Tina Vasquez - Texas Ranger (Part 3)

Posted by rache on December 17, 2008 at 19:36:21:

Tina Vasquez - Texas Ranger (Part 3)

"So…" Emily smiled self-consciously, wearing her yellow sundress from the night before and looking beautiful in the morning light.

The sun was streaming through the diner's plate glass windows and the place was busy serving coffee and breakfast to the locals. Emily was oblivious to the stares she and her attractive companion were getting, but Tina had taken note of who was watching, cataloging the faces and their expressions. Some people in this town, the Ranger knew, wouldn't be happy to see her at all, not when they found out why she was there. Hopefully, she thought, they wouldn't find out until she was finished.

"Here we are again." Tina tilted her head, reaching up to pull a lock of thick black hair from her eyes. "Are you going to be in town long?"

"I wasn't planning on it," Emily held her menu open, but she hardly glanced at it. What she wanted was sitting across from her. "You?"

"Maybe," Tina shrugged in the linen suit she wore, a blazer and barely modest skirt in a pleasing shade of mustard yellow. It was a color that went well with her caramel skin, Emily decided and she'd woken up next to the woman decidedly content. Now they finally had a chance to talk.

"Are you on a big case?" Emily lowered her voice playfully.

"Maybe," Tina said with a straight face and then smiled. "I'm not sure. I'm just here to back up a local investigation."

"Really?" Emily nodded and she didn't know what that meant exactly, but she had a sudden idea. "That wouldn't be Barbara Welch's death, would it?"

"What do you know about that?" Tina picked up her own menu to mask her interest, but her piercing green eyes never left Emily's face.

"It is, isn't it?" Emily blinked and bit her lip. "I was told she drowned. It was an accident."

"Okay," Tina forced herself to set aside her feelings for the woman as her police instincts came alive. She sensed immediately that Emily wasn't just repeating gossip. "Do you want to start at the beginning?"

"The beginning?" Emily almost smiled at the cliché, but then she caught the Ranger's serious tone and nodded. "Yeah, I'll start at the beginning."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Emily?"

"Lisa? Hi, where are you?" Emily smiled into the phone.

"Still in Bumfuck, I mean West Abilene," the nineteen year old college freshman laughed and that wasn't a sound her sister expected.

"Are you drunk?" Emily asked, only half teasing as she lay in her bed. She'd been reading and waiting to fall asleep. She was alone as usual but for her cat, The Enigmatic Mr. Smith, as Lisa had named him several years before. Emily just called him Egg.

"No!" Lisa laughed again and then sighed. "Better than that."

"Okay," Emily said slowly. "Tell me about her."

"Oh! You spoil sport!" Lisa pouted across six hundred miles of Texas. "How did you know? Never mind. She's beautiful."

"They always are," Emily laughed. "Come on, Lisa. Don't tease me."

"Her name's Barbara and she's my new swim coach," Lisa explained happily. "She's wonderful. She's just…We connected, you know? I wasn't even looking for it, I swear. It just happened."

"Your swim coach?" Emily wondered. "Since when do you know how to swim?"

"What? Go away! I'm a great swimmer, I just…Barb says I could be really good with practice," Lisa said. "But anyway, I wish you could meet her."

"I wish I could too," Emily laughed, putting more than a touch of deliberate interest in her voice.

"Heh!" Lisa snorted. "No, she loves me. She asked me to move in, that's why I'm calling."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to have a new phone number, silly!" Lisa giggled. "She's got a little house and a little kitchen and…"

"A little bedroom," Emily teased her sister. "Yeah, yeah. You sound happy, Lisa."

"I am so happy," Lisa agreed with a sigh. "God! I can't believe I had to come all the way out here just to fall in love."

"I thought you wanted to get away from everything," Emily said, not meaning to bring up the memory of their parents, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth…

"Yeah," Lisa said softly. "I did."

"They'd want you to be happy, Lisa." Emily changed the phone to her other ear and reached out to stroke Egg who was sprawled on top of the blanket between her thighs.

"I know," the girl replied. "I miss them."

"Me too, kiddo," Emily agreed and then cleared her throat. "So, anyway. This is the real deal, huh? How old is she?"

"Maybe thirty…" Lisa paused, "…seven."

"Thirty-seven?" Emily made a little face at her cat, but let it go. "Okay, so she knows what she's doing. That's good."

