Mink Too, All the Riches in the World Can't Buy Love Read online

  “Yes, Sir.” Liz Gilmore turned to leave, but the sheriff’s voice stopped her.

  “And no more drug searches on our upstanding citizens, okay?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Liz replied, saluting a superior officer. I didn’t think the bitch had the balls to jack my ass. Was I wrong about that or what! she thought as she strode through the stationhouse with everyone’s eyes on her.

  Some wise-ass cop called out, “Go get her, Lizzie!”

  In response, Liz shrugged, then kept on walking until she reached the parking lot and her unmarked cruiser.

  Liz passed by one of Owen Drummond’s large construction sites on the drive to the Drummond estate. She reduced her speed as a flagman redirected the traffic around the site. He looked familiar and so she stopped.

  The flagman leaned into her patrol car. “Hey, Lizzie, how goes it?”

  Liz smiled in recognition. “How’re you doing, Danny?”

  “I’m doing great today,” the young man responded with a quick, easy smile.

  “How are Jennifer and Junior?”

  Daniel Hanley grinned proudly at the mention of his wife and son. “They’re fine. Danny Jr. just started walking last weekend. He’s something else, Liz. Why don’t you come over to see us sometime? We miss not seeing you.”

  Liz watched his eyes light up with pride when he talked about his family. He’d changed for the better since the first time she’d seen him. The first time they’d met, he was ready to jump off the Sarahatchie Bridge because he couldn’t support his pregnant wife. Liz had been fishing in the stream below the bridge. She liked to fish in her spare time. Since she was new in town and hadn’t made many friends, she had time on her hands. It happened on one of those lazy, humid southern afternoons, the kind that was for good fishing.

  When she first saw the solid-looking man on the bridge, she didn’t think anything about it. She just figured he was there for the fishing or enjoying the sweet air the same as she was. The next thing he did was strange enough that it caught her attention. He climbed on to the railing to stare into the water fifty feet below. That was when she noticed he didn’t have fishing equipment with him. He climbed back down to the wooden floor of the bridge. Then he wandered around on the bridge, talking as though he was trying to convince himself of something.

  By that time, she knew something was amiss and she’d already put down her rod and reel. She quietly moved under the bridge, trying to find the best way to approach the man without scaring him into doing something that he might regret later. He was so distraught he didn’t notice the tall figure striding toward him until it was too late to jump. She could see when she looked into his eyes that this was a man at the end of his rope, but he seemed to be willing to talk to her about his troubles. They must have talked for the remainder of the afternoon and into the late evening about simple things like families, friends, baseball, and fishing.

  Liz stayed to talk to the man about anything she could think of to take his mind away from jumping. She mentioned a notice in the local paper about job openings at one of the Drummond construction sites. He’d mentioned he had a construction work background, so Liz made him promise if she could get him an interview by the next week that he wouldn’t jump. She arranged a job interview for the following Monday.

  By Wednesday, Danny called to say he was working at the site. He didn’t know it at the time, but Liz kept an eye on him until he got the job. They became fishing buddies. She’d stop by their trailer every week to see the baby and visit with his wife, Jen. Lately, though, she’d started attending law school at night, so she didn’t have the time to do much but study, work, and sleep when she could. She sighed inwardly when she thought about the direction her life had taken.

  “Sorry, Liz, but Mr. Drummond asked us to redirect traffic around the site for today. The mayor and the city council broke ground there today. Why don’t you take Route 2? It’s faster.”

  “Thanks, Danny.” She waved at him as she pulled over to turn the squad car around. The sheriff approved this crap and she hated that. She drove two miles out of the way to accommodate the Drummond ceremony. No wonder Ms. Brat had an exaggerated sense of importance. I wonder if she’s ever held a real job, Liz mused as she drove down the long curved driveway to the Drummond estate. She saw a marvelous view of well-trimmed evergreen bushes and the plush expanse of the front lawn that reminded her of kelly green velvet. Large leafy oak trees planted every few feet on both sides of the driveway formed archways that added to the elegant beauty of the place. She whistled and thought how the Drummonds’ gardener must make a mint keeping the grounds in shape.

