Cold Tea on a Hot Day (23 page)

Twenty minutes later, she picked up the phone and called over to Montgomery’s Funeral Home to set up an appointment for making plans. She needed to be prepared
for her mother and to take care of her own arrangements. God knew her mother wouldn’t be able to handle anything, should Charlotte be the first to go.

Lives Unseen

L
indsey was back jogging this morning, if about five minutes late. Tate met him coming around the curve of Church and down the hill, as Tate jogged up. When he saw the figure coming toward him, Tate’s chest seemed to quit burning and his legs to become iron and carry him along like a marathoner.

“Good mornin’, Doc,” Tate called gaily, his breath even.

“Mornin, Editor,” Lindsey replied, certainly a little surprised at the sight of Tate continuing up the hill.

And possibly a little surly? Maybe missing a day’s jogging caused Lindsey some discomfort.

Tate kept on jogging up the hill, halfway expecting Leanne Overton to come jogging along, or maybe riding her bike.

She did not appear, and he slowed, finally taking a glance over his shoulder to make certain he was out of
sight of Lindsey. He stopped in the street and fought for breath. Lindsey had it easy, going down the hill every day.

Just then music blared out and about knocked him off his feet. It appeared to come from opposite directions—
The Star Spangled Banner
from his right and
Dixie
from his left. Winston Valentine and Everett Northrupt were raising their flags.

Tate, who had done a ten-month stint on an aircraft carrier during Viet Nam, stood straight in the middle of the street and joined the older men in patriotic salute of the flags and a new day.

Munro padded along beside his boy’s sneakers through a door into a delicious-smelling place. The smell triggered the memory of the mornings he had spent with the man, when the man would give Munro warm biscuits or sometimes a sweet roll.

There was a long counter with glass that everyone was looking into, but Munro could not see. Finally he rose up, propped his paws on the glass and looked into the wondrous display, spying piles of what he knew instantly were the sweets the children sometimes shared with him. He wondered how he would let his lady know he wanted one. The next instant, however, a shriek aimed directly at him sent him down and ducking behind his boy’s legs.

“Good Lord! He was up on the glass.” And then, “I’m sure there are ordinances about dogs not being in places that serve food.” This was said by a tall woman who stared down at Munro.

“Mun-ro goes with us ever-y-where,” his boy explained.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think,” his lady said. “Willie Lee…honey, you’ll have to take Munro outside. Corrine, you and Willie Lee wait outside while I get Parker’s cake ordered.”

His boy dropped to hands and knees beside Munro and barked like a dog.

“Willie Lee, not now. Take Munro outside.”

“I’ll take ’em, Aunt Marilee. Come on, Willie Lee dog and Munro.”

His boy continued on all fours right beside him to the door that his girl held open.

Munro, feeling uncertain and annoyed with the tall woman, cast her a reproachful glance and then followed behind the boy.

On the sidewalk, his girl stood near the building, while his boy got to his feet and walked to the curb. Munro felt a little torn. He liked to keep very close to his charges. Finally he went to the curb with the boy and sat where he could keep an eye on both children.

Seeing his boy, who was now hanging an arm around a pole, shade his eyes to look at a gleaming car passing slowly, Munro looked, too. A face behind the tinted window seemed to stare right at them. Munro, sensing a high curiosity from this human in the car, moved closer to the boy.

The car disappeared behind a parked truck, and the bell over the door of the store rang out.

“Here, y’all…sweets for my sweets. Here’s a snicker-doodle for you, too, Munro.”

Munro thought how wonderful it was that his lady had heard him thinking. The treat, however, caused him
some difficulty in that his humans, who could eat while walking, headed on down the sidewalk, leaving Munro behind. He wolfed down the sweet food, took half a second to lick the crumbs from the sidewalk, then raced to catch up to his humans.

He reached them at the vehicle, where he looked up to see two strangers appear on the sidewalk. He saw that the gleaming car was parked right next to his lady’s, and understood that these people had come from that car.

