The Maverick: The Maverick / Magnate’s Make-Believe Mistress

“I ate something that didn’t agree with me,” he said icily.

“In that case, you must not have a lot of friends…”

The clerk doubled over laughing.

“I do not eat people!” Harley muttered.

“I should hope not,” she replied. “I mean, being a cannibal is much worse than being a gardener.”

“I am not a gardener!”

Alice gave the clerk a sweet smile. “Do you have chalk and colored string?” she asked. “I also need double-A batteries for my digital camera and some antibacterial hand cleaner.”

The clerk looked blank.

Harley grinned. He knew this clerk very well. Sadly, Alice didn’t. “Hey, John, this is a real, honest-to-goodness crime scene investigator,” he told the young man. “She works out of the medical examiner’s office in San Antonio!”

Alice felt her stomach drop as she noted the bright fascination in the clerk’s eyes. The clerk’s whole face became animated. “You do, really? Hey, I watch all those CSI shows,” he exclaimed. “I know about DNA profiles. I even know how to tell how long a body’s been dead just by identifying the insects on it…!”

“You have a great day, Ms. Jones,” Harley told Alice, over the clerk’s exuberant monologue.

She glared at him. “Oh, thanks very much.”

He tipped his bibbed cap at her. “See you, John,” he told the clerk. Harley picked up his purchases, smiling with pure delight, and headed right out the front door.

The clerk waved an absent hand in his general direction, never taking his eyes off Alice. “Anyway, about those insects,” he began enthusiastically.

Alice followed him around the store for her supplies, groaning inwardly as he kept talking. She never ran out of people who could tell her how to do her job these days, thanks to the proliferation of television shows on forensics. She tried to explain that most labs were understaffed, under-budgeted, and that lab results didn’t come back in an hour, even for a department like hers, on the University of Texas campus, which had a national reputation for excellence. But the bug expert here was on a roll and he wasn’t listening. She resigned herself to the lecture and forced a smile. Wouldn’t do to make enemies here, not when she might be doing more business with him later. She was going to get even with that smug cowboy the next time she saw him, though.

The riverbank was spitting out law enforcement people. Alice groaned as she bent to the poor body and began to take measurements. She’d already had an accommodating young officer from the Jacobsville Police Department run yellow police tape all around the crime scene. That didn’t stop people from stepping over it, however.

“You stop that,” Alice muttered at two men wearing deputy sheriff uniforms. They both stopped with one foot in the air at the tone of her voice. “No tramping around on my crime scene! That yellow tape is to keep people out.”

“Sorry,” one murmured sheepishly, and they both went back on their side of the line. Alice pushed away a strand of sweaty hair with the back of a latex-gloved hand and muttered to herself. It was almost Christmas, but the weather had gone nuts and it was hot. She’d already taken off her wool jacket and replaced it with a lab coat, but her slacks were wool and she was burning up. Not to mention that this guy had been lying on the riverbank for at least a day and he was ripe. She had Vicks Salve under her nose, but it wasn’t helping a lot.

For the hundredth time, she wondered why she’d ever chosen such a messy profession. But it was very satisfying when she could help catch a murderer, which she had many times over the years. Not that it substituted for a family. But most men she met were repelled by her profession. Sometimes she tried to keep it to herself. But inevitably there would be a movie or a TV show that would mention some forensic detail and Alice would hold forth on the misinformation she noted. Sometimes it was rather graphic, like with the vengeful cowboy in the hardware store.

Then there would be the forced smiles. The excuses. And so it went. Usually that happened before the end of the first date. Or at least the second.

“I’ll bet I’m the only twenty-six-year-old virgin in the whole damned state of Texas,” she muttered to herself.

“Excuse me?” one of the deputies, a woman, exclaimed with wide, shocked eyes.

“That’s right, you just look at me as if I sprouted horns and a tail,” she murmured as she worked. “I know I’m an anachronism.”

“That’s not what I meant,” the deputy said, chuckling. “Listen, there are a lot of women our ages with that attitude. I don’t want some unspeakable condition that I catch from a man who passes himself around like a dish of peanuts at a bar. And do you think they’re going to tell you they’ve got something?”