"I know, she's older than me," Lisa sighed. "But if you saw her, Em. She gives me what I need, you know?"

"Yeah," Emily said. "I know. Send me a picture or something, okay? Use that fancy camera of yours for something."

"I will, yeah," Lisa agreed. "I'll email you."

"Okay."

"Okay," Lisa said and the two sisters were quiet for a moment. "Are you sure you're okay with this?"

"Me?" Emily laughed. "As long as you're happy, Lisa. I'm very okay with it. I love you so much."

"I love you too."

"How's your grades?"

"What? Um…I think…Oh, we have a bad connection," Lisa made a static sound in her cupped hand.

"Lisa?"

"Oh, they're fine," the girl promised with a verbal roll of her eyes. "I'll send you a copy of my report card when it comes out."

"They better be," Emily said.

"Hey I gotta go. Barb's waiting for me. Check your email, okay?"

"Okay. I love you."

"Love you. Kiss!"

"Kisses!" Emily smiled and sighed and hung up her phone, grateful for small miracles. It had been a long time since shed heard her little sister laugh.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"What happened to your parents?" Tina asked, stirring creamer into her coffee. She had a small notepad and pen beside her now and had been taking brief notes while Emily spoke.

"Car accident," Emily shrugged. "About five years ago. I was still in college, Lisa had just turned fifteen. It hit her real hard."

"I'm sorry," Tina frowned and her eyes softened.

"Thanks," Emily smiled weakly. "So, after Lisa moved in with Barbara it was great. We talked almost every week and it just got better and better for them."

"Did she ever talk about anyone else? Anyone giving them a hard time about it or…"

"No," Emily shook her head. "She never mentioned anything like that. I don't think too many people knew, really. I suppose a small town like this, but…I don't know. Lisa was happy."

"Was this your sister's first relationship? Did she have any other girlfriends?"

"Here?" Emily narrowed her eyes and Tina nodded. "No, she was just starting her first year. Lisa didn't know anyone. She picked the college because it was…well, it was a long ways from home. A long ways from me."

"You two didn't get along?"

"We did," Emily said. "She stayed with me and I took care of her, but it was hard. I couldn't be mom, but I had to raise her. Lisa was such a…kid. She just needed to be mad at someone, you know?"

"Yeah," Tina nodded and it was hard for her not to reach out for the woman's hand. "And the last time you talked to her was…"

"Right after Barbara died," Emily cleared her throat. "She called me, um…That morning. Saturday, after she found out."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Hello?" Emily said, wiping her face with a towel as she'd cut her shower short just to answer the phone.

"Barbara's dead," Lisa's voice was soft and Emily froze, trying to understand what her sister was saying. "Em?"

"I'm here, Lisa," Emily answered gently. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"No," Lisa's voice wavered with that one word and then she sobbed.

"Lisa? What happened, baby? Tell me." Emily felt her heart ready to burst as she forgot everything but the sound of her sister in pain.

"S-She drowned," Lisa managed to say. "They f-found her this morning. She…I was looking for her."

"Drowned?" Emily sat on the floor of her bedroom, naked and wet, clutching the towel against her body and the phone to her ear.

"That's what they said," the girl replied, choking on the words as she struggled to regain her composure.

"I'm going to come down there," Emily decided. "I'll, um…I'll drive down today, be there tonight and…"

"No," Lisa said. "Don't, I'm okay…I just…"

"You're not okay," Emily licked her lips, trying to figure out how long the drive would be from Dallas.

"There's nothing…No…I just want to be alone," Lisa sniffled hard, drawing a ragged breath. "Just stay there, okay?"

"Lisa, no. You need me. I'll call work and drive down," Emily said. "I'll…I'll bring you back home, okay?"

"I am home," Lisa sighed and hung up the phone.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"And that was the last time we talked," Emily cleared her throat, looking down at her coffee.

"Where's Lisa now?" Tina asked and she did reach for Emily's hand, taking it gently in her own across the table that separated them. She'd noted the woman referring to her sister in past tense and now the Ranger had to know why.

"I don't know," Emily looked up and her blue eyes were damp as they searched Tina's face. "I think…"

"What?" Tina asked softly.

"Lisa wasn't…isn't like other people," Emily blinked hard. "She, uh…After our parents died, she tried to kill herself."

