The Sheriff And The Impostor Bride

Virgil nodded his head vigorously, his eyes sparkling. “Actually, it’s even better. A womanhunt. And according to Rosario, the perp is right here in Wallace Canyon.”

Riley shook his head slowly in bemusement. First cookie stealing, and now Virgil Bybee using the word perp. All in one day. Could his decrepit, thirty-two-year-old heart handle all this excitement?

He reached for the bulletin and quickly scanned it, then glanced back up at his deputy with as much patience as he could muster. “Virgil,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, Riley?”

“She’s not a perp. She’s a missing person. And this is all old news. We got a fax about her...must’ve been a few weeks ago. I faxed ’em back and asked ’em to send me some more details, because Rosario told me she saw a woman here in Wallace Canyon who fit the description, but I never heard back so I figured they found her somewhere else. Looks like the fax machine’s running a little slow. Again. This—” he waved the paper in the air again “—is evidently the details.”

Virgil gaped at him. “Old news? It’s the first I’ve heard about it. There’s been all this excitement goin’ on, and y’all didn’t even bother to tell me about it? Why am I always left in the dark this way? Why am I always the last person to know? Y’all never tell me anything around here.”

Riley rolled his eyes. “There was nothin’ to tell, Virgil.” But his deputy continued to pout, so, taking pity on him, Riley clarified, “The first time it came over the fax must’ve been back when you were in Guymon over Thanksgiving. A notice that this woman—” He glanced back down at the fax in an effort to locate her name. “Sabrina Jensen,” he said when he found it. “It said she was wanted by the Freemont Springs Police Department over there by Tulsa. But not because she’s a perp, Virge. She’s been reported as a missing person.” He rattled the paper in his hand for emphasis. “It says so right here.”

The deputy’s lower lip ceased thrusting out so much, but he was still obviously disappointed—probably because they wouldn’t be calling out the hound dogs for a search. “Oh,” he muttered. “I guess I didn’t read that far. I just saw the part about her being wanted.”

Riley continued to read the notice, uttering his observations aloud this time, so Virgil could grasp more fully the reality of the situation. “Says Miss Jensen has been missing for months and is believed to be on the run. But this here’s the part I can’t figure out, Virge. The Wentworth family is looking for her. The Wentworths. And I just can’t understand how she warrants that. I mean, they didn’t even seem to know much about her before, but suddenly, I’ve got all this information. Now how do you figure that?”

“Should I know who you’re talking about?” Virgil asked. “Who are the Wentworths?”

Riley shook his head when he remembered where he was. “They’re sort of famous-slash-infamous in that part of the state, but I can see how Wallace Canyon would have missed out on all the fuss.” Hell, he could see how Wallace Canyon would have missed out on the Cuban Missile Crisis and that whole Tickle-Me Elmo thing.

Aloud, Riley continued, “I know about them because I grew up just outside Tulsa. Big ol’ oil family in Freemont Springs whose reputation, as they say, has always preceded them. Rich. Powerful. Pampered kids. That kind of thing. In fact, I had a runin with the younger boy once, when he was drunk and disorderly at a frat party. Nothing major—just had to give him a stern warning. And I heard the older boy died—real recent, too, if memory serves—during some kind of explosion.”

“But this woman’s name is Jensen,” Virgil indicated unnecessarily.

Riley nodded knowingly. “Yeah, and like I said, they didn’t know that much about her when they sent that last fax. But suddenly, I now know that she’s—” he returned his attention to the fax and read word for word “‘—Twenty-four years old, approximately five-foot-seven, medium build, dark brown hair, green eyes. All departments should be made aware—’”

His voice halted as he realized the answer to his own question was right there in black and white. “Ah-ha,” he said.

“Ah-what?” Virgil asked.

“Looks like the reason there’s all this sudden information about Miss Jensen is because she’s been seein’ an obstetrician who’s just now comin’ forward with the particulars of her situation.”

“An obstetrician?” Virgil asked. “Now, what difference would it make if she wears glasses or not?”

