Chapter 22

My plan to talk to Orville about Evan and Dixon, since he was harassing Rosita on their behalf, didn’t end up working out as planned.

My next shift was the night shift and Orville called me an hour and a half before I should have started to meet him out on the county road all the way out at the county line where Buxton bordered the next county.

It was still early enough in the day that we had a fair amount of traffic on the county road and an eighteen-wheeler had blown a tire and crashed into a truck before flipping over and spilling its load. Worse, it was almost a sure bet that the driver of the smaller truck was a fatality in the accident, although Orville had to wait for firefighters from the next county over to arrive to get into the crushed cab of the truck, since our volunteer department didn’t have the jaws of life or other cutting equipment.

Although a trooper from the highway patrol also responded, Orville called me in early, and Al in on his day off, to help with traffic control, since the spilled load basically blocked the remaining open pavement.

It was well after dark by the time we finally got the wreck cleared, by which point Orville was wiped out and I figured it could wait a few more days, since we were having dinner in a few days anyway.

For her part, Rosita didn’t want to talk about what happened, and I wasn’t going to push her, since I was getting to know her well enough to know she’d just dig in her heels if I did.

I picked Rosita up at her house Sunday afternoon, since she wanted to go get cleaned up before we went to Orville’s. When she opened the door, once again, I was stunned by her. She was wearing a sundress, although a different one than last time, and I realized they might be my favorite thing for her to wear. The way it let just a little light shine through to hint at her figure and occasionally swoosh up a bit if she turned fast, was tantalizing.

She had a bottle of wine in her hand, which surprised me. Not that she had alcohol, since I knew she drank in small amounts from time to time, but that she didn’t have some kind of food to bring.

“Wine and not food?” I asked, vocalizing my thought.

“You don’t bring food to someone else’s dinner unless asked. It would be rude, since you would be saying ‘I don’t think I’ll like your food, so I’ll bring my own.’”

“Ohh, I hadn’t thought of it like that. I guess that makes sense. Okay, wine it is.”

We were running a few minutes behind because when I’d originally agreed to the time, it hadn’t occurred to me that Rosita would need to go home and shower. I guess I spent so much time with her at the restaurant that I didn’t notice the grease and sweat. In hindsight, I should have accounted for it, but thankfully Sarah and Orville didn’t seem to mind.

Their place was pretty nice. Although I’d never been there, I knew it was where he’d grown up. He’d mentioned briefly the week before that his parents had left him the house when they decided to move south to retire. While that didn’t happen a lot around here, I didn’t blame them. In the winters the roads could become a mess, which could be a problem since we didn’t have many roads out to the highways to start with. I knew my dad, who hated everything that was more than twenty miles outside of Buxton, wouldn’t ever want to move somewhere with a more hospitable year-round climate, but I was pretty sure Mom wouldn’t mind.

Sarah had made a roast pork that smelled amazing. I loved Rosita’s cooking, but it was what I ate most days of the week recently, with the rest being something out of a box, so it was nice for a little bit of variety.

Apparently, Rosita only really ever ate her own cooking too, because there were several side dishes that were very much West Virginia staples that she hadn’t seen before. I think the thing that got her the most was the apple butter, which my mom had always served when she made pork, and was something I loved.

The first fifteen minutes were spent with Sarah explaining how she made hers with Rosita, who was, after all, a professional cook, asking questions. Orville and I listened patiently because both women were so engaged. I think Orville might not have gushed over his wife’s food much, because Sarah was definitely enjoying the attention. It actually worked out well, because of the four of us, Sarah and Rosita knew each other the least, having only ever seen each other in passing. Orville, at least, sometimes stopped in for food while he was working, and made conversation.

“I think it’s really nice you’re taking time to get to know the people who work for you,” Rosita said when her conversation with Sarah petered out.

I was a little confused by the statement, since I had explained my conversation with Orville that led to the dinner invitation in the first place. I tried to catch her eye, but she was looking at Orville, and I couldn’t tell if she saw my look and was purposefully ignoring it or just hadn’t noticed. Either way, I didn’t want to call her out, especially in front of Orville and Sarah, so I just kept my mouth closed and waited to see what happened.

