Daddy Protector

Sure, lots of things. But none of them in public. “Thought you might have some use for this.” Hale swung the duffel onto the counter, dislodging a catalog showing gift baskets. “It belongs to Skip. Where is the little guy?”

She indicated a children’s nook where, ensconced in a beanbag chair, the boy was absorbed in watching a shiny red TV set. “He got tired of helping me count change.”

Hale whistled. “I didn’t expect a store like this to carry electronics.”

“We offer specialty items tailored for kids. Grandparents get a kick out of them. We have gadgets for adults, as well.” Connie appeared to warm to her subject.

“Where do you find stuff like that?” Since the items she stocked bore little resemblance to the products in ordinary stores, Hale supposed she must have special sources.

“Catalogs, sales reps, the Internet and specialty trade shows in Anaheim and L.A.” Both convention centers lay within a forty-five-minute drive.

So far, no customers had entered, and he’d observed none when he arrived. “You earn a living at this?”

Although her forehead puckered, Connie didn’t fling a retort. “There’s a thin margin of profit, but yes. I’m always bringing in new merchandise, so people drop by frequently, and we have regular customers who collect specialty items. Also, I coordinate with party and wedding planners, arrange craft classes and maintain gift registries. Plus, we do about forty percent of our business in November and December.”

“You carry the same stuff at your other stores?” Connie owned the concession at the hospital and a boutique in the town’s funky shopping mart, In a Pickle, which occupied the site of a former pickling plant.

“Each one is unique.” She spoke with uncharacteristic patience. “I encourage my managers to imprint their personality and cater to their clientele. So you’ll find a lot of food items and Latin American imports at the Pickle, and flowers, books and magazines at the medical center.”

Hale had run out of questions. Wanted to keep her talking, though. Maybe he felt a little protective, seeing her here alone on a Saturday evening. And the cozy scents of cinnamon and peppermint hinted at a childhood he barely remembered. Also, he wasn’t too keen on the dull evening ahead.

“So are you planning any more—” Hale halted at a peculiar scraping noise from the back of the store.

Connie shifted uneasily. “Sounds like someone’s in the storage room. Or it could be an animal, I suppose. A cat might have sneaked in from the alley.”

Hale kept his voice low. “How about an employee?”

A headshake. “Jo Anne left a while ago.” Her fists tightened atop the counter. “We had a break-in attempt from the alley a few nights ago after hours. The alarm scared off whoever it was.”

He reached into his jacket for the holstered gun he always carried. “You leave the back unlocked during working hours?”

“No, but Jo Anne put out the trash. Maybe she forgot to lock up.”

“Who else has a key?”

“Just Jo Anne.” She gave a little cough before continuing. “She wouldn’t enter that way without letting me know.” She shot a glance at Skip, who remained fixed on the TV screen.

Through the glass front, the parking lot appeared as sparsely occupied as when Hale had arrived. No sign of trouble there.

“I’ll check it out.” He pointed the gun’s barrel toward the floor. “Might be a rodent or some merchandise falling over.”

“Let’s hope…” Connie halted at another noise from the storeroom. It sounded to Hale like the scuff of a shoe.

“Call 911,” he ordered tensely. “Stay low behind the counter, out of the line of fire. Leave Skip where he is.” There was no time. Someone might burst out at any second.

Connie reached for the phone. No hysterics or nonsense. Hale appreciated that.

Raising the gun, he approached the rear door at an angle, kicked it open, shouted, “Police! Come out with your hands up!” and braced for action.

Chapter Two

Credit card fraud. Shoplifting. Vandalism and burglary. They were all issues Connie had prepared for when she opened a shop. The classes she’d taken had even instructed her how to handle a break-in: “Don’t keep much money in the till. If a robber demands it, give him everything on hand.”

But a furtive intruder from the alley, on a Saturday night when she might have been the only adult present? Terrifying.

She forced herself to breathe steadily as she provided the dispatcher with her name and location. “I think someone’s broken into my storeroom. An off-duty officer is checking it out. Hale Crandall. He requested backup.”

“I’m sending it now,” the woman responded. “Please stay on the line.”

No one had responded to Hale’s verbal challenge. Instead, she’d heard a scuffling noise as if the intruder was retreating.

