On Pins and Needles

“You got in awful late last night and you’re up even earlier than usual this mornin’,” Junebug observed then, as Josh poured himself a cup of coffee. She sat at the kitchen table with her own mug and the romance novel she read a few pages of each day since she was up before the news pa per arrived.

“Something’s happened,” Josh answered as he joined her. Then he went on to explain the discovery of the grave on Megan Bailey’s property.

When he’d given his mother all the details—except for the fact that he’d been about to undergo acupuncture when Burt Connor had found him—Josh said, “Anything you remember about the Baileys from way back?”

Apparently there was, because Junebug turned down the corner of one page in her book and closed it as if she knew she wasn’t going to be reading any more of it.

“Not likely to forget those people,” she told Josh then. “They weren’t like anybody else around these parts.”

“I know they’re environmentalists,” he supplied.

“If that’s what you call it. Most folks called it rabble-rousin’ and trouble-makin’ and worse. They turned that farm of theirs into one of them communes for a while before they had kids. There were rumors of free love and drug-takin’ and who knows what all goin’ on.”

“Really?” Josh said, interested to hear what his mother was saying. “What happened after they had kids?”

“No more communal livin’ with the slew of long-haired, smelly sorts they had there before. But even after that they’d let just any passerby into their house. It’s one thing to be neighborly and friendly and hospitable to folks if you know ’em or if you know somebody else who knows ’em. But the Baileys, they’d take in vagabonds and riffraff, anybody.”

“Do you remember anyone like that in particular? Around eighteen years ago?”

Josh’s mother was an enormous woman—six feet tall and three hundred pounds. Her hair was pure white and she wore it pulled into a bun on the top of her head, leaving every inch of her meaty face exposed for the look she gave her son that said he was out of his mind.

“Do I remember who might have been hangin’ around the Bailey place eighteen years ago? ’Course not. It wasn’t like I visited with ’em. They alienated them selves from folks around here.”

“How did they do that?”

“Mostly by not eatin’ meat.”

“A lot of people don’t eat meat,” Josh pointed out, suppressing a smile at his mother’s horror at the very notion.

“Not back when they were around. But even then nobody woulda cared what they ate or didn’t eat except that they made it known that they objected to the raisin’ of animals for food. That didn’t make ’em popular in ranch country. Plus they picketed around town and made more’n one scene at Margie Wilson’s Café and over at the Dairy King. Then there was some vandalizing of the slaughter house that every body knew had to be them even though the sheriff at the time couldn’t prove it.”

Junebug paused a moment, as if some thing had just occurred to her.

Amidst more sneezing, Josh hoped for a breakthrough, some flash of memory about someone or something that had gone on at the Bailey place eighteen years ago.

But that wasn’t what he got. Instead his mother said, “Come to think of it, it doesn’t really fit that they’d be involved in hurtin’ a person when they were so set against any harm comin’ to any livin’ thing. They thought eatin’ an egg was a crime against nature.”

“That’s what their daughter says about them, too.”

“Pretty girls, those Bailey daughters. I saw ’em in town the other day. Which of ’em were you talkin’ to?”

“Megan. The one Scott knows.”

“The acupuncture one?”

“Yeah.”

That’s all he said—yeah. And some thing about it was enough to raise his mother’s bushy white eyebrows.

“What about the other one? Did you do any talkin’ to her?” Junebug asked as if she were testing him.

“I didn’t meet the other one. She didn’t come home the whole time I was at their place overseeing the removal of the evidence.”

“But you liked the acupuncture one well enough.”

It was a statement of fact, not a question, and even though Josh was a grown man his mother still surprised him with how easily she could see through him.

“I didn’t find anything to dislike about her,” he answered, making sure to sound completely noncommittal. “But my job isn’t to like or dislike her. My job is to find out how and why someone was buried in her backyard eighteen years ago, the same month her family moved out of Elk Creek.”

A slow, knowing grin spread across Junebug’s face. “Oh, you liked ’er all right.”