“Thanks,” Orville said. “I actually am glad we finally got Henry over here. The way things are set up, I only have a little bit of time every couple of days for us to connect, and our schedule doesn’t really work well for socializing. I do believe it helps for us to all know each other well, since we’re such a small force, but that’s just a nice side benefit of this dinner. The real reason I’d set this up is because of something Henry said. We were talking about how he liked living in Buxton again, and he pointed out his biggest problem was how closed off we could be. He also used you and your restaurant as an example since, although I see you all the time when I’m working and stop for a bite to eat, we’ve never really gotten to know each other. I thought about what he said, and he was right. You’ve been doing such amazing work supporting this community since you moved here, like everything you’ve done to help Elaine and her food bank and what you did for George Cooper. Part of my job as sheriff is working with folks just like you to help keep our community strong.”

“I appreciate that,” Rosita said, finally looking my way, although mostly because his little speech seemed to make her uncomfortable. “I’m not sure I agree that people have made me feel unwelcome. If anything, I’d say the opposite is true. I’ve felt very welcomed to the town. Everyone’s been very supportive of the restaurant.”

“Well, not everyone,” I said, under my breath.

At least, I’d planned for it to be under my breath. The way all three heads turned to look at me as soon as I said it suggested it might not have been as quiet as I’d planned for it to be.

“Henry...” Rosita said, warningly.

“We had a run-in with Evan Farmer the other day, and he stopped me a few days before that. Rosita hasn’t complained, but I’m betting she’s been getting harassed by him for a little while now.”

“Have you?” Orville asked.

“I don’t know if harassed is the right word. He really just wants to buy my property. He hasn’t done anything beyond that.”

“Rosita doesn’t like to rock the boat or draw attention to the problem, because she thinks she can handle Evan without it becoming something bigger. I’ve tried to tell her that Evan is not the kind of guy you can deal with by just telling him ‘no’ over and over, but she won’t listen to me on that.”

“And he threatened you?” Orville asked Rosita.

“No,” Rosita said.

“Yes,” I said at the same moment.

“It wasn’t a real threat,” she said to me, clearly getting annoyed at my making a big deal of it.

She’d brushed it off when we talked before, and now wasn’t the time and place for it, but I was really wondering why she was so dead set against believing that Evan was an actual threat. She kept treating him like he was all talk and an annoyance, which I couldn’t understand.

“Has he made any specific threats?” Orville asked me directly, clearly picking up on the same thing I was getting from Rosita.

“Hinted at. He’s trying to be clever by saying things like ‘you’ll regret’ and ‘if you were smart’ when asking her to sell her property to Dixon without actually spelling out what he’s planning. He stopped me the other day and tried to get me to talk to her, ‘for her own good,’ I think was how he put it. I also heard him and some friends talking about making sure you didn’t find out what they were doing, although that’s all I heard. I didn’t actually get specifics, so I’m not sure if they were talking about Rosita or something else. They are all part of that group that does Dixon’s dirty work in the mines, though, so it’s a safe bet.”

“Is Dixon behind it?”

“I don’t know, but it would be strange to have this group of people involved if they weren’t.”

“I don’t know why you two are making a big deal about this. I’ve said no, so that’s where it ends. He hasn’t done anything except ask a bunch of times. He’s a thug. I know how to deal with thugs.”

“Rosita, you are a fabulous woman,” I said, locking in on her eyes so hopefully, she would take me seriously. “You’re strong, motivated, and unshakable. In this, however, you’re being naive. I know Evan. He would one-hundred percent hurt someone if he thought he could make a buck out of it.”

“He’s right,” Orville said. “Besides how he was when we were in school, I’ve had a few run-ins with him over the last couple of years. He might not have gone to college, but don’t discount how clever he is. He knows what can and can’t get him in jail and always makes sure to stay just on the other side of that line as long as anyone is watching. He also works damn hard to make sure no one is watching when he decides to step over it. He’ll slip up one day and do something that I’ll be able to arrest him for, but I’d hate for that to be at your expense. You need to listen to Henry. Evan is dangerous.”

Rosita crossed her arms, as stubborn as ever.

“I have some folks I can talk to at Dixon,” Orville said. “They’ve been in some hot water up north recently and just lost a pretty big court case with some injured workers. They’re gun shy right now about ending up in court again, so this would be a good time to get them to back off.”

