- -
- 100%
- +
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
*Serenity, Arkansas
Julie Ann said, “I called the sheriff and got you some backup.”
“I told you to stay in your beauty shop.”
“Did you catch the shooter?”
“No, there were a couple of shell casings on the roof but that’s all.”
“See? It was safe to come out.”
The absurdity of her statement made him want to shake some sense into her. Clenching his fists instead, Smith said, “You know better than that.”
“This isn’t a combat zone,” Julie Ann argued. “Lighten up.”
In a way she was right. But he couldn’t expect a civilian to understand what it was like to come under fire.
He reached out and gently cupped her shoulder. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your shop and we can tell the sheriff what we saw.”
Smith pulled her closer. When he’d promised Julie Ann’s brother he’d look after her, Smith hadn’t dreamed things would take such an ominous turn.
VALERIE HANSEN
was thirty when she awoke to the presence of the Lord in her life and turned to Jesus. In the years that followed she worked with young children, both in church and secular environments. She also raised a family of her own and played foster mother to a wide assortment of furred and feathered critters.
Married to her high school sweetheart since age seventeen, she now lives in an old farmhouse she and her husband renovated with their own hands. She loves to hike the wooded hills behind the house and reflect on the marvelous turn her life has taken. Not only is she privileged to reside among the loving, accepting folks in the breathtakingly beautiful Ozark mountains of Arkansas, she also gets to share her personal faith by telling the stories of her heart for Steeple Hill Books.
Life doesn’t get much better than that!
No Alibi
Valerie Hansen
When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid.
—Psalms 56:3–4
Given my love and appreciation for the wonderful people in my life, I hardly know where to begin. I am so blessed it’s scary!
As always, a special hug for my husband. Not only is he a great guy, he can cook! And he does, especially when I’m busy writing more books. Hey, maybe that’s why I’ve tried to stay so busy.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EPILOGUE
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
PROLOGUE
Under the cover of a nearly moonless night, the well-dressed man ordered the driver of his limousine to park behind a bank of metal storage buildings where they couldn’t be seen from the street.
When his local accomplice climbed in to join him as planned, the executive edged closer to the opposite door and tried to mask his disdain. “Are you sure this will work the way I explained? I don’t want any slipups.” Arching an eyebrow, he waited for his rough-hewn, young confederate to answer.
“It’ll work. Ol’ Lester’ll never know what hit him. And he knows better than to open his yap and rat us out.”
“Us?” The silk-suited, older man straightened his tie and smiled malevolently. “There is no us, Denny. You and I have never met, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. I remember. Just see to it that I get my fair share and we’ll have no problems, Mr. Evans.”
“No names!” The command was unmistakably a threat. He’d meant it to be. Not only did his own future depend upon the success of this plan, he had others to answer to. Others who would be even less forgiving than he was.
“Okay. Don’t go gettin’ all het up. When are you gonna sic the cops on him?”
“Just as soon as you let me know he’s shipped out a couple of batches of booze. We don’t want to shut him down too early. He has to look as guilty as sin.”
“I still don’t get it,” the younger, jeans-clad man said. “Why set him up to make good moonshine and then take him down?”
“You don’t have to understand any more than I choose to tell you.” His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. “I’ll take care of the details. You just do your job. And keep me advised.”
“Yes, sir.” Denny gave a halfhearted salute and reached for the door handle. “Another week or two ought to do it. I got him plenty of sugar and yeast. He’s picking up the sacks of corn from the feed mill, like you said he should.”
“All right. Meet me back here in one week, same day, same time, and I’ll decide what happens next.”
“Lester ain’t gonna like it when he’s arrested. How you gonna keep him from figurin’ out I’m the one that turned him in?”
“I said I’d take care of it and I will,” Evans assured him. “Now get going.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the limousine slipped away into the moonless night and headed for the highway, Evans opened his cell phone, pushed Redial and quickly made a connection.
“It’s all set,” he said.
He listened a moment, then replied, “Don’t worry about Denny. He doesn’t have a clue as to what’s really going on and he won’t say a word about the old man being framed, either.”
He chuckled at the query on the other end of the line, then answered, “No, he won’t get wise or change his mind and sell out to the Feds. He won’t have time to. I have a strong feeling poor Denny is going to meet with a tragic accident long before this bootlegging case goes to trial.”
ONE
Julie Ann Jones loved her career. There was something very rewarding about running the Serenity Salon. She’d always been artistic and she knew cosmetology was the perfect way to put her God-given talent to good use. Her friends had been delighted by her success, which helped make up for the fact that she hadn’t gotten even the slightest inkling of support from her parents.
She usually kept her own honey-brown hair short but had decided to let it grow in order to donate it to an organization that provided wigs for juvenile cancer patients. The longer length was driving her crazy but she was determined to hold out for the sake of the charity.
