Marilyn Pappano - Killer Secrets

“Mister.”

Ah, one of those people who didn’t get overly familiar with his employees. At the moment, that grated on his nerves, but then, his nerves had already been shredded in the few minutes in the backyard.

A woman answered on the third ring, and he asked for her boss. Overhearing her call out “Ed, it’s for you,” when the man came on the line, Sam adopted what he considered his politics voice.

“Ed, this is Sam Douglas down at the police department. How are you, man? It’s been a long time.”

Sam didn’t know if he’d ever met Ed Lawrence, but he certainly knew his kind. Made his success on the backs of underpaid, overworked employees, somehow convinced himself that they would be nothing without him when it was really the other way around, smarmy and blustery and always looking for anything he might use to increase his sense of self-worth. In a small town, being on a first-name basis with the police chief could be that something.

“Oh, I’m good, Chief, good.”

“You heard about the incident out here at Hawk’s Aerie, I’m sure. Your employees have been most helpful. I really appreciate it a lot.”

“At Happy Grass, we’re always glad to help. Glad to help.”

Great, a repeater. It was a quirk of cops that too many of them figured if it needed saying one time, it couldn’t hurt to say it twice. It was on the short list of things that drove Sam crazy.

“Listen, your worker who found the body...she’s pretty shook up by this. You can’t imagine what it was like for her.”

“Must have been a pretty ugly scene.”

Lawrence’s voice held a sly, inviting tone that all the put-on sympathy in the world couldn’t hide. He would love to share the gruesome details with his buddies while bragging that he got them straight from the police chief himself. That would be worth free rounds at the bar for two or three days, at least.

“Ugly enough that she really needs to take the rest of the day off. You’re fine with that, aren’t you, Ed? I mean, supporting the community and the police department the way you do, of course you’d want her to go home and deal with this instead of worrying about lawns.”

In his peripheral vision, he caught Milagro rolling her eyes. Apparently, she couldn’t imagine her boss caring anything about his employees except that they showed up and worked hard. Sam couldn’t imagine being that kind of supervisor. Couldn’t imagine anyone in his family letting him get away with it before they smacked him back down to size.

“Sure, sure, she can take the day off,” Lawrence said. “It’ll put us behind schedule, of course, but that’s a small price to pay given the circumstances. You just go ahead and tell Maria—”

“Milagro.”

“Yes, yes, of course she should deal with this. Tell her I said don’t think about work at all today. Tomorrow’s plenty soon enough for that.”

“I will. And you know, Ed...” Sam adopted Lawrence’s insincere good-ole-boy tone. “I would consider it a personal favor if you didn’t dock her pay for the time off. She’s doing her civic duty, helping the police, and I would just hate to see it cost her more than the emotional trauma she’s already been through. You think you could do me that favor, Ed?”

The level of joviality in Lawrence’s voice dropped enough to force him to clear his throat to answer, but he came out with the right response. “Of course, Chief. I’m happy to do it. Happy to do it.” He pronounced each of the last four words with extra emphasis, like he was trying to convince himself.

“Thanks, Ed. I’ll see you around.” Sam laid the phone in the console cup holder.

Milagro was watching him again, but this time her gaze didn’t dart away and back. Her brows were narrowed, and something that might be the start of a smile curved her lips a bit. He got the impression that she didn’t smile much. Lurking beneath the lingering shock and dismay was an intense solemnity that he doubted gave way very often.

What had she been through in her twenty-six years that made her so solemn?

The list of possibilities was too long to consider right now.

She made no comment about the conversation, though she’d clearly heard enough from his end to get the gist of it.

“Do you need to go back to the shop to pick up your car?”

She shook her head.

“How’d you get to work this morning?”

“Ruben picks us up. We’re on his way.”

“I’ll take you home then.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he went on, “You’re on my way. Buckle up.”

She did, and so did he. He pulled out and drove to the driveway, where he rolled the passenger window down. “Simpson, get a ride back with Lois. And Lois, give him the benefit of your years of experience, will you?”

Lois saluted him with a wink and a grin.

After raising the window again, he followed the loop past quiet grand houses and out the gate. He figured Milagro would be happy if they made the drive in silence, but silence wasn’t usually one of his strong suits. “How long have you lived in Cedar Creek?”

Quick glance, hesitation. Yep, she’d rather not chitchat. “Fifteen years.”

“Hmm. I see the same people so often, sometimes I start thinking I know everyone in town. You go to school here?”

“I was homeschooled.”

“Church?”

“No.” After a moment’s pause, he guessed curiosity made her ask, “Do you?”

“Regularly enough that God doesn’t forget my face. Every Sam Douglas in town is expected to be there at least twice a month on Sundays.”

That caught her attention, as he expected it would. “How many are there?”

“There’s me. My father. My grandfather, who’s gone now. My cousin Samson. His boy, Sammy. A cousin Samantha. And her son, Samwell. Samantha hyphenates Douglas with her husband’s last name for both her and Samwell.”

“Maybe your family should look at one of the other twenty-five letters in the alphabet.” She folded her arms across her chest, tucking her fingers into the folds of fabric at her elbows.

Wow. A long sentence with a little bit of humor in it. Feeling a sense of accomplishment, he turned the AC lower. “We’re a big family. We require a lot of names.”

She didn’t ask how big. If she had, he would have turned the question back on her. Since she didn’t, he turned it back anyway. “Do you have family?”

Her expression turned both pensive and wary, and though the truck cab left her little room to move, she managed to put some distance between them.

“Look, Milagro, I don’t know if you’re a citizen, an immigrant or an undocumented worker, and I don’t care. You had a shock today. You probably need someone to stay with tonight, just in case. Do you have someone you can call?”

Her face had gone pale once more, but reluctant acceptance replaced the wariness. “Gramma. My grandmother.”

“Do you want me to take you to her house?”

“No. She’ll come.”

He caught a glimpse of that tiny sort-of smile, softened with deep affection.

“She always comes.”

Whatever she’d been through, she’d held on to her faith in her grandmother with both hands. That was good. With a family the size of his, it could have been easy for some of the kids to get lost in the crowd, to not have anyone special they could trust no matter what, but with parents and grandparents like his, that hadn’t happened to them. He appreciated that it hadn’t happened to Milagro, either.

By that time, they’d reached her street. Sam’s own house was only six or eight blocks away, across Main Street and in a very similar neighborhood: old houses, some neatly maintained and others looking as if the next strong wind would blow them away. Some of the yards were lush with flowers and vegetable gardens; some looked as if a flock of ravenous chickens had pecked out the last piece of grass and it had never grown back.