  She climbed out of the air-conditioned car into the humid afternoon, wiping her brow. She put on her Stetson hat and adjusted her gun belt. Someone was peeking through a curtain on the second floor. If she hadn’t been looking up to admire the mansion-like house, she wouldn’t have noticed the curtain moving. She wondered who was watching her. She shrugged, dusted off her gray uniform and black steel-toed boots, and stood on the wrap-around porch to admire the view of the vivid patches of reds, blues, greens, yellows, and purples from the flower garden that surrounded the house. She used the brass knocker against the matching brass pad at the front door.

  “Afternoon, Ma’am.” Liz touched the brim of her Stetson. “Could I speak with Miss Drummond, please?”

  “Yes, Sergeant, come right in. She’s been expecting you. Please follow me,” the housekeeper remarked with a bright smile.

  So she was expecting me, was she? I wonder what else the spoiled brat has planned. Liz kept her thoughts to herself. She followed the brown-skinned housekeeper through the kitchen and into the hallway.

  “She’s out by the pool sunning, Sergeant. I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but she’s pissed… real pissed.” The housekeeper stopped before they reached the pool to whisper. “Nobody ever made her suffer through a drug search before. Did you really make her repack the trunk?”

  Liz Gilmore nodded. “Yes, Ma’am, I did.”

  The housekeeper’s eyes grew round. “Not even the old man could get her to do that much.” She walked to the deck, then pointed to Susan Drummond. “There she is, Sergeant Gilmore.”

  Susan Drummond had fallen asleep in one of the lounge chairs on the pool’s deck. Her nap provided Liz with an opportunity to assess her undisturbed. She studied Susan’s shapely body, taking in long legs the color of dark honey. She stared at the bright pink toenails encased in expensive-looking leather sandals. Susan wore a matching pink thong bathing suit bottom with a skimpy top that barely contained her ample bosom. The brief suit showed off a small flat waist that flared into full hips. Liz found it interesting that Susan’s hair was in short African twists and not the usual relaxed hairstyle she’d expect a wealthy Black woman to wear.

  “Do you see anything you like, Officer Gilmore? Or should I say ‘Sergeant’ Gilmore!” Susan Drummond snapped, then opened her eyes. She watched Liz visibly stiffen.

  It annoyed Liz that Susan Drummond caught her look of admiration. She didn’t want the Drummond woman to think she was the least bit interested in anything more than pacifying her boss the sheriff.

  The throaty voice with the slightly southern lilt laughed at her. “It’s okay to look, Sarge. You just can’t touch unless I say you can. My father said you have to do anything I want.” Her eyes glinted with speculation as she studied the cop. “Right now, I want you to remove your sunglasses. After that, we’ll see what else I want removed.”

  Liz folded her arms across her chest and looked down at Susan Drummond. “I don’t think so, Ma’am.”

  “Well, I do! If you wanna keep your job so you can continue to pay for law school, you might wanna do what I say, Sergeant Elizabeth Gilmore.”

  Liz frowned. “How did you know about law school? The other stuff…er…my rank and my first name, you could find out without trying hard.”

  Susan looked up into the mirrored glasses and smiled smugly. “I know a lot about you, Sarge. For instance,
you like the name Elizabeth because it was your grandmother’s name, but you prefer Liz. Only your family and special friends call you Lizzie. Your birthplace is here, but after your mother died, your father took you and your brother north when you were little. Your grandmother, who lived in New York, raised you and your brother. You still lived with your grandmother until two years ago, when she died. Your father asked you to come back down here to help one of his childhood friends, our dear sheriff and your godfather, with the growing crime rate in my little town. How am I doing so far, Sarge?”

  Liz wanted to slug the woman.

  “I can make this hard or easy, Lizzie,” Susan said, repeating Liz’s own words to taunt her. “Take off the sunglasses, Sergeant!”

  Elizabeth Gilmore felt a jaw muscle tighten as it always did when something annoyed her, but she couldn’t show it. She simply looked down and glared at the woman lying casually in the lounge chair, smirking at her.