Alice beamed. “I like you.”

She chuckled. “Thanks. I think of it as being sensible.” She lowered her voice. “See Kilraven over there?” she asked, drawing Alice’s eyes to the arrival of another local cop—even if he really was a fed pretending to be one. “They say his brother, Jon Black-hawk, has never had a woman in his life. And we think we’re prudes!”

Alice chuckled. “That’s what I heard, too. Sensible man!”

“Very.” The deputy was picking up every piece of paper, every cigarette butt she could find with latex gloves on, bagging them for Alice for evidence. “What about that old rag, Jones, think I should put it in a bag, too? Look at this little rusty spot.”

Alice glanced at it, frowning. It was old, but there was a trace of something on it, something newer than the rag. “Yes,” she said. “I think it’s been here for a while, but that’s new trace evidence on it. Careful not to touch the rusty-looking spot.”

“Blood, isn’t it?” She nodded.

“You’re good,” Alice said.

“I came down from Dallas PD,” she said. “I got tired of big-city crime. Things are a little less hectic here. In fact, this is my first DB since I joined Sheriff Carson’s department.”

“That’s a real change, I know,” Alice said. “I work out of San Antonio. Not the quietest place in the world, especially on weekends.”

Kilraven had walked right over the police tape and came up near the body.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Alice exclaimed. “Kilraven…!”

“Look,” he said, his keen silver eyes on the grass just under the dead man’s right hand, which was clenched and depressed into the mud. “There’s something white.”

Alice followed his gaze. She didn’t even see it at first. She’d moved so that it was in shadow. But when she shifted, the sunlight caught it. Paper. A tiny sliver of paper, just peeping out from under the dead man’s thumb. She reached down with her gloved hand and brushed away the grass. There was a deep indentation in the soft, mushy soil, next to his hand; maybe a footprint. “I need my camera before I move it,” she said, holding out her hand. The deputy retrieved the big digital camera from its bag and handed it to Alice, who documented the find and recorded it on a graph of the crime scene. Then, returning the camera, she slid a pencil gently under the hand, moving it until she was able to see the paper. She reached into her kit for a pair of tweezers and tugged it carefully from his grasp.

“It’s a tiny, folded piece of paper,” she said, frowning. “And thank God it hasn’t rained.”

“Amen,” Kilraven agreed, peering at the paper in her hand.

“Good eyes,” she added with a grin.

He grinned back. “Lakota blood.” He chuckled. “Tracking is in my genes. My great-great-grandfather was at Little Big Horn.”

“I won’t ask on which side,” she said in a loud whisper.

“No need to be coy. He rode with Crazy Horse’s band.”

“Hey, I read about that,” the deputy said. “Custer’s guys were routed, they say.”

“One of the Cheyenne people said later that a white officer was killed down at the river in the first charge,” he said. “He said the officer was carried up to the last stand by his men, and after that the soldiers seemed to lose heart and didn’t fight so hard. They found Custer’s brother, Tom, and a couple of ranking officers from other units, including Custer’s brother-in-law, with Custer. It could indicate that the chain of command changed several times. Makes sense, if you think about it. If there was a charge, Custer would have led it. Several historians think that Custer’s unit made it into the river before the Cheyenne came flying into it after them. If Custer was killed early, he’d have been carried up to the last stand ridge—an enlisted guy, they’d have left there in the river.”

“I never read that Custer got killed early in the fight,” the deputy exclaimed.

“I’ve only ever seen the theory in one book—a warrior was interviewed who was on the Indian side of the fight, and he said he thought Custer was killed in the first charge,” he mused. “The Indians’ side of the story didn’t get much attention until recent years. They said there were no surviving eyewitnesses. Bull! There were several tribes of eyewitnesses. It was just that nobody thought their stories were worth hearing just after the battle. Not the massacre,” he added before the deputy could speak. “Massacres are when you kill unarmed people. Custer’s men all had guns.”

The deputy grinned. “Ever think of teaching history?”

“Teaching’s too dangerous a profession. That’s why I joined the police force instead.” Kilraven chuckled.

“Great news for law enforcement,” Alice said. “You have good eyes.”