After a split second, Hale had gone after him. Typical testosterone-infused male, running an unnecessary risk, except that, perversely, Connie admired the heck out of him for doing it. Much as she normally preferred standing on her own two feet, she felt a surge of gratitude for Hale. Certainly not an emotion she usually associated with her neighbor.

As a siren wailed in the distance, Connie wondered what was happening out of her sight. She thought she heard men speaking in the alley, or was that the TV?

Across the shop, Skip got up and trotted between the displays to join her. “Where’d Hale go, Connie?”

“We heard a noise,” she told him.

“Wow! I saw his gun!” He beamed, too young to grasp that his new friend might get killed. But Connie remained all too aware of the danger.

For the three years of her marriage, she’d lived with the fear of a knock at the door and the news that Joel was dead or wounded, and she’d vowed never to forget that life was fragile. But she’d never once worried about Hale. A moment before, he’d stood in front of her, tall and cheerful and seemingly indestructible. Now she might lose him, and that possibility scared her more than she would have expected. A lot more.

She heard footsteps coming through the storage room. A moment’s tension, and then Hale called out, “Tell dispatch to cancel the cavalry. I’m okay.”

“Hale says everything’s fine,” she informed the woman on the phone.

“May I speak to him, please?”

He entered, grinning. The cocky expression gave Connie an urge to slap him for provoking such anxiety.

Behind him trailed a sheepish Vince Borrego, the town’s former police chief who, since being forced to resign, had worked as a private investigator. His office lay across the alley in the building behind the shop, and he occasionally visited to pick up treats for his daughter and grandchildren.

She thrust out the phone to Hale. He stepped aside with it, leaving her to face the older man.

“Sorry for the ruckus.” In his late fifties, Vince had a gravelly voice and deep wrinkles, souvenirs of his former heavy smoking and drinking. “I was leaving my office and noticed your rear door ajar. Decided to make sure nobody’d sneaked inside, but when Hale shouted a warning, it startled me. I’ve been trying to stay out of trouble, given my history in this town, so I skedaddled. Dumb move.”

“Thanks for your concern. About the open door, I mean.” Connie found it reassuring that the ex-chief had been looking out for her security.

“Glad to help.”

In front, a police cruiser halted. Hale concluded his discussion with the dispatcher and went to consult with the officer.

“Hi, Vince!” Skip high-fived the older man, who lived in the same fourplex as the Laytons. Connie had bumped into him a few weeks earlier when she dropped her student off after a tutoring session, and discovered that she and Vince shared similar concerns about the boy.

“Good to see you, fella.” To complete the greeting, Vince lightly slapped the little hand down low, as well as on high. “Got to get you together with my grandson. You’re close to the same age.”

“Cool!” With Connie’s permission, the little boy chose a couple of hard candies and trotted back to the TV.

“What brings our little man to Connie’s Curios?” Vince asked as he picked out several chocolate bars.

She explained about Paula’s dropping him off at Hale’s house. “I’m glad she didn’t leave him alone in the apartment,” he responded. “She does that on occasion, although usually for less than an hour.”

“Even so, that’s disturbing.” When Connie had asked her lawyer about the matter, he’d explained that the law didn’t specify a minimum age at which a child had to be supervised. Once children reached school age, authorities generally didn’t crack down unless harm resulted.

Fortunately, the fourplex where Skip lived belonged to Yolanda Rios, co-founder of the homework center, and she helped keep an eye on the boy. It was she who’d discovered he was having problems in kindergarten the previous year and brought him in for tutoring.

“I talked to a lawyer about adopting. If Paula’s not going to make a real home for him, I wish she’d give me a chance,” Connie grumbled.

“You’d make a great mom,” Vince was agreeing when Hale returned.

He broke stride, evidently having overheard the end of the conversation. “Did I miss something?”

“Nothing important.” Vince paid for his purchases. “If things do work out, don’t forget my daughter, Keri, has a home daycare license.”

“She’s first on my list.” Connie’s friend Rachel, whose step-daughter stayed with Keri after school, sang the woman’s praises.

With a wary nod to both of them, the ex-chief exited. Hale stared at the man’s retreating back. “What was that about?”

