True Blue

CHAPTER 5

THEY RODE in a black Town Car, an SUV loaded with security behind them. Mace glanced over at her older sister, Elizabeth, known as Beth to her friends and some of her professional colleagues. However, most people just called her Chief.

Mace turned and looked at the tail car. “Why the caravan?”

“No special reason.”

“Why come tonight?”

Beth Perry looked at the uniformed driver in front of her. “Keith, turn some tunes on up there. I don’t want you falling asleep. On these roads we’ll end up driving off the side of a mountain.”

“Right, Chief.” Keith dutifully turned on the radio and Kim Carnes’s jagged voice reached them in the backseat as she crooned “Bette Davis Eyes.”

Beth turned to her sister. When she spoke her voice was low. “This way we avoid the press. And just so you know, I’ve had eyes and ears in that place from day one. I tried to run interference the best I could for you.”

“So that’s why the cow backed off.”

“You mean Juanita?”

“I mean the cow.”

She lowered her voice further. “I figured they’d planned on giving you a parting gift. That was the reason I showed up early.”

It irritated Mace that the chief of police had to have the radio playing and whisper in her own car, but she understood why. Ears were everywhere. At her sister’s level, it wasn’t just about law enforcement; it was about politics.

“How’d you manage the release two days ahead of schedule?”

“Time reduced for good behavior. You’d earned yourself forty-eight whole hours of freedom.”

“Over two years, it doesn’t seem like that big an accomplishment.”

“It’s not, actually.” She patted Mace on the arm and smiled. “Not that I would have expected it from you.”

“Where do I go from here?”

“I thought you could crash at my place. I’ve got plenty of room. The divorce was final six months ago. Ted’s long gone.”

Her sister’s eight-year marriage to Ted Blankenship had started to unravel before Mace had gone to prison. It had ended with no kids and a husband who hated his ex principally because she was smarter and more successful than he ever would be.

“I hope my being in prison didn’t contribute to the downfall.”

“What contributed is that my taste in men sucks. So I’m Beth Perry again.”

“How’s Mom?”

“Still married to Moneybags and the same pain in the ass as always.”

“She never came to see me. Never wrote me a single letter.”

“Just let it go, Mace. That’s who she is and neither one of us is going to change the woman.”

“What about my condo?”

Beth glanced out the window and Mace saw her frown in the reflection off the glass. “I kept it going as long as I could, but the divorce took a big slice out of my pocketbook. I ended up paying alimony to Ted. The papers had a field day with that even though the file was supposed to be sealed.”

“I hate the press. And for the record I always hated Ted.”

“Anyway, the bank foreclosed on your condo four months ago.”

“Without telling me? They can do that?”

“You appointed me as your power of attorney before you went in. So they notified me.”

“So you couldn’t tell me?”

Beth glared at her. “And what exactly would you have done if I had?”

“It still would’ve been nice to know,” Mace said grumpily.

“I’m sorry. It was a judgment call on my part. At least you didn’t end up owing anything on it.”

“Do I have anything left?”

“After we paid off the legal bills for your defense-”

“We?”

“That was the other reason I couldn’t keep paying on the condo. The lawyers always get their money. And you would’ve done the same for me.”

“Like you ever would’ve ended up in a pile of crap like this.”

“Do you want the rest of the bad news?”

“Why not? We’re on a roll.”

“Your personal investment account got wiped out like everybody else’s in the economic freefall. Your police pension was history the moment you were convicted. You have a grand total of one thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars in your checking account. I talked your creditors into knocking your debt down to about six grand and got them to defer payments until you got back on your feet.”

Mace was silent for a long minute as the car rolled along winding roads on the way to the interstate that would eventually carry them into Virginia and then on to D.C. “In all your free time while you were running the tenth largest police force in the country and presiding over the security details for a presidential inauguration. Nobody could’ve done better. I know that. And if it had been me overseeing your finances, you’d probably be in a debtor’s prison in China.” Mace touched her sister’s arm. “Thanks, Beth.”

“I did manage to keep one thing for you.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”