“There will be beer,” Pilate said, wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin.
“How’d you ever end up with that badge anyway? I mean, what the hell? Is it research for a new book?”
“Yes and no,” Pilate said, finishing his iced tea.
Taters pushed aside his salad. “Is it complicated?”
“Isn’t everything?”
“Yup, especially my ticker,” he said. “How much longer till we get to the town time forgot?”
“About twenty minutes, give or take.”
“The way you drive, I suspect it’ll take a good half-hour.”
“There’s nothing wrong with safe driving.”
“You drive like an old woman.”
“You do need a beer,” Pilate said. “You’re grouchy as hell, but it’s still good to see you, pal.”
“You too,” Taters parroted, smiling and wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Now, can we get to Criss-Cross City or whatever you call it so I can see everybody?”
After a joyful reunion and home-cooked meal with the Pilate family—vegetarian lasagna, much to Taters’s chagrin—the old friends wandered out into the backyard.
“Holy shit! What is this?” Taters asked.
“It’s the Frontdoor Backyard Bar, of course,” Pilate said proudly, reaching under the bar and opening a cooler. He popped the cap off a Modelo and slid it across to Taters.
Taters smiled, picked up the bottle, and waited for Pilate to open his beer. “To my landlocked friend, who is sorely missed.”
“To my pirate buddy, who is also missed.”
As the pair settled onto a couple of beat-up barstools Pilate had found at a flea market in Brownville, the sun was setting, a visual riot of amber and orange.
“Not the same skies out here, that’s for sure,” Taters said.
“Yeah, the sunsets are gorgeous here, but I prefer the Green Flash on the Gulf.”
“Gotta appreciate what you have,” Taters said, “love the one you’re with, ya know?”
“True,” Pilate said, then finished his bottle. “Want another?”
Taters slugged the rest of it down and nodded.
Pilate popped two more.
“John, you doin’ okay here?” For the first time since he arrived, Taters adopted a concerned tone.
“Sure.”
“I mean it, buddy. I thought the plan was to get the hell outta Dodge.”
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” Pilate said, sipping his beer. “The asshole took all my book money, and I’ve got mouths to feed.”
“Apparently, that guy doesn’t know you very well. I’d be afraid to take your cash after what you did to the bad guys here.”
Pilate looked at the top of the bar.
“Sorry.” He pressed his bottle cap into a taco shape. “Why aren’t you teaching?”
“Well, besides the fact that the new dean doesn’t hold a candle to our friend Trevathan, there are no sections open for me to teach right now.”
“But constable? I mean, no offense, but the closest you’ve ever been to being a cop was screwing that sexy police officer in Key West.”
Pilate shushed him.
“Well, it’s true,” Taters said in a whisper.
“I know that, but I’m not really a cop. I’m more of a…town overlooker.”
“Overlooker? Is that even a word?”
“I’m a writer. I can take creative liberties that Webster’s can’t argue with. But forget that. My job is to keep an eye on things. I do parking tickets, noise abatement, animal control—”
“So you really are a dogcatcher?”
“No, asshole, I’m not.”
“Then you’re a meter maid?”
“Screw you,” Pilate said, laughing. “It pays some bills. All I have to do is be a calming presence and keep the county advised of what’s happening until they get the sheriff’s department back up to full strength.”
“Okay, I get it. I just…well, I never expected to see you wearing a badge, ’specially after all that shit went down in Key West.”
“Me neither.”
“Can you see that Key West PD sergeant’s face? What’s his name? Tom something? If he found out you’re wearin’ a badge, he’d be the one with a heart problem.”
“Well, let’s not tell him, okay?” Pilate said before he took another sip.
“Fair enough,” Taters agreed. “By the way, I ran into Buster the other day. Sends his regards.”
“Nice. Send ‘em back when you see him again.”
“Will do. There goes the sun.” Taters sighed heavily. “Pretty, but you’re right. It could do with a little Green Flash.”
