Legwork (27 page)

Bobby D.
got his cut of the fee but lost it betting on the Braves in the final game of the World Series a few days later.
It upset him so much he couldn’t eat for an hour and almost lost half a pound.

As for me, I waited over a week for Bill Butler to show up at my front door to say thanks and to ask if I’d care to share the rest of my life with him.

The call finally came early one Friday night as I was dressing to meet a new friend for dinner.
“Casey?” Bill’s voice filled my apartment, stopping my eyeliner wand a quarter inch from my left eye.
“I know you’re there.
Pick up.
I need to see you.”

“How about you need to thank me?” I told him, cradling the phone in one hand as I untangled a pair of black fishnet stockings with the other.

“That, too,” Bill said.
“But it’s something I feel I should do in person.
Besides, there’s something important I want to share with you.
Can I come over?
Just for a few minutes?”

“You’re going to drive thirty minutes from Raleigh to tell me thanks?” I asked skeptically.

There was a silence.
“Trust me, Casey,” he finally said.
“I know what I’m doing.
And I want to come over.”

I stared at the phone for a moment.
A lot of thoughts went through my head.
I thought of my ex-husband and how often a handsome face hid a spoiled heart.
I thought of Bill Butler’s dark eyes and his long hands, the way he moved like a big cat stalking the night.
And I thought of his smile, so seldom seen, yet so spectacular when it finally appeared.
It was the memory of his smile that did me in.
I am a sucker for a great smile.

“All right,” I said at last.
“I’ll be here until seven-thirty.”

My doorbell rang barely thirty minutes later.
I opened it cautiously and peered out.
Bill had both hands hidden behind his back.
“I brought you a present,” he said.
“It’s my way of saying thanks.” He flashed his smile and the door came open.
I decided to let him into my life.

What entered my life, however, was the most astonishing excuse for a dog I have ever seen in my life.
It was a large hound, completely covered in multicolored specks that made it look as if an ink bomb had exploded in the air above him.
He had black spots sprinkled over his sway back, red freckles peppering all four tall legs, velvety russet ears as long as a basset hound’s, and a gray- speckled snoot shaped like a beagle’s.
A large black dot marked the base of his long tail, which was turning in lazy circles as it curved inward like a plume without feathers.

“What the hell is that?” I asked as the hound staggered past me, bumped into my armchair, careened off the base of the bed, and flopped down in the center of my rug.
The beast gave an enormous sigh and began to snore loudly, all four of his legs splayed out to the side as if he were 100 percent skin and no bones.

“That’s Beauford,” Bill explained.
“He’s all yours.”

“Mine.” I stared at Bill.
My voice grew grim.
“No way in hell.”

“Casey, you have to take him,” Bill begged, his voice rising in pitch until he sounded like a kid.
“If you don’t, they’re going to put him to sleep.
I can’t take him home with me.
I already have a dog and he hates other dogs.”

“Who is going to put this animal to sleep?” I asked slowly.
“And wouldn’t it be redundant?”

We stared down at the huge mound of hound flesh, rising and falling as the dog snored lustily, his body a mass of multicolored ticking against the pale blue rug. I
watched in horror as a trickle of urine spread from the center of the mound and leaked across the rug like a tiny tributary seeking the sea.

“That dog just pissed on my carpet,” I pointed out.
“No one pisses on my carpet, man or beast.”

Bill looked momentarily ashamed.
“He flunked out of DEA school.”

“What?” Drug Enforcement Agency dogs sniffed out the presence of drugs in luggage and cargo holds, they did not go around pissing on people’s carpets.

“He got kicked out of training school today.”

“For what?
Peeing on the instructor’s leg?”

Bill looked uncomfortable.
“He ate an ounce of evidence.”

I started to laugh.
“You mean that dog”—I pointed to the slumbering hound—“ate an ounce of marijuana today? Is that what you’re telling me?”

Bill nodded solemnly.
“Including the plastic bag.”

I couldn’t stop laughing.

“Does that mean Beauford gets to stay?” Bill asked hopefully.
“He’s really a good-natured dog.”

“I’m sure he is,” I said, trying to catch my breath, “but I’m not sure I can afford to keep him that way.”

As if on cue, Beauford raised his head and stared sleepily at me, brown eyes large and glassy in his stupor. He had enormous wattles that hung from each side of his jaw and a magnificent brisket of red-speckled fur.
My grandfather would have adored him.

“Can he stay?” Bill pleaded.
“Please, Casey. He’s not the kind of dog people pick from the pound.
They’ll put him to sleep.”

“Yeah, he can stay,” I said.
“I know a good home for him.
But you have a mighty peculiar way of thanking your friends for services rendered.”

Bill let out a long, relieved whistle. “Actually, I consider Beauford another reason why I owe you one. But this is partial payment on the debt.” He brought a big bouquet of flowers out from behind his back.
A bribe in reserve to convince me to take in the dog?
Or truly a gesture of thanks?

“I thought maybe I could take you out to dinner tonight while I’m at it?” His eyes met mine and those long lashes of his were in fine form, framing a pair of innocent brown peepers.

Oh, mamma.
This look was what I had thought about for many a night as I drifted off to sleep, my mind wandering from my work.
Here was my chance to explore the long motif, my chance to check for silver chest hair, heck—here was my chance to date a man out of grade school for a change.

And, yet, thoughts of my ex-husband kept popping into my mind.
I had waited for Bill Butler to call me just as surely as I had waited for that fatal call from the ex so many years ago.
And Bill would keep me waiting again, I knew.
He was a cop.
He was the type.
Was I going to keep doing this for the rest of my life?
I had made promises to myself.
How much did those promises mean?

