Lady Smith Lock and Key Pt. 05

Drunk on power, I considered requiring ID badges be worn, but that costs money and they're impractical for the type of business I'm now a part of. I did go as far as calling the Police and Fire Department to test the fire escape doors.

I'm updating my loss prevention matrix when a soft knock comes at my office door. I have an office door. Never thought that would happen. I tilt my eyes and see Lucas.

"You need something?" I ask.

"Just checking in," Lucas says. He leans against the doorway, and I have to look away from him. I pretend to work, but he's too distracting. He checks in a lot. "Mechanics are saying they don't like the test drive around the parking lot. Stops them from diagnosing issues properly."

"Tell them they can blame their predecessors. Also, you don't need to go sixty on the freeway to diagnosis half of the shit they'd claim. They just want to drive a Rolls Royce for longer," I say with a taunting held tilt.

"I know. I'm just letting you know the grumbling has begun and you're the target of the ire," he says with a grin. Good luck bitching about the woman the boss is dicking. "Is your ear okay?"

The ear Terrence bit had a band-aid on it for much of the weekend but is now scabbed over. It's more noticeable now than when he bit me.

"It's fine, I burned it while curling my hair," I say. He notices my hair isn't curled. "Exactly why my hair is still straight." He gives the universal expression of ah. "Anything else?"

Lucas hasn't tried making a move on me since I signed the contract. I can tell he wants to, but something about me working down the hall from him is making him hesitant. He wants to talk about it but isn't sure how to. I'm tired of waiting for him to talk about it first.

"Let me start. We had sex in the back of a car. We liked it, even though we got arrested."

"I'm sorry if I'm a little cagey right now," he says. I lean back into my chair to show I'm not working and I'm only listening. "Last time I started a relationship like this, she literally took the company."

"I promise I'll never marry you," I say, and he laughs. I laugh as well, and he looks down, and then back up to me. The man is twenty pounds of charisma in a five-pound bag, so I'm not sure if I like this more vulnerable side of him. A man being multi-dimensional doesn't hurt I suppose, but this isn't the man I wanted to jump into a car with.

"Thanks, I guess. I don't want to make things weird here. Plus, you said you'll only spend half of your day here," he says. I agreed to four hours a day for a significantly reduced salary. I'm basically a consultant. Might be awkward to keep working here after I help rob the place next week.

"Lucas, I had fun, but if that's where it ends, I'm okay with that. I'm not relationship material anyway. I don't date on purpose," I explain. I'm not lying. Relationships bring trouble, and the trouble is named Lady.

"Okay," he says. He taps the doorframe a few times, like he's trying to force himself to leave, but doesn't believe the conversation has ended organically. He waits too long and makes it awkward by just leaving with a small smile. That man wants me, but thinks I'm dangerous, which makes him want me more. Vicious cycle.

My phone chimes, and I look down at the screen. I never saved Matt's name to his number, but I've sadly remembered the New Mexico area code.

"Queen of Hearts. 1700." Didn't take him for military time.

"Just say 5 like a normal person. And too early. I can do 9."

"See you then."

--

I haven't seen Matt since I ran him over in a parking lot. We decided to keep our distance for little bit. I figured that meant months, if we ever saw each other again. Matt couldn't last two weeks without seeing me. When I get to the diner he's sitting on the Queen of Hearts and had already ordered for me. I shoo him onto the King of Hearts and sit next to him.

"I think the cops bought our story," he says. I sip from a fresh cup of coffee and take the bacon off his plate before he switches them.

"Probably not, but coincidence isn't evidence," I explain. "Also, Detective Deacon has been ordered to leave me alone."

"I heard about that. Think he will?"

"Fuck no, but now if he finds anything it's already tainted. What about Kirkpatrick?"

"Haven't heard from her in a few days."

"Why'd you want to meet?" I ask. His face recoils like I slapped him.

"Just wanted to see you," he says, and I laugh. "What?"

"I'm not worth it," I remind him.