“You feel okay? Need to go rest?”
“John…”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and get me another beer, would ya?”
“Cordwainer called, twice,” Kate called from the back door.
“Crap.” Pilate sighed, flicked a bottle cap into the night, and slapped his hand on the makeshift bar. “What the hell does he want at this hour?”
“He swears he’s going to kill Mrs. Drum’s dog if you don’t get over there and put a muzzle on it.”
“Tell him to screw off,” Pilate said.
Taters snickered.
“I’m not your dispatcher. Sorry to interrupt you boys’ play date, but it’s your job, and you need to do it,” she scolded before the back door shut behind her.
Pilate sighed and shrugged. “Duty calls.”
“Can I come with you?”
“After a long plane ride and three beers? Aren’t you tired?”
“I gained an hour, remember? I like central time.”
“All right. C’mon then.”
“This will be so exciting, you actin’ like a cop instead of just bragging about screwing one.”
“And to think that I’ve actually missed you.”
“I can’t believe you don’t even get a patrol car or a cool pickup,” Taters said, turning on the heater in the Saab. “Brrr. Beer wore off. When did it get cold?”
“You’re not used to nights in the sixties, are you?”
“No.”
“There’s a seat warmer. Push that button. Want a shawl too, sweetheart?”
Taters flipped Pilate the bird and gulped the last of his Modelo.
“Won’t take long to get there,” Pilate said.
“I should think not,” Taters said. “This town is like my Johnson, about two feet long and six inches wide.”
“Wow. Those meds are really screwing with your mind, man.”
Pilate noticed in the dim light of the Saab interior that Taters looked tired and a little frail. He was missing something, Pilate decided. Perhaps the fire he possessed as a charter captain in the Gulf died with his heart episode.
“Stop making snap judgments,” Simon said.
Pilate pulled up to the street by Harley Cordwainer’s place.
“Nice. American Gothic,” Taters said.
Pilate turned the engine and headlights off. “Listen.”
Taters cocked his head, listening intently. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly.” Pilate opened his door.
Taters put his hand on his own door handle.
“Buddy, you’d better wait here.”
“Oh please, Sheriff—”
“Constable.”
“Close enough. I didn’t come this far to sit in the car.”
“You said it wasn’t far to go in this two-foot town.”
Taters opened his door and extended his right leg onto the street.
Pilate did the same. “Fine, but stay behind me.” Pilate picked up his Maglite from the back seat and led the way up the small hill that became Cordwainer’s driveway.
The old manse was large, one of the largest homes in Cross. It could have been a B&B, something like Cusack’s Cross and Cork. It had a vaguely sinister, gothic look. Faint light bled from a pair of windows on the first floor, like th
e eyes of a wary predator.
Pilate looked to his west, taking notice of the warm lights of Mrs. Drum’s ranch-style home. He listened again for sounds of her yappy dog, but he didn’t hear one bark or whimper.
“I thought we were here on a noise complaint.”
“We are,” Pilate whispered. “This is such bullshit.”
“Kinda gives you new respect for Policewoman Kay Rig—”
Pilate shot Taters a look, silently cutting him off.
Taters held up his hands in surrender, knowing he had overstepped by again mentioning Pilate’s Key West lover, Officer Kay Righetti. Pilate had spent a lot of time and therapy trying to get over the guilt about their dalliance and the fact that he almost got her killed by pirates in the Gulf.
“Let’s go.” Pilate strode up the hill to Cordwainer’s front door. He gently nudged Taters back two feet behind him, then straightened the badge pinned to his jacket and rang the doorbell.
A moment later, the heavy oak door opened, revealing a bespectacled Harley Cordwainer, wearing a tattered bathrobe, large black glasses in a style favored by Swifty Lazar, and comical fuzzy slippers, reminiscent of a certain Warner Brothers cartoon character, though Pilate couldn’t place which one.
