Cowboy Comes Home

Then we tried a padlock, but this morning Jolly—that’s the momma dog—got fed up with being cooped up and knocked the darn thing down. I now have holes in the doorjamb and a broken gate. Cheryl’s threatening to take the pups to the pound.”

Anna felt a twinge of dismay. “You can’t do that! Surely you can get someone to adopt them.”

“That’s what we thought. I mean, the whole reason we never got Jolly spayed was because the older kids wanted puppies, and Cheryl thought it would be a good experience for them. But now we’ve got too many puppies, and would you believe it? Nobody wants a dog, especially mongrels. Everybody already has a dog.” He eyed her. “Except you.”

“No, you can’t do this to me.”

“Do what to you? Give you a warm, furry little companion? Some soft-eyed little fuzzball that will curl up on your feet on cold winter evenings? A friend who will always be glad to see you and will lick your face when you get sad? How can that be construed as doing something to you?”

Anna felt herself weakening. It was true, she had been thinking about a pet, but she had thought a cat would be better suited to her sometimes long work hours. “It wouldn’t be fair to a puppy to leave it alone all day.”

“So bring it here,” he said. “I’ll even get you a pet carrier to keep it in.

I’ll pay for all the shots. I’ll help you housebreak it.”

“Well…”

“Just a minute.” He dashed back outside and moments later returned carrying a small auburn-colored puppy in his arms. “I call her Jazz, but you can call her whatever you want,” he said, and dumped the puppy in her arms.

Anna was lost. She felt the warm little body quiver fearfully in her arms and instinctively began to pet it and coo gently to it. Jazz’s ears were huge, so long that Anna imagined they must touch the floor when the puppy stood. It had a plump little pink tummy just like a baby. “Dan…”

“Adorable, isn’t she? And I’ll pay to have her spayed, too, so you don’t develop a puppy problem. Trust me, she’ll brighten your life.”

Anna looked down into soft brown eyes and felt a tiny pink tongue lick her chin tentatively. “You are so sweet,” she heard herself say to the dog. “This is extortion, Dan. You know I can’t let her go to the pound.”

“Certainly not. She’s yours.”

Anna looked at Jazz and smiled. “Thank you.”

“I’ll get the carrier out of the car.”

By the time Dan returned, Anna had already figured out a bunch of benefits to having a dog. She would be able to take walks on dark winter evenings without feeling quite as afraid or alone. She would have a dog to keep her company in the dead of night when she couldn’t sleep. In short, Jazz would go a long way toward easing her loneliness without forcing her to take risks.

Then the puppy licked her chin again, and none of the rest of it mattered. She was in love.

Dan set the carrier down in the corner with a stack of newspapers. “I figured the least I could do is provide the first batch of cage liners.”

“Thanks.”

He sat down facing her again. “You look awful, Anna. Exhausted. Have you been having trouble sleeping again?”

“Just a little.” She really didn’t want to get into it in any depth. She had never told him what had happened to her and never intended to.

Still, she sometimes thought he suspected. His expression was so kind that she had to stop herself from blurting out the whole story. The impulse terrified her, and her heart slammed.

Dan regarded her gently for a while, then said, “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here. I think I’m a pretty good friend.”

“I’m sure you are.” But she didn’t want to talk about it. She tried her best not to even think about it. “At least, you are when you don’t have puppies to get rid of.

What are you going to do with the rest of them?”

“Oh, I already found homes for them. Jazz was the only one left.”

“You stinker!”

He rose, laughing. “Hey, all I did was convince you to take a friend for life!” Still grinning, he went into his office.

Anna sat for a while longer, holding Jazz until the puppy’s eyelids began to droop. Then she put the dog in the carrier and locked the door. Poor little thing, she thought as she returned to her desk. It might be the natural way of things, but eight weeks seemed awfully young to be taken from your mother.

Not that her own mother had been worth much, she thought with a sudden burst of bitterness. The woman wasn’t even fit for the title of mother. No question but that she herself would have been better off if she’d been taken away at eight weeks.

At any time before she had turned twelve, in fact.

But she didn’t want to think about that. With great effort, she forced her attention back to her work.

