Confessing to the Cowboy

chapter 11



After Denver’s interview, Cameron had every intention of bringing in Thomas Manning for a chat, but he’d discovered that Manning was out of town, back in Oklahoma City to attend a conference at the college where he’d once been a professor. He’d sent Ben Temple to follow the good professor and keep an eye on him while he was out of town.

Cameron had grabbed a quick lunch from a fast-food place at his desk, brought in by Larry Brooks, and then had decided to check in on Mary, afraid that if the snow came as predicted he wouldn’t be able to stop by to see her at closing time that night.

It was just after three when he left his office and headed for the café. As he drove, fat snowflakes splatted across his windshield, forcing him to turn on his wipers to see the road clearly.

He met little traffic on the way to the café. Hopefully most of the folks knew to stay at home when the weather turned bad, but he knew from experience that there were always some yahoos who decided snow and ice were the perfect time to test their driving skills.

When he reached the café, the parking lot was nearly empty and despite the fact that he was wishing Mary’s business ill, he hoped the lot stayed empty until the snowstorm passed and some of what had been forecasted had melted away. At least by morning the streets would be plowed by both city vehicles and ranchers with the appropriate tractors.

He parked in front and got out of his car, hurrying toward the door through the snowflakes. As he entered, he automatically hung his hat on a hook and looked toward the counter.

His favorite blonde wasn’t there. In fact, he didn’t see her anywhere in the café. Nobody was seated at any of the tables and he could hear Rusty’s voice as well as several female ones coming from the kitchen area.

He followed the voices to find Rusty and two waitresses chatting. “Hey, Sheriff,” Rusty greeted him.

Cameron nodded in return. “Where’s Mary?” he asked, not seeing her anywhere in the kitchen.

“She just went out back to the cottages to take a quick look around and make sure no vandals or squatters have moved in,” Rusty said. He gazed down at his wristwatch. “She’s only been gone a few minutes.”

“She went by herself?” Cameron asked, a tiny alarm sounding in the back of his head. He didn’t want her going off anywhere all alone.

He didn’t wait for a reply but instead stepped out the back door and sucked in his breath at the frigid snowy air that slapped him in the face. The snow was falling in earnest now, quickly covering the ground and obscuring visibility.

As he drew closer he immediately saw that the door to the second cabin was open and it was there he headed, his heart beating an unexpected rhythm of anxiety.

He should have thought about the cabins. Damn it, he should have thought that one of them might be a potential den for a madman. But with Rusty staying out here, he’d just assumed the others were vacant. Now he cursed that assumption.

When he got nearer he saw that dark curtains hung at the window and his heart beat a little quicker. He pulled his gun, an automatic habit when approaching an unknown situation.

He moved to make a sideways approach, not wanting to alert whoever was inside that he was there. He leaned against the building just outside the door, drew a deep breath and then whirled inside to see Mary standing in the middle of the room and Junior Lempke standing before her as if to block her exit.

Junior turned around, his eyes wide as his hands shot straight up in the air. “Don’t shoot me, Sheriff Cam, I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

Cameron met Mary’s gaze. She shrugged as if she didn’t have a clue what was going on. A quick sweep of the room chilled Cameron’s blood like the falling snow outside couldn’t possibly do.

The news clippings about the murders tacked to the wall stunned him. Junior? Junior Lempke? He hadn’t even been on the list of suspects.

“Does somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on here?” he demanded, not removing the barrel of his gun from the center of Junior’s body. Adrenaline fired through him with a heat that could melt the snow on the ground outside.

“I was out here checking on the cabins and noticed the curtains in this one. I’d just stepped inside when Junior showed up and now you’re here,” Mary said, her voice reflecting both relief and the same kind of stunned disbelief that Cameron felt.

Cameron turned his attention to Junior. “What’s going on, Junior. What have you done?” The young man standing before him would have been the last person Cameron would have thought capable of the crimes, but this place, the clippings, spoke of an obsession with the women who had been killed.

Too many serial killers liked to keep souvenirs of their crimes and the clippings and pictures on the wall could definitely be considered souvenirs.

Tears began to stream from Junior’s eyes. “My mom, she told me that I’d never be able to have a place of my own, that I’d always have to live with her. But this was my place, all by myself.”

Awkwardly he ambled over to the lamp and touched the broken shade. “I bought this with my own money at the thrift store, and I...I got the microwave at the same store. I can live here and turn on my lamp when it gets dark and cook in the microwave for myself and maybe have friends come over. My mom is wrong and I want to prove her wrong. I’m responsible and this is my place all to myself.” He jutted his chin forward, his eyes still gleaming with tears.

Cameron holstered his gun, his gut instinct telling him that Junior had no weapons on him, that he was harmless and harboring some misguided mission. He pointed to the wall with the clippings. “What’s that?” he asked.