“Oh, look. It’s the fascist harassment team.” Cordwainer sneered and stepped out on the porch, pulling the door shut behind him. “Who’s this?”
“He’s uh…well, a deputy.”
“Deputy? They have a deputy constable now? What the fuck are my tax dollars going to?”
Taters snickered at the old professor.
“Something amusing you, pawn shop?” Cordwainer said, his eyes magnified by the cartoonish glasses.
“More than you know,” Taters said.
“Zip it, Deputy,” Pilate said over his shoulder to Taters.
“Yes, sir,” Taters said, his voice quivering as he stifled another snicker.
“Harley?”
“The word your miniscule mind seeks is ‘professor’.”
“Professor, why are we talking?”
“Because that yappy dog next door is disturbing my peace…again,” Cordwainer said. “I told your grouchy-ass wife that on the phone.”
“Well, I don’t hear anything,” Pilate said.
“You would have if you’d have come an hour ago,” he said. “Old lady Drum had that thing tied to a rope in her backyard, and it wouldn’t shut the fuck up.”
Pilate made a show of looking at his watch. “Professor, it is now nine thirty. The dog is inside, and all is quiet, so we have no business here.” He turned on his heels, stopped, and looked back. “Goodnight…and from now on, might I remind you that I will respond to noise complaints only after ten p.m. on weekdays and after eleven thirty on Saturdays. Understood?”
“Does that include your deputy?”
“Him too.”
“I warn you, Sheriff—”
“Constable.”
“Close enough,” Taters said.
“If that dog barks one minute after ten…or after eleven thirty on Saturday, I will—and I repeat, I will—take care of it.”
“And I presume that means you’ll call me?”
“A whole damn lotta good that seems to do, Constable,” Cordwainer said, slipping back inside his home. With only his head poking out, he said, “Listen here, you rent-a-cop, wannabe-hack. I’m trying to finish my magnum opus, and I will not be thrown off track by the ridiculous barking of that supercilious old woman’s cacophonous canine.”
The magnum opus was also known as his “precious.” For the past decade, Cordwainer had told anyone who would listen, in a voice far creepier than Sméagol’s: “My precious will reinstall me into the pantheon of the great birds of the galaxy.” Most doubted Cordwainer’s personal demons would allow him to finish it. Mrs. Drum’s dog was yet another convenient excuse, a diversion, especially now that his fifth wife had taken a plane back to California.
Pilate nodded. “Just let me take care of the dog. Call me, and don’t do anything rash.”
“You could just buy some noise-canceling headphones,” Taters added.
“Impertinent swine. I will sue you into oblivion!” Cordwainer threatened, then slammed his door.
Pilate looked up into the brilliant, starry sky. “Thanks, Deputy. I really appreciate the backup.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The pleasant smell of Kate’s egg-free eggs and turkey bacon were deceptive to Taters’s taste buds. When he bit into the ersatz bacon, Taters made the same face he would have made had she served him a steaming plate of packing material.
Peter Pilate giggled in his highchair.
“Little smartass,” Taters muttered, smiling. He shrugged. “Hey, turkey bacon is better than none at all, I guess, which is what I’d get at home,”
“There ya go,” Pilate said. “Stay positive, Gramps.”
“Like son, like father, apparently,” Taters grumbled, again taking on a forced scowl.
“So…what do you little boys have planned today?” Kate asked, sliding a half-piece of buttered toast onto Kara’s plate.
“As little as possible,” Pilate said.
“What about work?”
“I have a cell phone, as well as a radio in the car,” Pilate said. “We’re just gonna hang out. Right, T?”
Taters nodded, chewing the turkey bacon. “Yeah, your husband promised to take me on the grand tour. After we kill that ten minutes, I figure we’ll go fishing.”
Kate smiled. “Not a bad idea. You can use Grif’s tackle and poles if you want. He left a couple here. The pond would be great.”
