“I will tell you what I told Shane, except I’ll give more details.” I cleared my throat and lifted my chin defiantly. “These two men started hitting on a woman in the bar. Buddy here”—I pointed at him—“was trying to get her to take a look at his rig, if you know what I mean. They kept pestering her and finally she had enough and she punched them both out.”
Buddy shook his head. “It wasn’t that lady. It was you. Now, Officer,” he directed to Sluggs, “I want her arrested for assault. You don’t get to go around hitting people and get away with it.”
Shane stepped in. “Sluggs, you can’t be serious. You know Clem. She wouldn’t do anything like that.”
Sluggs scratched his chin. “It seems to me some mighty strange things have been going on with you lately, Clem. You came into my office talking about Sadie and money. You don’t think Sadie’s death was an accident, and now I’m hearing that you’ve been going around punching men in the face, knocking them out.”
“For goodness’ sake, I’m below average height,” I said, which was true. I was only five-foot-three inches tall. “Do you really think I knocked out this guy who’s six feet?”
“What I think is—I might have to relook at Sadie. You might be more involved than I thought.”
Wait. What just happened? Chief Sluggs was supposed to walk in here and believe me when I said that truck driver was no good. He wasn’t supposed to turn around and somehow find a way to pin Sadie’smurder—a fact he didn’t even buy, by the way—on me.
Buddy Junior snarled. “I want this woman arrested, Chief.”
I did not think so. This man was not about to walk into my town with that stupid look on his face and come all up in my friend’s bar and think that he was about to get me arrested for assault.
I folded my arms and stared at Buddy, his friend, and Sluggs. “No way. I am not going anywhere. First of all, Chief, you don’t even believe that Sadie was murdered. You deemed her death accidental. I don’t know how in the ever-living universe a grown woman falls into fresh concrete and winds up dead without the help of another person, but somehow, in Peachwood, that’s what happens.”
“Clem,” Sluggs started to protest, but I kept on going. I had experienced one crap storm of a day, and I was not about to stop cutting off heads now.
Not literally, obviously.
“And you.” I turned my ire on Buddy. “You walked in here the other night all full of swagger, and you hit on that poor girl and wouldn’t leave her alone. You practically picked her up by the waist and was about drag her off to your rig when I stepped in.” I flared out my arms. “Okay, so yes, I may have been the one who punched you, I admit it. But you deserved it.” I shoved my finger close to his nose. “There are words for what you were about to do to that girl, and if anyone deserves to be arrested, it’s you and your sorry rear end, not me. No how. No way.”
I stopped talking long enough to breathe and waited for Chief Sluggs to drag me down to the pokey.
Instead, clapping came from behind. Hannah March sat in the booth applauding me. “Well said, Clementine. If no one is going to stand up for us, we have to stand up for ourselves.”
Chief Sluggs looked downright scared. I do not think he was used to women getting in his face. That probably meant he hardly ever came out from behind his desk to do any real work—hence the accidental death declaration for Sadie.
I glared at Buddy. “Let me tell you, there is an army of me’s in the world—an entire battalion of us ready and able to take you and your sorry rear-end down any chance we get. You mess with us and next time, you won’t just get a little knocked out, you’ll end up getting blown into next week. What do you think about them apples?”
Buddy’s face paled. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Just to make sure that he knew I wasn’t a woman he wanted to tangle with, I leaned in and spoke.
“If you mess up again, I will find you. There is an entire network of us. You don’t know who we are, but we’re always watching—just like I did the other night.”
He backed away. “Never mind, Officer,” he said with a thick coat of dread in his voice. “Never mind at all. I got the wrong woman. This one didn’t do a thing—not one dang thing to me. So you can just forget all about it.” He slapped his friend on the arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I ain’t about to mess with that lady.”
I watched them go, a self-satisfied smirk plastered on my face. When they were out the door, my gaze flicked back to Sluggs, who scowled at me.
He wagged a finger in my face. “Seems to me a little girl like you couldn’t down those two men. I don’t know what you’re up to, but sooner or later I’m going to find out.”
“Wait a minute, Chief,” Shane said.
“What’s that?” Sluggs replied.
Shane hiked his chin toward the exit. “Seems to me that Clem just did you a favor. If those guys were up to no good, as she said, then you don’t want them in this town and I don’t want them in my bar.”
“They were hitting on a woman way too hard. Buddy there didn’t know when to back off,” I said.
Sluggs scrubbed a hand down his face. “I’m still watching you.”
He cocked one eye really wide as if that was supposed to scare me. Little did Chief Sluggs know, but whenever I wanted a good laugh, I imagined him strolling into work in his bathrobe and cowboy boots—that image alone helped my mood every gosh-darn time.
No lie.
Sluggs squinted at me. He retreated a step. “You be careful, Clementine Cooke.”