Josh just rolled his eyes and forced the subject back to the matters at hand. “What about anybody around here disappearing suddenly, eighteen years ago? Do you remember anything like that? Maybe someone connected with the slaughter house? Or to some thing else the Baileys were opposed to?”

“Nah.” Junebug confirmed what Millie had told him the night before about the lack of missing persons cases in town. “Besides, if somethin’ like that had ever happened ’round here there’d still be talk and you’d of heard it already yourself.”

That was true enough. Stories in Elk Creek were told over and over through generations.

“But if the Baileys took in passers-by,” Josh reasoned, “there could have been someone there who no one else knew or took notice of. Or would have thought twice about when they weren’t around anymore.”

“S’pose so. Here today, gone tomorrow, there were a lot of folks like that with the Baileys. But then there’s always been ranch hands or crop-pickers who’ve come in and left again without much ado. It’s just that the Baileys were the only ones to open their doors to even the disreputable sorts who happened through.”

Josh nodded, taking a mental note of the picture his mother was painting of the Baileys and realizing that it didn’t make his job any easier.

Then he said, “And there isn’t anything else you can think of that might help?”

Junebug shrugged her beefy shoulders. “Sorry.” Then, as if that were far less important than the interest she thought her son had in Megan Bailey, she said, “Maybe you ought to try that acupuncture for your allergy.”

Josh pre tended that was the farthest thing from his mind.

“Couldn’t hurt,” Junebug persisted.

“Having needles stuck in me? What about that do you think couldn’t hurt?” he scoffed.

“They say it’s painless.”

“Who says?”

“I’ve just heard. Besides, you could stare into that Megan Bailey’s pretty face and I’ll bet you wouldn’t even feel the pain.”

“I have an investigation into an eighteen-year-old crime on my hands. I don’t have time for whatever it is you’re tryin’ to encourage here.”

“Investigatin’ a body in her backyard’ll give you the chance to see ’er. Talk to ’er. Get to know ’er. Havin’ her do acupuncture, that would be another way. You keep to yourself too much ever since Farrah did wrong by you. Time you get out there again.”

Josh finished his coffee and took his cup to the sink. “I think for now I’ll just tend to business, if that’s all right with you.”

Junebug didn’t say another word as Josh suffered through one more sneezing attack.

But once it was over and he headed out of the kitchen to get to work, he caught her smiling that knowing smile again.

Only this time it irritated him to no end.

“How did a Ladies’ League meeting and dinner turn into some thing that kept you out so late I fell asleep waiting for you?” Megan asked her sister Annissa when Annissa got out of bed at eight the next morning and came into the kitchen where Megan was having tea and toast.

“Didn’t you get the message I left on the answering machine?” Nissa countered with a question of her own.

“I got it but all you said was you’d had a good response to the chair massages and didn’t know when you’d get here. What exactly does that mean? The Ladies’ League had you doing chair massages until after midnight?”

Nissa laughed as she made herself a cup of herbal tea. “No, but I was a big hit there. So big that Kansas Heller suggested that if I was interested in drumming up even more business I should take the chair to her husband’s honky-tonk one night and do a few free massages there, too. You know, The Buckin’ Bronco, over by the train station? She said I’d be introducing the massages to a whole different con tin gent and broaden my customer base. I thought she was right and that I should strike while the iron was hot, so when she offered to take me over right then, I accepted.”

“And you were a big hit there, too,” Megan guessed.

“I handed out every card and coupon I had with me and then started writing our office phone number and the ten-percent-off deal on bar napkins. And all the while I talked about the good acupuncture can do, too. I know it was unconventional but I really think I drummed up some business yesterday and last night.”

“Great.”

Nissa moved to the kitchen sink to set the tea ball in it to drain just as Megan said, “I had a pretty amazing night myself.”

“What in the world…”

Nissa wasn’t commenting on what Megan had said. Megan knew that her sister had just caught sight of the crime scene tape around the hole that stood between the house and the dilapidated barn out back. It was the opening Megan had been waiting for and she finally filled Nissa in on the events of the previous evening.