“Pond? What about the river?”
“River moves pretty fast,” Pilate said, cocking his head and averting Taters’s gaze.
“Um, okay. Whatever,” Taters said.
“Kara, hurry up. You’re gonna be late, honey,” Kate said. She looked at Pilate. “Can you drop her off?”
“You bet. Taters and Toot!”
“I’m not a toot, Dad!”
Pilate wheeled through the streets of Cross. Orange, yellow, and brown drifted down on the Saab.
“Damn. I haven’t seen leaves like this since I lived in…well, since I was a kid, I guess.”
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Pilate said.
“I like it. Miss Prince and Mrs. Molloy let us play in the piles of leaves at recess,” Kara piped up from the back seat.
“Cool. I like diving into a pile of leaves every now and then myself,” Pilate said.
“Yeah, but you get all pissed off when you have to rake them up again,” Simon said. “Don’t be so pretentious.”
Stopping at Live Oak and Tenth Street, Pilate eyed the humble but pristinely kept home of Gary Rich. Not one leaf was in his yard, despite a massive, century-old oak that dominated the grounds.
“John…”
“Huh?”
“It’s a four-way stop in a one-horse town. I suspect you can go…or do you need to fire a handgun in the air and count to a hundred?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Pilate pressed the gas pedal. “Just admiring that yard.”
Taters looked behind them. “Whoa. Those folks must have nothing to do but rake all day. The yard across the street looks like it’s six inches deep in leaves.”
“Yeah, some people have different priorities.”
The trio soon arrived at the elementary school.
Abbey Prince stood there, with her hands on her hips, welcoming students. Her face brightened when Pilate pulled up. “Hello, John!”
“Hi, Abbey,” Pilate said, getting out and helping Kara exit the back seat.
“Good morning, Miss Kara,” Abbey said.
“Good morning, Miss Prince,” Kara answered. She turned to the door. “This is Mr. Potatoes.”
Taters and Pilate burst into fits of laughter.
Abbey’s face was a mix of bemusement and confusion.
“Taters,” Pilate corrected. “Abbey, this is my pal from Key West, Taters Malley.”
“Nic
e to meet you,” Abbey said. “You’re the boat captain?”
Taters opened the door and made a slight bow, then stood up straight and threw his shoulders back. “Captain? Well, I s’pose I am.”
“I’ve heard about you,” she said, smiling slyly.
“All lies, young lady,” Taters said.
“Well, they were pretty nice things…”
“In that case, the truth and nothin’ but the truth, young lady,” he said.
The school bell rang.
“We’d better get inside. Come on, Kara. Nice to meet you, Mr. Malley. John.”
The men nodded, smiling as Abbey and Kara walked inside.
“That’s one sweet-looking teacher,” Taters said, whistling low through his teeth.
“She is. Abbey was one of my students,” Pilate said, twirling the car keys in his hand, watching her walk away. “She’s good people.”
“Wait. Is she the one who was hot for teacher?”
Pilate smiled.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Taters said, climbing in the car. “Where to?”
“Let’s have a look around town. I’ll show you the sights.”
“Sounds good.”
“You still up for fishing after?”
“Hell yes, though I’m not sure I can eat freshwater fish after being in the Gulf so long. Might be too much of a shock to the ol’ ticker.”
“Shit, I’m not sure we can even catch freshwater fish. But hey, it’s an excuse to have some Modelos.”
“Yeah, there’s that.”
Pilate showed Taters the highlights, starting with the Cross College library. Pilate hadn’t spent much time inside it since he was nearly murdered there by the librarian last year, and he didn’t plan to today; standing outside would do.
“So this is where you had it out with that Crawling fella?”
“Krall,” Pilate said, his voice low. “Derek Krall, and yes, this is where it happened,” Pilate said, recalling his recent conversation with Parker Nemec.
The carillon went off, playing “If I Were A Rich Man.”
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