“Vince rents the apartment across the hall from Skip’s. They’re friends.”

“Yeah, well, he seems awfully chummy with you. ‘You’d make a great mom,’” Hale mimicked. “You haven’t forgotten the guy’s got wandering hands, have you?” Part of Vince’s problems with the PD had involved his misconduct toward a female officer.

Connie couldn’t decide whether to laugh or take offense. “He’s never made a pass at me. Besides, he’s too old.”

“How old is too old to pursue younger women?” Hale scoffed. “Besides, why was he plying you with compliments?”

She curbed her temper by remembering that her neighbor had risked his neck to investigate the noises. Softly so the boy wouldn’t hear, she replied, “He was responding to my statement that I’d like to adopt Skip.”

“Gee, I guess you forgot to mention that to me. But of course everybody confides in Villazon’s Grandpa of the Year, don’t they?” Hale muttered.

How unfair! “You may find this hard to believe, but Vince has changed. He cares about people.”

“What did he offer to do—plant incriminating evidence on Paula so she’d lose custody?” he cracked.

The remark undoubtedly reflected deep-seated anger at Vince and the painful impact he’d had on his colleagues. A few years earlier, Officer Elise Masterson had accused the then-chief of sexual harassment and named Joel as a witness—his job as a watch commander put him in a key position to observe departmental goings-on. Joel had also had to testify in a separate investigation into claims that a lieutenant had beaten a prisoner and that Vince had covered for him.

The department had endured a rough period, its reputation besmirched and the officers’ loyalties divided, with many criticizing Joel for testifying. Hale had stood by him, and after the hiring of a new chief, the whole affair had blown over.

Vince had taken early retirement and the department fired the lieutenant, Norm Kinsey. Both had left the area until, six months ago, Vince moved back to be near his daughter.

On his visits to the shop, he seemed affable and courteous. In Connie’s opinion, the ex-chief had learned a hard lesson from the loss of his career and the breakup of his marriage. It wasn’t his fault that, a few months ago, he’d shot and killed a prison escapee who’d targeted his family, and news reports had rehashed the entire original scandal just as it was fading from the public’s memory.

Plant evidence against Paula! How absurd. “He didn’t offer to do anything of the sort.”

“Take my advice and watch out for him,” Hale answered dourly.

How could he be so paranoid? “You’re being unreasonable,” she said.

“Do me a favor and keep your guard up.” Before she could answer, Hale added, “You’re seriously interested in adopting?”

She nodded. “Very much so.”

He checked that Skip remained in his corner before asking, “Why a boy? You’ve got a house full of frilly stuff.”

She was taken by surprise. “This isn’t about choosing just any child! It’s about Skip. Hale, we don’t choose who we love.”

He tugged at his tie. Whoever he was dating tonight, he must think highly of her to endure such discomfort. “The boy deserves a father figure.”

“I grew up without a father, and I’m fine!”

That she’d grown up fatherless wasn’t entirely true. Although Connie’s parents had divorced when she was ten, Jim Lawson had lived nearby and remained theoretically involved. But Connie had never felt he’d played any meaningful role in her life.

The incident that stood out in her mind had occurred when she was fifteen and spending a weekend with him, her step-mother and their one-year-old son. On Saturday night, their babysitter had canceled at the last minute. Never mind that Connie was excited about attending a school dance with a new boyfriend; her father had insisted that she stay home and fill in. He’d dismissed her tears as selfish.

Selfish! She still got mad thinking about it. If she’d had other, warmer memories of her dad, no doubt she’d have forgiven him. But she didn’t.

“Yeah, well, I grew up without a mother, so between the two of us, we had an almost perfect childhood.” Hale grinned, then added, “Before you adopt, though, remember that the great thing about other people’s kids is, when you get tired of ’em, you can send ’em home.”

“That’s what I used to think, too,” she admitted. “But people change. I’ve changed. Maybe you will, too, someday.”

“Stranger things have happened.” A slight concession, or perhaps simply a way of ducking the subject. “I’d better be going. Lock the back door first, okay?”

“Absolutely.”

After she did so, he left via the front, passing a couple of teenage girls who ogled him blatantly. They giggled incessantly while picking out hair ornaments, and Connie suspected the subject was Hale.

