Lawman

“Thanks.”

“No sweat. We’re all on the same team.”

“Do you have a business card?”

Garon took out his wallet and pulled out a simple white business card with black lettering. “My home phone is at the bottom, along with my cell phone number and my e-mail.”

Marquez’s eyebrows lifted. “You live in Jacobsville?”

“Yes. I bought a ranch there.” He laughed. “We’re not supposed to be involved in any business outside the job, but I pulled strings. I live on the ranch. The manager takes care of the day-to-day operation, so I have no conflicts.”

“I was born in Jacobsville,” Marquez said, smiling.

“My mother still lives there. She runs a café in town.”

There was only one café in town. Garon had eaten there. “Barbara’s Café?” Garon asked.

“The same.”

He frowned. He didn’t want to step on the man’s toes, but Barbara was a blonde.

“You’re thinking I don’t look like a man with a blond mother, right?” Marquez smiled. “My parents died in a botched robbery. They owned a small pawn shop in town. I was just six at the time. Barbara never married and had no family. I used to take mom and dad food from the café. After the funeral, Barbara came and got me out of state custody and adopted me. Quite a lady, Barbara.”

“I’ve heard that.”

Marquez checked his watch. “I have to run. I’ll phone you when I’ve talked to my captain.”

“Better make it an e-mail,” Garon replied. “I expect to be in meetings for most of today. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“Okay. See you.”

“Sure.”

IT WAS A GOOD DAY, Garon thought as he drove himself back to Jacobsville. The squad was working witnesses at the last big bank robbery to find any information that would further the investigation. Men armed with automatic weapons were a danger to the entire community of San Antonio. He’d talked to the senior ASAC about setting up a task force in concert with San Antonio homicide detectives to work on the child murder. He had a green light. The ASAC had a friend in the Texas Rangers. He gave Garon his number. They were going to need all the help they could get.

He glanced toward the Carver place as he drove by. Her car was still sitting in the driveway. He wondered if she could start it again. It was a miracle the piece of junk ran at all.

He pulled into his driveway and almost ran into the back of a silver Mercedes convertible. A familiar brunette with dark eyes got out, dressed in a black power suit with a skirt halfway up her thighs that showed off her pretty legs. He knew her. She was the realtor who’d just gone to work for Andy Webb, the man who’d sold him this ranch. Her aunt was rich; old lady Talbot, who lived in a mansion on Main Street in town.

What was her name? Jaqui. Jaqui Jones. Easy to remember, and her figure was more than enough to make her memorable in addition to her job.

“Hi,” she said, almost purring as he climbed out of the Jaguar. “I just thought I’d stop by and make sure you were still happy with your ranch.”

“Happy enough,” he said, smiling.

“Great!” She moved closer. She was only a little shorter than he was, and he was over six feet tall. “I’m hosting a party at my aunt’s a week from Friday night,” she said. “I’d love to have you join us. It would be a nice way to meet Jacobsville’s upper social strata.”

“Where and what time?” he asked.

She grinned. “I’ll write down the address. Just a sec.” She went back to her car and bent over to give him a good view of her body as she retrieved a pen and pad. It didn’t take second sight to know that she was available and interested. So was he. It had been a long, dry spell.

She wrote down the address and handed it to him. “About six,” she said. “That’s early, but we can have highballs while we wait for the others to show up.”

“I don’t drink,” he said.

She looked startled. He was obviously not joking.

“Well, then, we can have coffee while we wait,” she amended, smiling so that he could see her perfectly capped teeth.

“Suits me. I’ll see you then.”

She hesitated, as if she wanted to stay.

“I’m just in from D.C. very early this morning,” he said. “And it’s been a full day at the office. I’m tired.”

“Then I’ll go, and let you get comfortable,” she said immediately, smiling again. “Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

He’d gone around her car to put the Bucar in front of the house, on the semicircular driveway, so she simply pulled around him to shoot out the driveway, waving a hand out the window as she passed him.

He went inside, almost colliding with Miss Jane. “That fancy woman parked herself in the driveway and said she’d wait for you. I didn’t invite her in,” she added with a faint belligerence. “She’s only been in town two months and she’s already got a reputation. Put her hand down Ben Smith’s pants right in his own office!”

Apparently this was akin to blasphemy, he reasoned, waiting for the rest.

“He jerked her hand right back out, opened his office door, and put her right out on the sidewalk. His wife works in the office with him, you know, and when he told her what happened, she walked into Andy Webb’s office and told him what he could do with the property they’d planned to buy from him, and how far!”

He pursed his lips. “Fast worker, is she?”

“Tramp, more like,” Miss Jane said coldly. “No decent woman behaves like that!”

“It’s the twenty-first century,” he began.

“Would your mother ever have done that?” she asked shortly.

He actually caught his breath. His little mother had been a saint. No, he couldn’t have pictured her being available to any man except his father—until his father had cheated on her and hastened her death.

Miss Jane read his reply on his face and her head jerked up and down. “Neither would my mother,” she continued. “A woman who’s that easy with men she doesn’t even know will be that way all her life, and even if she’s married she won’t be able to settle. It’s the same with men who treat women like disposable toys.”

“So everybody in town is celibate?” he queried.

She glared up at him. It was a long way. “People in small towns mostly get married and have children and raise them. We don’t look at life the way people in cities do. Down here, honor and self-respect are a lot more important than closing a business deal and having a martini lunch. We’re just simple people, Mr. Grier. But we look deeper than outsiders do. And we judge by what we see.”

“Isn’t there a passage about judging?” he retorted.

“There are several about right and wrong as well,” she informed him. “Civilizations fall when the arts and religion become superfluous.”

His eyebrows went up.