“No, Virgil,” Riley groaned. “Not an optometrist. An obstetrician. A doctor who delivers babies. Says here, and I quote, ‘Ms. Jensen is also pregnant, due to deliver in—”’ he glanced up at Virgil, paper held aloft “—Where’s the rest of it?” he asked.

The deputy sheriff scrunched up his shoulders and let them drop. “That’s all that came over the fax,” he said. “Right after the photo of her.”

“Well, there should be at least another page,” Riley stated. “It’s cut off midsentence here, and it doesn’t even say why the Wentworths are looking for her.”

But Virgil was insistent. “I’m telling you, Riley, that’s all that came over the fax.”

Riley nodded again, sighing heavily. It had happened before. Like everything else at the Wallace Canyon police station, the fax machine was old, moody, unpredictable and in need of either a major overhaul or a total replacement—much like Wallace Canyon itself, he couldn’t help but muse.

“All right,” he finally conceded. “As long as we’ve got her photo and vitals, I guess this is enough to go on. Did Rosario see the photo?”

Virgil nodded. “Yup. That’s why I said the perp...er, the missing person...is here in town. The minute Rosario saw that picture, she said that’s definitely the woman she saw over in Westport. Then she went out to get some lunch.”

Riley thought for a minute. “The only thing over in Westport is the trailer park.”

Virgil’s features wrinkled as he gave that some consideration, though why he should make such an effort, Riley couldn’t imagine. “I don’t think trailer park is the politically correct term, Riley,” the deputy finally said. “I think they call them mobile home communities now.”

First perp and now politically correct. What was Virgil reading these days? “Fine,” Riley said. “There’s nothing over in Westport except the mobile home community. That must be where Rosario saw her, ’cause that’s where her sister lives.”

Riley reached for the chocolate brown Stetson hanging on the coatrack near the door and settled it on his head, then shrugged a shearling jacket over his khaki uniform and began to button himself up. “Where’s the photo of the woman?” he asked.

Virgil jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s out on Rosario’s desk.”

“I’ll take it and head over to Westport myself. Oh, and Virgil,” he added as he passed by his deputy, “don’t forget about those Lorna Doones. Because I sure as hell won’t.”

He wasn’t sure if he imagined Virgil’s seemingly heightened color or not, but Riley figured it never hurt to add a little emphasis. “Three o’clock,” he repeated his earlier admonition. “I’ll be back in the office by then, and those cookies better be waiting for me.”

And with one final tug of the Stetson that brought it down low on his forehead, Riley turned and made his way toward Rosario’s desk.

Rachel Jensen tossed a limp, wayward strand of tinsel back on the little plastic Christmas tree that squatted in her twin sister’s rented picture window, and sighed with melodramatic melancholy. The single string of tiny, variegated lights wound around the tree flickered in an irregular rhythm, off and on, off... and...on...off-and-on, their flamboyant, if meager, celebration of color reflected on the window behind.

The view on the other side of the glass, however, was anything but merry and colorful. To the left, the flat, brown Oklahoma landscape stretched into oblivion beneath a thick, slate sky—not a hill or dale or tree in sight. Every few seconds a dry, fat snowflake interrupted the monotony, swirling up and around, dancing in the gusty wind that buffeted the rented mobile home.

Rachel had traveled all over the country with her truck-driving father, Frank, and her identical twin, Sabrina, from the time that the two girls were tots. But she’d never seen anything more predictable—or more boring—man the Oklahoma panhandle in the winter. Windy. Cloudy. Brown. Day after day. And now here it was, a little over a week before Christmas, and there wasn’t a comfort or joy in sight.

“Merry daggone Christmas,” she muttered to no one in particular.

She shifted her gaze to the right a bit, and was rewarded with a new sight for her trouble. The mobile home next door to Sabrina’s was at least splashed with a bit of color, trimmed in yellow with a green front door, a scattering of plastic red geraniums swinging at regular intervals from its overhang. Having been in Wallace Canyon for less than two days, Rachel hadn’t had the opportunity to meet any of Sabrina’s rented neighbors. But at least one of them sure seemed to be fighting back against the landscape.

She ran a restive hand through her bangs, trailing her fingers back over her straight, dark brown, shoulder-length hair. Then she turned her back on the dubious vista outside Sabrina’s window—not to mention on her sister’s crummy excuse for a Christmas tree.

