Passion in James County XVI
Martin Flannigan, Ann Wallin's next door neighbor, was standing at his kitchen counter making coffee when he saw the big blonde man leaving Ann's house. "Looks like Ann had another, ah, guest, again last night," he thought and shook his head sadly. "What's going on with that girl? What makes a pretty woman like her act like that?"
Martin, a tall, bulky graying man of fifty-five, had been Ann's neighbor for about a year. He moved to Jamestown at the invitation of his old friend, Alex Martin, the sheriff of James County, to head up an arson task force Alex had assembled. Martin was an arson investigator in a police department in a large city where Alex had once been a detective and was facing forced retirement due to his age at the time his friend called.
After he got the coffee brewing, Martin went outside and put the container that held his household trash out on the front sidewalk for pickup. He looked at his neighbor's house. As usual, Ann hadn't put her trash out. He walked around to the rear of her house, got the large, wheeled container, and rolled it out to the front sidewalk. Putting his neighbor's trash out on collection day had become a habit for him.
Martin was a widower. His wife died in a car crash two days before their tenth anniversary, some fifteen years earlier. They had two children, a son and a daughter. Both of his kids had followed in his law-enforcement footsteps. Martin, Jr., now twenty-four, was a trooper with the State Patrol. Melissa, twenty-three, was a detective with the sheriff's department in neighboring Lincoln County, and was attending night school, working on her law degree. Martin, with good reason, was proud of his kids. "I guess I didn't do too bad as a single dad," he thought as he walked back into his house.
Once more, he stood in his kitchen, looking out the window at Ann Wallin's house, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "I wonder what Ann's story is," he mused. He'd spoken with his attractive neighbor quite often since he moved in, and found her to be a soft-spoken, intelligent woman. He knew she lived alone, and she didn't wear a wedding ring, which probably meant she was either divorced or widowed. He had a feeling she'd been married at least once. "Why does a woman as attractive and intelligent as she seems to be drag home a loser every night?" he wondered.
Martin wasn't judging Ann, he'd been a cop too long, and had seen and heard too many things to make judgments about people. He had gotten to know Ann and his instincts told him she was a nice person. He always trusted his instincts.
The phone rang and Martin picked it up. "Flannigan," he said.
"Hey, Ash Man," a feminine voice said, "How are you doing?"
Martin laughed. "About as well as some hick sheriff's department gumshoe, why?" he replied to his daughter. Once, ages ago, he'd come home from a fire scene covered with ashes. His wife Marie commented that he looked like the ash man. The kids had picked up the nickname and continued to use it.
"You ready for some good news?" his daughter asked.
