A Texas Christmas: True Blue / A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel. Diana Palmer

you?” she asked, and smiled.

      He laughed deeply and then he shook his head. “Actually, no, I wouldn’t. I’m too handsome to spend time in prison. There would be riots. I’d be so much in demand as somebody’s significant other.”

      She laughed, too. She hadn’t realized he had a sense of humor. Her face flushed. She looked very pretty.

      He cocked his head. “You could just ask Marquez to the ballet and tell him yourself.”

      “My boss would have me hung in Hogan’s Alley up at the FBI Academy with a placard around my neck as a warning to other loose-lipped agents,” she told him.

      He grinned. “I’d come cut you down, Cassaway. I get along well with the feds. But I’m not prejudiced. I also get along with mercenaries.”

      “There’s a rumor that you used to be one,” she fished.

      His face closed up, although he was still smiling. “How about that?”

      She didn’t comment.

      He swung his long legs off the desk and stood up. “Let me know how it goes,” he said. He walked her to the door. “It’s not a bad idea, about asking him to the ballet. He loves ballet. He usually goes alone. He can’t get girlfriends.”

      “Why not?” she asked. She cleared her throat. “I mean, he’s rather attractive.”

      “He wears a gun.”

      “So do you,” she pointed out, indicating the holster. “In fact, we all wear them.”

      “True, but he likes women who don’t,” he replied. “And they don’t like men who wear guns. He doesn’t date colleagues, he says. But you might be able to change his mind.”

      “Fat chance.” She sighed. “He doesn’t like me.”

      “Go solve that murder for the cold case unit, and they’ll lobby him for you,” he teased.

      “How do you know about that?” she asked, surprised.

      “I’m the lieutenant,” he pointed out. “I know everything,” he added smugly.

      She laughed. She was still laughing when she walked down the corridor.

      Rick heard her from inside his office. He threw a scratch pad across the room and knocked the trash can across the floor with it. Then he grimaced, in case anybody heard and asked what was going on. He couldn’t have told them. He didn’t know himself why he was behaving so out of character.

      The man Gwen was tracking in her semiofficial disguise was an unpleasant, slinky individual who had a rap sheet that read like a short story. She’d gone down to Jacobsville and interviewed Officer Dan Travis. He seemed a decent sort of person, and he could swear that the man who was arrested for the murder was at a holiday party with him, and had never even stepped outside. He had told the assistant DA, but the attorney refused to entertain evidence he considered hearsay. Travis gave her the names of two other people she could contact, who would verify the information. She took notes and arranged for a deposition to be taken from him.

      Her next stop was Patrol South Division, in San Antonio, to talk to the arresting officer who’d taken Dunagan in for the attempted assault on a college woman a few months ago, Dave Harris. He was working that day, but was working a wreck when she phoned him. So she arranged to meet him for lunch at a nearby fast food joint.

      They sat together over hamburgers and fries and soft drinks, attracting attention with his uniform and her pistol and badge, conspicuously displayed.

      “We’re being watched,” she said in a dramatic tone, indicating two young women at a nearby booth.

      “Oh, that’s just Joan and Shirley,” he said. He looked toward the women, waved and grinned. One of them flushed and almost knocked over her drink. He was blond and blue-eyed, nicely built, and quite handsome. He was also single. “Joan’s sweet on me,” he added in a whisper. “They know I always eat here, so they come by for lunch. They work at the print shop downtown. Joan’s a graphic artist. Very talented.”

      “Nice,” she murmured, biting into the burger.

      “Why are you doing a cold case?” he asked as he finished his salad and sipped black coffee.

      “It ties in with a current one we’re working on,” she said, and related what Cash Grier had told her.

      His dark eyebrows arched. “They never called a prime witness in the case?”

      “Strange, isn’t it?” she agreed. “That would be grounds for a mistrial, I’d think, but I’ll need to talk to the city attorney’s office first. The man who was convicted has been in prison for almost a year.”

      “Shame, if he’s innocent,” the patrolman replied.

      “I know. Fortunately, such things don’t happen often.”

      “What about the suspect in your current case?”

      “A nasty bit of work,” she replied. “I can place him at the scene of the crime, and if there’s enough trace evidence to do a DNA profile, I think I can connect him with it. Her neighbors reported seeing him around her apartment the morning before the murder. If he’s guilty, I don’t want him to slip through the cracks on my watch, especially since Sergeant Marquez assigned me to the case as chief investigator.”

      “Really? How many other people are helping you with the case?”

      “Let’s see, right now, there’s me and one other detective that I borrowed to help question witnesses.”

      He sighed. “Budget issues again?”

      “Afraid so. I can manage. If I need help, the cold case unit will lend me somebody.”

      “Nice group, that cold case unit.”

      She smiled. “I think so, too.”

      “Now about the perp,” he added, leaning forward. “This is how it went down.”

      He described the scene of the assault where he’d arrested Dunagan, the persons involved, the witnesses and his own part in the arrest. Gwen made notes on her phone and saved the file.

      “That’s a big help,” she told him. “Thanks.”

      He smiled. “You’re very welcome.” He checked his watch. “I have to get back on patrol. Was there any other information you needed?”

      “Nothing I can’t find in the file. I appreciate the summary of the case, and your thoughts on it. That really helps.”

      “You’re welcome. Any time.”

      “Shame about the latest victim,” she added as they got up and headed to the trash bin with their trays. “She was very pretty. Her neighbors said she went out of her way to help people in need.” She glanced at him. “We had one of your fellow officers on stakeout with us the other night. Sims.”

      He paused as he dumped the paper waste and placed the tray in its stack on the refuse container top. “He’s not our usual sort of patrol officer.”

      “What do you mean?” she asked, frowning.

      “I really can’t say anything. It’s just that he has an interesting background. There are people in high positions with influence,” he added. He smiled. “But he’s not my problem. I think you’ll do well in the homicide unit. You’ve got a knack for sorting things out, and you’re thorough. Good luck on the case.”

      “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

      He smiled. “You’re welcome.”

      She drove back to the office with her brain spinning. What she’d learned was very helpful. She might crack the case, which would certainly give her points with Rick Marquez. But there was still the problem of what she knew and couldn’t tell him. She only hoped that Cash Grier