Mistletoe Man - China Bayles 09 by Susan Wittig Albert Read Free Book Online Page B

She's tough and she don't take no sass, as we say around here.
    "I'm afraid you guys aren't taking this very
seriously," I said, going back to the subject. I looked across the table
at McQuaid and Blackie. "We're talking about two women and their elderly
aunt being harassed by a man who told them he intends to run them off their
land. You don't want Terry to ventilate Swenson's backside with a load of
double-O buckshot, do you?"
    "I suppose you
advised them to document all their interactions with this guy," McQuaid
said.
    "You
bet," I said emphatically.
    "How about an alarm system?" Sheila
suggested. She frowned. "Although that won't work if they've got livestock.
Any movement triggers the alarm."
    "Do
they have a dog?" Blackie asked.
    "Didn't I tell you about
that?" I replied. "Somebody set a trap that nearly took off his leg.
On their property."
    "Burglar's rule number one," Sheila
said. "Disable the dog."
    "Tell them they
need to file for a peace bond," McQuaid advised. "They might not get
it, but it'll put the situation on record. Then all they have to do is get
evidence that Swenson is behind the vandalism."
    "Easier said
than done," I replied. "I just hope the first piece of evidence isn't
a dead body."
     
    While the guys did
the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, Sheila and I went into the living room
to settle down in front of the fire with a glass of apple brandy, Fannie
Couch's annual holiday gift to all her friends. Fannie starts making it in
October, as soon as she can find Granny Smith apples at the grocery, and by
Christmas, it's tasty and mildly alcoholic.
    "You don't think
Terry would actually shoot Swenson, do you?" Sheila asked. She sat down on
the sofa and propped her boots up on the old pine carpenter's chest we use for
a coffee table. Not just any boots, either, but trim suede boots that were the
perfect complement to her fawn-colored stirrup pants and matching bulky knit
sweater.
    "I doubt
it," I said, poking the fire. "But they've been harassed for weeks,
they're probably not getting enough sleep, and their nerves are raw. You can't
tell what might happen in a situation like that, especially if Swenson goes
poking around there after dark." I took a split oak log out of the copper
wash boiler that serves as our woodbox and put it on the fire. "It's too
bad the law can't intervene before something happens, rather than waiting until
somebody turns up dead. If you ask me, Blackie has probable cause to talk to
Swenson about the vandalism at the farm."
    "What
about evidence?" Sheila asked dryly.
    I
straightened. "What about articulable suspicion?"
    Sheila arched both
eyebrows. "China, I'm surprised at you. You're the one who's always
talking about the need to preserve privacy and to keep the government out of
people's business."
    I sat down in McQuaid's
big leather chair and took a sip of brandy. "I know," I said,
"but—"
    "But what? You
really don't want Blackie to bang on Swenson's door and order him to stay away
from the farm—which he still owns, by the way, until the sisters pay off the
note. And you certainly don't want him to send one of his deputies out there to
confiscate Terry's shotgun. You'd be the first to start yelling police
harassment." She grinned. "Why, you'd probably be standing in line to
offer your legal services in a lawsuit against the sheriff's office."
    "That's the old
me," I said. "I'm a little more mellow these days. But you're right—I
don't like the idea of the cops interfering. And Terry isn't keen on getting
the law involved either." I paused. "It strikes me that this is a lot
like a stalking case, Smart Cookie. As a law-enforcement officer, what do you
do when a woman comes to you and accuses her former boyfriend of harassing her?
You know, the usual little things." I gave her an ironic look.
"Cutting her phone line, slashing her tires, entering her house when she's
at work. Do you tell her to be cool, be calm, and come back to see you after
he's taken a shot at her? Or do