"Emily…" Tina sighed.

"It was hard and it took a long time," Emily sucked her lips for a moment. "Barbara was what she needed. Without her…"

Emily picked up a napkin and wiped her eyes, struggling to keep herself together. She'd kept it all inside for the last three days, since she'd found out about Lisa's disappearance, but now, as she tried to explain to Tina what had happened…So many bad memories. So much pain in her life and especially her sister's; it was all threatening to spill out of her at once.

"When did you learn that Lisa was missing?" Tina prompted the woman as gently as possible, her sympathy tempered with the need for information.

"I tried to call her, um…Sunday night and Monday," Emily said slowly. "When she didn't answer, I called the college. They didn't know anything."

"Okay," Tina nodded, giving Emily's hand a little squeeze.

"I finally talked to Dr. Moore, the college president," Emily let out a ragged breath. "He told me Lisa was missing. That he'd been looking for her and…"

"Did he say why he was looking for her?"

"Um…" Emily nodded. "Funeral arrangements for Barbara. Lisa was…Barbara didn't have anyone else and…"

"So this Dr. Moore, he was aware of Lisa's relationship," Tina nodded.

"Yeah, I guess so," Emily agreed. "I drove down that night, uh…I got here Tuesday, after the service for Barbara. Lisa…She wasn't there. Moore didn't know where she was."

Tina nodded, understanding that Lisa's absence from Barbara's memorial service was Emily's proof that her sister wouldn't be coming back. A girl with a history of depression and attempted suicide, losing someone she loved, perhaps the only person she loved other than Emily? It wasn't unlikely that Lisa would do something drastic and Tina knew it. She'd seen it before as sexual crimes often took a heavy toll on victims and their families.

Something didn't fit though and Tina frowned, unsure of what it was just then. She had the feeling that a piece was missing, or just slightly out of place perhaps, and that was curious. Tina had little doubt that Lisa's disappearance was more than just a sad footnote to Barbara Welch's death. There was a real connection, she thought, one that extended beyond the obvious. The Ranger just needed to find out what it was.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"What's that woman still doing here?" Floyd Peterson, a gaunt man of some fifty years frowned. "Who's she talking to?"

"Don't know," Owen Fiddler was frowning as well. He was large with a lazy posture and small eyes. "Looks like a lawyer maybe. Good lookin' for a ‘can, ain't she?"

"You're the sheriff," Floyd ignored Fiddler's foolish question. "Go find out. We don't need anyone poking around."

"I'll find out soon enough," Fiddler nodded, cutting into his stack of hotcakes while he watched Emily and Tina from across the diner. "There ain't nothin' to poke anyways."

"There better not be," the county coroner leaned across the table, although the two men were already speaking softly. "You took care of it right?"

"The file?" Fiddler dragged his eyes off Tina's long legs. "Don't worry, I took care of it."

"Don't fuck this one up," Floyd's dark eyes stared at the sheriff until the florid lawman put his fork down. "You run that sister out of town, understand me? The other one too," Floyd's glanced at Tina. "She don't look right to me."

"She looks right to me," Fiddler chuckled and then scowled as Floyd gave him a hard look. "I'll take care of it."

"Good," Floyd stood up slowly and made his way out of the diner, smiling and nodding at a few people. Like most everyone in the diner that morning, he'd been born and raised in West Abilene, and strangers made him nervous.

"Prick," Fiddler said under his breath. He had that file locked up, the original sheriff's investigation and coroner's report, which were a far cry from the official findings in the case. Floyd had wanted it burned, but Fiddler knew a good thing when he saw it and having a little something, a little insurance, wasn't a bad thing at all. Floyd might be his brother-in-law, but Fiddler knew he was a sneaky son of a bitch too. Prick. He took another bite of his breakfast and turned his attention back on Emily and her friend.

They were a pair, the man thought. One white as snow, pretty as an angel; the other dark and beautiful as a Mexican sunset. A fuckin' lawyer, the sheriff snorted. A girl like that oughta be working on her back down in Juarez, she'd make good money spreadin' those long brown legs of hers. Might have to run the bitch in just to give her a little strip search, Fiddler thought. It wouldn't be the first time he'd put an uppity beaner back in her place.

