angie again.

Was that pathetic? He needed an excuse to phone or approach a woman that interested him? If it was Colt—well, Colt before he got married—or Beau, those guys were never shy when it came to chatting up attractive women.

Polishing off his breakfast, Duke rinsed the dishes and the pan he’d used to scramble eggs, and put them in the dishwasher.

He tidied up and still found himself replaying comments Angie’s son had made about his dad. Angie had cut the boy off quick enough. But Luke kept pressing. Duke wondered if that might make Angie reconsider getting back together with the guy. How similar was her case to Colt’s having a kid he had no part in raising—a boy now almost a teen? Colt paid support, and just recently decided he’d like a relationship with his son—Evan was his name, who had a stepdad. Man, relationships could get messy.

Having told Dinah he’d be at the office early, Duke grabbed his hat and whistled to Zorro. He could speculate from now to kingdom come and still have no answers as to the real situation between Angie and her son’s birth daddy. And the truth of the matter was he had more to worry about than the Barringtons’ family situation. He had a string of robberies, the most recent of which left his family missing a very pricey horse. He locked the apartment and drove into town.

* * *

MONDAY NIGHT LUKE HAD RATTLED on nonstop—and he started in again this morning—begging Angie to sign him up for the Wild Pony Race. She was glad Dylan Adams had been discreet in volunteering to hunt up an age-appropriate team in case he didn’t find one. The deputy might even forget. He may only have used it as a cover because he’d all but accused her of horse thievery. Someone driving along the road saw her old black horse and told the sheriff, he claimed. But it was embarrassing to think anyone who knew her would even suggest dishonesty in any way, shape or form.

The sheriff probably had to be tough to get elected to that job. Angie only ever saw Dinah Hart at a distance or driving her patrol vehicle. They were about the same age, Angie knew from something Austin Wright said. Well, it didn’t matter how many townspeople thought she’d steal a horse, she never would.

And none of that addressed the issue of her allowing Lucas to chase off after some wild pony during a rodeo—which brought up another point. It pained her to think her grandfather had gone counter to her express wishes to not tell Luke anything about his father.

Angie considered Carter Gray a sperm donor at best, and a reluctant one at that. As if she’d gotten pregnant on purpose to hold on to him—to tie him down. He’d pursued her for a year, not the other way around. Oh, who cared? It was all ancient history. Carter had wanted a cook, a housekeeper and a bedmate was all. He hadn’t wanted a wife and he sure as heck never wanted a child. Gramps knew that. It must have had something to do with how ill he’d been with pneumonia last winter. Sick enough for the fever to let him ramble. So sick, a third round of antibiotics didn’t cure him.

How could she in good conscience blame a sick man, who in her hour of desperate need had opened his home and his heart to her and her unborn child? The answer was, she couldn’t. She’d have to negotiate Luke’s questions about his dad as best she could. It was just a shame the seed had been planted to make him want something that could never be.

“Mom!” Luke raced into the kitchen from the living room where he’d asked to eat his breakfast cereal while watching TV. “Guess what. Guess what,” he shouted.

Angie sighed. “What, Luke?” Of late he never went anywhere at less than a run, and he couldn’t seem to talk without his voice bouncing off the ceiling. The one positive thing she had noticed: when it was the two of them alone, he stuttered less. Angie continued to mix cookies. She had one more batch to bake to fill the last of her orders in town. As well she hoped to make another batch to sell at the roadside stand out at the county road along with her tree-ripened apples, farm-fresh eggs and an excess of summer squash. Every little bit extra she earned helped pay growing food costs for her rescued animals.

“On TV they have p-p-pictures of last year’s Wild P-pony Race. Come quick and see how fun it’ll be.”

His eyes glowed with excitement, so she couldn’t ignore his request. She followed him to where, sure enough, kids about his age in jeans, plaid shirts with numbers on their backs, and some wearing hats too big for their heads, were clinging to a long rope hooked to a pony’s hackamore. The children were being dragged through dust and dirt and, heavens, in some cases, mud. Oh, boy, this was not a ringing endorsement for something she wanted her young son to do.

“And Duke and his dog are there. S-see, Mom? Duke grabbed the pony and s-s-stopped him. The other g-guy said to win, one of the three kids has gotta get on the pony before he crosses that wh-white line.”