He looked at them, and he caught a whiff of familiar scent. He
knew
these humans. They had been with his former man, the one he had met in the bright-shining parking lot.

The woman, whose eyes were covered by black sunglasses, had her face and attention pointed at him.

“Come on, Mun-ro,” his boy called.

Munro dove off the sidewalk and jumped through the door the boy held open. Immediately he rose up with his paws on the back of the front seat and looked through the windshield. The strangers remained on the sidewalk, side by side, with both their heads turned toward his lady’s vehicle, which was backing out onto the street.

A shiver went down Munro’s spine.

His boy rose up beside him and put a hand on his back. “Ma-ma…who are those peo-ple?”

“Who, honey?”

“That man and la-dy. They were look-ing at Mun-ro. He does not like them, he told me.”

“Oh, honey, they are strangers, and probably just lookin’ at a lot of stuff. They didn’t mean anything by
looking at Munro. Now put on your seat belt and get Munro down on the seat with you.”

“Mun-ro needs a seat-belt,” his boy said.

Munro quickly got down and laid his chin on his boy’s leg to show how good he was all on his own.

Tate, having just gotten the details of Deputy Lyle Midgett’s apprehension early that morning of twelve suspected illegal aliens, parted with the young, proud deputy just outside the glass doors of the police department.

“The report’ll be in this afternoon’s edition,” Tate promised. He would have to hurry to get it in there.

“I’ll tell Belinda,” the young man said eagerly, casting a wave and hotfooting it toward the drugstore.

Tate had heard rumors of wild passion between Belinda Blaine and Lyle Midgett; it was a concept somewhat hard to imagine, given the innocent apple-pie face of the deputy and the careless, dim demeanor of Miss Blaine. He recalled the cake mix boxes falling out of Bonita Embree’s shopping bag. One never knew about the deep secrets of ordinary lives.

At that particular moment, he caught site of Marilee driving past. If she saw him, she did not indicate it but kept her eyes focused straight ahead out the windshield. He stood there on the sunlit sidewalk and watched the white Cherokee pass through the intersection, heading on to somewhere other than home, maybe to the IGA or the post office, or maybe out to Parker Lindsey’s place.

Then he realized that he was still staring after her vehicle and pictured what he must look like, standing there on the sidewalk, drooling after a woman.

With a disgusted sigh, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his khakis and turned to head on over to the newspaper, when his attention was caught by a man and woman who passed with swift steps.

No one walked that fast in Valentine without a good reason.

And these two were a type that stood out as much as the twelve Mexican men Deputy Midgett had come upon driving through town in a Ford Bronco. The man’s blond hair was slicked back in the old-new style of the current sophisticate from L.A. or New York; he wore a crisp white shirt, colorful tie, dark-blue sport coat and pants, and shiny wing-tipped shoes and dark glasses. The woman wore a classy raw silk suit that neatly hugged her tight body, with the skirt a good three inches above her knees, and heels that made her legs go on forever. Her gleaming brown hair was carefully a mess, and her eyes were also hidden behind dark glasses. The pair seemed right out of a made-for-TV cops-and-robbers movie.

Tate watched over his shoulder and saw the two turn into the police station. Immediately sensing a story, he pivoted and followed. As he came through the double glass doors, the two were at the reception desk, telling Lori Wright that they wanted to speak to Sheriff Oakes.

“We’re from Tell-In Technologies. He’s expecting us,” the tight-suited woman said.

Lori, as if blown back a step by the force emanating from the woman, said, “Just a minute,” picked up the phone and punched the button for the sheriff’s office ten feet away, door shut.

The man turned and looked curiously at Tate, who stuck out his hand. “Tate Holloway…I’m editor of
The Valentine Voice.
Can I be of any help?”

At that he found himself given a once-over by two pairs of sunglasses.

“I don’t think so,” the woman said and turned her back, dismissing him.