An hour later, Dan emerged from his office. “I have to go over to the hospital. Candy Burgess had a severe gall bladder attack last night, and they’re doing surgery this morning. I promised to go by and sit with the family.”

“All right. Are you taking your pager?”

He pointed to his belt. “Got it. Also, I asked a guy to come by and take a look at the church roof. Last winter we had some serious ice damming.”

“I remember.”

“I want to see if there’s anything he can do to lessen it. He said he’d pop in when he had a minute and take a look, so if he gets here while I’m gone, will you show him where the damming was worst?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, then. You and Jazz have fun.” He headed for the door.

“Say hi to Candy for me.”

He was halfway out the door as she spoke, but he leaned back in. “If you want my opinion, it’s all that dieting she does that caused this. Remember all those news stories a few years back about liquid diets causing gall bladder disease? I don’t think it’s liquid diets in particular. I think it’s starving yourself that does it.”

“You might be right.”

His eyes twinkled suddenly. “Of course. I’m always right. People should listen to me more often. Bottom line is, God made some of us small and some of us tall, some of us skinny and some of us heavy, but we’re all beautiful in His eyes. And just for the record, I think all this weight consciousness is a conspiracy on the part of men to starve women into submission.”

She burst out laughing and heard his answering laugh as he hurried to his car. What a character! He was such a joy to work for—even if he had foisted a puppy on her.

Jazz was still soundly sleeping, and she found herself wondering how often she should walk the puppy. Probably every time it awoke, until she learned its schedule.

And she’d have to stop off at the store on the way home to get some puppy food and a leash and collar. The prospect gave her something interesting to look forward to.

In fact, she decided, Dan couldn’t have done a nicer thing for her than dropping that pup into her arms so she couldn’t resist.

She was thinking about doggie dishes and leashes, and wondering if she could take care of the shopping on her lunch hour, when a battered pickup pulled up out front. She watched with a suddenly pounding heart as Hugh Gallagher climbed out and walked up to the door. Her mouth went dry, and try as she might to tell herself she was overreacting, she couldn’t stop it. Had he come to see her?

He stepped through the door and gave her a wide, warm smile. “Miss Anna. How are you today?”

Before she could answer, Jazz, disturbed by the commotion, woke up and gave a squeaky bark. Hugh squatted immediately and looked into the cage. “Who’s this little fella?”

“That’s…um…that’s Jazz. Reverend Fromberg gave her to me.” Anna sounded as breathless as she felt, and hated herself for it. She wondered why Hugh was here, and was afraid to ask.

“Jazz? What a cute pup. Irish setter?”

“Partly.”

“A mutt, huh? Well, that just means she’ll be really smart, won’t you, girl? Can I take her out?”

“I guess.”

She watched as Hugh unlatched the cage and reached in with large, strong hands to lift the little pup gently. Jazz decided she liked him and started licking his chin at once. Anna felt a sharp stab of jealousy, then castigated herself for it.

Hugh rose and faced her, still holding the squirming puppy. “Dan asked me to come take a look at the church roof. Something about ice damming?”

“Oh, yes! He asked me to show you where the worst problems were.”

“Well, get your jacket on and let’s take a stroll. This little gal would probably love to get outside.”

“I don’t have a leash for her yet.”

“Just wait a minute. I can rig something with the rope in my truck that’ll do in a pinch.”

She rose to pull her jacket off the coat tree and found herself fascinated again by the sight of Cowboy walking away from her. He had such a nice…sway was the only word she could think of. Something that riveted her eyes to his flat backside and long legs. She felt a twinge deep inside that she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Embarrassed color flooded her cheeks.

Uh-uh, she told herself. You know better than that, girl.

She pulled on the jacket and stepped outside, taking care to lock the office door after her.

It took only a minute for Hugh to fashion a slipknot leash for Jazz. The puppy was ecstatic to be outside and began to run this way and that, giving a squeaky bark of joy. Each time the loop around her neck started to tighten, she came to a swift halt.

“Smart little gal,” Hugh said, giving Anna a smile. “She won’t give you any trouble.” He handed her the end of the rope. “Now, where exactly were the worst problems?”

