Forever Blue

“Leroy,” Lucy said, nodding a greeting to the big man, as if they weren’t both standing in a torrential downpour. “What did I tell you last week about keeping your dog chained in your yard?”

The doberman shifted its weight, glancing from Lucy to Merle Groggin, as if deciding who would make a tastier lunch.

Leroy shrugged and grinned. “Can’t help it if he breaks free.” She could smell the unmistakable scent of whiskey on his breath. Damn, he got meaner than ever when he’d been drinking.

“Yes, you can,” Lucy said, taking her ticket pad from her pocket. It was instantly soaked. “He’s your dog, you’re responsible for him. And in fact, to help you remember that, I’m going to slap you with a fifty dollar fine.”

The big man’s smile faded. “I’m the only thing standing between you walking away from here in one piece, and you getting chewed,” he said, “and you’re gonna fine me?”

Lucy stared at Leroy. “Are you threatening me, Hurley?” she asked, her voice low and tight but carrying clearly over the sound of the rain. “Because if you’re threatening me, I’ll run both you and your dog in so fast your head will spin.”

Something in Leroy’s eyes shifted, and Lucy felt a surge of triumph. He believed her. She’d called his bluff, he believed her, and was going to back down despite the whiskey that was screwing up the very small amount of good judgement he had to begin with.

“Call your dog off,” Lucy said calmly.

But before Leroy could comply, all hell broke loose.

Andy Hayes fired a booming shot from his double barrel shotgun, sending Merle plunging down from the tree. The doberman leapt toward the fallen man, who struck at the dog with his big knife, drawing blood. With a howl, the animal dashed away down the street.

“Get the hell out of my tree!” Andy shouted.

“You stabbed my dog!” Leroy Hurley roared at Merle.

“You coulda killed me,” Merle shouted at Andy as he hurried out of the man’s yard. “Why the hell didn’t you just shoot the damned dog?”

Leroy moved threateningly toward Merle. “If that dog dies, I’m gonna string you up by your–”

“Hold it right there!” Lucy planted herself firmly between Merle and Leroy. She raised her voice so it would carry to the house. “Andy, you know I’m going to have to bring you in — reckless endangerment and unlawful discharge of a firearm. And as for you two–”

“I hope that stupid animal does kick.” Merle spoke to Leroy Hurley right through Lucy, as if she wasn’t even there. “Because if it doesn’t, I’m gonna come after it one of these nights and finish it off.”

“I ain’t going nowhere,” Andy proclaimed. “I got rights! I was protecting my property!”

“Maybe I’ll just finish you off first!” Leroy’s fleshy face was florid with anger as he shouted at Merle.

Lucy keyed the thumb switch on her radio. “Dispatcher, this is Officer Tait. I need backup, corner of Willow and–”

Leroy Hurley pushed her aside with the sweep of one beefy arm, and Lucy went down, hard, on her rear in the street, dropping the radio and her ticket pad in the mud. Leroy moved up the walkway to Andy’s house with a speed surprising for such a large man, and as Lucy scrambled to her feet, he grabbed Andy’s shot gun and pointed it at Merle.

Merle ducked for cover behind Lucy, and Leroy swung the gun toward her.

“Leroy, put that down,” Lucy ordered, pushing her rainsoaked hair back from her face with her left hand as she unsnapped the safety buttons that held her sidearm in her belt holster with her right hand.

“Freeze! Keep your hands where I can see ’em,” Leroy ordered her.

Lucy lifted her hands. Shoot. How could this have gotten so utterly out of control? And where the hell was that backup?

Leroy was inching his way toward them, Merle was cowering behind her, using her as a shield, and for once Andy Hayes was silent.

“Step away from Merle,” Leroy growled at her.

“Leroy, put the gun down before this goes too far,” Lucy said again, trying to sound calm, to not let the desperation she was feeling show in her voice.

“If you don’t step away from him,” Leroy vowed, his eyes wild, “I’ll just blast a hole right through you.”

Dear God, he was serious. He raised the shotgun higher, closing one eye as he took aim directly at Lucy’s chest. Her life flashed briefly and oh so meaninglessly through her eyes as she stared into the barrel of that gun. She could very well die at this man’s hands. Right here in the rain. And what would she have to show for her life? A six month old police badge. A liberal arts degree from the state university. A computer business she no longer had any interest in. An empty house at the edge of town. No family, only a few friends…

“Don’t do this, Leroy,” Lucy said, inching her hand back down toward her own gun. She didn’t want to die. She hadn’t even begun to live. Dammit, if Leroy Hurley was going to shoot her, she was going to die trying for her gun.

“Freeze!” Leroy told her. “I said to freeze!”

“Leroy, I’m holding an Uzi nine millimeter submachine gun,” a soft voice drawled from over Lucy’s shoulder. “It looks small and unassuming, but if I move my trigger finger a fraction of an inch, with a firing rate of sixteen bullets per second, I can cut even a man as big as you in two.”

It was Blue McCoy. Lucy would’ve recognized his velvet southern drawl anywhere.

“You have exactly two seconds to drop that shot gun,” Blue continued, “or I start firing.”

Leroy dropped the gun.

Lucy sprang forward before the barrel had finished clattering on the cement walkway and scooped up the gun. She cradled it in her arms as she turned to look at Blue.

His blond hair was drenched and plastered to his head. His clothes were as soaked as her own, and they clung to his body, outlining and emphasizing his muscular build. He squinted slightly through the downpour, but otherwise stood there holding a very deadly looking little submachine gun as if the sky was clear and the sun was shining.

He was still watching Leroy, but his brilliant blue eyes flickered briefly in Lucy’s direction. “You okay?”

She nodded, unable to find her voice.

There was a crowd of people down the block, she realized suddenly. No doubt they had all been drawn out into the wet by the sound of Andy’s first gunshot. Great. She looked like a fool, unable to handle a few troublemakers, requiring a Navy SEAL to come to her rescue. Terrific.

“Leroy, Andy, Merle,” Lucy said. “You’re all gonna take a ride to the station.”

“Aw, I didn’t do a damned thing,” Merle complained as the long awaited police backup arrived, along with a police van for transporting the three men. “You got nothing on me.”

“Carrying a concealed weapon ought to do the trick,” Lucy said, deftly taking his hunting knife from him and handing it and the shotgun to Frank Redfield, one of the police officers who had finally made the scene.

“Talk about carrying a concealed weapon,” Merle snorted, gesturing with his head toward Blue McCoy as Frank led him toward the van. “What are you going to charge him with?”

Lucy pushed her wet hair back from her face again, stopping to pick up her sodden ticket pad and the fallen walky-talky from the mud before she approached Blue.

“Merle’s right, you know, Lt. McCoy,” she said to him, hoping he would mistake the shakiness in her voice as a reaction to the excitement rather than as a result of his proximity. “I’m not sure I can let you walk around town with one of those things.”

He handed the gun to her, butt first. “You let Tommy Parker walk around town with it,” he said.

Tommy Parker? Tommy Parker was nine years old… Lucy looked down at the gun she was holding. It was lightweight and… “My God,” she said. “It’s plastic. It’s a toy.” She looked back up into Blue’s eyes. “You were bluffing.”

“Of course I was bluffing,” he said. “I wouldn’t be caught dead with an Uzi. If I wanted an assault weapon, I’d only use a Heckler & Koch MP5-K.”

Copyright 1996 by Suzanne Brockmann