  Before Liz could respond to her latest provocation, Susan Drummond rose quickly to snatch the glasses off the bridge of her nose. She tossed them into the pool. Then she stood nose to chin with the police officer. Sparkling hazel eyes stared into hard dark brown eyes.

  “I could have you arrested for assaulting a police officer, Miss Drummond!” Liz snapped, standing her ground in front of the woman.

  “Try it, Lizzie, and I’ll have your job,” Susan Drummond warned.

  Hard hazel eyes confronted angry dark eyes.

  Liz’s jaw muscles grew tighter. Abruptly, she sighed and broke eye contact with the Drummond woman. A good cop didn’t respond to obvious provocation. She remembered that lesson from her father’s police management course. She could still picture him as he pounded it into Jake and her at the dinner table when he entertained them with his police stories. She suddenly grinned at Susan Drummond, noting the surprised and wary look in her eyes. “Do you think we could compromise, Miss Drummond? I give a little and you give a little.”

  Susan wrinkled her nose in disgust and then pouted. “No! You insulted me today and I didn’t like it. It’s your turn to give. I need a swimming partner.”

  Liz’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t think she was going to like where the conversation was going. “So?”

  “I hear you swim like a fish. I need someone to teach me how to swim,” she remarked, pretending to pout.

  “Call the local Y. They give swimming classes all year,” Liz responded, watching the Drummond woman’s lower lip poke out as if she was a small child.

  “You don’t get it, do you? I want you to teach me. It’s all been arranged. Your boss gave you afternoons off for the next month; longer if I need it.” Susan smirked at Liz. “The lessons start today, Teach.”

  Liz sputtered and then protested, “But I don’t have a suit!”

  “Don’t worry about it. I have plenty of them. I’m sure one of them should fit you. Here, try this one.” Susan threw what looked like a bathing suit that was missing a few pieces at her.

  “Where’s the rest of the suit?” Liz asked as she held it against her.

  “That is the suit, Sarge. It’s like mine.”

  Liz took off the Stetson and wiped her head with a stark white hanky. “Isn’t there some other way we could do this?”

  “Yes. You could change into the suit right here in front of me!” Susan replied with a smirk.

  Liz’s eyes widened, but she remained silent. She calculated how much keeping this job meant to her. What would happen if she slugged Susan Drummond in that pretty mouth of hers and threw her into the pool?

  Susan Drummond grinned evilly when she noted the sergeant’s stony silence. “But I don’t want to annoy my swimming teacher too much. She might try to drown me.”

  “The thought did occur to me, Miss Drummond, but this state frowns severely on premeditated murder.” Liz sighed heavily. She resigned to her fate as a swimming instructor for the rich witch. “All right. Where can I change?”

  “There’s a guest bedroom off to the left with more modest bathing attire on the bed if you like, with a towel. You can hang your uniform in the closet and store your holster in the small safe embedded in the wall inside the closet. Ask Becky for the combination.”

  “Who’s Becky?”

  “She’s my housekeeper.”

  “Oh.” Liz strode off to find the room Susan described. “Swimming lessons!” she muttered in the quiet of the guestroom. Uncle Ted must have flipped his wig on this one or Owen Drummond pressured him into this shit. The Drummond woman was right about one thing; the suit lying on the bed was just her style. She held the suit up to her chest. It was a simple one-piece tank suit with lined cups for her breasts to fit inside. Somebody was good with sizes because this one fit as though it was tailor-made for her. She never found suits that fit this well. Usually, if they fit her bosom, they were too big at the waist, but the hips were fine. If she got one that fit her waist, the rest of her didn’t fit in the suit. It wasn’t her fault that God had given her good-sized breasts and hips with a narrow waist.

  Before she stripped off her uniform, she put in a radio call to the sheriff. He confirmed the Drummond woman’s version of the agreement, then told her she was damn lucky since Susan Drummond wanted her fired before they struck this deal. “Damn it! I’ll be giving swimming lessons to the Drummond brat this afternoon!” she muttered as she stepped into the tank suit. She couldn’t believe she was giving some rich witch swimming lessons to keep her job. She wrapped the large beach towel around her waist, slipped into borrowed floppies, and walked out to the pool’s deck.