They walked slowly around the church, with Anna pointing out the places where the ice had dammed the snow and caused leaking inside.

“It was terrible last year,” she told him. “Reverend Fromberg went into the church one morning last winter, and he could hear water dripping everywhere. You couldn’t see where it was dripping, but finally we noticed that it was running down the insides of the window frames.”

“So it was coming down inside the walls.”

“Apparently.”

He nodded. “I’ll have to go up on the roof and see if I can find out what’s keeping the snow from sliding off.

You’d think with that steep a pitch it wouldn’t be a problem. I’ll also want to get up under the eaves to try to see where the heat is escaping that’s causing the ice to form. Can you leave the church open for a while?”

“Sure. Just let me know when you’re done so I can lock it up again. I’ll only open the side door, if that’s okay.”

He gave her a smile. “I only need one door.”

Jazz had run off most of her energy and had squatted at four or five different points along the way, so Anna figured the puppy was ready to return to the cage for a nap. She unlocked the church’s side door for Hugh, then hurried back to her office.

She loved this time of year, she found herself thinking as she and the puppy trotted along. The breeze was crisp, carrying a hint of the winter to come, and the light had a buttery color to it, the last golden glow of autumn. Any day now the snow would march down off the white-capped peaks to the west and sprinkle itself all over Conard City like powdered sugar.

Inside the office, she put Jazz in her cage, then hunted up a bowl and put some water in with the dog. The puppy lapped thirstily, then curled up into a little ball of fur and fell right to sleep.

Well, that wasn’t too difficult, Anna thought as she settled back at her desk. She’d managed not to babble like a fool to Hugh Gallagher, she’d walked the dog successfully, remembered to give it a drink…hey, she was getting competent.

Chuckling at her own silliness, she reached for the next letter she needed to type, only to be interrupted by the phone.

“Anna, it’s Dan. I’m going to be at the hospital a while. Candy had a bad reaction to the anesthetic, and we don’t know what’s going to happen. Say a prayer for her, will you? I don’t know at this point if I’ll be back to the office at all.”

“I’ll cancel your appointments.”

“Thanks. Go ahead and take your lunch whenever you want. And close up early if you feel like it. You need some rest, my child.”

Anna hung up the phone, wondering why she always felt like crying when Dan Fromberg got that gentle note in his voice and called her “my child.” He called a lot of people “my child” when they were laid low by life and were calling on him in his ministerial capacity. Still, it affected her.

The phone rang again, just as she was getting ready to call and cancel the first appointment. This time it was Sheriff Nate Tate.

“Hi, sweet pea,” he said in his deep, gravelly voice. For some reason he always called her sweet pea. “Is the boss around?”

“He’s at the hospital and probably won’t be back in again today.”

“Somebody get hurt?”

“A bad reaction to anesthesia.”

“Not good.” But he knew better than to ask who was involved. “Well, I got a leetle bit of a problem here. Maybe you can help.”

“Me?”

He chuckled warmly. “Yes, you, sweet pea. Everyone knows how well you get on with the kids in the youth group, and you’re the closest thing we have around here to a youth counselor.”

Anna felt a pleasant blush fill her cheeks. “Don’t exaggerate, Sheriff.”

“I’m not. Do you think you can come over here to the office? I’ve got me a little gal you know in a cell who shouldn’t be in the cell. I really need somebody to talk to her and figure out what’s going on. I’ll tell you more when you get here.”

“I’ll be right over, but I have to make a couple of phone calls first.”

“It’s not that big a rush,” he assured her. “This little lady is going to be sitting here a while.”

It took Anna ten minutes to make the calls and reschedule the appointments for another day. Then she grabbed her jacket again, hesitating briefly about leaving Jazz alone. After a moment she decided that the puppy was as safe as could be in the cage. Outside, she found Hugh up on the ladder, looking at the church roof. “Mr. Gallagher?”

He looked down at her. “Hugh. Just call me Hugh. Or Cowboy.”

“Hugh.”

She repeated his name, feeling flattered that he’d asked her to use it. “I have to run up to the sheriff’s office. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“No problem. I’ll be a while here. Probably most of the afternoon. There’s a lot that needs to be checked out.”

