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  “The first would be a hell of a coincidence. The second, highly unlikely, although I guess we can’t rule it out entirely.”

  “Or that maybe you just made up the phone call as a female attention-getting device—”

  “And somehow knew about the body,” Nell interjected angrily.

  “Pretty soon, he’ll claim you planted the body there just to be able to sell a few papers.”

  “That’s beyond ridiculous.”

  “I know. I’ll do my best to find the real murderer before the sheriff arrests you,” he said with a boyish grin.

  “That would be most kind of you.”

  Doug Shaun took a pen off her desk, then pulled a business card out of his chest pocket. As he wrote, he said, “Home, cell phone, direct work line. If anything else happens, call me. Call me first, if you want to.”

  Nell took the card. “Thanks. I hope I never have to use it.”

  The chief stood up to go. “Me, too. Unless it’s something like the speckled trout are biting right now.” With that, he was gone.

  He can move very quietly for a big man, Nell noted. Then she turned her attention to Ina’s measurements, his card on her desk as protection.

  eight

  Ina was as rewritten as she was going to get and the rejection letters to the erstwhile film critics were signed, sealed, and awaiting delivery. The stack of press releases on her desk had been read through and put into their usual three piles: newsworthy or charitable enough to get in; barely disguised advertisement from people who regularly advertised in the Crier; and barely disguised advertisements from those who did not. Like his father, Thom had subscribed to the notion that those who regularly paid to advertise were more likely to get the free ones than those who didn’t. Nell saw nothing to argue with, and given that there had to be some system of yea or nay, this was as good as any.

  She glanced at her watch. Time to turn from editor princess (sans glass slippers and waiting prince, she had to admit) into mother pumpkin.

  Nell tidied her desk—set the example for the cub reporters, she told herself, but in reality, arriving in the morning to a desk strewn with expectant papers wasn’t how she liked to start her day. Also, the process of neatening forced her to set priorities, put the most important at the top of the pile. She never knew where her day would end, but she knew where it would start. Having her first five minutes decided was better than none. With the desk as neat as she cared to make it, Nell closed the office as usual, fumbling with the heavy key for the outer door.

  As she was walking to her car, she was surprised to hear an angry male voice from across the square call out “Goddamn bitch!”

  Nell turned toward the sound. She was even more surprised to realize that it was directed at her.

  “You goddamn bitch, you happy now?” Boyce Jenkins’s face was a mottled, angry red, all the lazy insolence in his eyes replaced by a hardened fury.

  The offices of the Crier were catty-corner on the town square from the complex that contained the city hall and police station, and directly across from the library. The square was an impressive green space—sometimes an annoying amount of space, if Nell had to repeatedly cross it several times a day.

  Boyce’s angry stride was rapidly covering the distance.

  Thom had actually been punched once, when he’d asked the wrong person the wrong question. He wasn’t a weak man or one given to much complaining, but he’d been hurt then, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it.

  Nell quickly dismissed trying to run away. Boyce would easily catch her before she got to her car, and there was nowhere else that offered any shelter. Some visceral part of her didn’t want to turn her back on him, even to attempt escape. And he wanted her fear, wanted to see her afraid. That was the one thing Nell was determined not to give him.

  “You fucking bitch! You got me fired!”

  Nell made no reply. His actions had caused his firing, but pointing that out was hardly a way to defuse the situation.

  “Hey, Boyce, cool it,” another voice called out.

  “Shut the fuck up, you asshole,” Boyce yelled back.

  He was now close enough for Nell to see the spittle emphasizing the anger of his words.

  He’s beyond control, Nell realized, tensing for the blows she was now felt sure would come—unless some part of the now ex-cop could understand, in the next twenty yards, that an assault and battery arrest was going to inflict much more damage to his life than being fired ever could.

  Stay calm, Nell told herself. Not reacting—at least visibly—as he expected, with fear, might jar him into rethinking. Or at least thinking.

  Stay calm and kick hard.