  “Are you ready for your first lesson, Miss Drummond? Miss Drummond? Where are you?” Liz looked around the empty deck in search of her nemesis.

  “Oh, she left, but she said to give this to you, Sergeant.” Becky handed her a note written on beautiful scented paper and elegantly scripted. It read:

  I have a dinner engagement at the club.

  Maybe next time!

  S. D.

  Becky watched the cop curse loudly and then angrily ball up the note. She tossed it to the ground and threw off the towel wrapped around her waist to dive into the pool and retrieve her sunglasses. She swam two laps around the pool. Then she strode dripping wet to the bedroom. Ten minutes later, she touched the brim of her hat, then spoke to Becky. “Ma’am, make sure you tell your boss she’d better not speed anywhere near me unless she wants to go to jail after I personally confiscate her car. Good day to you.”

  Becky watched the tall cop march off to the squad car and murmured, “Suzie bit off more than she could chew with that one. Things are gonna get mighty interesting if she sticks around. But the sergeant probably won’t stay, since most of Suzie’s friends are pieces of fluff with no real depth to them, except for Johnny Flint,” she mused as she watched the squad car fly up the Drummond driveway. “Look at her go!” she muttered. “Johnny don’t count. He loves her so bad he can’t see straight.”

  Over the years, Becky watched Suzie use John Flint any way she could, except in the bedroom, which was where he wanted her the most. She remembered hearing Suzie tell Johnny more than once how she’d accommodate him one day. As far as Becky could tell, that day hadn’t come for that patient little wimp. She sighed as she watched the cop car speed up the drive and enter the roadway. “Yes, Sir. Things could get mighty interesting if that one stays around.”

  Liz heard the gravel spit out against the back tires as she hit the highway going back to town. She was glad to be out of the Drummond compound. She decided to roll the window down and enjoy the evening heat after the frigid air-conditioning of the Drummond house. That damned brat sure planned her little revenge and fast escape, she mused after reviewing the past hour’s events in her mind. Well, the witch could plan all the shit that she wanted because she was a good planner too! She issued a wicked grin. Perhaps a visit to the country club to see how the rich and famous lived might just do the trick to soothe her bruised ego.

  CHAPTER TWO … The club, part I


  The Blue Lake Country Club was in one of the wooded areas of the town. Some of the older townspeople claimed the area used to be an old cotton plantation. If that was the case, an outsider couldn’t tell by looking at it. The city had torn down the building that allegedly housed the master’s quarters ninety years ago to make room for a more modern-looking building that met the safety standards of that era. A developer demolished that building to make room for the current building and the well-manicured grounds that Susan saw as she drove up to the valet parking. The expansive lawn and shrubbery resembled a plush green carpet. After the club bought the property, they added several buildings that blended in with the current motif.

  The main clubhouse was a two-story, red brick structure that occupied the front grounds. It housed the main dining hall and the banquet room. The rooms contained parquet floors used for formal dinners, dancing, and the annual debutante cotillions. During nice weather, the club opened the wide French doors that led onto the landscaped patio. Members could rent the space for private parties and dances held under the moonlight and stars. The first floor also contained restrooms, locker rooms, a cloakroom, and the main kitchen. Business suites, a small private library with Internet access, the men’s club, the women’s tearoom, and a large, fully equipped, computerized video conference room were on the second floor. Enclosed, air-conditioned, tinted glass tunnels connected the various buildings together.

  The second building housed the golf enthusiasts, their lockers and restrooms, a sauna, whirlpools, a large steam room, and several individual massage rooms. The golf pro kept an office there. The caddies had a small locker room there as well. The golf course sat behind the patio off and to the left of the building. The course continued for several miles. If you walked out the rear exit to the patio and made a right turn after a hundred yards, you’d fall into an Olympic-size indoor swimming pool that trained some of the town’s top swimmers.