LITMIR.BIZ

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the waitress wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, slid off her stool and swept, with a flourish, around the end of the counter to present herself behind the section he’d just occupied.

      “Hi,” she chirped. “My name is Shirley, and I’ll be your server today. How may I help you?” And then she gave a throaty chortle to show she was just putting him on, and said in what Holt imagined was her natural Texas twang, “What can I get for ya, hon?”

      Shirley was a heavyset woman in her forties, probably, with Day-Glo red curls piled on top of her head and laugh lines radiating from the corners of her vivid blue eyes. She had a nice smile, so Holt smiled back and said, “Coffee, for starters.” He tilted his head toward the glass case behind the counter. “And maybe a piece of that pie there. Is that peach?”

      “Sure is,” Shirley said, beaming. “Local, too. And the season’s ’bout over, so you hit it just right. Can I put a scoop of ice cream on that for ya?”

      “No thanks—got to watch my waistline.” He patted himself in that general area, and Shirley gave him a severe look and what could only be described as a snort.

      “Oh, sure, like you need to worry. Mister, you turn sideways, you’d just ’bout disappear.” While she was saying this, she was efficiently dishing up a slice of pie and placing it in front of him, with a fork and a spoon beside it.

      Holt waited until a mug of steaming coffee had joined the pie, then picked up the fork and said, “Where is everybody?”

      Shirley made that same inelegant noise as she leaned against the stainless-steel counter behind her and folded her arms across her ample bosom. “Down at the courthouse, probably. Along with just about ever’body else in this town. It’s where I’d be, too, if I wasn’t stuck holdin’ down the fort here.”

      Holt dug into the pie, which was delicious, maybe the best fresh peach pie he’d ever eaten. “I saw the media trucks as I was coming through. What’s all the excitement about?”

      Shirley tipped her head toward his left arm. “Well, you could read all about it in that paper you got propping up your elbow there. One of our local deputy sheriffs got killed a couple days ago—by a mountain lion, it looked like. And then they went and arrested his wife—ex-wife, I should say—for murder. Biggest thing to happen around here in a while, I’ll tell you. The whole state of Texas seems to have caught it now, too—because it was a cop that got killed, I guess. Or the lion angle, maybe. Anyway, it sure is a shame. They had a kid, too, a little boy. I guess he’s been staying with the preacher at their church.”

      Holt didn’t hear anything more. While the waitress had been talking, he’d unfolded the newspaper and spread it out next to his pie plate. There was the headline, pretty much the way she’d summed it up: Local Deputy Killed By Lion, Ex-wife Arrested, and under that a was photo of the deputy in his dress uniform, complete with Stetson. Holt had started skimming the article and had got as far as the name of the woman who’d been arrested and charged with murdering her ex-husband, Duncan Grant. The name jumped out at him, and it was about like having a rattlesnake coil up and strike right at his chest. Brooke Fallon Grant. Shirley’s voice faded into a soft roar, and hot coffee slopped out of the mug and burned his hand.

      “Oh—my goodness. Here let me…” Shirley was there with a towel, mopping up. “Hope ya didn’t burn yourself. Coffee’s pretty hot. Just made a fresh pot…”

      He frowned distractedly at her, then relinquished the coffee mug, and she whisked it away and brought him a new one while he tried to absorb the words printed on the newspaper page in front of him.

       Mrs. Grant was arrested at her home Thursday morning after an autopsy revealed the presence of large amounts of a tranquilizer in the victim’s body. According to sources at the medical examiner’s office, the drug had evidently been administered by a tranquilizer dart gun, the type used to subdue large animals.

       Deputy Grant’s body was discovered by his young son Wednesday afternoon in an animal enclosure on his ex-wife’s ranch. The enclosure had been used to house a mountain lion allegedly hand-raised by Mrs. Grant. The animal was found in close proximity to Deputy Grant’s body and was assumed to have killed him. However, in light of the new evidence revealed by the autopsy, it is not clear now what part the animal might have played in the deputy’s death.

       According to information received by this reporter, Mr. and Mrs. Grant had recently been involved in a dispute over custody of the couple’s nine-year-old son.

       Arraignment and bail hearing are set to take place Friday afternoon at the courthouse in Colton. A hearing to determine the fate of the mountain lion has not been scheduled, pending further investigation. As the county lacks facilities to house the animal, the mountain lion remains in its compound on Mrs. Grant’s ranch.

       In the absence of any known relatives, the couple’s son is being cared for by the pastor of Mrs. Grant’s church pending the outcome of Friday’s hearing.

      “Yeah, it sure is a shame.” Shirley was shaking her head. “I used to see Duncan in here now and again. All the deputies like to come in for the pie, you know. I didn’t know him all that well, though—I was a few years ahead of him in school. Never met his wife…I don’t know, though…seems like a pretty heartless thing to do, doesn’t it? I mean, raise a cougar from a cub—or whatever you call a baby one—and then try and blame it for killing somebody? And letting your little boy find his daddy’s body? Hard to imagine a mother doing something like that.”

      “Sounds like the paper’s got her pretty much tried and convicted,” Holt said dryly as he slid off the stool and reached for his wallet.

      Shirley made that sound again. “Yeah, well, this is kind of a small town, and the local law is real…visible, if you know what I mean. So…you’re not plannin’ on stayin’ around to see how it comes out?”

      “Actually, I might stay around for a bit.” He laid some bills down on the counter and picked up the paper and tucked it under his arm. “S’pose you could recommend a nice, quiet motel for me? Or have all these media people got everything booked?”

      “Seriously.” She gave him a wry smile as she scooped up the bills with one hand and the dishes with the other. “They’ve been pouring into town all day. I’d say you’d probably have to go a ways to find a room.”

      “Yeah, I figured. Thanks, anyway. Great coffee, by the way. And the best peach pie I ever ate.” Holt gave her his nicest smile and turned to go.

      “Wait.”

      With one hand on the door, Holt turned. Shirley was gazing at him in a speculative way and chewing her lip.

      “Okay, look, I don’t know why, but you strike me as a nice guy. There’s a motel just west of here, just off the main drag. It’s called the Cactus Country Inn—it’s not a chain or a Best Western, or anything, but it’s nice. My brother and his wife manage it. They usually keep the room next to their apartment empty, on account of the walls are kinda thin, if you know what I mean. But if you tell ’em I sent you, they’ll probably let you have it. Just don’t throw any wild parties, though, okay?” “I think I can promise that,” Holt said.

      An hour or so later, he sat on the edge of one of two neatly made-up twin-size beds in a fairly decent room—he couldn’t remember if he’d ever been in a motel room that had twin-size beds before—in the Cactus Country Inn. He punched a number on his cell phone speed dial and while he listened to it ring, imagined it ringing in a room far away, in South Carolina, on the shores of a small lake. It rang four times before a machine picked up.

      “Hello. You’ve reached Sam and Cory’s place. We’re both away from home right now. Leave us a message, and we’ll get back to you.…”

      He disconnected and sat for a moment with the phone in his hand, thinking. Then he pulled the laptop that lay open on the bed closer to him, found the page he was looking for, scrolled down the list of phone numbers on it until he came to the one

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