"Let me decide that for myself."

"Matt, let me be perfectly clear who you are right now," I say, and turn myself to face him. "You're the guy who thinks the strippers love you for your personality."

"I've never paid you for it."

"You paid and didn't get any. That's worse. That's Only Fans sad," I say.

If I was a normal girl, with a normal job, and he was exactly the way he is now, I could. Not could, I would. More than I'd be willing to with Lucas. There is a greater sincereness to Matt. Even when you calculate the things he likely witnessed while working for drug cartels. I know if someone tried to hurt me, Matt would defend me. I don't quite get that felling from Lucas. Lucas is just the guy I tell Matt not to worry about.

My phone rings, but I press the side button to send it to voice mail.

"Matt, I'm first the girl who touched your dick since your wife stopped. That's it."

"When this is all over. Whatever this is, can we talk again?" he asks. He's putting more faith in me than I'm honestly comfortable with.

"When this is all over, you'll never see me again," I say, and I mean it. Debt paid, Lady gone.

Matt drops a few bills on the table, and I start to protest, but he stops me. He leaves his chair, and leans down into my lips. He kisses me once and leaves without another word or looking back. I'm so surprised I slowly touch my lower lip with my thumb. I'm the girl who just watched the guy I could have ended up with walk out of my life forever.

My phone chimes from a text message. Just in time to knock me out of my funk.

"So...are you still a driver?" It's Ryan Justin.

"No. I'm your Chief of Security." Maybe he didn't get the memo.

"Big client tonight."

"That's great. Call a different driver."

I wait for a response, but he realizes calling is easier.

"I don't do that anymore," I say. I've waited far too long to say that, and not be lying to myself.

"He's offering a solid grand..."

"...don't care," I say, and he stutters his reply. "I'm done." He tries to keep talking, but I hang up and sip my coffee.

--

-Trixie Kirkpatrick-

Leanne Spotted Bear retired from the Boise, Idaho police department ten years ago. Not long after she retired, she settled down with her now ex-husband in Yellowstone County, Montana. After the divorce she moved to Daniels County for a job with Customs and Border Protection. Her last known address places her in Scobey, Montana, where she likely works at the border checkpoint.

I tried calling her all weekend, but she never answered or returned my messages. I leave at four in the morning to make the five-hour drive to Scobey. I take I-94 and stop for gas twice. The flash drive in the evidence box contained the audio and video recordings from the crime scene, and the interviews. I downloaded the interviews onto my work computer and emailed them to myself so I can play them on my phone. The interviews are my road trip playlist.

I don't learn much from them that I didn't already know. Jodie Potter, Lady's mother, sounds incredibly indifferent and not surprised her husband took three rounds in a motel. Lady was also interviewed. Miles interviewed her himself. Fucking Miles. I haven't been able to find him since his suspension. He's known Lady Smith since she was a girl. Lady doesn't seem to remember him.

Lady hadn't seen her father in nearly a year, so her interview wasn't helpful. It helped confirm his estrangement. Jodie said she hadn't heard from him in about two months. He had asked for money, and she sent him packing again. Her whereabouts at the time of the murder was her cashier job at a supermarket. The supermarket was less than a mile from the motel. Jodie would have been my first suspect.

The bullets recovered at the motel were 9mm. The problem is that Jodie's only known firearm was a.38 police special. The vehicle seen leaving the motel shortly after the shooting was non-descript pick-up truck. She didn't own a truck. Even if they liked her for the murder, they wouldn't have enough to pursue charges.

Every known loan shark in the city was found, but nothing could stick to any of them. Miles's confidential informants scoured for information, but no one knew anyone who had a large enough issue with John Smith to warrant his death.

I go through all the interview tapes several times before I see a sign welcoming me to Scobey. When the GPS tells me I'm minutes away I call Leanne again. Nothing. I follow the GPS through downtown Scobey and out the other side. Small town downtown America with two lanes of traffic between two rows of one and two-story buildings. It takes me to a more isolated location. Her home is at the end of a private driveway with the gate closed.

