An Angel for Dry Creek (6 page)

Glory winced. The girl was playing at something she obviously didn't even understand. And she was looking at Matthew as if she was starving and he was a super-sized hamburger. Which was ridiculous, Glory thought. Sure, he was good-looking in a rugged kind of a way. And sure he smelled like the outdoors and sure he had biceps that would get second looks at the beach and—Glory stopped herself. Okay, so the girl wasn't so far wrong. He was worth staring at. But that didn't mean the girl had any right to do it.

“Hey, Linda,” called the little boy, Greg. “Come meet the angel. She's gonna get us presents.”

Linda flicked an annoyed glance down that then softened at the enthusiasm on Greg's face. “That's nice. But I need to talk to the angel myself.”

“I'm not—” Glory began.

“I need some advice,” Linda interrupted impatiently. The teenager looked assessingly at Glory and held out the five-dollar bill. “Some love advice.”

“From me?” Glory squeaked.

“I need to know if I should marry the Jazz Man.”

“The Jazz Man?” Matthew asked as he leaned his crutches against a wall and sat down on a chair. “You don't mean Arnold's boy, Duane?”

“Yeah.” Linda looked at him and snapped her gum. “He's forming a band. Calling himself the Jazz Man.” She stood a little straighter. “Wants me to be his lead singer.”

“And he's proposed?” Glory asked in studied sur
prise. She might not know a lot about love, but she did know about business.

“Yeah, why?” Linda looked at her cautiously.

“Mixing business and pleasure.” Glory shook her head in what she hoped was a convincingly somber fashion. “He won't have to pay you if he marries you.”

“Yeah, I never thought of that,” Linda said slowly, and put the five dollars on Glory's easel. “Thanks.”

“What's the money for—” Glory began, but was interrupted by the bell ringing over the door again.

This time the ringing was incessant and loud. A stocky man in a tan sheriff's uniform stepped into the store and looked around quickly. His eyes fastened on Glory.

“There you are,” he said as he walked toward Glory and put his hand on the end of the gun that stuck out of his holster. “You're under arrest for impersonating an angel. You have the right to—”

“You can't arrest her.” The protest erupted from all across the store.

“Oh, yes, I can,” the deputy said as he clicked the handcuffs from behind his back and picked up the five dollars Linda had left on her easel. “I won't have no con woman plucking my pigeons. Not in my town she won't.”

Plucking his pigeons,
Glory thought in dismay.
Dear Lord, what have I done now?

 

The Bullet leaned against the cold glass of the phone booth. The credit card company records showed the woman had stopped at a gas station in Spokane and then at a bank for a cash advance. He'd followed the usual procedure to find her. He knew loners in a new town found a bar.

“You'll never find her that way,” the voice on the other end of the phone snorted.

“Why not? She's a cop.”

“A Christian cop,” the voice clarified. “Religious as they come. Doesn't drink. Try looking in the churches.”

The Bullet swallowed hard. “Churches? Me?”

“E
asy now,” Deputy Sheriff Carl Wall warned Glory when she stood up. He'd forbidden the others to follow them when he escorted her up the church steps and into a small office off the church's kitchen. She'd been sitting on the edge of the desk for ten minutes now while he argued on the phone. The cuffs he'd put on her hands hung open at her wrists. The key to unlock them was in his patrol car and so he did not lock them shut. They were more for show than because he thought the woman would bolt.

“Well, there's got to be a law against it, Bert,” Carl was saying for the second time into the phone. He twisted the cord around his chubby ginger. “We just can't have folks going around claiming to be angels and things.”

“I never claimed to be an angel,” Glory said, even though she doubted he heard her. He hadn't paid any attention to her the past two times she'd said it. It wasn't because he hadn't heard her, she figured; it was
because he wasn't listening. In her experience, hearing and listening were two different things.

“But an angel's different from Santa Claus,” Carl argued into the phone's mouthpiece, ignoring Glory. He'd already twisted part of the cord around his finger, so now he looped another section around his hand. “Everyone knows Santa Claus isn't real, but folks and angels, well, that's a different story. She's more like a fortune-teller. Gotta be laws against that.”

Glory looked around at the office. There was a boxy window at the end of the room. Everything else was long and skinny. The whole thing wasn't much wider than the desk. She guessed the room had been a pantry at one time, running as it did side by side the whole width of the kitchen. A bookcase lined one long wall and a chair stood to the side of the desk. A filing cabinet was tucked behind the door.

“Of course she hasn't got wings on,” Carl sputtered in exasperation as he eyed Glory suspiciously. He untwisted the cord around his hand and rubbed the red mark he'd created. Glory pulled a book off the shelf and tried to ignore him. “But a person doesn't need a costume to con people. Crooks don't wear signs, for Pete's sake.”

Glory opened the book she held. She loved the smell of old books. They were like old friends. Just holding the book steadied her. If she had to, she could call the police station in Seattle and have them vouch for her honesty. She doubted there were any laws against claiming to be an angel anyway, not even if she sprouted wings and flew off the Empire State Building.

