“Kelly Waller,” I mused as I read one of the names. “She doesn’t seem the type to volunteer her time.”
“Probably wasn’t volunteer,” Gentry admitted. “She’s being shared between the sheriff’s department and the park and recreation department. There’s not enough stuff for her to do at both places, so she kind of sits in the lobby of both departments and fields everyone’s shit as they come in.”
“Ahhh.” I nodded in understanding. “At least she’s not in your department full-time.”
He gave me a look that was clearly unamused. “If there was one person I could erase from my life right now, it’d definitely be her. I can’t believe Black gave her that job. I mean, I understand feeling a sense of obligation to find a job for your brother’s daughter but…”
“You can say niece,” I teased as I took a healthy bite of my sandwich.
The garlic and mayo combination melted on my tongue.
I groaned. “So good.”
He studied my mouth where I knew a large glob of mayonnaise waited but kept talking despite the distraction that was my messy self.
“I’m telling you that she’s not his niece. A niece can be a best friend’s daughter, for Christ’s sake. What Kelly Waller is? That doesn’t count. If you’d seen Black and her in the same room, you would never in a million years think that they have a familial connection. And the crazy thing is that Black is close to his brother, Elesio. I see him at least twice a week when Black and him go out to lunch. Kelly Waller doesn’t even acknowledge her own father.”
“Was she raised by him?” I wondered.
“Nope.” Gentry handed me a napkin.
I took pity on him and wiped my face free of the mayo and garlic sauce concoction.
“That’s probably why,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t explain why Black hired her. If he dislikes her, and they don’t feel that familial connection, why would he go out of his way to give her a job?”
“He loves his brother,” Gentry explained. “And his brother asked him to.”
I took another healthy bite of my sandwich.
“This sandwich is the best sandwich I’ve ever tasted,” I found myself saying. “Where’s it from?”
“The Mercantile.”
I snapped my fingers. “I’ve been meaning to go there. I’ve heard lots of good things about it, but I haven’t had a chance to get inside of it yet.”
“Worth every overpriced penny you spend,” he said. “You gonna finish that?”
I brought the sandwich closer to my chest. “Maybe.”
His eyes sparkled as he shoved his notebook back into his shorts pocket before he put his arm back behind me and along the back of the bench.
“Been meaning to talk to you about something,” he said as a rumble of thunder startled me out of my happy, quiet thoughts.
I looked over to him to find him staring up at the sky.
“What?”
He gestured toward the sky. “When the winter hits, that car you’re driving isn’t going to cut it.”
I frowned. “The guy that sold me the car assured me that it would be perfectly adequate in the winter.”
“That guy was lying out of his ass,” Gentry grumbled. “You’ll make it around town—if they plow—but if you need to go anywhere else? That car ain’t gonna get you anywhere.”
Sometimes when he talked, his accent slipped out.
I loved it.
The short time that I’d talked to him when he was trying to get my mind on other things besides rapists and dead men, he’d told me that he was originally from Florida and then joined the Army and had been based everywhere.