Her only employee, Sherilyn Fox, was another of her community projects. A high school dropout, Sherilyn had desperately needed a job, so as soon as she’d graduated from beauty school, Julie Ann had hired her. Seeing the girl’s pride and self-worth increasing daily had made Julie Ann feel as if she were looking into a mirror and watching the birth of her own hard-won independence.
Sherilyn burst through the door of the otherwise quiet beauty shop and waved a handful of mail. “You aren’t going to like this, boss.”
“Why? More bills? What a surprise.”
“Uh-uh.” She shook her blond, spiked hair and made a silly face. “Worse.”
“Nothing could be worse than bills,” Julie Ann said. “Trust me. I know.” She grimaced, thinking of the sacrifices she’d made in order to avoid having to ask her parents—or anyone else—for financial help. She was determined to succeed on her own, and so far, so good, despite her father’s criticism.
“Then I guess you’ve never gotten a jury summons before, huh?”
“A what?” Julie Ann snatched the envelope from Sherilyn’s hand, tore it open and unfolded the contents. Her hazel eyes widened and her shoulders sagged. “I don’t believe this. How can I take time off to serve on a jury? I have a business to run.”
“Hey, it’s not like the courthouse is that far away.” Sherilyn pointed out the beauty shop window that fronted the Serenity square. “You could hit it with a rock from here.”
“I’d like to do that right about now,” Julie Ann admitted, “but they’d probably arrest me.” She stared at the summons in her hand. “I can’t spare the time away. Do you suppose they’d excuse me if I explained my problem?”
“Maybe. I suppose it’s worth a try.”
“I’m sure it is.” Refolding the summons, she stuffed it into the pocket of her pastel flowered smock and started for the door. “I don’t have another appointment until Louella’s perm. Hold down the fort for me, will you?”
“Sure. You going to beg?”
“If I have to,” Julie Ann said with a quirky half-smile. “I am friends with a lot of folks over at the courthouse. Surely somebody will be able to help me get excused.”
“Are you positive that’s the right thing to do?” Sherilyn asked. “What if all Christians begged off? Who’d be left?”
Julie Ann was still mulling over that question when she stepped out of her shop and scanned the broad, tree-lined street that flanked the town square. In a way, the girl was right. Who would be left? Then again, the Bible also cautioned believers to be good stewards of what God had given them. If she neglected her business, wouldn’t that be a sin, too?
Satisfied with that, Julie Ann hurried across the street. She could not serve on a jury. Not if she wanted to keep her business afloat, let alone flourishing. A spiky-haired assistant like Sherilyn was fine for the younger crowd but older women weren’t likely to trust her to touch their hair. Julie Ann understood that. Not that she was that much older at twenty-five. She was simply more traditional.
She glanced at her watch as she started up the courthouse walkway. Hopefully she had enough spare time to see the powers that be and get this mess straightened out.
Reaching for the handle of the heavy glass door, she was almost run over by a familiar, broad-shouldered man who was exiting.
His gruff “Excuse me” was not accompanied by a smile. On the contrary, he was glaring at her through coffee-dark eyes. Smith Burnett’s face looked so different from the way she usually saw it that she was taken aback.
“Smith? What’s wrong?”
He paused long enough to hold the door for her. “This,” he said, waving a crumpled piece of paper.
Julie Ann immediately recognized the form. “Jury duty?”
“Yes. They said only the judge himself can excuse me. How am I supposed to run a real estate business if I’m cooling my heels in a jury box?”
She nodded as she fished her own summons out of the pocket of her smock. “I know exactly how you feel. I was hoping…”
“Well, don’t hold your breath,” he said, glancing down the empty hallway of the old, brick building. “I got nowhere. They just told me to fill out a questionnaire and leave the rest to the judge’s discretion.”
“In that case, if you want a haircut from me you’d best be getting it soon,” Julie Ann said, assessing his thick, dark hair. She didn’t want to remember how it had felt to run her fingertips over it when she’d been much younger and far too impressionable. “I’m afraid I may be tied up soon.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Turning away from him and starting down the hallway, she was suddenly aware that her heart was beating fast. It was obviously because she was upset about the summons, discounting the disturbing realization that her shakiness began when she’d encountered Smith. She’d never seen him that animated, that forceful, that…The only other word that came to mind was masculine.
After his stint as a Marine and subsequent return to Serenity, he’d seemed different, yes, but not this different. This was a darker, more dynamic aspect of his personality than she’d ever imagined, let alone glimpsed, and it had affected her all the way from the roots of her hair to her toes.
When she left the courthouse later, Smith was waiting for her. He could tell by her crestfallen expression that she, too, had been denied a reprieve.
All he said was “Hi.”
“Hi. I thought you were headed back to work.”
“I was. I decided to wait and see if you had any more success than I did.”