I leave the car running and step out to check the gate. It's secured with a heavy padlock. There are recent tire tracks, so I know the home isn't vacant. The mailbox that extends over the fence in labeled S. Bear. I try calling her again. Nope.

Fuck it. I park the car off the road and take the keys with me. I maneuver the evidence box through the gap in the fence and climb over the top. From a distance it looks about a quarter mile to the front porch. In the driveway to the side of the house and in front of a detached garage is a 4xDoor Jeep Wrangler. The house is two stories and stout. Likely three rooms, with two on the second floor. It's in a serious need of a coat a fresh paint. It still has the sickly yellow that was popular decades ago. The property is nothing but calf-high brown grass.

Suddenly, I hear a sound you never want to hear when you're a cop; the cocking of a shotgun. My head swings up to the porch and I see a woman with a shotgun trained right at me. I raise my hands up, trip over myself and fall into the grass, the box landing next to me, but staying shut.

"Police, don't shoot!"

"What are you doing on my land?" the woman asks calmly.

"Leanne Spotted Bear?"

"That's what the mailbox says. Gate was locked, what're you doing here?" she asks.

"I'm a police officer. Just wanted to ask a few questions."

"Badge?" she asks. I start to reach for it. "Slowly." I slow down and hold up my badge. The shotgun finally goes away. "Sorry, just checking."

"I'm on someone's property in Montana. I'm the idiot," I admit. You break into someone's house in rural Montana, that's your own ass. Leanne leans her shotgun against a column on the porch and walks down. She extends her hand out and helps me to my feet. "Thanks."

Leanne Spotted Bear is well into her fifties, but she's a vicious cougar. Light brown skin and jet-black hair she's styled into a single long braid. Flannel shirt tucked into blue jeans with a belt buckle complete with cowboy boots. Brown eyes that watch you like a mountain lion follows prey. The boom stick is just an accessory. The name is clearly Indigenous, and I'm curious as to which tribe.

"Spotted Bear? What tribe is that?" I ask as she turns away and starts back up her porch again.

"Mandan, Hidatsa, or Arikara" she replies. She clears the shotgun and tucks the shell into the chest pocket of her shirt. "You didn't come here to talk about my lineage. You the one whose been calling?"

"I am." I start following her up the porch. She tucks the shotgun into the crook of her elbow and leaves the door open for me. "I'm looking into the murder of John Smith."

"Who killed him, Jane Doe?" she asks, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"2009, but you looked into the case in 2012," I say.

"2012?"

"You signed out the evidence box. Even used your Boise credentials to do it. A year after you retired."

Leanne replaces the shotgun in a glass gunrack. She offers me coffee which I accept.

"What's your name?"

"Oh, sorry. Trixie Kirkpatrick. I'm a detective from Billings."

"Alright Trix," she says. Pet name or insult? "I may remember being hired to look into a murder in Billings. Long time ago."

"Who hired you?"

"Might have been the man's father."

Leanne is answering everything as vague as possible. Vague for plausible deniability with a wink meant for me.

"Why use your expired credentials?"

"Opened doors faster and no one asked questions." I believe that.

I follow her to the kitchen where she already has a hot pot of coffee. I take it black and she leads me to her kitchen table. I place the evidence box on top and have a seat.

"Mom, going out, can I take the jeep?" a young girl asks after thudding down the stairs and turning sharply into the kitchen. Leanne digs into her pocket and holds up a set of keys.

"I need it at one. Love you," she says. The girl takes the keys, kissing the top of her mother's head, and leaves with the screen door slapping the door frame. "I have two more. She's just the youngest."

"I only have one. How old?" Common ground.

"Joy is seventeen. Anyway, off topic. The victim's father hired me."

"What do you think happened?"

"Someone walked into the motel room and shot him." No shit. "They'd been there awhile. I'd wager they got there before John did." Interesting.

"How so?" I ask.