Tate, who as a journalist had plenty of experience hanging around in oddball fashion, just stood there.

The next moment the door of the sheriff’s office opened, and Neville, a big man with a correctly creased uniform, filled the space. He nodded at the visitors, “’Lo,” and stood aside for them to pass through into his office. As he closed the door, his gaze met Tate’s and he gave a nod that said, “I’ll tell you later.”

“Who are they?” Tate asked Lori when they were alone.

“That dead guy—Fayrene’s first ex-husband—he worked for their company, I guess. Tell-In Technologies. He was some sort of computer genius or something.”

“Hmmm. I imagine they’re here about the money.”

“I guess…but I don’t know. Sheriff Oakes isn’t one to talk around, and even if I knew what-all it was about, I couldn’t be talkin’ about it to the press without his okay,” she added, as if feeling it should be stated.

The telephone on her desk rang, and in a manner indicating her complete readiness for any possible crisis, she snatched up the receiver, saying crisply, “Valentine P.D.”

It apparently wasn’t a crisis, though, as Tate saw her slim shoulders instantly relax. He left her helping the
caller with what apparently required computer searching and wandered back to the drink machine.

He and Lori were the only ones in the rather crowded office space. Valentine only had four people on the police force: Lori, their receptionist during the day; Sheriff Neville Oakes, who had taken over when his father had retired; Deputy Lyle Midgett; and Deputy Dorothy Jean Riddle, a young woman fresh out of the police academy up in Oklahoma City, who had joined the force two months ago. Behind the wall the drink machine sat against was a single jail cell, used for rare overnight stays by drunks or disturbers of the peace. Any true criminals, who might show up once a year, were taken up to the county jail.

Tate punched the button for Orange Crush. It was in the can, not the bottle he preferred, but this was the first drink machine he had seen in years with Orange Crush in it. Orange Crush reminded him of when he was a boy.

Minutes later, the door to the sheriff’s office opened, and the three people came out, Neville leading the way.

“Lori, get Fayrene on the phone, please.”

“Yes-sir.”

Lori immediately picked up the phone. The three people, the sheriff leaning his tall frame on the counter, waited. Tate looked at the out-of-towners, and they looked at him.

Lori spoke to Fayrene and then handed the receiver to the sheriff, who said, “Fayrene, honey, I’ve got those people from Tell-In here, and they’d like to talk to you. Are you feelin’ up to it today?”

Tate’s ears pricked at the sheriff’s warm tone. He
studied the man’s face, and then he drank deeply from his Orange Crush. All sorts of things went on in people’s lives.

“Okay, honey, thanks,” the sheriff said into the phone. “We’ll be over there directly.”

Tate watched the three people leave through the glass double doors, then downed the last of his Orange Crush, dropped the can in the recycling barrel, and walked quickly back across the street to get Deputy Midgett’s story written up in the next half hour before the deadline. He wouldn’t want to disappoint the boy.

Belinda was on her knees, straightening magazines on the wide wooden shelf and reading any headline that caught her interest. It was the lull time in the morning, before the lunch crowd, which she dreaded. She kept thinking she could hang the closed sign on the door. Her father, who never came out from the pharmacy, wouldn’t know. Unless someone telephoned him.

The bell above the door rang out, interrupting her. Well darn, was the first thing she thought. Knowing she was hidden by the comic book rack, she kept still, thinking maybe whoever it was would leave and she wouldn’t have to wait on them. She was darn tired of waiting on people.

The footsteps and voices told her it was two people.

Just then she realized that they were arguing.

“I know that was the same dog.” A woman said this. Belinda tried to place the voice but could not.

“There must be a lot of dogs like that in the world.” This was a man’s voice, and unfamiliar, too.

“How many dogs could there be that look exactly like that mutt Dan Kaplan picked up in the head office parking lot, and now right here, where he ended up?”

Dan Kaplan. Wasn’t that the dead guy, Fayrene’s first ex-husband?
Belinda cocked her ear attentively.