Ladies Man (Laura Cardinal Series Book 6) Read online

  Contents

  LADIES MAN

  Copyright

  Also By J. Carson Black

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  PART TWO

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  End

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  LADIES MAN

  J. CARSON BLACK

  A LAURA CARDINAL NOVELLA

  LADIES MAN

  Copyright © 2019 by Margaret Falk. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Published by Breakaway Media

  Tucson, Arizona (USA)

  www.breakawaymedia.com

  ISBN 978-1-939145-23-9

  190126

  ALSO BY J. CARSON BLACK

  The Laura Cardinal Series

  Darkness on the Edge of Town

  Dark Side of the Moon

  The Devil’s Hour

  The Laura Cardinal Novels (omnibus)

  Cry Wolf (novella)

  Flight 12 (novella)

  The Cyril Landry Thrillers

  The Shop

  Hard Return

  Spectre Black

  The BlueLight Special (short story)

  The Tess McCrae Novels

  Icon

  The Survivors Club

  The Maggie O’Neil Mysteries

  Roadside Attraction

  Vicious Cycle

  Short Stories Collection

  Bad Mojo

  Writing as Margaret Falk

  Darkscope

  Dark Horse

  The Desert Waits

  Deadly Desert (box set)

  Writing as Annie McKnight

  The Tombstone Rose

  Superstitions

  PROLOGUE

  MAY

  Cherry Pye despised her name. But she’d come to a sort of détente with the monicker, thanks to her ability to bake the best pies, cakes, and breads in central New Mexico.

  The NAH DOS TE Trading Post was known for two things: Cherry’s pies, and the Zuni and Apache necklaces, bracelets, and concho belts kept in a locked glass case, some of them made by her friend and sometime lover, Jeremy Long Ears. Jeremy’s Jewelry was known all the way to New York. His black Apache Tear bracelets, highly-polished stones, were in high demand. He made the beautiful pieces in between working his other passion: real estate deals and cabin rentals in ponderosa country.

  She missed him. He’d stayed away longer than she’d expected; his fourteen-year-old son was having problems in school, acting out, the usual thing with kids that age. All those hormones. So his father decided to take him camping.

  Truth be told, she didn’t like being at the trading post by herself. The post (which looked like a building block; plastered-over adobe painted dark red) was perched on a lonely two-lane road at the top of the pass. Oh, it was beautiful out here, but she’d seen some rough trade over the years, and she was pushing fifty now. She wasn’t as strong as she used to be. The good news was, she had old Betsy, her double-barreled shotgun—hidden behind the counter.

  Right now, it was going on three-thirty. She would close up the trading post at six on the dot. Her eyes kept straying to the clock—a lighted Olympia Beer sign that hummed. On hot days, she often just stared at that sign. A rushing torrent of white water tumbled down between dark green pines. She wished she could be out on that river, fly fishing. She hardly ever got the chance. Since her dad died, all it was these days, was work work work. She wished her father hadn’t left her the trading post, wished she could find a buyer. She had plenty of regrets. Two husbands, both of them losers, both of them managing to put big dents in her bank account. And a lover she was crazy about—except that so many things he did puzzled her. She chalked it up to his being Native American.

  The bell above the glass door jangled.

  Cherry covered her eyes against the late afternoon sun, which arrowed straight into the trading post at this time of day.

  Trouble.

  Cherry sure as hell knew trouble when she saw it. This woman wasn’t just flustered, she was distressed.

  “Do you have a bathroom in here?” the woman demanded.

  “It’s through that door,” Cherry said.

  “Is there a back door I could go out, I mean, if I needed to?”

  Now that was strange!

  The woman, looking back through the glass door in the front, seemed totally discombobulated.

  What Cherry had seen first was the way she acted, all flibberty-gibberty scared—but now, even backlit by the sun coming in through the door to the outside, she could see that the woman’s scalp was bleeding.

  “Land sakes,” Cherry said, coming out behind the counter. “What happened to you?”

  The woman burst into tears. “Help me, you have to help me, lock the door! LOCK THE DOOR!!!”

  “What’s going on? Are you all right? You’re bleeding."

  “Listen to me!!! Please, he’s—”

  The glass door burst open, bell jangling, a dark shape blocking the sunlight—

  A man came in. He was short and wiry. She registered all this as the woman pushed her from behind the counter and cowered behind it. Now she was screaming. “He’ll kill me! You’re-a-witness-and he’ll-kill-YOU, too! Call-the-police-call-them-you-have-to-call-NOW—”

  The man walked up to the counter, put his hands on the glass jewelry case, and said, “Honey, I’m sorry about what I said to you. Please, come back to the car. You’re not in your right mind. I wish you would take your pills. I’m sorry about this,” he added, holding Cherry’s gaze. “My wife’s been through a lot, and—”

  “He’s lying!” the woman shrieked. “He’s not my husband! Where’s the back? Where’s the back? Is there a back door?” She broke for the back of the building.