In his excitement, Luke talked too fast, and so began to stutter some.

“C-can I please sign up? Please, Mom!”

Angie loved him so much. But seeing the arena with lanky cowboys ringing the corral, hearing the roar of the rodeo crowd sent her reeling back to when watching the slapping, hitting, prodding of animals to get them to run, to buck or perform sickened her. Back to a time when the man who she thought loved her had promised to quit the rodeo circuit even though he never had the slightest intention of doing so. All of it caused Angie’s head to spin.

“We’ll see, Luke,” she said, wishing she lived in a town that didn’t live, eat, sleep and breathe rodeo. “I need to ask more questions, and really find out how safe it is before I’ll agree.” She felt relieved to see the station had gone on to show a row of booths at the fair portion of the weeklong affair. All the same, it hurt her to watch the slump of Luke’s skinny shoulders, and see him plop down in dejection, the light extinguished from his eyes.

* * *

DUKE SHOVED OPEN THE DOOR to the sheriff’s office with the elbow connected to his injured hand as he juggled two cups of hot coffee he’d picked up at the convenience store on his way into town. The office he shared with Dinah was little more than a hole in the wall large enough for two desks and a divided jail cell stretched side by side across the back. Two three-drawer filing cabinets separated the desks, and a few Wanted posters hung off a corkboard attached to one wall. Early as it was, Dinah already sat at her computer, but her desk was also strewn with papers, and there were telltale signs she’d already eaten a Snickers bar.

“Oh, I could kiss you,” she said, jumping up to relieve Duke of one steaming foam cup. She bumped his hand and he drew back with a moan.

“What did you do?” She narrowed her eyes at his still-swollen hand.

“Don’t tell Ace or my dad. I wrapped the bull rope too tight and couldn’t release it fast enough at the end of my eight-second ride. The bull whipped me around. I’m lucky it didn’t yank my elbow or shoulder out of a socket.”

“Will this injury jeopardize your point standing? Do you have to scratch an event?”

“No. It feels better today and my next rodeo isn’t until the weekend. I see you’re reviewing previous robberies. Anything new? Anyone call the tip line?”

“No calls since you phoned last evening to clear Angie.”

Duke sat at the second desk and turned on his computer.

“Rob Parker’s tip about seeing a black horse there gave me hope,” Dinah said. “Now we’re back to square one, darn it.”

“Angie’s ranch is definitely a dead end. I insulted her by the mere suggestion she’d harbor a stolen horse.”

The pair sat in silence a moment, sipping their drinks, each deep in thought. With Duke’s mind having reverted to Angie, he set down his cup, leaned forward and suddenly asked, “Dinah, do you know of any eight- to ten-year-old boys hankering to get in the Wild Pony Race but may need a third to make a team?”

Spinning in her chair, Dinah scrutinized Duke. Her keen mind always worked overtime. She laughed and poked him. “Angie has a son about that age. You wouldn’t be going soft on her, would you, coz?”

Wanting to hide his interest in Angie, Duke met Dinah’s probing eyes. “She has a cute kid, who happens to have a stuttering problem to which I can relate. I gathered he hadn’t made many friends last year in first grade. The boy, Luke is his name, got the flyer I handed out to his Sunday-school class. He wants to sign up in the worst way, but as you can imagine, his stuttering probably hinders other kids from including him. I thought I’d check around a bit is all.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry to hear about his problem. Sorry for Angie, too, even though I don’t really know her.” Dinah removed the lid from her cup and blew on the hot coffee. “Hmm, I just had a thought. Gary and Pam Marshall have twins who I think will be in second grade this fall. Tommy Marshall is a bit of a hellion. His brother, Bobby, is a nice, sweet kid. Last week I saw Pam at the library and she hadn’t yet signed the boys up to race. I’m pretty sure she said they lacked a third kid. Call her or Gary.”

“Thanks, I will.” Storing the information in his head to check into later, Duke accessed his computer copy of Dinah’s break-in file. “You know, like I said yesterday, horse thieving doesn’t fit the pattern we’ve assembled on our crooks. Everything else points to them being petty thieves. In all except this last robbery, they’ve taken items easily pawned or sold to secondhand shops.”

“True, but Ace knows he put Midnight in a pen behind the barn when he checked the laboring mare at eleven.”