She rang up their purchases, amused that her neighbor inspired so much girlish interest. He had been considerate to drop off Skip’s bag.

And fiercely protective when he heard the noise in back. Remembering the tension in his dark eyes and the power in his movements gave her a twinge of longing. A zap of common sense followed on its heels.

The great thing about other people’s kids is, when you get tired of ’em, you can send ’em home. She could hardly expect any other attitude from Hale. Vince Borrego might have reformed, but she doubted her playboy neighbor ever would. Too bad. He sometimes showed hints of potential for being a good man.

Connie went to switch off the video and collect Skip. She had enough love in her heart to make a home for this child if she was ever lucky enough to get the chance. That would be family enough, at least for now.

AS USUAL ON A Monday morning, Hale found his desk piled with reports from the weekend. His assignments in the Crimes Against Persons Unit ranged from missing persons to assaults. A small city like Villazon had mercifully few homicides but plenty of felonies, and he spent the morning reviewing crime-scene accounts and citizen complaints, following up on witnesses and conferring with other law-enforcement agencies whose cases overlapped his.

Recalling the adrenaline rush he’d experienced during the incident on Saturday at Connie’s shop made him miss his years on patrol. Not that he didn’t occasionally get to take down a suspect, but in his position as a detective, the paperwork drove him crazy.

Still, Hale enjoyed the challenge of discerning the facts and tracking down crooks. He supposed he ought to be studying for the exam to earn promotion to sergeant, which Joel had passed several years ago, but that might mean a transfer to a different division.

He didn’t require extra income to pay alimony, either. Sipping his third—or maybe fourth—cup of coffee of the morning, Hale flexed the arm muscles he’d strained yesterday replanting Connie’s flowers. Darn, that woman was bossy! But fun to tease, and kind of sweet once in a while.

Opening the first case file, he got to work. The hours vanished silently and swiftly, until the scream of sirens from the fire station next door jolted him from his absorption. “Chemical fire in a warehouse on the east side,” noted Detective Lieutenant E. J. Corwin, who paused in striding toward his office.

A second siren blared. “What kind of chemicals?” Things could get ugly fast in any blaze, especially one that involved toxic substances. Firefighting was even more dangerous than police work, according to Hale’s insurance agent.

“Unidentified.”

Not a good sign. However, police usually only got involved with fires to control traffic. Or when bodies turned up, which he hoped didn’t happen.

Thirty minutes later, as the idea of buying a sandwich from a vending machine loomed large in his mind, the phone rang. To his terse response, a woman said, “The chief would like to see you in his office, Hale.” The voice belonged to Lois Lamont, the sixtyish secretary whose tenure dated back to the late Mesozoic era.

“I’m on my way.” He rang off. He had no reason to expect trouble, but neither did he usually pal around with Willard Lyons.

The new chief had come on board the previous year to clean up the PD’s image. At Saturday night’s party, he’d glad-handed the community leaders and stayed until the bitter end, or at least as much of the bitter end as Hale had observed before bowing out at eleven.

The man worked hard, and according to office gossip, he’d had a reputation as a decent cop in his previous positions with the Whittier PD and LAPD. The guys respected him, even if no one felt particularly chummy. Will Lyons’s manner didn’t invite chumminess.

Hale walked past the watch commander’s office and the traffic bureau, his curiosity growing with every step.

The secretary’s desk and several file cabinets crammed the small outer office. When he entered, Lois peered at him through owlish glasses beneath a fuzzy orange halo of thinning hair. “None of your cheekiness today, young man. He’s not in a good mood.”

“Moi? Cheeky?” All the same, Hale appreciated the warning.

“I hope you haven’t settled for any of the ladies in this town yet,” Lois continued. “My beautiful nieces put them in the shade. You really ought to let me introduce you. They won’t stay single forever.”

She’d been offering to fix him up for years in what had evolved into a running joke. Judging by the photos on her desk, the girls seemed pretty enough but not Hale’s type. Not blond and smart-mouthed with a quick temper. “I’m married to my work,” he said. “Haven’t you noticed?”

She sighed, then indicated the inner door. “Go ahead.”