Had she not already known it, Rachel would have guessed that the mobile home to which her twin had summoned her was a rental, because it was furnished in traditional rental style—ugly. Brown furniture, brown paneling, brown carpeting, brown cabinetry... with a little tan and beige thrown in here and there for good measure. Rachel swore that if she ever got out of Wallace Canyon—and by golly, she would get out of Wallace Canyon, the moment she located Sabrina—she was never going to buy anything brown again.

But until that time came, it looked as though she was going to have to settle for lots of it. And that time wouldn’t come until she figured out just where in the heck Sabrina was, how in the heck her sister had gotten herself into trouble, and what in the heck they were going to do to get her back out again.

Because being in trouble just wasn’t Sabrina’s style at all. Sabrina was the levelheaded one of the twin sisters, the one who had always been focused and certain, the one who knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how to go about getting it. Rachel was the one more likely to find herself in things. In dire straits, for example. Or in deep doo-doo. Or in hock. Or in over her head.

Sabrina, from all reports, had been doing great until recently. True, the two sisters weren’t in touch the way they used to be—a two-hour drive one way tended to make it difficult for them to mesh their busy lives enough to get together in person. But they did speak pretty regularly on the phone. Up until a few months ago, Sabrina’s life, by all accounts, had been full and active—and normal. She’d been working as a waitress and going to school at night, and she was this close to earning her degree in marketing. And she had all kinds of plans for after college, opening a chain of Route 66 diners that would no doubt make her a bundle someday.

Rachel, on the other hand... Well, even at the ripe old age of twenty-four, she still wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do with her life. Sabrina’s dream of restaurants and franchises was a nice one, one she had envisioned for a long time now. But it was Sabrina’s dream. Rachel wanted a dream of her own to chase after. She just didn’t know exactly what it was yet. For the immediate future, though, it looked like her dream was to be stuck in Wallace Canyon, waiting for Sabrina to show up. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

The little community, for all its lack of variegation, animation, population and vegetation, was, nevertheless, Sabrina’s last known location. Two nights ago, she’d called Rachel at her job in a bustling, rough-and-tumble Oklahoma City nightspot from this very mobile home. But Eddie, the bar manager, had caught Rachel behind the bar and on the phone in the middle of the conversation—and at the height of the after-work Happy Hour crush. Before Rachel had had a chance to find out the particulars of Sabrina’s situation, he’d jabbed his thumb down on the button to cut the connection short. There had only been time for Sabrina to make Rachel promise to come to Wallace Canyon, to the Westport Mobile Home Community, where she was renting the mobile home on lot thirty-two, as soon as possible.

But when Rachel had arrived at the appointed address yesterday afternoon—losing her job in Oklahoma City in the process, because she’d been scheduled to work yesterday—Sabrina had been nowhere in sight.

The mobile home’s front door had been unlocked, though, and nothing inside seemed to have been disturbed. There was evidence of very recent habitation—a six-pack of yogurt and half gallon of skim milk in the fridge—both far from expired—and some fresh fruit, not quite ripe yet, in a basket by the window. But there were no clothes in the drawers or closets, nothing to indicate that Sabrina had been the one living here. Upon checking with the manager, Rachel had learned that her twin sister had paid her rent through the end of the year—in cash. But Sabrina herself was nowhere to be found.

At this point, Rachel didn’t know whether to stay or go. Whether Sabrina was hiding out nearby, was making her way back home to Tulsa, or had left Oklahoma entirely. All Rachel was certain about was pretty much what she’d been certain about in the beginning, a few months ago. back when Sabrina had first taken off. Squat. She was certain about squat. Except for the fact that her sister was in trouble. And alone. And on the run. And unwilling to tell anyone the particulars of her situation.

Oh, yeah. And she was pregnant, too.

Pregnant. Now that was another completely un-Sabrina thing for Sabrina to have done. If either of them had been voted by their senior class “Most Likely to Be Knocked Up and Abandoned,” it was indisputably Rachel. Not that she slept around or anything like that. But she sure did tend to fall in love—and right back out again—way more often than the average woman did.