“Well, if you need to leave, just make sure the church door is closed tightly. I’ll lock it when I get back.”

“You got it.”

The wind seemed to have gotten sharper, and some low clouds were moving in, concealing the sun. She hunkered deeper into her jacket and wished she’d worn slacks today.

The sheriff’s office was only a block away, in a corner storefront overlooking the courthouse square. She’d come here often in the past when the youth group took tours of the office and the courthouse, and she knew most of the people who worked here from church, but she still felt uncomfortable walking into a place that was populated mostly by men. She stepped inside and hovered by the door for a few moments until Velma Jansen, the dispatcher, noticed her.

“Anna! Come on in. Sheriff’s down the hall, first door on the left. He’s expecting you.”

Tate waved her in when she reached his office. He was a big man in his early fifties, with a rugged, permanently sunburned face.

“Come in, sweet pea,” he said. “Close the door and grab a seat.”

Closing the door proved difficult for her. Even after all this time, she couldn’t be comfortable in a closed room with a man. But beside Nate’s desk there was a window that overlooked the square, and the sight of people walking by eased her feeling of claustrophobia. She managed to take the chair facing him and folded her hands on her lap.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“That’s what I’m hoping you can find out. Lorna Lacey. You know her?”

Anna nodded. “She’s in the youth group. A dear, sweet girl.”

“Right. That’s what everyone says. In fact, when I checked her school record, I found out she’s never been in any kind of trouble.”

“I’d be surprised if it said anything different. She’s a natural peacemaker. Active, outgoing, popular—I’d say she’s what every girl her age would like to be.”

“Mmm.” Nate rubbed his chin and swiveled his chair so he could look out the window. “Well, something’s wrong. This dear, sweet girl set a fire in an empty classroom this morning.”

“Good heavens!”

He nodded and glanced over at her. “She set the fire and was still in the room. If a teacher hadn’t happened along the hallway just when he did, the school and the girl would both be gone.”

Anna was appalled. She couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing, but even less could she imagine Lorna Lacey doing it. That child was as close to an angel as a girl her age could be.

“You look chilled,” Nate said abruptly. “Let me get you some tea or coffee.”

“Tea. Please.” Still stunned, she was hardly aware that he had left the office. Her gaze wandered out to the square, which looked bleak on this graying day. The flowers that usually filled the flower beds were gone, having died in the first frost nearly a month ago. Even the people who usually sat on the benches had vanished, driven away by the bitter wind.

Lorna Lacey. A petite girl of thirteen with soft blue eyes and long blond hair and an irregular face that saved her from being beautiful. But she was attractive, very attractive, because personality bubbled out of her, and she had an infectious smile.

When Anna thought of Lorna, she thought of laughter.

But now she found herself remembering that Lorna hadn’t been laughing as much lately and had missed quite a few youth group meetings in the past year. Anna had ascribed that to the changing interests of adolescence, but now she wondered.

What could be wrong? She hadn’t heard stories of any kind of trouble either from Lorna or the other kids. The girl’s parents, Bridget and Al Lacey, seemed like nice people. Bridget was a little restrained, but that didn’t mean anything. Al greeted the whole world with a big smile, just like his daughter, and was well liked by everyone.

He was active in the church, coaching youth soccer and basketball, and was always ready to lend a hand where it was needed.

Nate returned carrying a couple of mugs. He set the one with the tea bag in it in front of her, along with a couple of packets of sweetener and creamer, and a plastic stirrer. Anna reached for the mug gratefully and cupped her cold hands around it, soaking up the warmth.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No problem.” He sat back in his chair, holding his mug, and resumed his study of the square. “Sleet tonight, I hear. Make sure you get home before it starts.”

“I will.” Neither of them, she guessed, really knew what to say about Lorna Lacey. “Are you sure Lorna started the fire?”

“She said she did. In fact, she seemed real eager to make sure we knew it.”

Anna hardly knew what to say to that. “But why?”

