Support Your Local Sheriff

by Melinda Curtis

  “Why don’t you just say A Vote for Nate Is a Vote for Men?” Nate muttered. That’s what the election was turning into.

  “Brilliant.” Phil tossed his hands in the air. “Slogan solved in time for a game of checkers at the bakery.” He slumped back in his chair. “Shoot. Doris made Tracy put the checkerboard away.”

  Rutgar glanced down the street toward the bakery. “And the women banned us from Martin’s.”

  Nate was dumbfounded. Checkers matches had been an institution at Martin’s Bakery since it reopened over a year ago. “This is going too far.”

  “It’s the sign of things to come if you don’t win,” Terrance warned. “Now, pick a slogan.”

  “I don’t want a slogan.” Nate wanted life to go back to the way it was before Doris had shown up in town. He liked slow and predictable. He enjoyed watching out for people he knew by name.

  But if he turned back the clock that far, he wouldn’t have met his son or reconnected with Julie. He wouldn’t have helped ease Julie’s torment over the shooting. He wouldn’t have held her hand or learned the feel of his son in his arms. Those were memories he’d keep forever.

  “You need a slogan,” Rutgar insisted. “The ladies have a slogan and a flyer. They’re way ahead of us.”

  “Let them pass out paper.” Mayor Larry had that competitive gleam in his eye again. “We need to think about tonight.”

  “The pull-over simulation.” Terrance nodded, evidently on the same page as the mayor. Each candidate was picking someone in town for their opponent to role-play a traffic stop. “Who are we going to pick for Julie?”

  “Oh, ho, ho.” Rutgar cracked his knuckles.

  “Play nice, fellas.” Nate had never realized how conniving the men in town were until this election.

  “Nice?” Mayor Larry crossed his arms over his chest. “If we play nice, we choose Mildred or Agnes. And we lose.”

  “Where’s the fun in losing?” Rutgar demanded, finger-combing his beard. “What about me? I can give Julie a run for her money.”

  “No.” Nate scowled at the big man. “We play fair.”

  “Let’s choose Prescott.” Phil stood, swaying like Prescott, who was a happy drunk.

  Nate steadied Phil with one hand. “Prescott is an extreme case. Remember, Julie’s a rookie when it comes to Harmony Valley.”

  “She’s SWAT.” Rutgar had a hard-core competitive streak that spoke to a similar vein inside Nate. “Julie is as experienced as they come.”

  “Remember,” Terrance said. “This is a war Doris started, not Julie. We’re competing against Doris.”

  “Doris won’t be up there with Prescott.” Choosing the town’s friendly drunk was the equivalent of stacking the deck in Nate’s favor.

  But Nate didn’t overrule them.

  * * *

  THE FLYERS HAD yet to be seen.

  Julie sat at the table in a bakery with her campaign volunteers. There were fewer today with only a handful at the main table where Doris held court. The ladies chattered about life and grandkids. They were sweet women, really. And Julie felt guilty because she’d decided out there on the sidewalk—with Nate looking bottled up, distant and hurting—that she was only staying in the race because it meant she and Duke could stay in town with him. She wasn’t going to try to win.

  But she wasn’t going to throw the race either. She had her pride, just like Doris had hers.

  Eunice had crayons and coloring books out today, which wasn’t cutting it with the two toddlers. Gregory pushed Duke around the bakery in the stroller. The boys kept stopping by the bakery counter to place pretend orders with Tracy. Or they would have been pretend if Tracy didn’t keep giving them miniature chocolate chip cookies.

  A woman named Georgia sat to Julie’s right. She had thin black hair cut in a bob and a broad forehead that was broken by a sharp widow’s peak. “Can we start, Doris?”

  “We’re waiting for Lilac,” Doris said with little grace.

  The bakery door flung open and Lilac made her entrance.

  “I’m here, I’m here. I hope you didn’t start without me.” Lilac slid into a seat and unwound the maroon paisley scarf from around her neck. “I’m having a bad hair day. Darn humidity.” She peered at her reflection in the bakery display case, finger-combing her sophisticated curls.

