“I see the problem.” Tulley was one of the faithful. Also new information.
“Is this what they’re talking about?” He slid a small box across her desk.
Jude opened it and lifted a wad of perfumed pink tissue. “Nope. This is fine. A scarf is a thoughtful gift. Does she wear scarves?”
“All the time.”
“Then she’ll like this one. The design is very…feminine.”
Tulley ran his forearm across his face. “I got some fancy wrapping but I can’t get it looking right.”
“Let’s see.” Jude made a little space on her desk and found a pair of scissors.
Between them they prettied up the box.
“That’s real nice.” Tulley’s shoulders sagged with relief. He stared at the wall clock. “She’ll be here any minute.”
“She’s coming here?” Jude swung her eyes around the office.
Their secretary, Agatha, had taken vacation this week. The difference her presence made was one of aesthetics. Agatha kept the place tidy and under her sharp, schoolmarm stare, both Jude and Tulley diligently tossed wrappers in the trash, took bottles to the recyle bin, and refrained from piling crap all over their desks.
“She’s real interested to see where I work,” Tulley said.
“Great.” Jude got busy straightening up her desk.
“I took out the trash.”
“Oh, that was a big help. Get the vacuum cleaner and start over there.” She pointed at Smoke’m’s feeding area, a quagmire of ground kibble and rawhide fragments.
“I sure appreciate this,” Tulley said.
“You owe me a beer.”
After they’d done cleaning the floor, stacking their books and files, and hiding their television and DVDs in the mock-cherry console that ran beneath the windows, Jude collapsed into her chair and popped open a can of ginger ale.
“How long have you been dating her?” she asked.
“We’re not dating exactly. A while back she invited me to come to church with her and her folks, seeing as they live nearby and I’ve got no family here.”
“That’s nice. So this gift—you’re planning on asking her out?”
Tulley looked miserable. Lowering his voice, he said, “Last few weeks, I got the feeling they were kind of expecting something. Then Mr. Critch gives me this.” He indicated the dating guide.
“Yeah, that’s definitely a hint.” Jude studied the young deputy. “So, do you like this girl?”
Tulley’s ears glowed like night-lights on either side of his lean face. “She’s—”
A sharp little knock severed his reply and Jude found herself looking at a stocky, pink-cheeked professional virgin in her early twenties. Fluffy blond hair cut chin level, placid blue eyes, white frilly blouse, pink chiffon scarf, knee-length floral skirt, and unsexy sandals, she waited in the doorway, toying with the dainty crucifix at her neck.
Tulley leapt to his feet, sweating like a nervous wreck. “Hey, Alyssa. Come on in.”
“Hey, Virgil.” She swept into their office like she was doing them a favor. Her small nose wrinkled as she came to a halt opposite Jude’s desk.
They’d forgotten to spray the room freshener. The place smelled of dog, desert, and donuts. Too late now, Jude thought, standing up to greet her.
Their visitor stuck out her hand. “You must be Detective Devine.”
“Jude works fine.”
The handshake was limp and ladylike. Jude could see why Tulley was losing sleep over the gift. Alyssa Critch looked like the kind of girl who could take offense.
“I’ve never been inside a police station.” She gazed hopefully around. “Do you have actual prisoners here?”
“Uh. Not at this time.” Tulley shot a mortified glance at the Bowflex.
“We’re awaiting renovations.” Jude made it sound like they would be incarcerating vicious felons as soon as some overdue carpentry had happened. “Until then we’re not taking any chances. In the interests of the community.”
Alyssa made a small wet noise like her mouth was watering. She’d be first in line at a stoning, Jude decided, noting the pro-life pin on her tightly buttoned collar. No contradiction there. The Alyssas of this world had scant compassion to spare for the post-fetal.
With a smug little smile, the girl said, “I know it’s kind of early, but I hope you don’t mind if Virgil leaves now. I made a picnic for us.”
“Sounds great. Knock yourselves out.” Jude glanced sideways at Tulley.
He was trying to hide the gift behind his back. She wanted to slip him a note that said:
She’ll never give you any,
or perhaps something less subtle:
Run!
He whistled for Smoke’m.
“You’re planning on bringing that hound?” the damsel asked.
A new tide of red suffused Tulley’s ears. “He won’t be any trouble.”
Saccharine sweet, Alyssa said, “Okay. So long as he rides in the trunk.” Dogs ranked even lower on the charity chart than post-fetal life, it seemed.
But Tulley settled for the crummy option of going it alone with the possible future wife. “He can stay here,” he said and met Jude’s eyes. His disquiet was palpable.
“Good idea,” Jude affirmed. “Wouldn’t want him drooling on Alyssa’s pretty skirt.”
At that, Alyssa gave her a grateful smile, closely followed by a long assessing look. A pitying expression came over her features and Jude realized she had just been examined as potential competition and found sorely wanting. Naturally she was crushed.
“See you later.” Tulley inched toward the door like a condemned man.
“Take your time,” Jude said generously. “I won’t need you until we interview that pervert at two.”
