Disclaimer: The characters and setting is from 'In the Heat of the Night'. I'm only borrowing them. I only wish we could make money doing this. J

A/N: I know that a situation like this wouldn't be handled as it is my story in the real world, but it does for the sake of this story.

Thanks: To AnnewithanE for being my beta-reader and for loaning me Laura Daniels, not to mention endless idea bouncing with me.

Laura's POV

Laura was at my house when Bubba and Lonnie showed up to give me the news.

We were working on some rather boring research for an upcoming case, so when the doorbell rang I cheerily hopped up to answer it. "Be right back."

"'Kay," Laura mumbled, deep into the file she was reading.

I smiled when I saw Bubba standing on the other side of the door, but my smile was short-lived as I saw the look on his face and then again on Lonnie's.

Both looked serious but with gently detached concern. I think they teach them that look at the Police Academy. Except, they didn't quite pull it off. There was more than a hint of sadness in their eyes.

One thought passed through my mind. Beau's gone. Slowly, I began to shake my head. He wasn't. He couldn't be. I felt as if the world was crashing in on me and I just couldn't let it be.

"No." The calmness in my voice surprised me. That surely wasn't the way I felt on the inside. I should be screaming and running, but instead my voice is steady and firm, and my legs feel like lead. "No!"

I slammed the door shut and walked to my bedroom and shut that door too. I didn't want to hear what I thought they had to say.

I looked up when Austin slammed the door.

Two seconds later, Bubba knocked on the door. "Come on, Austin-honey, open the door."

She ignored him as she walked in her room and shut the door.

What in the world was going on with the two of them? I got up and opened the door since I was fairly sure she wasn't coming out of her room.

"Bubba Skinner, what on earth is going…," I stopped short when I saw him and Lonnie standing there, both of them toying with their hats in their hands.

My heart leapt up in my throat and I felt as though I couldn't breathe as I pushed thoughts of the worst to the back of my mind.

This was my reaction and I was only his friend. I knew Austin must have been losing her mind in that room alone.

"What's wrong?" I asked, finally.

"Parker's been arrested," Bubba said. "The Chief sent us over here to get Austin and bring her to the station. He doesn't think that this was something that he could explain to her over the phone."

"Arrested?" I breathed a sigh of relief, at first, before the impact of his words caught up with the words themselves. My first thoughts were that arrested was alive, but then, "Oh, Bubba, Austin thinks he's dead. That's what I just thought."

He looked panicked, "Excuse me, ma'am." He moved past me towards Austin's room.

"Come in." I motioned for Lonnie to step inside.

One thing I was certain of was that Austin wouldn't want this discussed where that awful Ms. Stevens could hear it and start the gossip mills running.

"What is all this about?" I asked as I closed the door.

"We're not entirely sure," he replied, running a hand through his hair. "About an hour ago, three MP's from the JAG showed up with a warrant to arrest Parker for murder."

"Murder?" My eyes grew large with the shock.

He nodded. "They said he and another soldier killed their commanding officer in Viet Nam back in 1969."

"What? That was more than twenty years ago. Why are they just doing this now?"

"That's what we'd like to know," he replied, once again running his hands through his hair.

I could tell this was bothering him more than he was letting on. He sat down in a chair and rested his head against his hands.

I went over to him and put my arm around his shoulder. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"This don't make any sense. I can't believe that Parker intentionally killed anyone. I mean, I know he was soldier and he had to kill then, but that's different. That's shoot or be shot. Not…, murder."

He looked up at me.

"What did Parker say?"

"Nothing, absolutely nothing. He just stood up and took his gun, cuffs and badge off and handed them to the Chief. I think I watched the Chief age twenty years in that minute."

If Parker had denied it, or at least explained it, excused it, anything, then Lonnie could help him, or try to anyway. But, if Parker wasn't talking, then there was nothing he could do but sit and wait. How could he investigate a murder that took place twenty-two years ago in Viet Nam when the only witness he knew wasn't talking? The look in his eyes told me clearly that was what was bothering him so.

That, and if Parker wasn't denying the charges, then they just might be true, and that thought was killing him.

Austin's POV

I was standing at my window, staring out at the street, absentmindedly playing with the hem on the lace curtains Mrs. Etta had made me when Bubba came into my room. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn't notice him until he put his hands on my shoulders. His voice was softer than I ever imagined it could be.

"Austin-honey, it's not what you think. Parker's not dead, he's just fine. I'm sorry if we scared you. I do have some ba…,"

I stopped listening at fine. I drew a shaky breathe and then began to sob. It's funny, but when I thought Beau was dead, I couldn't cry- it was as if all the feelings in me had died with him.

The relief of knowing he was alive pushed all my sadness and worry out of me in painful waves as tears streamed down my face.

I turned to face him, but couldn't bring my eyes to his as I fought back tears. Instead, I concentrated on his name-plate as if it were the most important thing in the world. "I was so scared, Bubba."

"I know, Honey." He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. "I know you were."

At 5'7" I'm a fairly tall woman, but without my high heels on my head just barely came up to his shoulders. It felt nice, being held like that. I slid my arms around his waist.