“Well, I can't just let her go,” Carl Wall whined into the phone. Then he looked at Glory again and turned his back to her as though that would muffle his
voice. “I've already taken her in. I'll look bad saying there's no law against it now. I'm going to write her up for impersonating even if the judge says no later.”

A movement through the window caught her eye. Something was happening in the street. Glory looked at the deputy sheriff's back and slid closer to the window. She saw Matthew, standing in the middle of the dirt street and waving a crutch around. The people from the hardware store were gathered around him and Matthew wasn't the only one waving something. Mrs. Hargrove had a broom. Elmer had a yardstick. It looked as if Matthew was giving a speech, but she couldn't hear it through the closed window. She braced her fingers against the frame of the windowpanes and pushed up. A puff of cold air came inside, a puff of dirty cold air, Glory decided as the dust beneath the window blew onto her coat. But she could finally hear the voices outside.

“He'll listen to voters. That's all he wants,” Matthew was saying. A trail of white breath rose from Matthew's mouth. It was cold. Matthew wore a wool jacket over his shirt. It wasn't nearly enough to keep him warm, in Glory's opinion. “There's no need to threaten him with any more than that.”

“But he's got our angel,” Elmer protested.

“We don't know she's an angel,” Matthew said. Glory noticed he had only a slipper on his injured foot. He needed to be inside. She was pretty sure the doctor had told him to stay inside.

“But we don't know she's not, either,” Elmer persisted as he dipped his yardstick for emphasis. “The Bible talks about angels. It could be. We don't know. And who wants to take a chance! Do you?” Elmer took
a breath. “Do you want to be responsible for turning an angel out of Dry Creek?”

The question hung in the air like brittle frost.

Glory pushed the window higher. This was getting interesting.

“Shut that window,” Carl yelled. He was putting down the telephone and had finally noticed where she was. “You aren't going to get far, jumping out that window and evading arrest.”

“I wasn't going to jump,” Glory said in astonishment. “I was just listening to the people in the street out front. I think they're campaigning against you.”

Carl Wall scowled at her. “Mighty lippy for an angel, aren't you?”

Glory grinned. “I'm not an angel.”

“Oh, I know that, but do they know it?” Carl pointed out the window to the people on the street. Glory looked at them. They were gesturing as they talked, and periodically someone would wave a broom. They looked like a mob of janitors. Carl cleared his throat and continued. “These people are my responsibility. As I said, I won't have anyone plucking my flock—not while I'm on duty.”

“I've not asked for a dime from anyone,” Glory protested indignantly. “Linda put that five-dollar bill on my easel. I didn't ask for it. I would have given it back if you hadn't stepped in. I don't want anyone's money.”

“Maybe not yet. But you'll want it sooner or later, won't you?” Carl said as a sly smile slid over his face. “What else can you do? You don't have a job—”

“I have a job,” Glory interrupted firmly. “Not here, of course, but I do have a job with the Seattle Police Department.”

Carl snorted. “Expect me to believe that. You—a police officer. Where's your badge?”

“Well, I don't have a badge….”

“I didn't think so,” Carl said with satisfaction.

“I work for them as a sketch artist. You know, drawing pictures of criminals from the descriptions given by the witnesses.”

“Hmph.” The deputy appeared to consider her words and then shook his head. “Naw, I don't think so. What I think is you're a slick customer trying to make a buck off the poor folks of Dry Creek. Taking advantage of their good holiday spirits. And I aim to catch you at it. The minute you ask for a dime, you're mine.”

“It looks like I'm yours anyway,” Glory said dryly. She wondered why she wasn't fighting harder to leave this little town. But she felt as if she'd begun a story, and she wanted to stay around a couple of days to see what the characters did next. “Sounds like you're all set to make a false arrest.”

Carl scowled. “Don't be telling me how to do my job.”

Glory didn't answer, because there was a loud knock at the door. Well, it wasn't so much of a knock as it was a pounding. A very loud pounding. The sort of sound a crutch would make in the swinging arm of an impatient man.

“Open up!” The command came with the crutch pounding.

Carl Wall walked back to the door and swung it open.

There he stood. Her avenging angel. Glory swallowed. It must be a trick of light. Maybe the reflection of the snow outside. She'd read in her Bible about an
gels last night and her imagination was being overactive. But Matthew sure looked like Daniel's vision, even down to the halo of golden light surrounding his head. She mouthed the words silently.
“There stood a certain man—his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire.”

Glory swallowed again. Definitely torches of fire.

“Your game's over,” Matthew said, and stepped inside the room.

Glory started to breathe again. The halo of light didn't follow Matthew. It stayed just where it was and, when her eyes followed the beam downward, she saw the flashlight in Josh's mittened hands. The boy loved lights even in the day. She smiled. She wasn't crazy. It was artificial light. That's all. She was perfectly able to tell the difference between an angel of God and an ordinary man.