"More coffee, Sheriff?" Mardi Ramirez offered the pot with a forced smile. Her full name was Mardi Gras because her father had been an Anglo from New Orleans, according to Mardi's mother, but no one knew for certain. That woman knew how to spread 'em and Fiddler himself had paid the woman twenty dollars to take his virginity, along with two of his high school friends.

"Why thank you, Mardi," Fiddler smiled big at the sixteen year old, both of them remembering the way he'd felt her body up the other night. "Your gramps get that light fixed like I told him?"

"Y-Yes sir." The teen nodded with a nervous blush and her hand was shaking as she refilled the Sheriff's cup slowly.

"Just remember, I'm keepin' a special eye on you." Fiddler's left hand brushed the girl's smooth thigh and she jerked away from it. "Careful now."

"S-Sorry, Sheriff," Mardi blinked rapidly at the small bit of coffee she'd spilled and the girl wiped it up quickly.

"And say hi to your mama for me," the man chuckled.

Fiddler watched her hurry away, admiring the girl's ass beneath the short white skirt of her waitress uniform. Stopping Mardi's grandfather for a busted taillight had been a good excuse to do a quick search of the half-breed's hot little body. Making Old Ramirez watch helplessly while the sheriff fingered his granddaughter had only made it better and the sheriff hadn't been surprised to find the girl wasn't a virgin; girls like Mardi never were. Fiddler wondered what that beaner lawyer was driving and decided he'd have to find out, cause all he needed was an excuse and being the sheriff, well…The man didn't even need much of that, did he?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"…missing girl, huh?" Captain Mahoney had just sat down at his desk when his phone rang. "You got anything more than that?"

"No sir," Tina admitted, leaning against her car in the motel parking lot. "It's just a feeling. I want to get somebody from Behavioral Sciences on this with me. She might just be taking some time…"

"But you don't think so. Who'd you have in mind?" Mahoney looked up with a smile as Rosie, his secretary put the man's morning coffee on his desk. "Thanks Rose."

"The forensics guy, Prescott," Tina suggested. "I've worked with him before. I just want an opinion."

"Okay," Mahoney agreed and this had been the real reason for Tina's call, not to report on what little progress she'd made, but to get more assets. "I'll cut through the tape. What else do you need?"

"I don't know yet," Tina looked around the parking lot, seeing the diner across the highway and the edge of town coming to life at 8am on a Thursday morning. "I'm going to the sheriff's office now, so you might get some phone calls. I'd hate to put you off your lunch, Boss."

"Heh," Mahoney grinned at that. "A little righteous indigestion might make me feel better. Raise some hell if you have to, Vasquez. If something happened to the other girl…"

"Lisa Thomas."

"Right," Mahoney sighed. "If she's really missing, we'll grab her case. You need anything else, you'll get it. I'll ask Prescott to give you a call."

"Sounds good," Tina said and that was about all the goodbye they needed after working together for nearly three years. She put her phone in her purse and found her keys, unbuttoning her blazer beneath the sun. It was going to be a hot one, she thought, and out of habit Tina checked her Beretta holstered at her left hip.

Emily had returned to her own motel room for a change of clothes and to call the insurance company where she worked as an accountant. It wasn't a glamorous job, but it did pay the bills. She promised to be back the following Monday, determined now to stay in West Abilene as long as possible. She'd wondered a little guiltily if it was for Lisa's sake or merely her own, but either way the woman knew it was due to Tina's unexpected arrival. A bit of both, Emily reasoned, and she could live with that.

"Hmph," Tina grunted after pulling out of the parking lot and driving all of a mile. Like a lot of towns in Texas, this one was spread out and the West Abilene Sheriff's Department was on the other side of it, near the Old Armory, according to her directions. Couldn't miss it, the motel clerk had said with a smile, but now it seemed as if the Sheriff's Department was coming to her.

A brown SUV was behind Tina's black Crown Victoria, flashing red and blue though the windshield. It wasn't one of the official department vehicles, obviously, but that wasn't uncommon in a place like this. Whoever was driving it wasn't in uniform and Tina sat behind the steering wheel, pulled onto the shoulder as she watched a heavy set man in jeans and a chambray shirt approaching.