  Cherry found her voice. “My boyfriend’s here, and he’s got a gun! You need to—”

  That was when she saw his gun. Trained on her breasts, just above the counter.

  Fear quicksilvered through her body. Every nerve ending lit up. She felt disembodied, disconnected, extremities tingling—her thoughts floating away. THINK!!!! Talk him down. “Look, I don’t want to get in the middle of—”

  “Wise choice. This is between me and my girlfriend. You have to understand. She does this a lot. She hasn’t been taking her meds lately." He raised his voice. “Isn’t that right, Suzy?”

  “Look,” Cherry said again. “I don’t want to get in the middle of a—”

  The man broke for the back. She felt his passage—it all happened so fast—but the rage! Like a bull on a rampage. She could feel it, it scorched her nerves! He busted through the swinging doors into the back hallway—so fast.

  One word came to her. Hate. The man was filled to the brim with hatred. She heard something fall, she heard a scream. She’d grown up on a farm and knew the sound—that squeal of abject fear and pain, so sharp it rent the air in two.

  Screaming, crying, squealing!

  Gotta get out of here. Go now!

  Now, while this man was getting busy, killing his wife, she had to go-get-out-of-here—beat feet! Beat feet! Reach under and grab her purse, where are those KEYS? Where are the fucking KEYS? Rummaging hard and fast but she couldn’t lay her hands on them and the woman was SHRIEKING!!
! And her phone! The mad squeal of an animal being murdered!

  She upended her purse and dumped the keys onto the counter along with her pocketbook and everything else. Grab the keys and get OUT!!! She grabbed at the keys but they slipped out of her grasp, hit the floor with a jangle. Meanwhile, she heard the woman screaming, a high-pitched ululating shriek, heard the punches, heard the gut punches as she scrabbled on the floor for her keys.

  She had them, even though her fingers weren’t working, even though the nerve endings to her legs were wobbling and strained and rubbery, she had the keys, she had the keys! As she heard the body blows, that shrieking!!!!! A guttural grunt—

  Cut short.

  Get out! Get to the car, getoutgetoutgetoutgetoutGET OUT NOW!!! Run for the car! Run for the CAR! She scrabbled to her feet, launched by fear, fear like electric wires running through her, and rammed into the glass door, but of course the glass door swung in, she knew that, and she pulled the handle, hands slippery, somehow managed to get out, bumping her hip HARD on the door, and she ran, her legs like spaghetti, limp spaghetti, trying to find the right key—no, she had to hit the alarm remote—

  Goddamn keys, which one, which one? Had to get the right one, stick it in the lock—

  No. She had a remote! Pushed it—it didn’t seem to work! Pushed again.

  Beep-beep.

  And she realized it. The screaming had stopped. There was only silence. Almost to the car, all she had to do was—

  She heard the door open, the bell ring, and the man, the monster! burst out into the sunlight— a nightmare! It had to be this couldn’t be happening and he was aiming the gun at her, no it can’t be! Open the car-door-open-the-cardooropenthecardoorright—He was aiming he-was-aiming-it-was-the-gun-he was—

  Her vision exploded in slow motion, like a car crash—

  And burned out.

  He looked both ways. The road was empty. Few cars came up here. The drive up, he’d only seen one coming the other way.

  Wished it hadn’t happened like this. He knew what went wrong. He’d slowed for the curve, and the ungrateful bitch had opened the door while they were still moving, and threw herself out of the car. A stupid thing to do, and all because of an argument. She’d tried his patience. It was getting to the point where he didn’t love her, he could see that coming down the road, and maybe he should have been more prescient.

  But what was done was done.

  He’d thought, he’d really thought, that she was the one. But no. All that yammering. Once she got to know him, she just couldn’t stop talking! Pretty soon, everything she did annoyed him.

  Not only that, but she was . . . Pedantic.

  No wit, no grace, no sense of humor. What did he ever see in her?

  What’s done is done.

  He had another well-worn solution for ending relationships that went beyond their sell-by date, but things had changed so quickly—it had turned into a clusterfuck. She’d put him in too much jeopardy, jumping out of the car like that—

  Acting the way she did. He’d known she was trouble, the minute he met her at Le Bar in Phoenix. He’d known it right off, but he’d ignored the little voice in his head: this one’s not for you.

  A red flag.

  He looked down at her. “If you’d just waited,” he said.

  AUGUST

  The sound of a big engine rumbling to life startled Jerry Naughton out of sleep. For a moment, he didn’t remember where he was—and then it came to him. He and his wife Mary were in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest campground in Lakeside, Arizona, enjoying a weekend getaway.

  The neighboring motorhome pulled out, headlight beams scrolling across the inside of their Jayco White Hawk. Jerry raised up on one elbow and peered out the window in time to see the tail lights disappear among the pines. He grabbed his watch: two-twenty a. m.