“I only hope Evan backs off if they decide to drop it. Knowing him, he might keep pushing just because he feels challenged now and wants to make a point.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Orville said. “Rosita, do me a favor. If you see him around, just try to be somewhere where there are other people. I know it’s a hassle, but I also know Henry would be a wreck if something happened to you.”

“I’ll try,” she promised, although it was clear to both of us she wasn’t planning on going out of her way to do anything.

The conversation moved on from there, but I was glad it had come up. I at least wanted Orville to know what was going on so he could help keep an eye on Evan and Rosita. I hadn’t realized he had dealings with Dixon, but that made sense. As the county’s biggest employer, of course he’d deal with them from time to time. I just hoped he had some luck getting them to back off.

Other than that brief bit of awkwardness, the dinner was a hit. Rosita and Sarah really got along. Orville was kind of a homebody but Sarah used to be big into hiking when she was younger, something that Rosita really loved. By the end of lunch, they’d even made plans to go on an afternoon hike together a few Sundays later after the restaurant closed for the day. Although it meant I’d get a little less time with Rosita, I was thrilled about it. Although she was friendly with a lot of people in town, I hadn’t actually witnessed Rosita spending much time with other people when it wasn’t something official, like dealing with the food bank or the like. I was really happy to see her making friends in her own right that she could spend time with, which really was the whole point of this dinner anyway.

That alone would have made the dinner a success, even without getting Orville on board with the Evan problem.

Tuesday night I got my first real call for assistance, although I didn’t know it at the time. It was early evening when the call came in and Sarah had already gone home for the evening, meaning dispatch calls were coming directly to my radio. I’d only had a handful of emergency calls in the couple of weeks I’d been working, so it still surprised me every time it happened.

The previous calls had all turned out to be fairly minor. Someone got spooked by something, someone was unhappy with a BBQ or other social gathering that got just a little too loud, or there was an accident on the county road, none of which had included serious injuries or fatalities except for the wreck that happened when Orville was working the previous week.

The call was from the night cashier at the gas station, which was unusual. In the city, there weren’t a lot of gas stations, but there were a ton of corner stores, which also made up a good number of the calls every night, since establishments like that usually had more cash on hand than most other businesses. Maybe it was because Buxton had just the one gas station or maybe because it was such a small town that it would be hard to rob it without everyone knowing who you were, but I hadn’t received any calls for service there before.

I could probably say I still hadn’t, since this call was made by one of the people who worked the late shift. The gas station wasn’t twenty-four hours, but it did stay open until eleven, which was later than anywhere but the bars. The call was about a couple that had pulled up for gas and had apparently started arguing while they fueled the car, which then dissolved into what the attendant called a ‘fight.’ I’d serviced enough calls about fights over the years to know that word had a pretty wide range of definitions, from just a loud argument to someone being beaten unconscious with a metal pipe.

I had just left Rosita’s so she could go home and rest, so it made sense to make the short drive to the station instead of trying to get the attendant to give an accurate description of what was happening. Calls for service could be incredibly subjective, so it was just easier to see what was happening than spend minutes that might be vital hearing his point of view. The only question I asked as I got in my cruiser and turned onto Oak Street was if either person had a weapon, which the attendant didn’t think either person did.

It was getting late, so there weren’t any other cars in the parking lot except for the attendant’s which was all the way up near the tree line at the edge of the building.

Parked next to one of the pumps was a beat-up old truck with a male leaning in through the driver’s side door. I couldn’t see the other person, but his fist was arcing down and a leg was sticking up, pressed against the back of the seats by the man’s body.

I whipped the cruiser around to the other side of the pumps so I was on the same side of the truck as the man, threw my cruiser into park and hopped out. Although I hadn’t ever had to use it in New York City, since I was always on foot, one of the things a training officer told me when we were covering vehicles is, when on a service call, keep the seat belt buckled behind you so you don’t have to spend time unbuckling yourself. I don’t know why I kept doing that, but I did as long as I was in Buxton proper. If I was out driving the county roads, I did put on my seatbelt, especially at night, because with both the reckless drivers and the deer, a chance for an accident was higher than I was willing to risk.