Sheriff Fiddler wished he'd worn his uniform and most days he did, enjoying the image of being sheriff as much as anything else. But Thursday was laundry day and it didn't really matter, everyone knew the sheriff anyway. He had his gun and his badge and a smile as he approached the big car, dusty with a lot of miles it looked like. Fiddler wondered what it would take to get a lawyer like this hot little Mexican to drive all the way across the state, a lot of money he was sure. And what would she expect to do once she got here? Whatever it was, she wasn't going to be expecting this, Fiddler thought with a chuckle.

rap rap rap

Tina lowered the window with a push of the button, seeing only the man's belly and a big silver belt buckle, a holstered pistol on his right side with the leather latch undone so he could pull it free if he had to. The woman wondered if this was coincidence or if something had tipped the sheriff off about her arrival. She didn't really believe that, but neither did Tina put a whole lot of faith in coincidence. There was little enough doubt about whom the man was. The word "Sheriff" was engraved on his belt buckle and she really hated that sort of thing.

"Mornin' ma'am," Sheriff Fiddler leaned over, making a show of being polite. "Would you mind turning off your engine for me. I'd like to see your driver's license and…"

"Can I see some identification first?" Tina interrupted him.

"Excuse me?" Fiddler blinked behind his sunglasses, lifting his eyes from the woman's magnificent legs beneath her yellow business skirt to her pretty brown face. This bitch had to be a lawyer, he thought, the way she was dressed, that expensive car, asking for his ID like she was.

"Do you have a badge or something?" Tina asked sweetly. "Deputy?"

"Deputy?" Fiddler felt his face getting warm. He lost his smile and his voice took an unhappy edge to it. "Alright, turn off the engine and get out of the car. Right now."

"Because I have one," Tina smiled, ignoring Fiddler's fleshy hand as it came to rest on the Smith & Wesson at his hip. "Santina Vasquez, Texas State Police," she said lifting her leather ID from her lap and flipping it open.

"What?" Fiddler swallowed hard and it felt like he'd just been punched in the gut as he stared at the Ranger's badge.

"I'm looking for Sheriff Fiddler's office. Think you could help me out?" Tina continued pleasantly and she remembered seeing the man in the diner. He'd been sitting with someone else, tall and thin, older, and Tina wondered who that man might have been.

"I'm Fiddler," the man said weakly and then cleared his throat, forcing himself to stand straight and push his chest out a little more. "I'm Sheriff Fiddler, uh…What can I do…for you?"

"Oh! My lucky day," Tina nodded, snapping her ID closed. "Do you think we could talk in your office, Sheriff? It might be a little more comfortable."

"Yeah," Fiddler nodded and he didn't like anything about this unexpected turn of events. "Just, uh…Follow me, Officer Vasquez…is it?"

"Detective Vasquez," Tina nodded. "I'm a special investigator, Sheriff."

"Special…" Fiddler nodded slowly. "Right, okay. Detective. Follow me and, uh…"

The man walked off without finishing his thought, spitting into the dust as a bad taste filled his mouth. A special investigator? What the hell did that mean? He'd been a deputy for sixteen years and now he'd been the sheriff for all of one, and in all those years Fiddler had only seen a single Texas Ranger come through West Abilene and he'd been passing through, merely stopping by the office for a little courtesy call and a cup of coffee while he stretched his legs.

Fiddler remembered the way old Sheriff Hendershott had bent over backwards for that Ranger. Hell, the whole department had come round to say hello, hear about the big cases, listen to the man's stories about real lawmen catching real criminals. Fiddler had been all of twenty-two at the time and filled with ideas about becoming a Ranger himself. But he hadn't been good enough and now this Mexican whore was driving into his town, flashing her legs, flashing those tits and now flashing a badge? Something was wrong and Fiddler didn't like any of it.

"That could've gone better," Tina sighed out loud, pulling back onto the road behind Fiddler's truck.

If Mahoney wanted her to raise hell, she figured she was off to a good start. The look on Fiddler's face when he'd seen her badge had told Vasquez everything she needed to know about Fiddler. He was a racist and a bully and whatever cooperation she might have expected under even the best of circumstances would have been negligible, but once the man found out she was investigating him and his handling of the Welch case, it would get real ugly. She was going to have to do a lot of smiling, Tina thought and patronizing a man like Fiddler…She glanced at her purse as it rang softly.

"Vasquez," Tina answered her phone, holding it to her ear while she drove.

"Good morning," a gentle, older man's voice chuckled softly. "A little bird told me you wanted to talk to me."