  “Show me your flyers, ladies.” Doris wasn’t one to hide her anger well. She trembled with it from her fingers to her short spiky hair. She trembled so much the other women at the table had subtly moved their chairs away from her.

  Julie put her elbows on the table and studied Doris the way she would a suspected felon. “I thought you had a flyer.”

  “Not yet.” There came the dog breeder’s familiar superior smile. “I wanted the men to think we had a flyer.”

  “Isn’t Doris clever?” Lilac dug in her designer handbag. She unfolded a large sheet and handed it to Julie. “I made this last night.”

  Lilac’s flyer was a page from a craft scrapbook. Julie recognized the paper type because April had been a scrapbooker. The letters Lilac used were peel and press and, although similar in color and size, were reminiscent of ransom notes made by clipping newspapers and magazines because they weren’t placed straight.

  “‘A Vote for Julie Is a Vote for Women.’” Julie read, trying very hard to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “‘A Vote for Women Is a Vote for Peace. A Vote for Peace Is a Vote for a Better World.’” She had to give Lilac a smile because it was a nice sentiment. Sexist, but nice.

  “I like mine better.” Georgia held up a lined sheet of notebook paper. “Vote for Julie! Only Eliot Ness Could Do a Better Job, but It’s Not the 1930s and He’s Dead.” She leaned closer to Julie to whisper, “You do know who Eliot Ness is, don’t you?”

  “Are you kidding?” Julie’s smile came much easier. At least Georgia had some originality. “You thought I wouldn’t know The Untouchables?” The movie had been required viewing by her dad, along with every John Wayne film ever made.

  “You just earned my vote all over again.” Georgia patted her arm.

  “Those are both too soft.” Doris crushed a paper napkin in her palm. “We need something with strength and power.”

  “We need something to get the men to vote for Julie.” Georgia waved her paper in the vicinity of Doris’s face. “The population is split equally between men and women. It’s why the Eliot Ness angle will work.”

  The claws were definitely coming out today and Julie wanted to be long gone before they did any damage. Luckily, Duke had been trying to push Gregory in the stroller, but couldn’t quite get the larger boy moving.

  “Juju.” Duke could say Julie’s name with several different tones of voice. This one said, Help.

  Julie stood. “Ladies, I’m touched you want to help me, but—”

  “You don’t have to worry about a thing,” Doris said, leaning between the tables to clasp Julie’s wrist. “Let your campaign team do all the heavy lifting.” She lowered her voice. “We get to choose who does the mock traffic stop tonight with Nate. I recommend me.”

  Julie wouldn’t wish Doris on her worst enemy, but if she said that out loud, she’d have her worst enemy in Doris.

  “Juju.”

  “I think I should do it.” Lilac adjusted her scarf, avoiding looking Doris in the eye. “Because I have so much experience being pulled over by Nate.”

  “I agree.” Georgia had a contrary look in her eye and a too-innocent smile.

  “Me, too.”

  “I agree.”

  Doris was being outvoted.

  “I’ll go with the majority,” Julie said sweetly. “Lilac it is.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “WELCOME TO THE second night of sheriff-election activities.” This time, Mayor Larry had positioned h
is podium next to the town council so that he faced both candidates and the voters. He wore a lime-green tie-dyed T-shirt which reminded Nate of margaritas.

  A margarita would hit the spot about now.

  The empty chair between Julie and Nate served as the pretend vehicle they’d be pulling over. Duke sat in Julie’s lap once more, staring out at the assembled with tired eyes. Some of the women sat on Nate’s side, which was heartening. The crowd in the church was a bit rowdier this evening, anticipating quite the show.

  “The goal for tonight’s exhibition is to see how each candidate performs under stress.” Mayor Larry winked at Nate. “There will be no interruptions.” He gave Julie’s campaign manager a stern look. “Doris, that means no objections, no heckling and no offering advice, or you will be removed. This is serious.”