“You can't arrest her,” Matthew said as he looked squarely at Carl Well. “She hasn't done anything illegal.”

“Loitering,” the deputy said smoothly. “There's always loitering.”

“She wasn't loitering.” Matthew took a deep breath.

“Then what was she doing in the hardware store?” the deputy pressed.

“Painting.” Matthew paused.

“For pay?”

“No, not for pay, but—”

“Then it's loitering,” the deputy said in satisfaction. “Next thing to panhandling. Street artists. If she's got no job, she's loitering.”

“Well, if she needs a job, she's got a job,” Matthew said in exasperation. “She's working for me.”

Carl looked from Matthew to Glory and then back
to Matthew. The satisfied look on the deputy's face grew. “Told me she worked for the Seattle Police Department.”

“Well, she doesn't. She's working for me,” Matthew said forcefully, as though he could convince the deputy of his statement by the sheer pressure of his words. “As of today.”

“But I—” Glory started to protest. Why was it these people were so willing to believe she was an angel and so reluctant to believe she worked for a police department? Which was more likely? Then she saw the look on Matthew's face. Pain was drawing his skin tight. He shouldn't be on his feet. She looked back at the deputy. “What difference does it make where I work—if you're going to arrest me, do it. If not, let me go.”

“Arrest you? He can't arrest you!” Mrs. Hargrove pushed her way into the room and stood there looking solid and indignant.

“Don't be telling me how to do my job.”

“I'm a voter and I can jolly well tell you how to do your job!” Mrs. Hargrove jabbed her finger in the deputy's face. “Besides, I've known you since you were in diapers. That ought to count for something.”

Glory watched the muscles slowly coil in the deputy's face.

“Hmph!” Mrs. Hargrove crossed her arms and said smugly, “Can't lock her up anyway. We don't even have a jail.”

“Well, I won't have to lock her up. I'll settle for a ticket if I can find an upstanding citizen to take responsibility for watching her—maybe see she does some community service.” The deputy looked pleased with himself. “Yes, an upstanding citizen is just what I need. Maybe someone like a minister.”

“But we don't have a minister, Carl Wall, and you know it,” Mrs. Hargrove said indignantly.

“We would have if you'd given the nod to my cousin Fred,” the deputy said smoothly.

“Your Fred isn't trained to be a pastor.” Mrs. Hargrove put her hands on her hips. “Besides, he isn't even a believer.”

“Well, he needs a job. He sent in his résumé. You didn't have any other applicants. In my book, that makes the job his.”

“Being a pastor isn't just a job. It's a calling. Besides, it's a good thing for you we don't have a minister around.” She drew in her breath sharply and looked at Matthew.

“If there's no minister, that leaves jail. I can always send her to the jail in Miles City.”

“But that's an awful place,” Mrs. Hargrove protested. “They're talking about closing it down. It's not even heated, just a big old cement block. You can't put someone in there in winter!”

“Well, it's not my first choice. But since you're too good to have the likes of Fred as a minister, I guess I don't have any other options now, do I?”

“The voters won't like this.”

The deputy shrugged. “I tried to be reasonable. I'm sure Fred mentioned he was willing to read the Bible and get an idea of what the thing was all about. On-the-job training, so to speak. But no, you need to have someone who believes the whole thing. It's not too late. Fred's probably at home right now. We can call him and make the deal,” he added smugly. “Remember, no minister means the angel goes to jail.”

“But…” Mrs. Hargrove struggled to speak. “This is outrageous!”

“No minister means the angel goes to jail,” the deputy repeated stubbornly.

“I'm a minister,” Matthew said softly. It was freezing outside and still a thin sheen of sweat covered his forehead. “At least, according to the state. Marrying, burying—I can do all those. I expect I can keep my eye on an angel.”

“You're a what?” The deputy looked skeptical.

“A minister.” Matthew had a sinking feeling. He shouldn't have said anything. But he couldn't stand the thought of Glory spending time in that jail.

“You had a church?”

“Yes, in Havre.”

“Well, why aren't you preaching here? We could use a minister at the church,” the deputy persisted. “Even Fred would give way to a real preacher.”

“I don't preach anymore,” Matthew said evenly. His breath was shallow, but he was plowing his way through. He couldn't let his annoyance flare. Not if he wanted the deputy to cooperate.

“What? You retired from it?”

“In a way.”

“Mighty young to be retired.”

“Most people change jobs over a lifetime.”

“But ministers?” the deputy asked, puzzled. “I've never known a minister to just quit his job before.”

“Well, now you do,” Matthew snapped. “Just let me know what I need to do to supervise the ang—I mean, Glory, and I'll do it.”

“See, we do have a minister,” Mrs. Hargrove said triumphantly. “God provides.”

“Well, God isn't providing much,” the deputy said as he nodded toward Matthew. “But I suppose it'll be all right.” The deputy admitted defeat grudgingly. “I'll
just write that ticket and you can set her up with some worthwhile community service. She works off the fine. If she messes up, she pays the fine. Simple. I'll check in later this week.”