Lisa Childs - Return of the Lawman

“You stuck by me, Sheriff. You always have,” Dylan assured him, and closed his eyes. Behind his lids flashed a memory from when he was twelve, and the sheriff had rescued him from the car accident that had left him motherless. “You always were…”

“I’m glad you’re home, boy. I need you around here. It’s not so quiet anymore. More to worry about now than some lovesick teenage girl speeding around town.”

Dylan nodded, but disappointment rose in his throat. After all those years of sense less violence in Detroit, he’d wanted to return home where but for that one night, he’d had nothing more dangerous to worry about than a sassy teenager.

“Lindsey Warner subdued?” he muttered.

The sheriff chortled. “Don’t show any interest,” he hissed as Marge slapped some steaming plates of beefy noodle casserole on the table.

“I haven’t had a casserole in years, Marge. Thanks.” Dylan reached for the fork. He hoped he could eat. Too many memories had his guts tied in knots.

She patted his head the way she had when he was eight years old. He had to smile. Nobody had patted his head in ten years. It was good to be home.

IT WAS HELL TO BE HOME, Lindsey thought as she leaned back in her father’s chair. Throughout the office a satisfying bang echoed as she swung the heels of her boots onto the surface of his old desk. She would have rather kicked something, though.

“Hey, brat,” her father teased as he poked his graying head around the door. “Taking over already? Or hiding out?”

She glared at him, her most lethal glare. He laughed. Then he lifted a bag and waved it in the air in mockery of a flag of surrender. The sweet memory of Marge’s Diner drifted across the room to her. The smell of cinnamon rolls and strong coffee cut across the stale air of old cigars and newsprint that always prevailed in her father’s office.

She’d missed the stale odor. She’d missed the cinnamon rolls and coffee, too. “If that’s what I think it is, I’ll let you stay on for a while before I put you in a retirement home, old man.” But she’d missed her father most.

She swung her boots from his desk and jumped up, but he waved her back down and took the chair across from her. “Get used to it, honey. It will be yours one day.”

“I don’t deserve it, Dad,” she said softly as she took the grease-stained bag from his hands and spread the decadent bounty across his already cluttered desk.

“It’s better than not wanting it.” He expelled a weary-sounding sigh. Lindsey’s gaze clung to his gently wrinkling face. She’d been gone too long. Although he’d come to Chicago for visits, the time had been too brief and passed quickly. He’d aged, and Lindsey hadn’t been able to witness every new line in his face, every new gray hair on his head.

“I never said I didn’t want it,” she reminded him.

“You just wanted more.”

She winced over the hurt pride in his voice. “It’s not that it wasn’t enough. It’s not mine. I wanted something for me. And I wanted out of this town!” With barely con trolled anger she ripped off a sticky piece of roll.

“You ever going to forgive them?” he asked in the understanding tone that had always been her undoing.

She was too old for tears. “It’s over. There are bigger hurts in this world.”

He slid his rough hand over hers, and she turned hers over to link their fingers. “I hate that you had to find that out from a loser like your ex-fiancé.”

“That’s history now, Dad.” She kicked her purse that leaned against her dad’s desk. “He wouldn’t take his ring back in person, so I’m going to mail it.”

Her dad chuckled. “Pawn it. After the way he treated you…”

She squeezed his hand and forced a smile. “Yeah, well, that’s why I had to leave, to get used and abused in the big city.” The smile threatened to slip. “I can appreciate Winter Falls now.”

“Can you?” her father taunted knowingly.

She laughed. “All right. Not yet. But I will if I decide to stay. I haven’t decided yet, Dad.”

“It’s not the same town, brat. There’s so much growth. New shops, new commerce. Snowmobilers in the winter. Boaters in the spring and summer, and hunters in the fall. A wealthy developer wants to build a huge mall on an old farm just east of town. Winter Falls is in the process of a major growth spurt.”

His excitement spilled over in his voice, and Lindsey tried to summon some of her own. But she was more excited over the richness of the sticky cinnamon roll and the bite of the bitter, hot coffee.

Her father laughed. “But you need more action. You were reporting the police beat too long.”

“I wasn’t covering it alone, just assisting.” She winced over the bitterness in her voice, and her pride stung all over again with her stupidity. Why had she accepted her ex-fiancé’s lies?

“I read the paper, honey. I recognize my daughter’s voice whether I hear it over the phone or read it in newsprint.”

She took another gulp of coffee and enjoyed the numbness following the burn. She’d been numb for a while now. It was better that way. “Any action here?”

“Heated debates over the mall proposal. An old trustee and the mayor are fighting it. The developer is rich and powerful. It’s interesting. It’s not life and death, but it’s interesting.”

She sighed. “You’re right. It is interesting. I don’t need life and death anymore. Well, not death, anyhow.”

Her father opened his mouth, but if he scram bled for words, none came out. He stuffed a piece of roll between his lips. They ate in silence for several moments before he spoke again.

Finally he asked, “Are you going to see her, Lindsey?”