  After he had been attacked, Thom had taken self-defense classes. He’d insisted that Nell learn at least a few of the basics. The eyes, the nose, the solar plexus, the groin, and the knees, Nell silently recited. Those were the vulnerable parts. She curled her hands into fists, silently cursing her untrimmed nails as they dug into the flesh of her palms. She knew it was a slim hope that she could strike a blow that would stop him.

  I can’t just let him pummel me, she thought as she felt the bile of fear roil in her stomach. Her fists, weakened by her nails gouging her palms, seemed like such puny weapons against this raging man. I can’t just stand here and let him batter me, she repeated to herself.

  “I’m a widow with two children,” she said aloud, in what she hoped was a steady and calming voice.

  “Shoulda thought of that before you fucked with me,” he spat back, his stride not slowing.

  At that, Nell felt a surge of anger override her fear. Boyce Jenkins was a bully without a scrap of decency in his soul, strong enough to beat up women when he though no one was looking. Nell tightened her fists, taking more anger from the cut of her nails.

  Suddenly the jarring crack of a gunshot cut into their violent dance.

  Then another.

  “One more step and you’re a dead man, Boyce,” the voice of Chief Shaun boomed across the square.

  Boyce was too defiant not to take a step, but it was a faltering one, and then he stopped. “Fucking go ahead and shoot me, you asshole,” he shouted, but he didn’t turn from Nell—still staring at her, willing his hatred to cover the remaining few feet between them, daring Doug Shaun to shoot him in the back. “Cunt,” he hissed softly at Nell, quiet enough that only she heard.

  A bully and a coward, Nell flashed mentally. She had enough control not to say or do anything that would goad him to cross the last few feet to her. The chief would stop him, but even one punch—or a stray bullet—might do damage beyond repair.

  Her attention was so focused on Boyce that she only saw Chief Shaun when he ran directly into her line of sight.

  “What the hell do you think you’re pulling, Boyce?” he demanded, his gun still in his hand.

  “Man’s gotta protect himself,” Boyce retorted, his voice regaining some of its practiced insolence.

  “By beating up women?” the chief spat at him.

  “Yeah, you’re real tough with that gun in your hand.”

  “You think you’re man enough to take me? You’re just a little boy.” Chief Shaun clicked on the gun’s safety, then tossed it into the grass behind him.

  “You’re goin’ to find out how fuckin’ old you are,” Boyce Jenkins snarled, finally turning from Nell to face Chief Shaun.

  The grass was the same green, the familiar shapes of the town square still held, but Nell suddenly felt like she was in a foreign land. They wanted the fight, wanted the violence. She could do nothing but stand and watch as these two men willingly chose something that she would have done anything to avoid.

  For a tense minute they circled, slowly shifting their positions, but keeping the distance between them.

  Doug Shaun broke the silence first. “Come on, little boy. Not quite as tough when you get down t
o it, huh?”

  “I don’t see you rushin’ in, old man,” Boyce threw back.

  “Fools rush in, thought I’d leave that to you.”

  It was easy to see what Chief Shaun was doing, Nell thought—provoke Jenkins into losing control. The young man had already proven that he had little of it.

  “Fuck you, asshole,” was all Boyce could sputter in reply.

  Suddenly he lunged at the chief. Just as suddenly, a blur of leg and Boyce’s gasp as he rocked back with his hands covering his crotch told Nell that he’d been kicked close to the groin.

  She was reminded of a cat toying with its prey. Part of her was disgusted with the spectacle, but another primal part wanted Boyce beaten and defeated.

  Boyce took a deep breath and stood up straight. “You got lucky, old man. Your luck’s runnin’ out.” But he didn’t lunge, instead took up the earlier slow shifting of positions.

  As they continued circling, Nell couldn’t help but think, “Not with a bang but a whimper.” She could almost see them locked in this circling, neither willing to back down but both wanting to avoid real hurt and pain.