  And that was when he heard the dog barking.

  “What’s going on?” Mary said, her voice warm with sleep.

  “Our neighbor just left."

  “Our neighbor?”

  “The motorhome next to us."

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, now. And he left his dog behind."

  “Maybe he’ll come back for him

  “It’s two-thirty in the morning."

  “Why would he leave now? That barking. We should do something."

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Keep the dog for him. Maybe he forgot."

  “Forgot his dog?”

  “Or maybe he went to a bar. The bars around here—maybe some stay open late."

  “It’s two-thirty in the morning."

  “Oh." She added, “If he’s back in the morning then it’ll all be fine."

  “Hope so,” he muttered, crawling back into bed. It was cold tonight, and the sheets (new) were crisp and cool, and it was nice to cuddle up with his wife.

  She was very likely right that the guy would come back for his dog. Which was probably the last thought he had before he fell asleep.

  But the dog was still there the following morning when they went outside to eat their breakfast at the picnic table.

  A nice dog. A purebred—Jerry could tell. Husky, probably, with pale blue eyes. Friendly. At least, that’s what Jerry thought, since the dog was wagging his tail. “Maybe the guy wanted to do some night fishing. I’m sure he’ll be back soon."

  “I hope so,” his wife said. “I can’t imagine anyone just up and leaving his dog like that."

  They unhitched their car and drove into Pinetop for lunch and spent some time at the Paradise Anglers shop, talking to the locals about dry flies and tapered leaders.

  Driving back, Jerry was certain the motorhome would be there, or at the very least the dog and the motorhome would be gone, but no such luck.

  He noticed that the dog had a bowl of water, but no food. Mary cut up some deli meat for him, and the dog scarfed it up. “We’re going to have to buy some dog food,” she said.

  “He’s not our dog."

  “He’s got to eat. But it’ll be a moot point. You gotta know the guy is coming back."

  “I don’t think so."

  “Come on, he could be out fishing for the day."

  “You saw him drive out."

  “Yes, but he could have—”

  “Did he have the dune buggy with him?” She spread her hands out. “I don’t see it anywhere around here, do you?”

  “He wouldn’t just leave his dog. Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know. There are all kinds of weird people."

  “We don’t know the guy."

  “No. We don’t." The way she said it, he knew what she was thinking. She was thinking their neighbor was exactly the kind of guy who would leave his dog.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “There was something about him. You know when you were down at the lake? He called out to me, asked how good the fishing was."

  “So?”

  “Then he asked me if I would like to come over and have a drink."

  “He asked you that?”

  “He did."

  “Was it . . ."

  “Friendly? Oh, yes. He had the tone down, just right. Just neighborly, you know? Not scary at all. That’s what I thought when he called over. I’m surprised he didn’t say ‘howdy, neighbor. ’ But he didn’t fool me."

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  She shrugged. “Wasn’t a big deal."

  Jerry knew his wife could tell a bullshitter from a mile away. “So he was trying to poach on my south forty, huh?” He meant it to come out humorously, but didn’t quite get there. Because, truth be told, he’d developed a dislike for the guy, way in the back of his mind, without anything to back it up. Well . . . there was the dog. And the idea of the guy trying to get at Mary, even to hint at it. “Sonofabitch."

  She nodded.

  “Son-of-a-bitch."“You know what?” she said. “I sure miss Rowdy."

  “You’re kidding."

  “No I’m not."
>
  “Yes you are."

  They always did this—it was kind of a game between them.

  “No,” she said, her voice serious. “You know how much I loved Rowdy, but now I think it’s time. We’re not leaving this dog."

  “Of course we won’t. We’ll take him to—”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s coming home with us."

  And Jerry thought, not for the first time: Thus endeth the Lesson.

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  The two historians, Jesse McLaughlin and Gary Marks, had already given their statements to the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office deputy who took the call.

  They remained at the scene, as requested.

  The drive from Tucson to Florence took about an hour and a half. It was a crystal-clear October day, sunny and warm. Department of Public Safety Detective Laura Cardinal, bereft of her usual partner (his wife was having a baby) had left the air-inversion haze of Tucson far behind.

  Here it was quiet: a cactus forest under a deep blue sky.

  The PCSO had asked DPS for assistance on a possible homicide. They were undermanned—the Sheriff’s Office only had two homicide detectives. The senior detective was closing on a second home in the White Mountains.

  From the moment she arrived and met the other detective, Brent Walker, Laura’s impression that she was unwanted was confirmed.

  This was nothing new. Especially these days, when every municipality and sheriff’s office in the state seemed to be on a hair-trigger, ready to defend their turf from those deemed to be outsiders. While there was always some conflict with independent jurisdictions who didn’t think they needed assistance, it was worse—much worse—now.