Nate shrugged and looked at her. “That’s why I want you to talk to her, Anna. I know people. You can’t work with all kinds the way I do every day without getting an instinct. Now, most of the kids who get into trouble around here, I could pick ’em out by the time they were eight or nine. Sometimes even earlier. The troublemaking starts young. Some of ’em outgrow it. Those with rotten families are the ones least likely to outgrow it. But what I have never seen is a thoroughly good kid from a good home turn bad without a reason.”

“Bad friends?”

He shook his head. “I’m a great believer in peer pressure, but most kids like Lorna, who are good through and through, withstand that kind of pressure and pick good friends. You know who she hangs out with. Any problems there?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so.”

“Me neither. So we got us a mystery, sweet pea. That child committed an act of arson, and all my warning bells are clanging that this isn’t the act of a pain-in-the-butt kid. It’s a cry for help.”

Anna nodded, agreeing. It had to be. “But help from what?”

“God knows.” Nate sighed and settled deeper into his chair. “I’ve gotta charge her with arson. No way around it. But what scares me more than arson is that I don’t think she intended to leave that room even when the fire got really bad.”

Anna gasped and nearly spilled her tea. She set it quickly on the desk. “Not Lorna!”

“That’s the way it looks to me.”

Even more appalled now, Anna looked blindly out the window. “She hasn’t been coming to youth group meetings as often.”

“No? Then maybe whatever this is wasn’t sudden. Maybe something’s been building for a long time. She could be depressed. That’s not uncommon at her age, but maybe she doesn’t know how to ask for help. Maybe she doesn’t even guess what’s wrong with her. Or maybe she got involved in drugs somehow. Or somebody just slipped her a mickey this morning and she’s on a bad trip. I don’t know.”

He sipped his coffee, then turned to face her fully. “What I know is, I got a kid in one of my cells who shouldn’t be there. It’s not like the handwriting has been on the wall for years. And I’m not gonna be happy until we find the root of this little problem. I don’t want that child to become an ugly statistic because we couldn’t figure out how to help her.”

“Certainly not!”

“So you’ll talk to her?”

“Of course I will!”

He smiled. “I figured you would, sweet pea. I figured you would.”

“Have you talked to her parents yet? Do they have any idea?”

“No idea at all.”

“They’re not going to leave her in jail overnight.”

“They may not have any choice. Judge Williams has set a bond hearing at five o’clock to try to avoid that, but Lorna said she’s just going to tell the judge she’ll do it again if she gets out.”

Anna drew a long breath. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Please. At the very least maybe you can find out why she thinks it’s better to be in jail than out. I got my own ideas, and they ain’t pretty.”

Nor were the possibilities that were occurring to Anna, but she didn’t want to give voice to them. At least, not until she knew what was going on.

“Anyway,” Nate said, putting his mug down, “you’ve got a definite way with kids this age, especially the girls. I’ve noticed it. Hell, everybody’s noticed it. The kids you work with trust and respect you. That gives you a big advantage from square one over some psychologist I might drag in from somewhere else. At least we can skip over the part about developing trust.”

“Just don’t forget that I’m not a psychologist. And speaking of psychologists, the school has one.”

“But he’s never dealt with Lorna before. How long do you think it would take him to get her to open up compared with you?”

“I can’t venture a guess.” And if Lorna had a guy problem of some kind, she might never open up to a man.

“I don’t think we have that kind of time, whatever it is. I’ve known that girl since she was in diapers, and she won’t talk to me. But I don’t think I know her anywhere near as well as you do. So go talk to her, sweet pea. Find out what’s wrong.”

“If I can.”

A few minutes later she climbed the stairs to the jail. Nate had buzzed the jail guard from his office, and she was taken directly to a consultation room. Lorna was brought in just a few minutes later.

“Hi, Lorna.”

The girl didn’t answer. She sat down at the table and kept her eyes averted.

Anna hesitated, trying to feel her way through this. “We’ve missed you at youth group. Don’t you want to come anymore?”

Lorna gave a quick, negative shake of her head without looking at Anna.

“That’s a shame. Everyone there likes you so much.”

Lorna hunched her shoulders but didn’t say anything.

Anna decided to take the bull by the horns. “Sheriff Tate tells me you set fire to a classroom at school this morning. He didn’t want to put you in jail, but he had to.”

Again no response.