Catherine Coulter - The Edge

Actually I'm going to stay here with him since the Buttercup B and B is filled up with the orthodontist convention. It's time for lunch and I'm starving."

"Orthodontist convention, huh? That's how Arlene got rid of you? The woman's got no imagination."

"She tried. I think I frightened her. Is it because I'm an outsider? A Fed?"

"Oh, yes. Arlene Hicks doesn't want you anywhere around her fine establishment. She's weird that way about cops."

"Word got around really fast."

"Yeah. Paul told Benny Pickle down at the gun shop that you were coming. That's all it took. Benny's got the biggest mouth west of the Cascades."

"But what's wrong with being a Fed? I'm clean, I'm polite, I don't spit. I wouldn't run out without paying my bill."

"Arlene doesn't even like me hanging around, and I'm a friendly face. You're not. She probably believes you're as bad as the IRS. You're from Washington, right? Place of sin and corruption."

"You've got a good point there. Maybe Arlene's on to something."

She waved that away. "Okay. You're here, Mac, and you want to find out what happened to Jilly. I want the same thing. It makes sense that we join forces, at least a bit. The thing is, are you willing to play level with me?"

I arched an eyebrow. "I hadn't really thought about playing with anybody. But if I do play, it's usually level. Any reason why it shouldn't be?"

"You're a Fed. You're a big footer. You're used to taking over, used to making local cops your gofers.

I'm not a gofer."

"I told you, I'm not here as a Fed. I'm here only as Jilly's brother. Like you, I want to know what happened. Actually I'm pleased that as the local cop you haven't just kissed the whole thing off-attempted suicide-and called in a shrink.

"Sure, I'll play level with you. Do you know anything I should know? Is there any reason to believe Jilly didn't go over that cliff on purpose? You want to start sharing right now?"

She seemed to relax a bit. "When were you hurt and how?"

"How do you know I was hurt? Do I still look like week-old oatmeal?"

She cocked her head to one side, fully facing me, looking me over. I realized that she was younger than I'd first thought, probably late twenties. It was impossible to be really sure because she was wearing the dark glasses favored by highway patrol officers to intimidate the folk they stopped. I could see my reflection in the lenses. Her hair was thick, dark reddish-brown and curly, plaited into a thick French braid and pulled back up on top of her head, wound around itself and fastened with a clip carved as a totem pole. She was wearing pale coral lipstick, the shade my British girlfriend Caroline had favored. But Caroline, a clothing designer, had never looked as tough or self-reliant as this woman.

Of course she knew I was studying her, and she let me, saying finally, "I've always hated oatmeal.

Fortunately, you don't resemble that at all, but you don't move all that easily, you know? You walk like you're twenty years older than you are. There are faint bruises along the left side of your face. You favor your right arm and you're a bit crabbed over, like you're worried you'll hurt your ribs. What happened to you?"

"I got in the way of a car bomb."

"I didn't hear about any federal guys being blown up."

"I was over in Tunisia. Bad place. You get hot sand in your mouth when you talk. The people I had to deal with weren't what you'd call very good-natured." I'd just told this woman, a perfect stranger, all sorts of stuff that wasn't any layperson's business, a local cop's least of all. Well, I was playing level, I was sharing, as politically correct folk would say. Even thinking that soppy word made me wince. If she knew anything at all, my spurt of openness-something I hoped wouldn't happen again- should help me worm it out of her.

"I'll take you to The Edwardian for lunch. It sounds like an English gentlemen's club, but it isn't. The food isn't great, but there's a lot of it, and you look like you could use the calories. You dropped what, a good fifteen pounds?"

"Yeah, about that," I said. It was only two o'clock in the afternoon and I wanted a soft bed, a dark room, and no interruptions for about three hours.

"Follow me. Fifteen minutes?"

"Thanks," I said.

I watched her turn the key in the ignition and smoothly do a U-turn on Liverpool Street.

Some twenty minutes later, once I'd ordered meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans, and she'd ordered a huge chicken salad from Mr. Pete, a grizzled old varmint who was the only waiter for all ten patrons at The Edwardian at the moment, I leaned back against the hard wooden back of the booth and said, "I visited here about five years ago, as I said. I'd just gotten back from London, and Paul and Jilly invited me out here to meet his parents. I remember this place well. Nothing seems to have changed.

How long have you been the sheriff?"

"Going on a year and a half now. The mayor of Edger-ton is Miss Geraldine Tucker. Evidently she was going through a feminist phase, said she'd missed it when it first came around, and decided what the town needed was a female sheriff. I was a cop in Eugene at the time and had ran into some bad trouble. I wanted out of there. This seemed a perfect opportunity." She shrugged. "I have one deputy and a secretary and about a dozen volunteers whenever I put out the call, which hasn't happened since I've been on the job. There's little crime, as you'd expect, just parking or speeding tickets, kids raising occasional hell, a couple of burglaries a month, probably by transients, normal stuff like that. There has been a rise in domestic cases recently, but nothing like it was in Eugene." She gave me a look that clearly said, How much more level can you get?

I smiled at her and said, "What happened in Eugene?"

Her lips were suddenly as thin as the soup an old guy was eating at the next table. "I think I'll keep that to myself, if you don't mind."

"Not at all. Hey, I'm just hoping that the meat loaf will stick to my ribs. They need all the padding they can get right now. What did you want to talk to Paul about?"

Before she could answer, an old man sauntered up, holding an Oakland A's baseball cap between his hands, big hands I saw, gnarly and veined but still strong. He had a full head of white curly hair, tobacco-stained teeth, and he was smiling at me. I put him in his seventies, a man who'd spent many years working hard.

"Charlie," Maggie said, leaning forward to take his hand. "How's tricks? You seen anything interesting I should know about?"

"Yes," he said, his voice all scratchy and thin as old drapes. "But it can wait. Is this the young feller from Washington?"

Maggie introduced us. He was Charlie Duck, a local who'd been here fifteen years. He nodded, never taking my hand, just twirling that Oakland A's baseball cap around and around in his hands. "You're all tied up now, Mac, but later, when you've got some time, I wouldn't mind having a talk with you."

"Sure," I said, and wondered what kind of tall tales I'd be hearing.

He nodded, all solemn, and sauntered back to a booth where he sat down, alone.

"You see, not everybody doesn't like me."

"Charlie's a real neat old guy. You'll enjoy him if you two get together."

I said again, "What did you want to talk to Paul about?"

Maggie picked up her fork and began to weave it through her fingers, just like the old man had done with that baseball cap. She'd pulled off her driving gloves. She had elegant white hands, short nails, calluses on her thumb pads. "Just talk," she said. "I still can't believe how lucky Jilly was. Rob Morrison, the highway patrolman who saved her life, came in third in the Iron Man Triathlon over in Kona last year. That means a two-mile swim, a hundred miles on a bike, then twenty-six point two miles of running. He's in awesome shape. Anyone else, and they'd probably still be trying to get her out of the Porsche. The luck involved, it still boggles the mind." I felt both grateful and envious. "The Iron Man. I had a friend who tried that. He made it to Kona, but he got cramps in the marathon leg. I want to meet this guy. I wish I had something more to give him than just my heartfelt thanks."