Junior’s eyes once again filled with tears that spilled onto his cheeks. “That’s my sad wall. They were all my friends and now they are all gone. But I’m making a happy wall over there.” Junior pointed to the opposite wall and pulled a photo out of his coat pocket. “This is my first picture for my happy wall.” He handed the photo to Cameron.

It was a picture of Junior and Mary standing side by side at the picnic Mary had sponsored last summer for her staff. Junior stood tall and proud, and Mary’s face was wreathed with a smile that softened her features.

He handed the photo to Mary, who looked at it and released a deep sigh. It was obvious to him that Mary didn’t believe Junior had anything to do with the murders, either.

This was like when Cameron was twelve and Bobby was eleven and they’d gotten angry with their parents and had built an elaborate fort up in hay loft. They’d stocked it with cookies and fruit and decided they could live there alone for the rest of their lives.

Of course the rest of their lives had ended when darkness came, when the old barn had creaked and groaned and made frightening noises. That’s when they’d decided maybe sleeping in the house in their own beds wasn’t such a bad idea.

Junior had wanted his own fort, a place where he could pretend he was in charge and away from his overprotective mother. He’d wanted to feel normal...like a man.

Junior Lempke wasn’t the killer they sought. Cameron knew it in his gut. He completely believed Junior’s story. “Are you going to arrest me, Sheriff Cam?” Junior asked, his voice trembling like that of a young child’s. “My mom is really going to be mad at me if I end up in jail.”

“No, I’m not going to arrest you, Junior,” Cameron said and slid a glance to Mary, who nodded her head in agreement.

“But you have to get your things out of the cabin,” she said. “I can’t let you use this place, Junior.” She gazed toward the open door where the snow was falling in sheets of white. “You wait until this snow moves out and then you get your things from here and never come around the cabins again.”

Junior’s lower lip quivered. “Am I fired, Mary?”

Mary moved over to stand next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Of course you aren’t fired. What would I do without you, Junior? You help me keep the café running smoothly.”

Junior’s chest puffed out with pride and Cameron admired Mary’s compassion, her gentleness with Junior. “You need to get on home now,” Cameron said to the man. “I doubt if Mary is going to need you in the kitchen. The snow is going to keep everyone inside for the night.”

“Call me tomorrow, Junior, and I’ll see if I need you to come in to work,” Mary added.

Junior pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Two is for Mary.”

“That’s right,” Mary replied.

“Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow,” and with that Junior turned and ran out of the cabin.

Mary appeared to deflate, slumping down on the sofa atop Junior’s navy sleeping bag. “I stepped in here and knew I’d found Jason’s lair...right in my own backyard. My heart beat so hard it hurt and then I turned around to see Junior standing in the doorway. He told me I’d ruined everything and for one insane minute I thought he was the killer, and then you showed up.”

She reached over and attempted to straighten the lamp shade on the crooked lamp. “Poor Junior. He just wanted to feel normal, to have his own place without his mommy around.”

“Junior isn’t our killer,” Cameron said and sank down next to her on the sofa, instantly engulfed by the familiar raspberry scent of her. “But you got lucky because this could have been where the killer was staying. You could have walked inside this cabin and never left it again.” His heart filled his throat at the very thought. “You should have never come out here alone.”

“I know. I was foolish.” She looked at him and offered him a half smile. “Although I did tell Rusty that if I wasn’t back inside the café in twenty minutes to call you.”

“A lot of bad things could have happened to you in twenty minutes.” He took the strand of hair she twirled between two fingers and instead twirled it between his finger and thumb. Despite the circumstances she looked lovely with her cheeks pinked by the cold and her black winter coat making her hair appear almost as pale as the snow falling outside the cabin.

He so wanted to kiss her. When he’d walked into the cabin and had seen Junior standing in front of her and the wall filled with the news clippings, he’d thought about how easily he could lose her.

Dropping the piece of her hair, he leaned forward, wanting a kiss to assure himself she was really safe, but was surprised when she jumped up off the sofa and headed for the door. “We’d better get back to the café before we can’t find our way back.”

She had her back to him and he knew in his gut that she’d intentionally avoided his kiss. Maybe she regretted those moments they’d shared in her bed. He’d hoped the time they’d shared had been a beginning, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe it had simply been an awakening for her and there was no place in her future for him except as the local lawman. Maybe the truth of the matter was that he was simply a transitional man to her and nothing more.

He rose from the sofa. “Yeah, we should get back to the café. I forgot to leave breadcrumbs behind me and the snow is really coming down.”

Together they left the cabin and raced toward the café’s back door. By the time they reached the kitchen, they both looked like snowmen.

As they shook off the snow that covered them, Mary sent all her waitresses home but one for the night shift and then turned to Cameron.

“Thank you and now you’d better get out of here because I’m sure you’re going to have a busy night with the weather and everything else that’s going on,” she said as she walked with him out of the kitchen and into the main eating area.

He grabbed his hat from the hook on the wall, wanting to say something...needing to say something but unsure what it was. “Don’t be foolish again,” he finally said gruffly and then he walked out into the near-blizzard conditions.