"That was quick," Tina smiled. "How are you Jeffrey?"

"Same as always," Dr. Prescott replied. "Too many questions, not enough answers. How are you?"

"Full of questions," Tina laughed lightly. "Sorry about that. I want to know about a girl…"

"Okay," Prescott said and being a forensic psychologist with the Texas State Laboratories, the man had worked with Tina more than a few times previously. He always appreciated her directness. "Give me some facts, Tina."

"I've got a female Caucasian, single, nineteen years of age…" Vasquez spoke for several minutes giving the man everything she knew about Lisa Thomas and the circumstances of her disappearance.

"Okay. I can work up a profile," Prescott said after Tina had finished. "It won't be much, I'm afraid. What are you looking for?"

"Off the top of my head…" Tina paused as she pulled into the Sheriff's Department parking lot, "…I just want to know where a girl like that would go if she wanted to kill herself. There aren't a lot of bridges around."

"You want to know why she's missing," Prescott agreed. "She shouldn't be. A girl like that, anyone in a state of mind like that, would want to be close to something familiar. She'd probably do it at home or in a car, perhaps a location that was special to her relationship with the deceased."

"Yeah," Tina parked her car. "She'd want to be found, right? I mean, she called her sister, so…"

"Perhaps," Prescott said. "But the other woman, Barbara? She would be the most important factor. That's what's driving your missing girl."

"You don't think she'd just walk off in the desert and…" Tina held up a finger through the windshield as the sheriff stood there staring at her impatiently.

"It's possible, Tina," Prescott admitted and then sighed. "This isn't a lot to work with, but let me spend the morning with it, okay? I'll give you a call this afternoon."

"Okay, Jeffrey," Tina agreed. "Thanks."

"Anytime, Tina." The man hung up his phone and Tina did the same, pursing her lips as she wondered where Lisa Thomas might have disappeared to and why.

"Sorry about that, Sheriff." Tina offered the man an apologetic smile as she stepped out of her car. "I hate my phone sometimes."

"Is that right?" Fiddler frowned and didn't bother hiding his displeasure at having the woman make him wait. "Come on. My office is this way."

"Can I ask you something, Sheriff?" Tina wondered as she followed the man towards the front doors of his department.

It was a newer building, with clean red bricks and a lot of smoked glass. A Texas flag hung limply from a flagpole with an American flag on a pole next to it. The place looked like a thousand others that Tina had visited, dull and unremarkable except for the people who worked there. Tina might not think a lot of a man like Sheriff Fiddler, but she wasn't going to underestimate him either. Anyone was capable of anything, she knew, and that had been a hard lesson to learn. Tina wasn't about to forget it.

"What's that?" Fiddler asked, not bothering to hold the door for the woman as he pushed through it.

"What were you pulling me over for?" Tina asked and that caught the sheriff short.

"Eh, one of your brake lights was flickering," Fiddler offered over his shoulder. "Bad wire maybe."

"Hmmm…" Tina saw the back of the sheriff's neck redden even more than it already was. "I guess I'll have to get that checked."

"Mornin' Sheriff," Deputy Hansen was behind the front desk and he stared at the woman following Fiddler, licking his lips and watching Tina's breasts move beneath her linen blazer. She had some fine tits and the top two buttons of her white blouse were undone. Hansen imagined he could almost see a little cleavage there.

"Where's Beth?" Fiddler frowned, looking for the young woman who worked the dispatch and watched the front desk for him.

"Beth? She, um…called in," Hanson blinked as Tina looked at him. "Uh, I guess her sister, um…finally had that baby of hers."

"And you're covering?" Fiddler drew a deep breath.

"Helen told me…" Hansen started explaining, but Fiddler waved the boy off. "Mornin' miss, uh…" The deputy turned his attention back to Tina and tried to smile, getting the smallest turn of her lips upward in reply.

"Good morning, Deputy," she said.

"Helen?" Fiddler was pushing through a swinging gate past the counter and Tina followed, through an open doorway and into a larger room that was the center of the Sheriff's Department. It was clean and carpeted, with desks and chairs as you'd expect, but largely empty of people and surprisingly quiet.

"Sheriff." An older woman looked over her reading glasses at the man.

She was sitting at the only desk in the room that looked like it did any work. On it was a wooden sign, a block of stained walnut engraved with the words "Little Old Lady In Charge" and next to that a small jar full of candy corn and a few framed pictures facing her chair. Everything else was business.