"The cigarettes in the ashtray were Marlboro. John smoked Pall Mall. The pack was on his person. There was a snow flurry the night he was killed, and most of his clothes were still wet when they found the body minutes later."

"Meaning he was still wearing it because he had just returned."

"But someone had enough time to burn three cigarettes before he got there. Someone mighty anxious. I'd say, because they came there to kill him, and was trying to work up the guts to do it. John sat down, lit his own cigarette, and then got shot. First shot hit him in the chest, but the blood suggests he was standing. Next two he was on the chair again."

"So, the killer was already there," I say, and she nods. I open the box and find the baggies with the bullets. "Only two bullets could be retrieved. All three shell casings were."

"That's where I hit a snag," Leanne says, in direct reference to the bullets. "Those aren't the bullets from the crime scene."

"How do you know?" I ask.

"ME report showed wounds consistent with hollow points. Those are FMJs. 9mm FMJ at that, but the diameter in the ME report state.38. One.38 bullet did remain intact. Look at the inventory log sheet."

I do as she requests and place it on the table. She then asks me to grab the rest of the paper from the case file.

"This top sheet of the inventory was replaced at some point. Before I got to it. Graphite paper was used to make a copy at some point. When you write on graphite paper, you tend to press harder to make sure it goes through. It's probably fixed itself by now," she says, and disappears from the table to find something. I already know where's she's going with this, so move a few sheets to find one with impressions on it.

I hear footsteps upstairs and her tugging open drawers. I go to her kitchen for a glass and place it over the paper to zoom in on the impressions. Faint outlines of something that doesn't match the cover sheet.

"I put paper on it and ran charcoal over the top," Leanne says, having returned with a shoebox for a pair of boots under her arm. She places the box on the table next to my box and opens the lid to pull out her charcoal art.

The inventory now says.

Bullet x 2; 9mm

Shell casing x 3; 9mm

But it has once said something difference. The outlines suggest the original said:

Bullet x 1;.38

No shell casings, at all, because the.38 was likely a revolver.

"Someone with access to this box made this change," she says, as if I didn't need to be reminded.

"Did you ever talk to Miles Deacon?" I ask, and she nods. "And."

"First I followed him."

"And?" I ask.

In her shoebox are pictures. They were taken with a good camera with a hell of a lens. It's Miles at the porch of a house. A woman leans out and invites him inside. They get into the same car. The car parks away from public sight and she's out of frame but his orgasm face isn't.

"Don't fucking tell me," I say, and bury my face into my palms. "That's Jodie Potter, isn't it?"

"Sure is. I got a theory. I could never prove it, but..."

"Jodie killed her ex and her boyfriend helped her cover it up," I say into my palms. Miles isn't on record signing it out, but I have a feeling he found a way. Went in for a different box and swapped the contents. "Jesus fucking Christ Miles. When you talked to him, did you bring this up?"

"I just mentioned why I wanted to talk to him, and he threatened me before we were properly acquainted. He must have given Jodie a heads up because she ducked me. I got as far as I could, told the client what I thought I had, and that was that."

My partner may have helped cover up a murder. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. Miles is abrasive, and honestly does play fast and loose with the rules, but this is a different level. This is an accessory to murder after the fact. Was this a one off?

"Can I take this?" I ask, pointing to her box of evidence.

"I made copies years ago. Have at it," she says.

I quickly wrap up all my stuff, tuck her small box into my larger one. Leanne joins me on the walk back down her driveway. Her daughter left the gate wide open.

"God dammit Joy. You don't see them, but we have cows," she says, stepping out past the gate to look both ways down the road. "Looks like they're still here."

"Thanks again. Mostly for not shooting me," I say.

"No promises next time. I'll try to answer. Service out here is whenever God feels like you need a phone call."

I drop the box into the back of the car and shake her hand again. I watch her save my number into her phone so she's less inclined to ignore it next time.

When I finally hit the road again, I immediately call Miles. Like all weekend, it rings until voice mail.

"It's me, again. We need to talk, now!"