Cowboy Justice (13 page)

She propped an elbow on the counter and smiled. “Well, hello, stranger. I heard tell you were shot, but you don’t look very shot.”

Rachel grinned. “How, exactly, does a shot person look, do you think?”

Kate got a saucy look in her eye. “Horizontal, with IV tubes and a pale complexion from all the blood loss and pain.”

Chuckling, Rachel showed her the bandage on her arm. “I was only grazed by a bullet. It’s going to leave me with an impressive scar, but that’s about it.”

“Girl, that’s the weakest story I’ve ever heard. You need to manufacture yourself a real tall tale. One about your bravery and sacrifice. How you threw yourself in front of a bullet to save a child’s life, then rose from your deathbed and endured great pain in the name of working on your farm. That’s what this town likes—a good story.”

They shared a laugh.

Rachel leaned against the counter. “I’ll work on it, but my imagination isn’t all that creative.”

“You already have the start of a good story, what with all the talk about Vaughn Cooper swooping in to save you. Word is he carried you into the hospital in his arms.”

Rachel pushed her tongue against the roof of her mouth until her shock faded enough that she could speak. “Is that the rumor going around?”

“By my word.” She arched a brow and leaned in closer. “But I know that’s not true because cowgirls like you and me, we don’t need no saving. All we need is a loaded Smith & Wesson and a direction to aim it in.”

Rachel’s mouth went dry. “Anything else people have been saying about me?”

Kate fiddled with the turquoise rings on her fingers. “There’s been talk.”

“What else is there to say? I got in a shootout in Parillas Valley and took a bullet in the arm.”

“Not about the shootout.” She stared at her hand, where her fingers were busy sliding a ring up to her first knuckle and back.

Her frustration mounted at Kate’s silence. Why the hell was she making Rachel dig the information out of her one spadeful at a time? “About what then?”

Kate stopped working her ring and pressed her palms on the counter, meeting Rachel’s gaze. “We’ve been friends a long time. I’m telling you the talk I’ve heard, woman to woman, even though you know I don’t have the stomach for hearsay and rumors.”

Seemed to Rachel that her stomach was doing just fine with hearsay and rumors at the moment. “Spit it out, Kate. What are people saying about me?”

“Not only about you, but you and Vaughn Cooper. They say you’re having a secret affair.”

Rachel wouldn’t have been more surprised if a unicorn had come trotting out of the darkness of the stock room. She gripped the counter, lightheaded.

“You know,” Kate said. “Sheriff Cooper is one of the most eligible bachelors in the county now that Kellan Reed’s off the market. You’d snuff out the dreams of a lot of girls around here if you landed him, including mine. I thought I was making headway when your name started popping up during conversations about him at the beauty salon.”

Rachel’s temper flared. She crushed the list in her hand. “Has Sheriff Cooper returned your interest?”

Smiling like a fool, Kate cocked her head. “We’ve been out a couple times.”

Goddamn it. She wrung the list in her hands until she heard the rip of paper.

Kate heard it too and pointed at Rachel’s hand. “Ah—ha, so there is something going on with you two. Linda Klauss was right.”

Whether or not Kate was being malicious on purpose, Rachel couldn’t tell. Either way, Rachel liked her a whole lot less than when she’d walked through the door. “Do I look like the kind of woman who has time to mess around with a cop? There’s barely enough time in the day for me to breathe with all the work I have around the farm.”

Drumming her fingers on the counter, Kate’s smile grew even wider. Rachel wanted to hit her. Not bad enough that she’d actually let loose with a blow, but it felt really good to visualize her fist making contact with Kate’s cheek.

“I don’t know about that, Rachel. When a fine figure of a man like Vaughn takes a liking to you, you make time for him.”

Kate was right about that, even if it didn’t bear admitting. “Kate, you’ve lived in Catcher Creek most of your life. You know better than to believe everything you hear in this town, don’t you?” Her tone had a forced quality to it. She bit her tongue, wishing she had a better poker face.

Kate shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

Rachel counted down from a hundred in her head as she worked to flatten the paper she’d crushed.

But Kate wasn’t quite done. She leaned clear over the counter and arched a brow. “That’s fine, that you don’t want to talk about it. But would you do me a favor?”

Oh, boy, this ought to be good.
“What?”

“When Vaughn gets done with you, will you at least give me the courtesy of a heads-up, so I can have a try at roping him in before word gets around that he’s available again?”

As far as backhanded compliments went, that one had a whole lot of knuckle to it. Rachel ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth, working up a response. She should’ve said,
He’s available now. Go ahead and take your best shot
. But the words wouldn’t come out.

Instead, something lit up like a flame inside her. It wasn’t plain old jealousy, though. Kate would make a fine match for Vaughn. She was pretty and fun, smart as a whip, and from a good, solid family. There was no toxic history between them, as there was between herself and Vaughn, no deep regrets or blame for grievances suffered.

But no one could match the raw heat Rachel and Vaughn generated when the two of them came together. Everything else about their lives was incompatible, but not that. Standing there, staring at Kate through slits of eyes, Rachel’s indignation turned her spine to steel. She knew without a doubt that no experience he’d ever have with Kate Parrish or any other woman would compare to the two of them.

It was that knowledge that made her say, “Then I feel obliged to inform you, Kate—woman to woman—that when I get through with him,
if
I ever get through with him, he ain’t gonna be good for much. Not after being ridden that hard for that long. A cowgirl like you should know that. But if you’ve got a thing for sloppy seconds, go ahead and get in line.”

She unwrinkled the list and slapped it on the counter. “Here’s the supplies I need. I’ll send my foreman to pick them up tomorrow.”

She left an openmouthed, stupid-faced Kate Parrish gawking at her as she walked away.

From the window next to his desk, Vaughn watched the flow of customers at Erskine’s Barber across the street from the station house as he dialed Gwen’s cell phone. He wasn’t all that certain she’d take his call, but she picked up on the second ring. “Oh. My. God. What are you, my parole officer?”

Nice manners. “Good morning to you too. How’s my favorite klepto doing?”

“How dare you treat my illness like it’s some kind of joke.” He rolled his eyes and picked up a pen to doodle with until she finished her tirade. She ranted a bit longer, then ended with, “You don’t think I’ve had enough people making fun of me for it throughout my life? I’ve been through hell, Vaughn.”

She had a point. High school had been rough on Gwen. Tough to be part of the in crowd when hanging out at someone’s house or attending a party gave her the itch to steal her friends’ parents’ collectibles or silverware. On a memo he’d received on grade school outreach, he colored in the
d
’s and
a
’s.“With the way it’s ruined your life and our folks’ lives, trust me, nothing could be less funny.”

“Got that right,” she muttered, pacified.

“I didn’t call to pick a fight,” he said, filling in the
o
’s. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine. You don’t need to check up on me.”

“You and I will have to agree to disagree on that point.” She growled, but he pressed on. “You’re staying home? No shopping or parties?”

“No, Officer,” she deadpanned. “I’m behaving myself like a good little criminal.”

He drew a bouncing line to connect the letters he’d filled in. This next question would make her mad, but no more so than he was for having to ask it. “You’re not using drugs either, are you? You gave me the last of your stash, and you’re not out replenishing your supply, right? Because nothing will get you behind bars faster than—”

“Oh, gawd. I’m hanging up. Get a life, Vaughn. And leave mine alone.”

The phone clicked over to dead air.

“Love you too, sis,” he grumbled, tossing his pen down.

He swiveled in his chair to stare out the window once more. The parking spots in front of Erskine’s were empty. He watched a few minutes more to be sure he and Dale would be alone, then, after a word to Irene, walked across the road for a haircut.

Dale Erskine was a bear of a man. Thick in the middle and hairy all around, from his bushy red beard to the back of his hands and neck. The frizzy red hair on his head was in a constant state of crisis, as though he cut it himself using a funhouse mirror. But he was handy enough with other people’s hair, even if he shortchanged Vaughn’s sideburns every time.

Haircutting expertise was not why he patronized Dale’s shop, one of two in town.

“Hey, Dale.”

Dale looked up from sweeping. “Sheriff! Have a seat here. You want the usual today?”

“Sounds good. I’d like my sideburns longer than last time, if you don’t mind.” Never hurt to ask. One of these years, maybe Dale would heed his instructions.

He swung a plastic cape over Vaughn’s body. “No problem, man. Long sideburns are hip.”

Dale set to work, spraying water and combing, keeping busy. Vaughn’s hair was thick and a veritable minefield of cowlicks, but Dale wrangled it into submission easy enough. “How’s the keeping-the-peace business going, Sheriff? Need any help from me?”

No beating around the bush today. Vaughn liked that. “I’ve got three names for you. Jimmy de Luca, Shawn Henigin, and Elias Baltierra.” He’d bring up Wallace Jr. in good time, but for now, he wanted Dale to concentrate his mind on the other players. The sixties and seventies hadn’t been kind to Dale’s mental capacity, and Vaughn had learned to pace their discussions.

“Haven’t heard much talk about Jimmy de Luca. His folks run a pawn shop in Tucumcari that’s talked about as being a great place to unload merchandise of questionable origin, if you catch my drift.”

If Vaughn missed an insinuation that blatant, he’d be the world’s worst sheriff. “I’m with you. What about the others—Baltierra and Henigin?”

“Elias Baltierra is bad news. He runs product for a drug cowboy across Highway 40.”

Bingo. He had a hunch Dale would be the right informant for this case. “He’s a supplier for Devil’s Furnace?”

“Among other places. There’s an element of Santa Fe who appreciate the service.”

“Who’s the drug cowboy he works for?”

“Not sure. There’s been whispers of a new player in the county, someone called El Diente.”

“The Tooth? What kind of nickname is that?”

Dale shrugged. “I think it’s kind of hip. Like, that’s his trademark. When people mess with him, he takes a tooth. Cool, right? I mean, every businessman needs a trademark.”

Vaughn’s mind flipped through the past four years’ worth of investigations. A handful of times over the past few years, bodies had been found with missing teeth. Not so surprising for drug addicts and gang members, but Gerald Sorentino had been missing a molar. “What about Shawn Henigin? Did he work for El Diente too?”

“You don’t have to worry about him. I heard he bit the dust in a car crash a while back.”

Whoa, now. He watched Dale’s reflection in the mirror, strategizing the best way to coax more information out of him. Time was a tricky topic for Dale, and
a while back
in his world could mean anything from a few hours to a few years, but Vaughn knew better than to ask him to clarify. He didn’t have the patience to sit through one of Dale’s mind-bending monologues. “Did you hear where the crash took place?”

“Hard to say.” He buzzed the hair around Vaughn’s right ear.

“Think harder.”

“Hmm. Okay, I’ve got it. Down in Chaves County. He drove off a cliff along Hoja Pass.”

An image of Gerald Sorentino’s flattened, overturned truck at the bottom of Hoja Pass flashed through Vaughn’s mind. Good God. “Hold that thought, Dale. I need to make a call.”

He strode out the front door with the vinyl cape still around his neck, fishing his phone out of his pocket as he walked. “Stratis, it’s Cooper. I need you to check on a couple things for me in Chaves County. A car crash on Hoja Pass that would’ve happened in the last day or two. Dale thinks that’s how Shawn Henigin met his end.”

“At Hoja Pass? You mean like . . .”

“Yeah, same place as Gerald Sorentino died. If Chaves County confirms the car crash, ask them if the deceased is missing a tooth.”

“Like Gerald was,” Stratis added.

“Exactly. According to Dale, there’s a new dealer in town who goes by the street name El Diente. He might be the link between the criminal activity on the Sorentinos’ farm and Wallace Jr. I’m going to pump Dale for more information, then I’ll get back to the office to tell you the rest of it and figure out where we go from here.”

Dale was standing as Vaughn left him, buzzers and comb in hand, looking unperturbed. “Did I do good with that information?”

“For sure. Like you always do.” He waited a few beats to allow Dale to get back on track with the haircut, then asked, “Was Shawn Henigin running drugs for El Diente too?”

“Maybe. He was buds with Baltierra. They were here for haircuts once with Wallace Meyer’s son, Junior.”

Good boy, Dale
. His idea for the haircut was getting bigger and bigger. “Tell me more about that.”

“Well, uh, okay. Baltierra takes a number three attachment on the buzzers for his haircut—”

“I don’t care about their haircuts. Did they say anything interesting while they were here?”

He pressed the buzzers to Vaughn’s right sideburn and buzzed it clean off. “Right on. I dig you now. They were asking me questions about the dude ranch out there on the Sorentino land. Shawn was telling a story about taking his girl there for an overnight stay.”