"Get some coffee, Helen?" Fiddler said, walking past her desk and using a key to unlock his office door.

"Two cups?" Helen looked at Tina and the Hispanic woman smiled, shaking her head.

"No, thank you. I'm fine," Tina said and she understood that this was the sheriff's secretary who had faxed the Welch file to Mahoney's office.

"In here, Detective," Fiddler glanced over his shoulder. "Maybe you can tell me what this is all about now."

"Detective?" Helen cocked her head. "I'm afraid the sheriff isn't much for manners. I'm Helen Summers."

"Tina Vasquez. It's nice to meet you, Helen," Tina ignored Fiddler's frown as she noted Helen doing the same. "I'm with the state police."

"Oh," Helen nodded and her tummy got a little tighter as her eyes found Tina's and the two women came to silent agreement. "That's nice. Are you sure you wouldn't like some coffee? It's fresh."

"Ahem," Fiddler cleared his throat.

"Not right now," Tina smiled, appreciating Helen's obvious disdain for her employer. This little old lady wasn't the run ‘n fetch sort, despite what Fiddler might have thought of her. Tina was going to have to have a nice long talk with Helen, but a discreet one to be sure.

"My coffee, Helen?" Fiddler turned into his office and Tina followed, looking around at the predictable photos and framed documents, none of which were impressive in any way.

"Have a seat," Fiddler gestured somewhat reluctantly and he didn't bother to let Tina get comfortable before starting in on her. "So what is it? You hot on the trail of some bank robbers or something?"

"Or something," Tina crossed her legs tightly at the thigh, smoothing her skirt slowly. "I'm here to look into the death of Barbara Welch. I'd appreciate it if I could see…"

"What?"

"…your case files, logs, and notes," Tina continued. "I'm going to want to interview yourself and your deputies; anyone involved with the investigation…"

"What for?" Fiddler's eyes were wide with surprise, perhaps even indignation. "The woman drowned. I filed my report with the state Tuesday morning."

"I understand that," Tina nodded sympathetically. "This is just a protocol directed from the attorney general's office. She wants a review of local law enforcement procedures and so we're looking into a number of cases."

"You are?" Fiddler narrowed his eyes, trying to understand exactly what Tina was saying.

"The Welch case just happened to fit certain criteria," Tina said carefully, doing her best to reassure the man. "The information will be used to determine funding and allocation of resources over the next three to five years. A small department like yours, Sheriff, will benefit the most."

"We will?" Fiddler almost smiled as he knew money talk when he heard it, but he'd heard the other talk too and he wasn't sure he liked it. "So this investigation of yours…what is that? Just a little look-see to figure out if I know how to do my job?"

"No," Tina shook her head. "Not at all, Sheriff. What I'm looking at is whether or not your department had adequate resources, that's all. If your investigation might not have been more efficient with better equipment for example, or more staffing. Improved access to other agencies, things of that nature."

"I see," Fiddler nodded and it seemed to make sense. There was a lot of money out there, everybody knew that, and the governor's office wanted to spend it right. Having a bigger budget would be nice too, he could always find a use for that.

"You know how to do your job, we're well aware of that, Sheriff." Tina smiled warmly, feeding the man a cover story she'd worked out during the long drive across the state and pleased that it was coming out so well.

"Yes we do," Fiddler nodded and he began to revise his opinion of the woman. She was little whore, like all the rest, probably sleeping her way up the ladder, but Vasquez wasn't a cop. She was just a paper pusher, another bureaucrat with a degree and a badge. She probably couldn't investigate her way out of a paper bag, the man thought, but she could she could probably fuck a man dry.

"I'm just here to help you do your job more effectively in the future. I'm not going to get in your way or anything like that, and I'm certainly not going to tell a man like you how to run his own department," Tina smiled, finishing her little sales pitch and hoping the last part wasn't too ingratiating.

"Well, I'm happy to hear that," Fiddler smiled. "Of course, uh…We'll give you all the help we can." He looked up as Helen knocked and entered with his coffee cup. "I'm always happy to cooperate with the state police, Detective."

"That's great," Tina nodded with appreciation, wincing inwardly at the way Fiddler had said Detective, making it sound like a joke. Little did the man know, she thought, that the joke was on him.