“Nope. They told me a computer makes the selections and everyone has to take a turn. Now, it’s mine. And yours.”
He nodded. “I apologize for snapping at you earlier. You caught me at a bad time.”
“No problem.”
Hoping she truly did forgive him, he watched her expression closely as he asked, “So, do you have time to cut my hair now?”
“Not really. How about first thing tomorrow?”
“Sounds good.”
“We won’t all be picked to serve, you know,” Julie Ann said, shading her eyes from the sun to look up at him. “The county clerk assured me that most cases are settled by a plea bargain.”
“I know. But since we both have very good reasons for not wanting to be chosen, what do you want to bet we are?”
“I never bet,” she said with a soft laugh, “but I know exactly what you mean. Maybe I should plan on bringing my scissors to the jury waiting room and working there. I could use the extra business.”
He was surprised by her upbeat attitude in the face of such trying circumstances. She had not always been that easygoing. Far from it. Perhaps maturity had mellowed her even more than he’d realized. The stubborn, rebellious teen he recalled from years ago would have pitched a royal fit.
“Well, as long as you’re not mad, I’m satisfied,” Smith said. “Wouldn’t want a woman who stands behind me wielding sharp scissors to be holding a grudge.”
“Smart man.”
Julie Ann really had become more appealing, Smith mused, especially since she’d let her hair grow. Although she now kept that dark-honey-colored hair pulled back, there were always a few silky tendrils that escaped, falling across her cheeks and making her look even more attractive. The funny thing was, every time he saw her, his personal interest increased.
Now that Smith had reached his early thirties, the difference in their ages had become less important than it had seemed seven or eight years ago when he’d escorted her to her senior prom. That one evening had caused him nothing but grief. If he hadn’t been deployed overseas shortly thereafter, there would have been no painless way to avoid Julie Ann. The dozens of mushy letters she’d written to him had been bad enough. Nothing had discouraged her. Not even his attempts to let her down easy.
But things were very different now, weren’t they? His current dilemma was deciding whether or not to deepen the casual friendship they had finally developed and see if they might actually be right for each other.
The last thing Smith wanted to do was explain to her brother, Ben, why she had developed another ridiculous crush on him. The first time had been bad enough. And since he’d promised he’d look after her while Ben and his unit remained abroad, Smith had no intention of going back on his word, even if that meant he had to protect her from himself.
“See you tomorrow morning then,” she said, backing away. “Gotta run.”
Pensive, Smith watched her safely cross the street and enter her shop before he turned to scan the rest of the square. The recently reelected sheriff, Harlan Allgood, was helping a handcuffed, shackled man clad in a bright orange jumpsuit out of a patrol car. Harlan was a good man, if a bit naive. Chances were, the skinny kid he had arrested was not nearly as nefarious as those cuffs and leg irons made him appear.
Dismissing the sight, Smith thought about Julie Ann again and smiled. He’d get his hair cut first thing tomorrow morning, mostly as an excuse to see her.
His smile grew into a lopsided grin. Everything would be fine as long as she didn’t notice that he really wasn’t in need of a trim.
“They’ve arrested Lester’s stupid nephew and they’re lookin’ for Lester,” Denny dutifully reported, climbing into the familiar limo for the third Thursday night in a row.
“I know.”
“Got ’em for making moonshine, just like we planned.”
“I know that, too.”
“Word is, the Feds want Lester real bad and as soon as they catch him, he’s gonna be sent off to Little Rock for trial.”
“I think not,” his well-dressed companion said. “I’m arranging to have him tried right here, first, for something else. The federal government can have whatever’s left of him when we’re done.”
“No matter. It shouldn’t take long. I mean, what else can he be guilty of that matters around here?”
“A crime that will definitely take precedence over running an illegal still.”
“Like what?”
“Like murder,” Evans said quietly, menacingly.
“Lester? He’s quiet as a mouse. He’d never kill nobody.”
“I didn’t say he did it, you fool. I said he was going to be tried for it.”
“But who’s dead?”
The smooth-talking businessman merely smiled. “That’s none of your concern, Denny. You’ve done your job and it’s over.” He reached a gloved hand into his suit coat’s inside pocket and withdrew a bulging envelope. “Here’s your fee. Now get out and get lost.”
“Yes, sir.” The younger man did as he was instructed, slammed the car door, then leaned down to cup his hands around his mouth and shout through the closed window. “You never did tell me. Who’s Lester gonna be blamed for killin’?”
On a simple hand signal from his boss, the limo driver dropped the car into gear and drove away from the scene.
Evans was laughing to himself as he settled against the plush leather of the car’s rear seat and murmured softly, “You.”
TWO
By the time Smith arrived at her shop the next morning, Julie Ann was already upset by the rumors she’d heard. Forcing a smile, she shook out a plastic cape as she said, “Good morning.”