Inside, light through a large window flooded the expansive office. The wooden desk and conference table from Vince’s tenure had been refinished and the chairs reupholstered. Satellite images of Villazon hung where once the walls had displayed photos of the town’s quaint former city hall.

“Close the door, please,” the chief said.

Must be a sensitive subject. Curious and a bit wary, Hale obeyed and followed the chief’s directive to take a seat.

With his broad chest, thin mustache and close-cropped brown hair, Will Lyons fit the image of a police administrator. Not merely a bureaucrat, though; more than once, he’d helped resolve an investigation by asking key questions of the detectives.

In his thirteen months on the job, not once had Lyons acted nervous or uncertain in Hale’s presence. Now, however, he folded his hands atop the desk and cleared his throat.

The words “So what’s bothering you, boss?” nearly slipped from Hale’s lips. That’s what he’d have said to Vince in the old days. But no one joked freely with Chief Lyons and, besides, Lois’s warning rang in his ears. So he waited.

Finally the chief said, “I’d like you to probe something discreetly. It may appear that I’m protecting myself, but the fact is, I think this may be an attempt to embarrass the department. If at any point you believe these contentions are true, Detective, you’re to treat this as you would any other case.”

Curiosity about the subject warred with an instinctive dislike of subterfuge. “Why me?” If this was a politically sensitive issue, he’d rather it went to someone of higher rank, such as Frank Ferguson, captain of the detective bureau and interim chief before Lyons’s arrival.

“Because every man and woman on this force likes and respects you,” his boss replied. “I’m a relative stranger here. If any of this comes out, they’ll trust you to be absolutely honest.”

Did his fellow officers respect him that much? As chief party animal, Hale knew he had friends. But if he was truly held in such high regard, it meant more than all the commendations he’d received over the years.

That kind of esteem, however, brought responsibility. “What exactly are you asking me to do?”

Lyons tapped a pad by his phone. “I received a troubling call this morning from Tracy Johnson at the newspaper.”

The publisher, editor and reporter of the Villazon Voice pursued stories with a zeal that often scooped dailies and TV stations. She’d never given the police a break, but she was usually fair.

“What about?” Hale asked.

The chief released a long breath. “A source of Tracy’s claims my son is dealing drugs.”

Here was a potato hot enough to burn anyone who touched it, Hale mused. Which made it possible the chief had chosen him at least in part because, if anything went amiss, a lowly detective made a better scapegoat than a high-ranking officer.

The chief’s nineteen-year-old son, Ben, had reputedly run wild since his mother’s death from cancer five years earlier. He’d served a stint in juvenile detention for drug use and now participated in a treatment program. He also took classes at community college and delivered pizzas.

The young man and his strict father didn’t get along. Were barely speaking, according to the grapevine.

“She has no details and refuses to name her source,” Lyons went on. “Since she can’t prove anything, she volunteered the information in exchange for a promise that, whenever we have news to release, we give her a heads-up if possible.”

“Big of her,” Hale muttered.

“I didn’t agree to an exclusive, only that we’d alert her.” After a moment, the chief added, “She did say she hoped it isn’t true.”

“So do I.” Okay, they had an unconfirmed report about drug dealing. “Shouldn’t the narcs handle this?” Or perhaps an outside agency, given the potential conflict of interest.

Lyons stared out the window as if he’d developed a keen interest in the adjacent library. “You don’t have children, do you?” Without pausing, he continued, “If I launch a formal investigation of my son based on rumor, he’ll perceive that as a betrayal. I’d also be throwing him back into hot water, perhaps unfairly, just when he’s starting to get his act together. It’s not his fault that his dad’s the police chief and everything that concerns me makes news. On the other hand, I can’t ignore this.”

“This drug program he’s in, don’t they monitor him?” Hale inquired.

“He finished the program two months ago.” The chief refocused on his visitor. “He’s on probation and I’m sure they test for drugs, so I really don’t believe there’s any truth to this.”

“You’ve seen his place, right? Notice anything strange?”

The chief released a frustrated breath. “Ben doesn’t care to have his old man around, so Frank did me the favor of dropping by a couple of times to see if he was okay. I gather my son didn’t welcome him, but he did let him inside, and Frank saw nothing obviously amiss. So what do you say?”