When she’d finished, she said, “Do you remember anything unusual about the time just before we left here? Anything that might help identify who the man was or what happened to him?”

Nissa shrugged and shook her head at once. “No. I remember the two of us crying because we didn’t want to go and not liking the idea of living on a bus, but that’s about all. It was a long time ago.”

“My point exactly! But Josh Brimley refuses to see that.”

“And he’s convinced Mom and Dad had some thing to do with whatever happened?” Nissa asked, referring to that portion of what Megan had told her.

“So convinced that if they were here now I think he’d have them locked up already,” Megan confirmed.

“That’s just crazy. They wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“Also what I told him. His only answer was that it’s hard for people to believe the worst of their family.”

“That’s true, but still, Mom and Dad wouldn’t hurt a flea, let alone another human being.”

“Josh Brimley isn’t going to take your word any more than he took mine.”

“Did you put the call in to Peru?” Nissa asked as she came to sit at the table with Megan, in the same chair Josh Brimley had occupied the evening before.

The same chair Megan had spent too much time this morning staring at and picturing him in the night before. All handsome and muscular…

And suspicious. Don’t lose sight of that, she told herself.

“I called the number the folks gave us if we needed to reach them,” Megan said when she’d leashed her thoughts. “But there’s no telling how long it will take to get the message out to them and arrange long-distance ship-to-shore contact. The person I spoke to warned me that it could be days.”

“I don’t suppose the sheriff will be happy to hear that.”

“You can bet on it.” Of course he had shown a little pleasure in certain things the previous evening, but none of them had had to do with being denied his requests or a delay in doing his bidding.

“Had you done his acupuncture before all this happened?” Nissa asked then.

“No, he was in the process of telling me that he thought it was hocus-pocus or voodoo or some thing.”

“Ah, he’s one of those.”

“It didn’t bother me at first. I thought he was just being honest about his skepticism, and that I’d win him over. But later… Well, he made me mad with his barely veiled accusations of Mom and Dad, and I changed my mind.”

Nissa laughed. “It bothered you belatedly?”

“Some thing like that. But by then everything about him bothered me.”

“Oh?” There was a lilt in her sister’s tone that made Nissa seem more interested in that than in anything else they’d been talking about. “What else about him bothered you?”

“His tunnel-vision. His close-mind ed ness. The fact that he has a basketful of preconceived notions about me and acupuncture and our whole family—including that Mom and Dad could be murderers, of all things. He’s definitely what I swore to myself I’d never get involved with again after Noel, that’s for sure.”

“Were we talking about you getting involved with him?”

“No, I’m just saying—”

“But obviously the thought occurred to you.”

Her sister knew her too well and Megan realized there was no sense in denying that the vague thought of some fleeting kind of involvement with Josh Brimley had flitted through her mind.

“Okay, maybe, just in passing,” she conceded. “He’s a great big, good-looking guy. It would have occurred to anyone.”

“So you were attracted to him.”

“I wouldn’t say attracted, no. I just did some objective observation.”

“And came to the conclusion that he was a great big, good-looking guy,” Nissa repeated, teasing her now.

“That’s not a conclusion I needed to come to. It’s an empirical fact.”

“An empirical fact that you took note of.”

“Do you want to talk about the problems this man is determined to cause us or about his appearance?”

“Maybe you could flirt us out of problems with him,” Nissa joked.

“You definitely don’t know Josh Brimley.” Although there had been some flirting going on in the under currents.

Or had she only imagined it? Maybe at the same time she’d been imagining him kissing her…

“This is serious, Nissa,” Megan claimed as if her own mind hadn’t just wandered from the weightiness of the situation. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take it lightly.”

Nissa shrugged again. “No matter how we take it, what can we do about it? I assume this Josh Brimley is going to investigate and find out what really happened all those years ago and who did it.”

“But will he find out the truth if he doesn’t look at any scenario that doesn’t put the blame on Mom and Dad? Because as it stands now, he seems to believe that our leaving Elk Creek was a sign of their guilt, that they were running away.”