  Yet Boyce had been kicked, and he wasn’t going to leave until he had kicked back.

  He feinted to the left, then quickly pivoted back to the right. He was young and he had a young man’s speed and reflexes. He didn’t have the chief’s experience, but he did know how to fight; his moves were those of someone who’d trained in boxing and karate.

  Chief Shaun spun away and was able to keep Boyce’s foot from landing in his groin, but he still took a solid kick to the muscle of his thigh. Nell saw the hardening of anger and pain in the chief’s eyes.

  Boyce kicked again, landing a second blow in the same place.

  It’s not like the movies, Nell thought as she watched them. The real pounding of flesh on flesh was a sickening hollow thud, not the painless and practiced slap of stunt men.

  She backed away from the raw violence of it. That, and the fear that if Chief Shaun lost, Boyce would come for her.

  The chief staggered as Boyce landed a third kick. Taking advantage, Boyce moved in for a punch, but he was overconfident and threw a sloppy blow that Chief Shaun blocked. The chief held Boyce’s wrist and there was a thud as the chief’s elbow connected with Boyce’s jaw.

  Then the two men were flailing at each other, in close range. In the blurred barrage of fists and arms, Nell heard rather than saw the pounding of flesh that told her some of the blows were hitting their mark. Then there was a sharp crack and blood blossomed on Boyce Jenkins’s face.

  This time, the chief gave Boyce no space for recovery. He hammered Boyce’s chest, going for the solar plexus.

  The younger man staggered back as one of the punches found its target.

  The chief hit him again.

  “Stop it!” Nell suddenly found herself yelling, her voice—and decency—unleashed now that she knew that Boyce was no longer a threat to her. She’d wanted Doug Shaun to win, to make Boyce pay for what he’d done. Frontier justice, Nell admitted; but with the outcome no longer in doubt, her unease at the savagery of the fight took over. “Enough! Stop!”

  Her voice seemed to unleash a cacophony in the square. But the reality was that Sheriff Hickson and his men had just arrived.

  Although it had seemed to Nell when she’d entered this foreign land of violence that the outside world had stopped, of course, it hadn’t. Someone had called the sheriff, since it didn’t appear that calling the police was an option.

  “What in thunderation is going on here?” Sheriff Hickson bellowed.

  Boyce staggered and fell to his knees, the blood from his battered nose soaking his chest.

  Chief Shaun rubbed his repeatedly kicked thigh but didn’t turn to face the sheriff. He instead watched Boyce, as if savoring his victory.

  “A fistfight on the town square,” the sheriff continued. “What in hell is going on?” he demanded again.

  But Chief Shaun had no interest in answering Sheriff Hickson’s questions.

  “Someone take this boy to his doctor,” the chief said. “To his pediatrician. If you’re good, maybe they’ll give you a lollipop.”

  Boyce tried to reply, but the dripping blood choked him, the red liquid bubbling on his strangled words.

  The sheriff came face to face with Doug Shaun. “I think I need an explanation.”

  “This isn’t your jurisdiction,” the chief answered, then continued. “Boyce Jenkins was threatening Nell. I had to stop him.”

  Hickson turned to Nell. “Threatening you? What the hell for?”

  “I made a complaint and he was fired,” Nell answered.

  “A complaint about Boyce?” the sheriff asked.

  Several men were lifting Boyce to his feet, leading him away, although whether they were his friends or doing it in response to the chief’s order was hard to tell.

  “He was being … sexually harassing,” Nell answered reluctantly.

  “Sexually harassing?” the sheriff echoed. “To you?”

  The sheriff’s obvious incredulity that a young man like Boyce could have any sexual interest in a middle-aged woman like her rankled Nell, but before she could reply, the sheriff continued. “You fired him ’cause he asked you out on a date?”

  “She didn’t fire him, I did,” Chief Shaun cut in. “It had nothing to do with dating, but behaving in an entirely inappropriate manner while on duty. Slacking off, not responding appropriately in police matters.”