"It's more than that, Bubba," I replied. "I guess I've always seen Beau as being sort of invincible. I just assumed he would always be here when I needed him. It's dumb, I suppose, but even when I was at school and would have case studies about police murders, I just convinced myself that things like that don't happen here. He couldn't be hurt on duty because these things happen in places like LA or Chicago or New York, they don't happen in small towns like Sparta, Mississippi. I always knew in the back of my mind, though, that it would only take one dumb kid with gun and..., I can't lose him, he's all I have."

"You have me and I'm never going to let anything hurt you again," he said, placing a soft kiss in my hair. "I promise."

I looked up at him and could tell he wasn't sure he could keep that promise.

Bubba's POV

I prayed I wasn't about to break the promise I had just made.

"Honey, I do have some bad news to tell you."

"What?" She looked confused. I could tell she thought that nothing could be bad if Parker was fine.

"Parker's been arrested."

She stepped away from me with an incredulous look on her face. "What?! Arrested for what? Beau's never done anything wrong in his life!"

"Now, darlin', I don't know what this is all about, but some MP's arrested him for murder. The Chief wants…"

"Murder? He isn't capable of murder. He's so tenderhearted it amazes me at times that he can even be a policeman."

I had to admit I had thought that a time or two myself.

"This ain't our doin'. The army sent two MP's in to arrest him. They say he and another soldier killed their CO back in Viet Nam," I tried to explain.

"Viet Nam," she repeated, bitterly. "He should have never been sent to Viet Nam. It almost destroyed him." She was staring out the window again. "Why are they bringing this up now?"

"I don't know."

"What did he say about it?"

"Nothing." I thought if anybody would have known anything about this, it would have been her.

Almost as if she were reading my thoughts, she said, "The only thing I know about Beau's tour in Viet Nam is not to ask him about his tour. It's probably the only thing he won't talk about."

That was true. Until that kid, Hank, had come around, I'd never heard him even mention being in Viet Nam.

"The Chief wants you to come down to the station so he can talk to you," I told her. "He didn't think this was something that needed to be done on the phone."

She nodded and wiped her eyes. "Okay. Let's go."

I started towards the door, but she stopped me.

"Bubba?"

"Yeah, darlin'?"

She wrapped her arms around my neck and stretched up on her toes to kiss me. "Thank you for what you said."

"I meant it."

She smiled sadly, and then stepped outside to be enveloped in a hug by Laura.

"Don't you worry, Kiddo," Laura said. "We're going to get all this cleared up."

"Ready to go?" Lonnie asked, standing by the door.

I could tell that Lonnie was chomping at the bit to do something, but like me, he didn't really know what.

LuAnn's POV

I watched as Dee paced the office like a caged tiger. She made the same twelve steps back and forth. She had done this ever since Parker had been arrested.

The Chief had convinced those MP's not to take Parker to the county jail for holding, instead to keep him here, since we don't have anyone downstairs right now. I know it's just that he don't want McComb's bunch being hard on Parker because, well, we don't exactly work well together.

He don't trust the MP's much either. He's been sitting down there with Parker every since they put him there.

We'd all been down there, hoping to think of something we could say to…, I really don't know what we were hoping to be able to do. Cheer him up, maybe? Make it easier, possibly?

Nothing we could have said would have done either.

I think deep down we all knew that. That's why we never managed to say anything.

I didn't even make it all the way in the cellblock before I turned and headed back to my desk.

It wasn't right. Parker belonged up here with us, sitting at this desk, drinking a glass of tea and inventing more ridiculous theories to drive us half-crazy with.

The sad, silent man sitting in that cell didn't even seem like the Parker Williams I knew. He was just sitting there, arms folded across his chest, staring at the wall.

Not even Chief Gillespie knew what to say, so he just sat there with Parker, staring at the wall, too.

Back to Dee, though. She was the only one who hadn't went down there. She just kept walking the floor.

I knew Dee had a little thing for Parker. I figured that out back a few months ago when he took off to Hattiesburg for the weekend and she told the guys off after a twenty minute conversation about the woman they thought he had taken off to see. I also noticed how jealous she got of that KC woman.

Not that I can blame her, he's whole lot nicer to her than any of her boyfriends have ever been.

I don't think any of the guys had figured it out yet, but they are men, so I was giving them another two or three years.

I knew she wanted to go back there to do something that might help him, but after watching us walk back up here, one by one, and quietly go back to our duties, she had lost her nerve.

"Dee, come sit down, hon," I said, finally. "You're wearing yourself out."

She took the seat I pushed out. "You know what I don't get?" She asked.

"What?"

"Why he won't defend himself, LuAnn. Why doesn't he tell them he didn't do it? Why won't he talk at all? It's unnatural for Parker to be that quiet."

"I don't know," I replied. "You're right about one thing, though. Parker not talking is scary. He should at least, being asking to talk to a lawyer."

I looked at the stack of case files lying on the desk. "Come on, let's file these." Maybe some work to do would get our minds off Parker.