“If Midnight accidentally got out I’d expect to find him in the field with the broodmares.”

“Ace checked there first. I’ve gone over and over every step we’ve taken to date. We’ve been thorough, Duke.”

“That’s what I told Jeff Woods and Farley Clark at the diner last night. Farley suggested you deputize his son, Rory, and his buddy Tracy Babcock. He seemed to think with adding boots on the ground, so to speak, you’d solve the case in no time.” Duke tossed that out obliquely, but wrinkled his nose as Dinah’s mouth fell agape.

“I hoped you were kidding, but I see you’re not. Does Farley know we start work before noon?” she said caustically. “I hear Rory doesn’t get up before then.”

Duke laughed. “Jeff said not to worry. Rory and his pal are too into partying with their girlfriends to want to work. I felt I had to warn you in case Farley takes his idea to the mayor.”

“Ah, well, the mayor will nix it quick. He’s in budget meetings with the city council all month. The last meeting someone suggested replacing all our rodeo/fair banners. The mayor went on for twenty minutes how there’s not one extra cent in the city’s discretionary fund.”

“In a way that’s a relief.” Duke glanced at the case file again. “What we have so far is this. The thieves know this area. They’re night owls. And they’re growing bolder.”

Dinah let out an exasperated sigh. “At first they lifted stuff they could toss in the back of a pickup. Now they have a horse trailer. A covered one, I assume, to conceal a distinctive horse.”

“If you want to follow up on leads where they may have unloaded the last custom saddles of Beau’s, Dinah, I’ll concentrate on getting word out to places where they could sell a horse,” Duke said. “I’ll email Midnight’s photo to Beau and Colt. Ace gave me a detailed description for livestock inspectors and auction barns. I’ll check online newspaper ads for private horse sales. What do you think about starting a blog we can hitch on to some well-known trade bloggers?”

“Great. But you do remember I’m registered for a professional development class in Billings the first week of August? I need to leave Sunday as workshops start early Monday. I can cancel if it conflicts with any of your scheduled rodeos. Your point standing to make the NFR is more important than my class.”

Duke took out his BlackBerry. He liked bull riding, and this year had his sights set on getting to and winning at Finals. He also wanted to catch these crooks.

“I’ll make Bozeman this weekend. I can skip Great Falls the days you’re talking about. Beau never misses that rodeo.”

“You’re twins, but it’s not as if you’re interchangeable in vying for the Finals. Beau isn’t in the running. You are.”

“Beau could be in contention. He’s the better rider,” Duke said offhandedly.

“Huh? Are you afraid he’ll beat you if you compete against him?”

“No. But, believe it or not, he doesn’t ride his best when we’re up against each other.”

“As gung ho as he is to succeed at everything? Although, I have noticed he tends to push you. You’ve gotta stop letting him do that.”

“I don’t let him, Dinah.”

“Well, you sometimes hang back. Why would Beau let you win, Duke?”

Duke wondered about that himself. “I agree it makes no sense. But the upshot is, I can easily skip Great Falls. You take your class. I hope you learn new tricks for tracking ranch robbers and horse thieves if we haven’t solved this case by then.”

“We have to find Midnight soon. The ranch can’t afford to absorb the cost of his monthly loan payments if he’s not standing at stud. What that means is Colt and the hands taking stock to more rodeos, which leaves Ace doing double duty. He wants Tuf to get home.”

“Speaking of Tuf... Susie Reynolds asked about him. I pled ignorance because I know Ace thinks he’s shirking. Really, what is up with Tuf?”

“I can’t imagine why he got out of the Corps and hasn’t come home. Mom said he told her he needs time. She’s okay with it. But it irritates Ace.”

“Maybe Tuf does need time. We can’t begin to understand the hell he’s been through.”

“You mean, maybe he’s injured and doesn’t want us to see him like that?”

“Your mom wouldn’t be okay with that. I mean the expectations of this family can be overwhelming. Maybe Tuf needs breathing room.”

Dinah looked unhappy. “If he can’t breathe on four thousand acres in the middle of Big Sky Country, he can’t breathe anywhere.”

“Pardon me for saying so, Dinah, but your attitude is a bit of what I mean about family expectations. Tuf may not be up to everyone demanding a piece of him.”

“We love him. He’d be better off decompressing with us. He should know that.”