“Morning.” He plopped into her chair and sighed while she wrapped the cape around his neck and prepared him for his haircut. His gaze was somber when it met hers in the mirror. “I take it you’ve heard.”
“About Denny Hanford? Yes. It’s all over town. It’s hard to believe he was actually murdered.”
Smith was nodding. “I didn’t believe it either, at first. They found him last night, by the storage yard out on Highway 9.”
“Poor Denny. Who would do such a thing?”
“Lester Taney was seen in the area. Denny apparently tipped the law to the location of Lester’s bootlegging operation and Lester shot him for it.”
“That’s unbelievable.” Her lips pressed into a thin line as she recalled her high school years. “Denny never was the sharpest pencil in the box but he always seemed to have a pretty good heart.”
“Not according to some of the good old boys around here. You should hear all the talk over at the café.”
“It still doesn’t make sense to me. Bootlegging went out of style with the end of Prohibition.”
“Apparently not. We live in a dry county, and with taxes on liquor so high, I guess it’s still profitable.”
Julie Ann picked up her scissors and began combing and snipping Smith’s thick, dark hair. “You don’t think we’ll be called for that jury, do you?”
“I doubt it. With the way everybody in town knows everybody else, I can’t see how they’d expect to find an impartial jury around here.”
Her eyebrows arched as her gaze again met his in the mirror. “That’s true.”
Eventually laying aside her comb and scissors, she reached for the clippers. This part could be a bit tricky but she was so used to doing it, it was practically automatic.
Consequently, when Smith cleared his throat and asked, “Didn’t you and Denny date years ago?” her clippers jerked and strayed into the back of his hair above the area she’d intended to trim.
Julie Ann’s heartfelt “Ack!” made Smith jump and sent her errant cut even higher.
She stepped back, appalled. “I’m so sorry!”
“How bad is it?”
“Not that bad. I can even it up.”
“Before you take my ear off, maybe you should answer my question. Did you date Denny Hanford?”
“No. Yes. Sort of. We had mutual friends and we all used to run around together.” Although her first instinct had been to deny any connection, she certainly wasn’t going to lie. After all, there was no real tie between her and the poor, dead young man.
She met Smith’s steady gaze in the mirror again. “He’d failed a couple of grades and wound up in my graduating class. There weren’t very many of us so we all knew each other, okay?”
As she bent lower to reshape the thick hair on the back of Smith’s head, she had to force herself to concentrate on what she was doing. Were others going to ask her about her relationship with Denny? Did it really matter? She supposed not. He had been a much closer friend to her older brother, Ben, and when Ben, like Smith, had joined the Marines, she’d been glad to see him far removed from Denny’s questionable influence.
Would that be enough to disqualify her from serving on the murder trial’s jury? Perhaps. And perhaps not. Either way, it wasn’t up to her. If the Good Lord wanted her to serve, she’d have to. That was all there was to it.
The notion of holding another person’s life in her hands, however, made her feel queasy.
Smith looked over his shoulder at her. “You okay?”
“Sure. Fine. Just overworked. Sherilyn didn’t show up this morning and when I phoned to ask her why, she couldn’t stop crying long enough to tell me.”
“Uh-oh. Were she and Denny involved?”
“I don’t think so. She tells me a lot about her love life—usually more than I’d like to hear—and she’s never mentioned his name.”
“Still, they probably ran around with some of the same people.”
Julie Ann reluctantly agreed. “You’re right. Sherilyn had a pretty hard life until recently so that theory fits. I haven’t had much success getting her interested in the youth activities at my church but I keep trying.”
“She just needs to grow up more before she develops common sense.”
Julie Ann met his glance in the mirror, then averted her eyes. “Like I did, you mean?”
“I never said that.”
“No, but you were thinking it.”
When Smith didn’t contradict her, she felt her cheeks warming with embarrassment. They had never talked about her actions following their one date but she knew he hadn’t been infatuated with her, as she’d hoped back then.
She huffed and pressed her lips into a thin line. That was the understatement of the century. If he hadn’t come to her for haircuts after his military buzz cut had grown out, she’d have assumed he never forgave her for the way she’d pursued him. She certainly wouldn’t have blamed him for avoiding her completely. If their roles had been reversed, that’s probably what she would have done. She was a lot smarter these days—even where Smith was concerned.
As Smith had feared, he and Julie Ann were both notified to report for jury selection a few weeks later. He followed her and several others into the courtroom. It wasn’t like the depictions he’d seen on TV and in the movies. There were fifteen rows of padded, armless chairs facing a small, raised, oak-paneled area beneath the Arkansas seal, which was flanked by national and state flags.
Tables were arranged on either side of the judge’s bench and attorneys were already poring over the questionnaires he and the others had filled out.