  “So why’d he have to get the crap beat out of him for that?” the sheriff demanded.

  Nell suspected that Hickson’s questions arose as much from a desire to needle Chief Shaun as from any desire to know what had really happened.

  “Boyce had just been told to clear out of the police station and he evidently stalked out the door, saw Nell, and went after her,” the chief explained, not too patiently.

  “So how’d he get the bloody nose?”

  “I had no choice but to physically restrain him.”

  “That true?” the sheriff demanded of Nell.

  “Boyce Jenkins did threaten me and I feel that if Chief Shaun hadn’t intervened, Boyce would have physically assaulted me,” Nell said carefully. Doug Shaun had had a choice, she knew, but she wasn’t going to directly contradict him in front of the sheriff. Whatever unease she might feel, the end result was that she wasn’t the one with the blood running down her face.

  “Intervened, huh? With a fistfight in the town square?” The sheriff snorted. “I guess all your newfangled police training didn’t teach you how to stop a fight without turning it into a Clint Eastwood movie.”

  “I did what I had to do,” Chief Shaun said shortly.

  “This gonna be front-page news?” the sheriff demanded of Nell.

  “I wasn’t here as a reporter,” she rejoined coldly. Sheriff Hickson’s harsh questioning was just an older man’s version of the macho posturing she’d already had enough of for one day.

  “Fine example for the folks of Pelican Bay,” the sheriff muttered under his breath. Then, a little more distinctly, “Well, guess I’ll go tell Wendell that his boy’s kind of bruised up and needs to be taken home.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Chief Shaun said. “As soon as he’s done at the doctor’s he’s going to jail.”

  “To jail? What on earth for?” Hickson bellowed.

  “Nell’s pressing charges,” Shaun calmly said.

  “You are? What in hell for? Pardon my language, Miz McGraw, but the boy’s been fired today, beaten up, and you want to arrest him on top of that?”

  Nell stared at the sheriff for a moment, without replying, as she made the connections. Boyce Jenkins was the son of Wendell Jenkins. Wendell owned a series of car dealerships in the area. He was a friend of and frequent campaign contributor to Sheriff Hickson. As much as she didn’t
like Chief Shaun’s easy assumption that she would follow his lead, she had no tolerance for the sheriff’s “good ole boy” brand of justice.

  “I thought that assault and attempted battery were crimes. Or are you suggesting that I set the ‘fine example’ of leniency for the sons of campaign contributors?”

  The sheriff glared at her, then said, “There’s justice and there’s vengeance, little lady. You might want to learn the difference.” He spun about and walked away.

  “Save your lecture on vengeance for those who truly need it,” Nell yelled after him, suddenly tired of being controlled and polite when it seemed like no one else was.

  “He’s a jerk, don’t worry about him,” the chief said.

  “I’m not your patsy,” Nell snapped at him. “I went along with you only because I happen to agree that Boyce Jenkins shouldn’t escape the consequences of his actions. While I appreciate being saved from a beating, the fight between the two of you had nothing to do with that.”

  “Hey, calm down, I’m on your side. That fight was about respect. Jenkins made quite a few comments about my competence as the police chief, and as a man, on his way out the door. I told him to stay away from you. So, first thing he does is directly disobey me. I can’t be the chief of police if my men can disobey me. Sometimes I’ve got to teach them that lesson in the only way they’ll understand.”

  Nell looked at Doug Shaun for a moment, wondering if what he said made sense or if it was just his rationalization for what he’d done. The blaze of anger gone, she felt enervated and unable to think about more than going home. Getting the kids and going home, she reminded herself.

  At the thought of her children, a deeper fury flashed through her. A child had been murdered, perhaps two, and these men were concerned about their macho posturing. But that anger, too, disappeared into her enveloping weariness.

  “I can’t argue with the outcome,” she admitted, chagrined to notice that her words were slightly slurred, she was so tired and addled. “I’ve got to get my kids.”