Disclaimer: These are not my characters and I make no profit from them.
Author's Note: The third season episode "The Career Breaker" is set in the rural town of Canary Creek, which is hosting its annual fishing competition. Hardcastle, one of the competitors, witnesses a local bully, Corky Conklin, extort a prizewinning fish from a mild-mannered Cleveland ophthalmologist, Alan Smith. The judge convinces Smith to report the incident to the sheriff. When Hardcastle is later framed by the sheriff's teenage daughter, he initially assumes she's acting on Corky's behest. Mark arrives, stages a jailbreak, and the two of them deduce like crazy while fleeing the authorities. Eventually they expose the real plot—the sheriff's attempt to silence Hardcastle before he can realize he's spent the week fishing from the shade of a drug-smuggler's crashed plane.
And after that they pack up and head home to peaceful LA County . . .
The Rest of the Story
by L.M. Lewis
Two Days Later
It was inevitable. A long weekend up in Mendocino, followed by a terrifying twenty-four hours in Canary Creek, and the grass was bound to have gotten a little ragged. Mark stood on the side lawn, hands on his hips, surveying it.
He thought he might even do something about it -some sort of silent gesture of appreciation that he'd made it home at all. Things had been touch-and-go there while he and Hardcastle had been on the run. In retrospect, Mark was pretty sure the crooked sheriff wouldn't have let either one of them be taken alive.
He'd made up his mind and was turning toward the garage when he spotted an unfamiliar sedan coming down the drive. Mark didn't think there were any contracts out against the judge this week and, besides, the sedan wasn't just unfamiliar, it was hesitant. There was a flat-out pause—presumably as its driver checked a scribbled address against the map. Guys with bad intentions were rarely so unsure of themselves.
He altered course, striding toward the drive to act as unofficial greeter. The driver had pulled up alongside the fountain. Mark waved as the door opened. He felt just the tiniest twinge of relief—a guy feels so stupid waving at a hit man—but the man disembarking looked no more threatening than an insurance salesman.
"Is Milt home?" Even his smile was hesitant. He was neatly dressed in a XXL Izod shirt and his twill pants were 52-short.
Mark shook his head. "Sorry. Errands. We've been out of town."
"You must be McCormick." The man leaned forward slightly, extending a hand. His grip was even and controlled. "I'm Alan Smith."
Mark felt a ping of recollection. "Smitty—ah, I mean Dr. Smith." He grinned and pumped the man's hand with a little more enthusiasm. "Hardcastle told me about you. You're the guy who made sure I don't have to listen to him brag for the next couple of weeks."
The doc looked a little nonplussed at his fame and finally reclaimed his hand. "I suppose I should have called. I was on my way back, you know. My flight's out of LAX this afternoon."
"He might be home any time." Mark glanced down at his watch and then up again. "Going out of your way this far, you might as well give him a few minutes. You're from Cleveland, right?"
Smith nodded and let Mark usher him up to the front steps and into the house. He looked around as he was led into the den, smiling bemusedly as he settled into one of the wingback chairs.
"It's funny," he said. "Some places look just like you think they're going to." He gave a nod toward the gun rack and judge's favorite western bronze on the corner table. "You can tell a lot about a man from his study."
Mark gave that a considered shrug. "Can I get you something to drink? A beer?"
"No . . . no." The man shifted uneasily. "You know, I really ought to be going. I should've called first. It's just that—" He paused on that and frowned for a moment. "I guess I was embarrassed. I didn't want him to think I'd run out on him, especially after what he did."
"What? Getting you to make a report with the sheriff?" Mark smiled and shook his head. "Anyway, you heard the whole thing had nothing to do with that Conklin guy, right?"
"Milt getting framed—that was the sheriff, I heard." Smith pursed his lips. "I didn't know that then, of course. And I didn't run out. Well—maybe I did a little."
There was another pause. Mark just rode it out. The guy seemed to need to talk.
"I thought I'd be next. Conklin had threatened us both."
Mark felt his eyebrow rising and tried to tamp it down, lest it interfere with the confession.
"I didn't think that'd do any good, me getting set up, too. Besides, well, I've got my practice to worry about. The publicity."
Mark nodded sagely. "A real career-buster."
The doc looked surprised by the sympathy. "But I heard you went in there. You broke him out."
Mark shrugged. "My career involves a lawnmower. Anyway, he'd told me to call the district judge."
Smith looked startled. "That's what I did."
"What happened?"
"I got the runaround. The judge was in court, then he was at lunch, then I was supposed to get a call back from his clerk, which never came. I thought maybe if I went over to the county seat, but I ended up parked in a waiting room for most of the afternoon—then they told me he'd gone home for the day and why didn't I have an appointment?"
"I probably would've gotten kicked out a lot faster . . . or arrested. And I just figured if I was going to end up in jail, it might as well be the right one, ya know?"
The doc studied him for a moment intently. "You're like him," he observed with quiet certainty.
"Huh?"
"If it needs to be done, you do it—and damn the consequences. When Conklin walked into that bar I was terrified—"
"What bar?"
"The Ice House. He didn't tell you?"
"He just said he saw Conklin take your fish and you both went to the sheriff and had him arrested."
"He left out the part where Conklin pulled a knife on him in the bar?"
Mark shook his head silently.
"Corky was waving the knife in his face and Milt pulled out a gun."
Mark swallowed and said, "The .45?"
"I don't know much about guns. It was silver. They just stared at each other for a couple of seconds and then Corky folded. He could tell Milt meant it."
Mark closed his eyes momentarily, though he didn't need to do that to see the whole thing, in vivid black and white like an old John Wayne movie.
"No," he said firmly. "No, he didn't. It was a stone-cold bluff. The bar was full of people?"
"Yeah," Smith said slowly. "Crowded, I guess you'd say. The contest—"
"That .45 at point blank range would have put a hole through Conklin and probably the guy standing behind him as well."
"But—"
"A bluff." Mark heard himself say it with the certainty of a man who would have done exactly the same thing in the same situation.
"He looked so sure of himself."
"That's the only way it ever works," Mark said quietly. "And sometimes even then it doesn't."
They both sat in pensive silence for a long moment, and then Mark sighed. "And he was never gonna tell me about it."
The doc winced.
"Don't worry," Mark assured him, "I'll tell him I weaseled it out of the barmaid. He'll never know you finked on him . . . a .45." He shook his head in disbelief.
Smith looked edgy, as though he'd spent enough time in John Wayne's study for one afternoon and Cleveland was looking better by the minute.
He stood slowly. "Maybe you could just tell him I was here and, well, thanks—I mean for everything."
Mark nodded understandingly and moved to show him to the door. "Thanks for stopping by; I really didn't have time to make a run at the barmaid."
The doc ventured a small smile of conspiracy. "Well, glad to be a help to somebody."
Mark watched him head back to the car. The man hadn't quite mastered a saunter, but he seemed a little more certain of his footing.