And I loved O’Leary, too. The residents were some of the best people on earth — kind, salt-of-the-earth, and amazingly open-minded for a town that still celebrated Shoemaker Day every winter in memory of a time whentraveling shoemakers were still athing.
But for a town tiny enough to only employ three full-time and two part-time auxiliary officers, the residents sure managed to manufacture a fuck-ton of drama to get upset over. If anything truly terrible ever happened, they wouldn’t know what to do withthemselves.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Someone else is up in arms over the artwork over at the Cobbplace?”
“Artwork,” Marci scoffed. “That’s notart, Si. It’s three gigantic metal…you knowwhatin various stages of…you knowwhat.”
“Phalluses?” I offered, amused despite myself. “Erection?”
“Exactly! Rena Cobb just likes attention,” Marci said, with all the bitterness that a woman who’d never broken a rule in her life could harbor for a woman who’d broken every rule in the book and gotten away with it. “Angela Ross says it’s going to cause a car accident if it’s not taken down. And Karen Mitchener-Martin says it’s going to make her givebirth!”
I scratched my chin, where my five o’clock shadow was already growing in. “I don’t think metal penises work that way, Marci. Not even giantones.”
Marci sighed impatiently. “She’s already pregnant,Si. She means she’s so horrified, it’s going to send her into earlylabor.”
I was pretty sure early labor didn’t work that way, either, but what did Iknow?
“But anyway, Mitch just said to remind anyone who called that they can bring it up at the September council meeting and thatoutrage isn’t a publicemergency.”
I could totally picture our boss saying those exact words. “Good,” I told her. “Is thatall?”
“No! Thing is, Carmen’s on duty tonight, but she got called out on a drunk and disorderly over atHoff’s.”
Christ.“Jamie Burkeagain?”
“Yep.”
“That’s his second one thismonth.”
“Third,” Marcicorrected.
I pulled at my bottom lip, fingering the scar that ran along it. “Someone needs to talk to him. Remind him to keep his personal grudges from making the police blotter. And maybe talk to Parker over at Hoff’s. He’s gotta monitor Jamie’s intake a little more closely, or stop serving him atall.”
“Love it. You volunteering to havethattalk?” she asked pointedly, and I sighed again. I supposed Iwas.
“But Jamie’s not why I called, either,” she continued. “There was a disturbance out at thecampground.”
I frowned. Pickett Campground, which had been owned by Frank and Myrna Lucano for longer than I’d been alive, was on the south end of town, right on the border of Herriman-Sizemore State Park. It catered to the summer tourists who came to hike the trails or go kayaking on Lake Loughton. “What kind of disturbance? I thought the place was mostly closed down for the season, except tolocals.”
“It is,” she agreed. “Frank’s got two sites rented through Tuesday, then he’s closing down until snowmobile season. But Myrna swears she heard gunshots, and they say one of the campers ismissing.”
“Myrna thought she was being attacked by a bear last week, and it was only Frank clearing the property with achainsaw.”
Marci laughed. “Most likely someone hunting out of season or a figment of Myrna’s imagination,” she agreed. “But Frank says the camper paid for four nights and his site’sempty.”
“His cararound?”
“Nothing that easy, I’m afraid. He hiked in through thepark.”
“You could call Darius Turner,” I suggested, happily throwing my friend under the bus. Dare was a State Conservation Officer - a park ranger with a badge and a gun. “If something happened inside the park, it’s hisjurisdiction.”
“Sure, sure,” she agreed. “Except there’s no proof that anythingdidhappen inside the park, or that anything happened at all. Si, you know how this works better than I do. The complaint gets reported, we take a statement and check it out, then escalate if necessary. Besides, you can’t honestly think that Frank will talk to Dare or any state employee. Notanymore.”
Not after the eminent domain case that was going to cost him part of his beloved campground.Fuck.
Reggie came out of the restroom, and his eyes immediately locked on mine. I nearly whimpered at the heat there as he sashayed across theroom.
“Can’t you call Mitch?” I pleaded. “Tell him I’ll owe him. Tell him he can borrow my truck whenever he wants for the rest of theyear.”
