The corner booth she and Harry had sat in was available. The Nite-Lite had a bigger crowd for lunch this time.
Had they sold tickets?
Kate and Susan were waiting for her when she came in.
“Craig just called,” Kate said. “He’ll be a few minutes late, but he says there’s no need for the handcuffs.”
“This way,” Susan said as if she were there for the first time and led her to the booth. She removed the “RESERVED” sign and put down the menus.
“Two beef dips,” she said, “and a large diet Coke for me.”
“Craig usually has—”
“Two beef dips and whatever he usually drinks.”
Susan smirked, nodded and left with the sign and the menus.
Craig was twelve minutes late. The two beef dips, a diet Coke and a Michelob arrived at the table just after he did.
“I usually have—”
“Sit down, please.”
He slid in opposite her. “This isn’t a social lunch, then?”
She took a bite of sandwich soaked in dip. “That depends on how you answer my questions.”
He picked up his sandwich and took a much smaller bite. He didn’t dip it. “Ask me anything, Sheriff.”
“Will I get an honest answer?”
He took a drink of beer. “That depends on the question.”
“That’s typical for this town. Let’s start with one you can answer. Why did you give Shana the day off?”
“Yesterday was another one charged with emotions from saying goodbye to the Oregon State students. She was dragging by the end of her shift. I wanted her to take a day to get her energy level back up.”
“What did you do in Afghanistan?”
“I presume you researched all that.”
“I’d like to hear it from you.”
He took another drink of beer. “Mostly, I put soldiers back together as best I could before we shipped them back to their units or back home.”
She admonished herself for wondering if every drink he took was a stalling tactic and sipped some of her Coke.
“We also provided outreach services to some of the poorer areas of the city, which was pretty much everywhere.”
“You flew combat rescue missions.”
“Lots of us flew combat rescue missions.”
“You were awarded medals.”
He took another drink. “Lots of us were awarded medals.”
“Okay, let’s go this way. You also went to other villages. You became a goodwill ambassador.”
“Word spread. People started coming to Kandahar. We started having trouble treating our own troops and them at the same time, so my CO assigned my unit to visit the surrounding villages. We were just trying to stem the flow.”
“You were attacked and wounded in one of those villages.”
“It had about nine hundred people in it. Every few blocks a different group with guns and rocket launchers controlled that little patch of territory. There were forty-six of these little enclaves. Every one of them had at least one person in them who the other forty-five groups wanted dead.”
“That means they controlled only about twenty people each.”
“They’d be mostly relatives. There was a lot of eye for an eye stuff going on there; Sunni-Shia vendettas. Everyone had a grudge against everyone else. And the ones with more direct backing from the Taliban, the more powerful ones, wanted us out or dead, preferably publicly dead in some very gruesome way.”
“Poverty, weapons and dogma; a deadly and exploitable combination.”
“We got caught in a feud between two neighbors. One group thought we should be providing care to them first. They accused the group we were with of collaborating with the filthy, western infidels.”
“No mystery where their backing came from.”
“Once the shooting started, other nearby groups joined in. In about an hour, the whole village was fighting itself. I got nicked in the left shoulder.”
“It took five stitches to close. Is that where you met Zemar and Saleha?”
“I would guess it took eight for your cheek.”
“Good guess. Is that where you met Zemar and Saleha?”
“We met them in Kandahar.” He finished his beer. “They’ll be leaving soon. Saleha has been accepted to veterinary school in Rio de Janeiro. They have cousins there she can stay with. They operate a horse ranch and she loves horses.”
“What about Zemar?”
“He would never let her go alone.”
“What did they do in Afghanistan before they came here?”
“You don’t let go, do you?”
“I don’t have hold of anything.”
He reached over and took hold of her hand. “It must seem like you’ve come back to a small town full of big secrets, but I think it’s just vanity you’re seeing. We all like to think our lives are important; in a small town maybe more so than in a large one.”
Superimposed over his promising, grey-blue gaze, Michael’s blank, passive face stared back at her. If Michael’s face vanished, Travis Meyer’s regret stared back at her. It was an expression no decent person deserved to have stuck on their face in their last moments of life.
Craig didn’t deserve this kind of filtering. But a new relationship, especially one that wanted to develop this quickly, was the last thing she needed right now, even if the momentum was coming from both sides. Craig was as evasive as everyone else in Dominion. Where was the basis for something between them in that? Uninvited and unappreciated, Mattie’s rant about men and relationships replayed itself.
Kate came over. “How’s the dip?”
“Delicious.” She withdrew her hand from Craig’s.
Kate asked, “Is it true? Are Saleha and Zemar leaving?”
“You know about that?” She hadn’t seen Craig talk to her on the way in, but he could have told her when he called her.
“Saleha told Susan. She’s very upset.”
Craig repeated his story about the cousins and their horses to Kate. Was this being staged? Had Craig arranged this with Kate on the phone? He had her number. He could have called her instead of Kate to tell her he’d be late. Was holding her hand a signal to Kate to intervene because the questions were getting too close to something?
And just exactly when did you finally go over the edge?
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you two were trying to hide something from the new sheriff. But then everyone in Dominion talks to me like that; must be something in the water.”
Kate patted her shoulder. “I knew you would be a good sheriff. You just need to be pointed in the right direction.” She returned to the kitchen.
“I can find my own damn way.”
“She didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I don’t suppose anybody here does.” She pushed the beef dip aside. “What are your big secrets in this small town?”
“You actually think I have any?”
“You served in Afghanistan. You returned to Afghanistan as a civilian. You disappeared after that only to reappear with Zemar and Saleha. Is there anything you want to get in front of before I find it out on my own?”
“Nothing comes to mind.”
“For a radical veterinarian, you’re very evasive.”
“I told Harry the man of mystery bit wouldn’t work on you.”
“Discussing what might work on me with Harry Madsen is only going to piss me off.”
“I know that . . . now.”
The fire siren began wailing.
“Saved by the bell.”
Craig’s phone rang. “Cottage Country again? We’ll be right there.”
Kate rushed back to them. “Want doggy bags?”
“Next time.” He slid out of the booth.
“Not a good end to your first date.” Kate gathered up the dishes.
That cozy familiarity with her life that everyone in the DGN seemed to have just popped up again. Had someone sh
arked them holding hands this time?
Craig said, “I thought this was our third. Coming?”
“What?”
“You’re the sheriff now.”
She slid out of the booth. “I’m driving.”
“Of course you are. I can’t possibly be evasive and drive at the same time.”