Predictably, this excited a wide-eyed response from Alyssa. “I’ll see to it he’s back in plenty of time, Detective Devine. No decent woman should have to deal with deviants alone, even one as well qualified and capable looking as yourself.”
“I’d sure appreciate that,” Jude said. “I find Virgil completely indispensable when it comes to handling individuals who offend feminine dignity.”
This lavish praise should have earned gratitude, but as Alyssa delicately pawed his bicep, Tulley cast a tormented look in Jude’s direction. She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. If he played his cards right, maybe he would get to first base. She’d certainly done her bit to improve his chances.
*
After Tulley’s truck disappeared, Jude changed out of her chinos and shirt into a uniform, took a spare cell phone from her satchel, and made a call.
“I’m in the clear for a couple of hours.”
Her contact said, “Pay him a visit. Something routine.”
“Apart from the homicide, we have several head of stolen cattle and someone took a dump in front of the Our Lady of Fatima monument. Take your pick.”
“Jesus. It’s a crime wave.”
“Any idea where he’s keeping the stuff?”
“Negative.”
“It’s fairly stable, right?”
“As far as military ordnance goes.”
They signed off and Jude locked up the office and stuck a sign on the door that said:
Called to an emergency. Back at 2 p.m. Phone 911 if urgent assistance is required.
She drove the twenty miles of dirt road to Black Dog Gulch with her mind lurching from Mercy’s persistent tongue to the subject’s lengthy profile. Harrison Hawke was your common garden white supremacist with a fenced-off compound in the middle of nowhere. His organization, the Christian Republic of Aryan Patriots, served up a smorgasbord of paranoid fantasies on its Web site and treated the mental midgets who subscribed to its newsletter to regular rants about Jews and African Americans. Nothing unusual. The FBI monitored countless domestic hate groups of this ilk.
Hawke’s was small, especially after a falling out within the group over the Identity Church’s position on abortion. In an attempt to claw back supporters lost to the National Alliance, Hawke had recently made boasts about having something big in the pipeline and the Bureau had connected him to several significant purchases of the plastic explosive RDX. They’d been following his movements since Jude arrived in the area, and it was time to start closing in.
His wasn’t the only white supremacist cell operating out of the Four Corners. For some reason fringe organizations were buying up land on the Colorado side of the border with Utah. Jude had been sent into the area on a long-term undercover mission. Her general brief involved keeping tabs on the various players. More specifically, she was charged with gathering intelligence on several targets, including Harrison Hawke. Her masters imagined that by posing as a local law officer, she could gain access to this nutcase on the pretext of conducting routine inquiries. Then, as a woman, she was supposed to lower his guard.
Jude thought this was breathtakingly naïve but according to reliable sources, Hawke had a weakness for feisty women and was eager to recruit female supporters. He was the author of several short works on the role of females in his movement and presented himself as a kind of Klan knight in shining armor. He had publicly upbraided his male colleagues for their “backward attitudes toward our White women causing their political flight to the arms of lesbianism and race mixing.” His Web site ruminations on the topic generally ended with the dire prediction: “Men that treat White women like they are mud will soon find it hard to get a date in the Aryan movement.”
This in mind, Jude applied some lipstick and teased her hair up with mousse so it looked like a fashion cut instead of an advertisement for the lesbian lifestyle. She made a conscious effort to walk like a girl as she approached his house. The uniform was a nice touch, she thought. It fit snugly and even if she didn’t have much of a waist, she had long legs and no flab. Besides, Hawke and his breed seemed to have some kind of uniform fetish. It was her guess that, despite his mistrust and loathing for law officers, he would find her look sexy. Hell, maybe he’d get off on her badge, too. Plenty of people had cop fantasies, herself included. She pictured Mercy in tight-fitting black LAPD regulation attire, a personal favorite, and almost whined.
Hawke lived in a dour concrete dwelling with ostentatious security and barred minimalist windows, the most prominent of which was discreetly stickered with an Othala rune, one of the many racist graphics Jude had encountered in her preparations for this assignment. No doubt these elaborate fortifications were supposed to provide protection come the day his place was under fire by puppets of the government looking to deprive him of his God-given constitutional right to own a rocket launcher.
She pressed the doorbell and a stern voice on an intercom said, “State your business, Deputy.”
Jude held her ID up to the security camera above the steel door and said, “Sir, Sheriff’s Detective Jude Devine. I’m conducting routine enquiries into the recent desecration of a local Christian monument. May I speak with you?”
“I have nothing to say.”
“And that is your right.” Hoping to strike a balance between authority and down-home Southwestern good manners, she continued, “Sir, I would sure appreciate it if you could contact the sheriff’s office in Paradox if you hear anything at all about a group of radical extremist lesbians thought to be operating in this area.”
From inside the house, chains rattled and bolts clunked. The door opened and a man with a shaved head stood in front of her, muscle running to fat, tattoos yawning over his flabby arms. Fish-blue eyes surveyed her with deep suspicion.
“Lesbians?”
“That’s what we’re hearing, sir.”
“You think these deviants damaged the monument?”