Duke left it at that, and each fell silent until the phone on Dinah’s desk rang. “Sheriff Hart,” she answered briskly, then grabbed a pad and scribbled on it.

“What’s shaking?” Duke asked when she hung up and left her chair all in one motion.

“A car went into the ditch on the approach to the covered bridge. No injuries. I can handle this alone if you want to finish the flyer and start the blog we discussed.”

“Should I call for a wrecker?”

“Let’s wait and see if I can pull the car back on the road with the front winch on my patrol SUV.”

“Okay. If you’re not back by the time I have the flyer done, I’ll lock the office and start tacking them up. I may run some out to the two auction barns east of town while I’m at it, and finish up the other half of town in the morning.”

“It’s a plan. When you send Colt and Beau copies on their iPhones, ask them to print off flyers and pass them around as they travel home.”

“Will do. The thieves aren’t dumb enough to try and sell Midnight locally. Frankly I wish they were stupid.”

Being a perfectionist, it took Duke longer to set up a flyer than it should have. He agonized over writing the blog because he didn’t want it too wordy. But he also didn’t want it to be boring.

Dinah checked in once to say she wasn’t able to winch the out-of-towner’s van out of the ditch. It had broken an axle. “The driver tells me a feed truck passed him too close and forced him off the road. I’m trying to figure out who’s at fault. We have a gazillion ranchers hauling grain this month,” she said. “No one in the van got a license plate number.”

“That would make your job too easy,” Duke teased. “That’s why Roundup pays you the big bucks.”

She gave a snort and disconnected. Duke decided he needed a break from the computer and stepped outside to get some air. Zorro had been cooped up with him all morning. He needed the bushes planted between buildings.

Glancing up as he stood waiting for Zorro to do his business, Duke was surprised to see his dad emerge from the Number 1 Diner. “Hey, Pop,” he called.

Josh ambled over to join him.

“It’s unusual to see you in town this time of day. Is everything all right with Aunt Sarah and the ranch?”

“I ordered pipe fittings for the irrigation system. They came in, and Sarah asked me to pick up a few things at the store. I wondered if you or Dinah were in the office. I planned to stop by before heading home. Any updates on the robberies?”

“No. Dinah is out on a call. I put out an internet flyer on the horse. And I printed some off to post around town. I came out to take a break from writing a blog to send out to online trade magazines.”

“That stuff is all Greek to me.”

Zorro loped to the curb where the men stood. The arrival of a bus that came through once a week forced them to step back to keep from being in the way of the pneumatic door when it opened.

Zorro’s ears perked and he growled low in his throat. At first Duke thought it was the hiss of the door upsetting his pet, but then he saw the driver assisting a slender woman with short, silvery-gray hair down the steps. Along with her wheeling suitcase, she held the handle on a harnessed service dog. The woman thanked the driver and asked a question in too soft a voice for Duke to hear.

Josh seemed rattled by the incident, and he wore a funny look as he watched the woman and dog cross the street to where they entered the diner.

“Do you know that blind woman, Pop?”

“A long time ago,” his dad murmured, appearing totally distracted. “I need to go, Duke. Let Sarah or Ace or me know if you get any leads on Midnight,” he said as he rushed off. He recrossed the street behind the bus as it pulled out in a cloud of exhaust.

Duke wound his fingers in Zorro’s collar because he strained at his leash. It was more than odd to see his dad hurry back into the diner he’d left moments ago. If his dad intended to run after the woman, it was even stranger. In all the years their dad had been single, Duke had never known him to look twice at any available women his age in town. Duke assumed he was a one-woman man who never got over losing their mother. In fact, he liked that idea.

Slightly off-kilter himself, Duke went back inside the office and sat down to finish his project. But his mind kept revisiting his dad’s behavior. By the time he sent the piece off, he began to think about what surely must have been a lonely existence for a man raising twin sons alone. His thoughts leapfrogged back to Angie Barrington. Numerous times during the day she’d invaded his thoughts for no reason. He shut down the computer and put a stack of flyers in a manila folder.

Well, he did have reason to think of her. He’d promised to see if he could find a Wild Pony Race team for her son. And depending on the route he took to pass out his flyers, one direction would take him right by Gary and Pam Marshall’s ranch. Dinah’s suggestion to ask about their twins was more viable than any he’d come up with.