She didn’t need to ask of whom he spoke. “Would it matter? Would she even know?” She popped another piece of roll into her mouth, but it was like chewing sawdust now.

“I’ll be honest with you, honey. She probably wouldn’t know you. But I think it might matter to you.” He reached for her hand again, but she pulled back and wrapped it around her cup of coffee.

None of the warmth permeated her icy cold fingers. “I’ll be honest with you, Dad. I don’t think it would.”

He nodded, and disappointment flashed in his eyes. “On another note, there’s more news….”

Lindsey leaned forward, recognizing the tone of her father’s voice. This was something that would matter to her. “Yeah?”

“He’s back.”

“Who?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you because I didn’t want you smashing out the tail light on your Jeep or any other foolishness….”

Lindsey’s face heated, and she managed a giggle. She thought she’d lost the youthful ability to giggle. “Dylan Matthews?” Then she remembered how he had left ten years ago, and whatever pleasure she’d flirted with faded away. “I’m not the only one who has to forgive this town.”

“According to Marge, he’s sworn to protect it. He must have forgiven it.”

She snorted. “I always wondered why you never hired Marge. She’d make a great reporter. She always scoops you.” Her father’s face reddened. Marge had an inside track with Will Warner despite his marriage.

And she remembered another reason why she’d left. Her father was part of this town with its gossip and secrets.

AFTERNOON HAD SLIPPED into evening. Dylan had spent it familiarizing himself with a town he’d once known so well. He’d spent it doing anything but returning to the scene of so many of his night mares.

The leaves crunched under his feet as he walked around the Expedition and headed toward the abandoned house. In the fading light he barely noted the peeling paint and dirty windows. If he were ever fanciful, he might think it looked lonely. But that wasn’t new. It had been lonely for a long time, ever since his mother had died.

Sheriff Buck had offered him a bed in his home, but part of Dylan’s reason for returning to Winter Falls had been to deal with the house.

In northern Michigan fall had a nasty habit of slipping swiftly into winter. Dylan had originally planned a brief trip to Winter Falls to prepare the house for cold weather. The pipes needed to be drained and the water shut off.

And he could have easily asked the sheriff to handle it for him as he had in all the years past. But he hadn’t asked because he’d realized how badly he wanted to leave Detroit for home. This was home. Even with all its night mares.

He pulled open the screen door and slipped his key into the lock of the back door. It hadn’t been locked or closed that night ten years ago. On rusty hinges the door creaked open.

Immediately he glanced at the spot in front of the refrigerator. The door of the old appliance was propped open, much as it had gaped that night. The maple boards had been stripped and revarnished, but still the stain shone through the gleaming surface.

Although his knees shook, Dylan forced himself across the floor. He dropped the house keys onto the counter, rubbed a hand over his face and wiped away beads of sweat.

The sheriff was right. He should have sold the house. Maybe it was that simple. He shouldn’t have left town, just the house.

He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and pulled out a letter. He’d received it before he’d left Detroit. He uncrumpled the paper and perused the shaky handwriting of an old man.

The Winter Falls postmark hadn’t surprised Dylan. Sheriff Buck often wrote to him, and as he’d been working out his notice in Detroit, he had figured the sheriff had had details of Dylan’s reemployment as a Winter Falls deputy.

Instead he’d found the letter had been written by the lawyer of the man who’d killed his brother and then later himself.

Although he hardly glanced at the words, Dylan recited them from memory.

Dylan,

As I hear you’re returning home, I need to make an appointment with you to handle some unfinished business from ten years ago. I have something from Steve Mars that is addressed to you. I should have given it to you years ago, but when you left town, I thought you wanted to leave those painful memories behind. Now that you are returning, I feel it is my duty to deliver this item to you even though I am retired from my law practice. Please notify me when you return to town.

Sincerely,

Chet Oliver

Dylan crumpled the letter again and stuffed it back in the pocket of his leather jacket. Of the darkened room he asked, “Do I really want anything from Steve Mars?” His gaze fell on the stain on the hardwood floor. Other shadows blended into it, but he knew precisely where the stain began and ended.

Before he could give it any more thought, his cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and flipped it open. “Dylan Matthews.”

“Deputy,” the sheriff reminded him, but there was no teasing note in his voice. His booming voice shook.

“What’s wrong, Sheriff?”

“Get over to Sunset Lane, Oliver’s place. something happened. I’m going to call it in, but I want you here first. Better yet, you call it in when you get here.”

Dylan reached into his pocket and touched the letter. He remembered where Chet Oliver lived. He’d gone to the lawyer’s house after Steve Mars’s jail-cell suicide. He’d wanted to know if the lawyer had really believed Steve had killed Jimmy. Why hadn’t the old man given him whatever Steve Mars had left for him then? Why keep it ten years?

Dylan slipped his phone into his pocket with the letter and picked up his keys. Would he finally get some answers tonight or only more questions?

WHILE HER FATHER WORKED on his editorial, Lindsey loomed over his shoulder, reading as he wrote. “You’re brilliant, Dad. The things you notice…well, let’s just say you’re a much better reporter than many I’ve known.”