More to the point, I needed Bill Butler in my debt more than I needed him in my bed.

“I don’t think so,” I said, surprising myself more than him.

“What?” he asked, the flowers rustling in his agitation.

“We’re going to be working together,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

“Casey.” He stared at me.
I stared at the dog.
“The only women I meet are the women I work with.
Or the ones I arrest.”

“Well,” I said brightly.
“Think of the advantages.
If you stick to the ones you arrest, you can preview them with a full body search.”

“Very funny.” He was silent for a moment. “This is because I didn’t help you out very much, isn’t it?”

“No,” I promised him, taking the flowers and turning him toward the door.
I gave him a gentle push.
“Believe it or not, this has very little to do with you.”

After he left, I put the flowers in water and stared down at my new canine friend.
I nudged him with my foot and he shifted slightly.
There was a slim chance he could still walk.
“Come on, Beauford,” I shouted down at him.
He didn’t move.
I lifted one of his long silky ears and hollered into the canal: “Supper time!” This time he opened an eye and blinked it at me. “Time to move out,” I told him firmly, grabbing his collar and hoisting the hound to his feet.
He wobbled obediently after me and, after falling over while trying to urinate on the landlady’s boxwoods, he made it to my car in one piece.

Halfway across Wake County, I had to roll down the window or I’d have arrived for my dinner smelling like the pet of a Mexican drug lord.
I was making good time and would even arrive early.
My host was in for more than one surprise.

The driveway was easy to find in the dark. I’d been there at night before.
A strange truck was parked by the side of the cabin, though the license plate seemed familiar.
I dragged Beauford from the back seat of the Valiant and managed to pull and push him toward the front porch.
The outdoor lights blazed on as we reached the steps.

“What the hell happened to that dog?” Ramsey Lee asked, his voice breaking into laughter.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was stoned to the gills.”

“It’s a long story,” I admitted.
“Sorry I’m early.
This is Beauford.
Can he stay here with your dogs?
I’m at my wit’s end with him.
He sits around stoned all day, absolutely refuses to get a job, does nothing but watch television and won’t even pick up his own dirty clothes.
Just smell him.”

He laughed even harder.
“Sure.
He can stay. The old fellow looks like a good hunting dog.
Let me get a better look at him.
Slim—come on out and take a look at what the cat dragged in.”

Slim Jim Jones—keeper of the canoe and obedient son to crusty old Momma—stepped out onto the front porch of Ramsey Lee’s cabin.
Our eyes locked across the crouched form of our host.
“I didn’t realize you knew Ramsey,” I said evenly.
“Small world, isn’t it?”

Slim Jim shrugged.
“Shoot, Casey.
That’s what I always say.” He spat a wad of tobacco juice over the side of the porch and, unless the lights were playing a trick on me, I could have sworn he threw a wink my way.

God, mountain men.
Even without a mountain behind them, you could recognize them at a glance.
They were stubborn.
Self-assured.
Scrawny.
Hard-working.
And just about the last damn men on earth who cared about something other than money.

“How long have you known Ramsey?” I asked him.

“Long enough,” Slim Jim answered, giving Beauford a pat on the head.
“I best be getting home to Momma,” he said as he headed into the yard.
“That dog’s got good bones there, Ramsey.
Soon as he sobers up, you might have a good working dog.” Beauford chose that moment to plop down for another serious snooze, his body stretching upward over four steps, the skin all sliding to the lower rear end where it collected in accordion folds around his tail.
Slim Jim began to laugh and I listened as his merriment gave way to the sound of his truck motor fading down the lane.

“You’re a good man, Ramsey Lee,” I told him. “You take in wayward dogs.
And, you never did give the cops the names of the men who helped you out that time you dynamited that construction site, now did you?”

Ramsey scratched behind Beauford’s ears. “I’m not the sort of man who likes to kiss and tell,” he said. “Let’s go inside and eat.”

He’d made us homemade Brunswick stew, the right way, complete with shredded beef, chicken, pork, and squirrel meat.
“Been cooking all day,” he promised.
“So I expect you to eat all night.”

We ate in happy silence—as we have done many times since.
Ramsey doesn’t like to talk and I’m perfectly happy not to.
Talk only exposes people’s weaknesses.
That’s why I prefer the strong and silent type.

That night was the start of a very good winter, all things considered.
Over the months that followed, I spent a lot of time out at Ramsey’s cabin, walking in the snow along the banks of the Neuse by day and sharing his bed at night. Like me, he mostly, but not always, prefers to be alone.
Best of all, I spent many a lazy hour curled up in front of his fireplace with a pack of very spoiled hounds.

They say that if you lay down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas.
But do you know what I think?
I think there’s worse things in life than fleas.

# # #

 Copyright © 1997 by Katy Munger

e-book version published by Thalia Press February 2011

Visit
 
http://www.katymunger.com
 
for more information on the author and her books.

Casey Jones books by Katy Munger:

LEGWORK

OUT OF TIME

MONEY TO BURN

BAD TO THE BONE

BETTER OFF DEAD

BAD MOON ON THE RISE 

Books by Katy Munger, writing as Chaz McGee

DESOLATE ANGEL

ANGEL INTERRUPTED

ANGEL OF DARKNESS (2012)

Books by Katy Munger, writing as Gallagher Gray

PARTNERS IN CRIME

A CAST OF KILLERS

DEATH OF A DREAM MAKER

A MOTIVE FOR MURDER

This novel is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher.