Troublemaker Read online

  Melody opened her mouth, likely to say something smart, but then she closed it again and considered her options. “Okay,” she finally said, no arguing, no threats.

  Well, hallelujah. Relieved that it was so easy, Bo said, “Where’s your car?”

  “At city hall.”

  “You want to walk? I can have one of the officers drive you if you don’t.”

  “I’ll walk.”

  As Bo was showing Melody out, Jesse arrived back at the station from taking Kalie home. He stayed silent until Melody was gone. “Everything work out?”

  “Halfway there. I still have Miss Doris in the other room, but Melody’s agreed not to press charges.”

  He sat down. “I’ll wait and take Miss Doris home. I know she didn’t drive because Kalie said that Emily picked her up.”

  How on earth had Kalie known Emily was picking up her grandmother? Even though Bo had lived here seven years, small-town ways still sometimes baffled her. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. Was the information passed on by some weird osmosis?

  “Kalie and Emily are Facebook friends,” Jesse explained with a grin, having noted her expression. “Emily posted about it.”

  Social media to the rescue; at least that made sense. She didn’t do Facebook herself, figuring her life was no one else’s business. It wasn’t as if she had a ton of relatives who kept track of her or were interested in what she was doing.

  Finally she went in to Miss Doris. She’d chosen Melody first because she’d judged Melody the most likely to press charges, in which case there would be no deal-making with Miss Doris. Again, she pulled up a chair and sat down. Miss Doris looked both guilty and angry, which meant she could tip either way.

  Bo said essentially the same thing she’d said to Melody. “Melody has agreed not to press charges if you don’t.”

  Miss Doris’s mouth opened in astonishment, closed, then opened again. “She did?” she squeaked.

  Bo shrugged. “She’s guilty of the same thing. It makes sense for both of you to drop it and walk away.”

  “Well, my goodness.” Miss Doris paused for maybe half a second. “All right. If she’s dropping it, so will I.”

  “Good deal. Jesse said he’ll take you home.”

  “That’s sweet of him. I imagine it’s dark by now.”

  “Yes, it is, but we wouldn’t let you walk home anyway.”

  And that was that. Jesse and Miss Doris went out the back door to his cruiser just as Morgan and Tricks came in, meeting them on the way. They stood in the door for a minute or so, saying hello and exchanging small talk, then the first two were gone and the second two came on into the station. Tricks went immediately to Bo, smiling her doggy smile and putting her paw on Bo’s knee.

  “I missed you too,” Bo crooned, doing some two-handed ear-rubbing as she bent down and rested her forehead on top of Tricks’s head. She looked up at Morgan. “Why are you two here?”

  “I figured you’d had time to get everything sorted out, short of there being actual blood involved, and thought you might be hungry. We can get a hamburger at the drive-through if you want.”

  A nice hot hamburger that she hadn’t cooked herself sounded great. “Let’s go,” she said, getting to her feet. She locked the station doors and they all got into the big Tahoe. The hamburger joint was just a couple of blocks away, so there wasn’t much time for her to tell him anything other than her food order, which was a small hamburger, small fries, and a bottle of water. Morgan’s choice was the deluxe cheeseburger, which was twice the size of her hamburger, large fries, and also a bottle of water. They took their food booty back to the station and arranged it on her desk, then Morgan dragged the chair over to their makeshift table and sat down across from her.

  “Your truck driver friend called,” he said as he salted his fries and opened packets of ketchup to squeeze over them. “He went through Alabama and stopped to pick you up some Naked Pig; he figured you wanted some, so he didn’t bother checking. He brought it over, and I paid him.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I also told him to double the next order. If I’m drinking it too, we’ll need more.”

  She hid a smile. “You don’t want to get some Miller, or Bud?”

  “I’m a convert. Give me the Naked Pig.” He paused and squinted at her. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d be saying.”

  They both chuckled, then he said, “Fill me in on the drama.”

  She did, glad that everything had been calmed down so easily and without anyone getting hurt. He had a laugh about Miss Doris’s language; it was her turn to laugh when he described Tricks’s escapade with the treadmill. She almost choked on a swallow of water because she could just see him trying to avoid killing himself while Tricks was blissfully unaware of anything other than chasing her ball.

  As she swabbed a fry in a dollop of ketchup, she said, “How long did you make it on the treadmill?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m still alive, aren’t I? I stopped right then. There will be no treadmill while Tricks is anywhere around.” He winked at her and popped a fry into his mouth. “We went outside and walked the hill a couple of times instead.”

  This must be her day to be winked at, Bo thought. First Mayor Buddy, now Morgan. Hearing her name, Tricks laid her head on Bo’s knee and gave her a sad look, letting her know how awful it was that she wasn’t getting to share their food. Bo said, “Forget about it, young lady,” whereupon she promptly abandoned Bo and laid her head on Morgan’s knee, subjecting him to the woebegone eyes.

  “She’s sharper than a switchblade,” he commented before saying, “No,” in the same firm tone Bo had used. He’d started doing that, she thought; the same words, the same intonation.

  Bo started to reply, but a strange noise from outside caught her attention. It sounded like . . . She didn’t know what it sounded like. A party? A ball game? She frowned, cocked her head to listen, but still couldn’t nail down the sound. Then, through the window, she saw what looked like a . . . herd? flock? . . . of fireflies coming toward the station. Large fireflies. She said, “What on earth is that?”

  Morgan had turned at the sound too. He looked out the window and very matter-of-factly said, “A mob.”

  A . . . mob? In Hamrickville?

  Frowning, she got to her feet. He stood too and put his hand on her arm. All humor had fled his expression and he looked tough and capable. “If you think this is in the least dangerous, you stay here and I’ll handle it.”

  He could, too. He was just one man, but he wasn’t a man even a mob should take lightly. She said, “I don’t think this mob will amount to much. I wonder what they want, what has them upset? Only one way to see, I guess.”

  She cast a regretful look at the half-eaten hamburger and remaining fries; they’d be cold and not nearly as appetizing by the time she got back to them. He said, “Okay, but I’m right here at the door if you need me.”

  She was tired and would rather be finishing up her hamburger, but facing this “mob” was her job. Opening the door, she stepped out on the sidewalk and squinted at the approaching crowd. The overhead street- lights cast weird shadows on their faces, and the light was so ghastly some of them looked like zombies, but there were only a few people she didn’t recognize.

  “Crowd” was perhaps stretching it a bit. She estimated there were maybe thirty people there, crossing the street toward her—and jaywalking at that, not that anyone in Hamrickville paid any attention to silly rules regarding where they crossed the street. The lights were mostly cell phones, a modern-day nod to flaming torches, though a couple of smokers carried cigarette lighters. A lot of the mob members ran shops here in town, which meant they were friends with Miss Doris. She saw Harold Patterson, the barber; Miss Virginia Rose, who seemed determined to be in the thick of whatever scene was going on; Faye Wiggins, the florist. Even the librarian was here.

  Each and every one of them wore a big white tee shirt pulled on over their regular clothing. Miss Doris’s s