“I have to think that the truth will out,” Nissa said, honestly sounding un concerned as she took her cup and headed for the shower.

But Megan couldn’t be so confident. She didn’t for a minute doubt her parents’ innocence. But she did doubt that Josh Brimley would explore other possibilities since he’d seemed to have his heels dug into suspecting them.

So what was she going to do about it? she asked herself.

But she didn’t have an instant answer.

Especially not when that kitchen chair Nissa had just vacated started taunting her with images of the sheriff sitting in it again.

And once that happened, she had trouble concentrating on anything else….

When Josh Brimley showed up at her office at about the same time that afternoon that he had the afternoon before, Megan’s first thought was that he must have been passing by, seen her through the waiting room windows putting the final touches on the base board paint and decided that even though it was Sunday he might as well take advantage of her being there and come in to have the acupuncture they hadn’t gotten to the previous day. She even imagined that he’d re considered everything, realized how silly he was being to suspect her parents of murder, opened up his mind to an alternative allergy treatment, and they could start fresh.

Okay, so maybe she was being naive and overly optimistic. But she certainly didn’t expect what he’d really come for.

“You have a warrant to search our house and be longings?”

“That’s what I said. I’ll need you to take us over there and let us in right now.”

“Us?”

He nodded his handsome head over his shoulder and for the first time Megan noted the forensics van that had been at her house the prior evening and a State Patrol car parked on the opposite side of Center Street near Josh’s squad car.

“You can’t be serious,” she said in clear disbelief.

“As serious as I can get,” he assured her. “It’s standard operating procedure. The forensics guys want another look around in daylight and the patrolmen and I need to search the house and premises. I had to go into Cheyenne and interrupt a judge’s Sunday dinner to get the warrant but I didn’t have any problem convincing the judge that it should be issued and executed immediately.”

“Right. On a Sunday. Before Nissa and I might destroy evidence that’s already been around for eighteen years.”

“It’s just routine.”

“For you to go through our things?” Megan said as the reality of a home search began to sink in.

Josh’s silence confirmed that he was. “You’re welcome to just give me the key and stay here so you don’t have to see it.”

That was even worse.

“You can’t go into my house without me at least being there.”

“It’s up to you. But one way or another I’m already slowing things down by coming here first to let you know. I have to get out there.”

Was that supposed to make her feel better? That he was allowing her some small courtesy he wouldn’t have allowed someone else before he rifled through her under wear drawer?

Well, it didn’t make her feel better about it. Not in the least.

But regardless of how she felt, when she glanced at the warrant he handed her as proof of what he was saying, she could see she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“I guess I’ll have to take you,” she finally said, wishing her sister were there to go along. But Nissa had garnered more than interest from potential clients the previous night and had gone on a date to Cheyenne for the day and evening. Which left Megan alone on the hot seat.

“We’ll mainly be looking for blood,” Josh told her. “On the walls, the floors, the base boards, the door jambs, the edges and corners of counters and cup boards, and on whatever furniture has been there all along. We’ll probably have to spray luminol inside the drawers of any dresser that you didn’t bring with you, but you can take out your personal things yourself before we do that. And on the bright side, for now the warrant doesn’t allow us to pull up floor boards or get into your pipes.”

He seemed to think that was some kind of consolation. He also almost sounded sympathetic and apologetic. But none of it made any difference. A bunch of strangers—men—were about to go into her home, open her closet doors, her cup boards, her drawers, and go through every nook and cranny of her living quarters, no matter how private. There was no consolation for that and even if he was sorry about it, it didn’t change anything.

But since there was nothing she could do to stop it, Megan closed her paint can, went to set her brush to soak in the sink in the break room and, without another word to Josh Brimley, she walked out of her office to her car, thinking the whole way that no matter how terrific-looking Josh Brimley was, it didn’t make up for this.

