Dog Gone Lies (Pacheco & Chino Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

someone else to fix him a meal.
    It took about fifteen minutes to get into T or C and park across the street from the Café. He didn’t bother locking his old Jeep. The poor thing was a great vehicle, but it was so dog ugly that he just couldn’t imagine anyone going to a lot of effort to steal it. Ray thought he and the Jeep might be a perfect match.
    At about six-feet-one and just slightly on the heavy side, Ray was generally described as burly. The mustache he’d grown when he first arrived in New Mexico gave him an old west cowboy appearance. Most days he dressed in comfortable jeans, an old work shirt, and a cowboy hat. Some days he wore cowboy boots.
    Ray was originally from Macon, Georgia. It’s where he’d met and married his wife, Loraine, and his first years in law enforcement were spent there. He’d spent a short time with the police force in Jacksonville, Florida, before he answered an ad in a law enforcement magazine looking for a chief deputy sheriff in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Ray and his wife had debated the craziness of moving to New Mexico—the distance, the difference in cultures-- just the overall risk involved for Ray and his family. They were both excited about the change and the opportunity for Ray to advance in his career, but still concerned about moving so far from their roots.
    When the Dona Ana sheriff’s office responded to Ray’s resume and offered him a job, Ray and Loraine had mixed feelings. But they moved anyway, and they fell in love with Las Cruces and Dona Ana County. Loraine became active in civic matters almost at once and began to feel at home.
    Ray had lost Loraine to cancer more than six years ago now, and his only son, Michael, had moved to Boston to take a job with a top notch law firm. Ray was proud of Michael, but harbored a deep resentment that he would move so far away from his home. After Ray’s wife died, he didn’t hear from his son very often—a phone call on major holidays was about it, and even then they didn’t have much to talk about. He hadn’t seen him since his wife’s funeral.
    Now that Ray was retired, he toyed with the idea that Michael might make a trip out to the boonies and see how he was doing—but he didn’t really think it was going to happen, just like he wasn’t going to Boston to visit. He wasn’t exactly bitter—he understood getting involved in your work and not being able to find the time for other things, so it was okay—sort of.
    Entering the Lone Post Café, Ray was overwhelmed by inviting aromas. He’d forgotten how wonderful this place always smelled. It was mostly the wonderful fragrance of green chilies—the famous Hatch, New Mexico, green chilies.
    The hostess recognized Ray and seated him in one of the Café’s old wooden booths, rubbed smooth by many a rear end.
    “You retired didn’t you, sheriff?”
    “Yep, been almost six months. Moved up here to an old cabin. Just relaxing and enjoying myself.” Ray could be real folksy when it suited him. The hostess said his waitress would be right with him.
    A very attractive waitress in her mid-forties came over with water and a menu. “Good afternoon, my name is Sue and I’ll be your waitress today; would you like iced tea or coffee?”
    Obviously said hundreds of times a day. Still it seemed to Ray that there was a very special smile that went with the spiel. He liked it.
    “Well hello, Sue, my name is Ray. I think I’d like some sweet iced tea.”
    “Good choice, Ray. I’ll be right back.”
    Okay, he was old, not dead. He watched her walk away and enjoyed the view.
    Ray ordered the Mexican lunch plate special—somewhere close to twice the amount of food he needed. He ate it all. He’d always heard that the red chili sauce was addictive and believed that was true—every so often you just needed your red chili fix. He leaned back to relax just as Sue appeared with more tea.
    “Anything else today, Ray?”
    “I think that has pretty well done me in for today, Sue.