Page 5 of Shelter for Martina

“Travis.” CaptainLen Travis was the superior at PostSixteen, and he and Bud had worked together for years. Their mutual respect and work ethic went a long way toward making Bud successful in what he had to do in the field, and he’d always appreciated that.

“Hey, you busy?”

“I’malwaysbusy, Bud. You know that!” Len answered and laughed.

“You watching the news?”

He heard Len sigh. “Yeah. BenYoung is an arrogant, puffed-up little toad.”

“Exactly what I was thinking as I watched. You know I’ve got the girl’s case, right?”

“What?”

“I just took it right out of his hands today.”

“Bud, don’t start a war here. We don’t need it.”

“I’m not! The Anderson girl’s been missing two days too, but nobody at the sheriff’s office deemed her important enough to look for because she’s a known associate of Burgess. But I spoke to her mother, and this is very unlike her.”

He could hear Len moving around on the other end, and in his mind he could see the man he’d worked with for so many years as he shifted and leaned forward in his seat, that familiar serious look on his face. “Nobody had bothered to contact the mother?”

“Nope. She’s frantic. Said the girl’s never abandoned her kids before. The in-laws have them. The husband is a deckhand and gone. She and Burgess have a history, and if he called her and told her he was planning to do something to himself, she would’ve jumped up and run to help him. But nobody seems the least bit concerned about her.”

“That’s weird. So you’ve got her case?”

“Yeah. I left the scene of the Burgess search this morning and happened upon a car on the side of one of the little county roads. Turns out it’s hers, adjacent to the woods where he supposedly was last seen.”

“Where’s the car?”

Bud smiled. “At the lab.”

“Good work. See what they turn up and—”

“It’s going to be several days because of the bust this morning. It didn’t get there in time to go to the front of the line.” When he finished, Bud crossed his fingers.

“I’ll take care of that in the morning. We’ll give it high priority and move it to the top of the roster.”

YES!Bud almost crowed. Take that, SheriffBen Smartass Young! “Thank you, Len. I appreciate it. Too much time has gone by already.”

“I agree. You got anybody you trust in the sheriff’s department?”

Bud chuckled. “ArlenCole’s keeping an ear to the ground for me.”

“I’ve been trying to find a space for that young man for a couple of years. We need him as a trooper.”

“That’s what I told him. Goes a long way toward getting some cooperation.”

Len laughed loudly. “Indeed it does! Sounds like you’ve got a good handle on things. Let me know if you need something.”

“I will. Thanks, captain.”

“Thank you, detective. See you tomorrow.”

He had his captain’s stamp of approval, a deputy in his pocket, and a car that would be processed quickly. Maybe he could find RenitaAnderson, or at least figure out what happened to her.

After he cleaned up his mess in the kitchen and had a beer, it was bedtime. Bud was an early riser, always had been, and it had been a long day. As usual, he read for a little while. He liked criminal drama books and history stuff, but he’d found a book at the used bookstore. The description on the back had intrigued him. It was romantic suspense, and yeah, it had a bunch of sex in it, but it was set in Kentucky and had a good bit of criminal drama in it. He liked the older characters in it, but the author had managed to weave quite a mystery into it. He was two-thirds of the way through the book and still hadn’t figured out what was going on, and that was rare for him.

He thought of Becky. She would laugh if she could see him reading something that was classified as romance. He’d heard her tell her friends that he was the least romantic man she’d ever met, but that wasn’t true. Through the years he’d been frequent and generous with candy, flowers, romantic dinners, shopping trips, greeting cards, and especially nice jewelry. When she died, he told Riley and Maeve to go through her jewelry and pick out things for themselves and Riley’s girls. He’d never forget Riley appearing in the door of his little home office in tears. “Daddy, there’s thousands of dollars of jewelry in there! Was all of that Mom’s?”

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