The search took several hours and Megan hated every minute of it. Even though Josh allowed her to be the one to take her and Nissa’s undergarments from the drawers, and their personal things from the bathroom, he was still right there watching her, keeping an eye on everything she removed as she removed it.

It was humiliating. Embarrassing. Enraging.

And it made her determined to dish out a little in return. So, once her and Nissa’s unmentionables were out of the way, she opted for never letting Josh out of her sight as if she didn’t trust him as far as she could see him.

But it didn’t seem to bother him quite the same way. Instead, as if she weren’t there at all, he went about his business.

As the forensics unit studied the grave and surrounding area, and the patrolmen walked the rest of the property and searched the old barn, Josh searched the house.

He did a thorough job of it, beginning by getting up into the attic and down into the crawl space, then turning his attention to the main floor and the second level of the two-story home.

Since the furniture had been there from before her family had taken to the road, Josh left no piece of it unmoved, over turned, or with a drawer that wasn’t pulled completely free and checked inside and out.

When that was accomplished, he sprayed the luminol over nearly every surface and used a fluorescent light that he explained would expose even old blood that was in visible to the naked eye.

And while he confiscated several items—her father’s ancient sneakers and her mother’s equally aged gardening gloves among them—Megan was convinced he didn’t find anything that would end up being evidence of a crime.

It was after eight o’clock that evening before Josh decreed the search over. The forensics men had left before sundown but the other two officers had stayed as long as Josh.

Megan could see them through the living room window, talking beside the patrol car. She wondered if they were all just going to leave or if at least one of them would allow her the courtesy of a goodbye.

She didn’t have long to wonder, though. After a while Josh shook both men’s hands and watched them get in their car.

But he didn’t follow suit. Instead he stayed staring after them until they’d driven out of sight.

Then he retraced his steps back to the house and came in without so much as a knock on the front door that opened into the living room.

Still, he didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t say anything. He merely leaned a nonchalant shoulder against the door he’d closed behind himself and gave Megan the once-over.

“Time for my strip search?” she said facetiously before she realized what she was actually saying.

Josh cracked a smile—the first since he’d shown up at her office that afternoon—and raised a charmingly lascivious eyebrow at her. “Are you offering?”

Megan could feel her face heat and knew it was turning cherry-red—a hazard of having such a fair complexion. “I just meant that that seems like the only thing you haven’t done here, so I’m wondering if that’s what I’m in store for since you didn’t leave with the rest of them.”

She was only making it worse and she knew it, so she finally stopped talking.

Josh’s smile remained, as if he were still enjoying her blunder and the blush it had induced. “As a matter of fact, I’m off the clock now and I thought I’d help get everything back in place.”

“Oh,” she said for lack of a better response as his big hands began to roll up the cuffs of his uniform shirt, exposing thick wrists and hair-spattered forearms.

Helping to put everything back in place was a nice thing for him to do but it left Megan in a melee of mixed feelings.

She was mad at him for this whole thing. For suspecting her parents. For searching her home.

But at the same time, here she was feeling pleased by his offer to pitch in with the cleanup and admiring the sight of oh-so-masculine hands and wrists and arms, of all things.

Of course it had been that way all afternoon and evening. Even in the midst of invading her privacy not a detail about him had escaped her notice.

She’d taken in every scuff on his cowboy boots, and the snug caress of blue jeans that fitted his to-die for derriere like kid gloves. She’d studied his uniform shirt—a tan color with darker brown epaulets and flaps on the breast pockets. She’d surreptitiously read the lettering on the sheriff’s department insignias that rode each of the sleeves where his biceps stretched them to their limit. She’d memorized the number on the badge emblazoned on a chest that appeared to be made up of massive pectorals. And all in all she couldn’t help but be aware of how incredibly appealing he looked. Despite the fact that he was tossing her home as if she were a common criminal.

“So what do you say? Let’s put this place back in order.”

For a moment more Megan just stared at him. He’d been freshly shaved when he’d shown up at her office and she could still smell the faint scent of a sea breeze-like after shave wafting to her from where he stood.