  Nate couldn’t resist a commiserating glance at Julie. Serious? Not hardly.

  Julie didn’t look his way. In fact, she’d avoided him all day long.

  “Here are the rules for tonight’s exhibition.” The mayor referred to a sheet of paper. “Turns out the two volunteers chosen to participate have been pulled over in the past. I’m going to read the scenario that led up to them being pulled over, and then I’ll hand it over to each candidate.” The mayor set his notes down. “We flipped a coin and the sheriff will go first. Our volunteer is Lilac.”

  Lilac had dressed for the part in the show. She wore her Sunday best—a flouncy, flowery yellow dress, low white heels and a blue scarf she’d tied over her short gray hair as if she was driving the Cadillac with the top down. She hurried toward the empty chair on stage the same way he’d seen her cut in line at the Harvest Festival last fall—nose in the air, looking neither left nor right.

  Nate knew trouble when it was brewing. Lilac was so concerned with appearances she didn’t see the step ahead of her. He leaped up and caught her arm as she tripped.

  “Thank you, Sheriff.” Lilac rarely blushed, but her cheeks were rosy now. “You’re always such a gentleman.”

  “Oh, Lilac,” Doris muttered.

  The assembled on both sides of the aisle laughed.

  Nate escorted Lilac to the chair in the middle of the dais. She smoothed her skirts, and then held her hands up as if gripping a steering wheel.

  “Lilac was pulled over for speeding and reckless driving,” Mayor Larry told the crowd. “Take it away, Sheriff.”

  “Don’t forget she also had a hit-and-run.” Nate probably shouldn’t have added that to her list of infractions, but it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Lilac took her public image very seriously and, like Doris, always denied any wrongdoing.

  Lilac sniffed. “I take back the part about you always being a gentleman.”

  “And...take it away, Sheriff,” Mayor Larry said again, brows waggling with uncertainty.

  Nate took pity on him and got the show on the road. “Let’s pretend that you’ve pulled to the curb and I’ve shown up at your window.”

  Lilac tossed both ends of her scarf over her shoulders. “I’m ready.”

  Nate stood next to her, facing the same way—to the audience. “License and registration, please.”

  Lilac handed him the imaginary items. “Is there a problem, Sheriff?”

  “Ma’am, do you know how fast you were going through town?”

  “Of course not.” Lilac swiveled her head and her shoulders toward him. “I never look down. I simply get from here to there.”

  He was grateful she was playing this true to form. It made his job a lot easier. “You were going fifty in a twenty-five.”

  Someone on the female side of the audience gasped, as if this was news to her. To his left, Julie frowned, because it was news to her, too. And Lilac?

  Lilac paused, glancing to Doris. Color crept back into Lilac’s cheeks. “Your radar gun must be off. I mean... I...I haven’t been in an accident yet.”

  “Maybe not an accident with another car, but you hit a dog on the east side of the town square.”

  There were murmurs of disapproval in the crowd. Folks were clearly agitated. Flynn sat in the front row, holding Ian and looking stern. It’d been his nephew’s dog.

  Lilac had never been subject to public scrutiny before. She squirmed. “Well, the dog didn’t die.” And she’d eventually paid the vet bills. But she hadn’t slowed down since.

  “And you nearly killed Chad Healy when he volunteered his time to clear branches from a public street after a big storm.”

  “Missed me by that much,” Chad said from his seat behind Flynn, holding up his thumb and forefinger.

  “And you drove away,” Nate paused for effect. “Almost as if you didn’t see him.”

  “She needs glasses.” Eunice got up from her aisle seat on Julie’s side and took a seat on Nate’s side of the church, as did a few other women. “She always was vain about her appearance.”

  Lilac slumped in her faux driver’s seat.

  “I knew I should’ve been our volunteer.” Doris crossed her arms and glared at everyone.

  “Let me remind residents about the rules.” Mayor Larry put a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

  Nate pretended to flip open his ticket book. “You’ll be receiving three tickets today, which will put your license at risk of revocation unless you go before a judge to plead your case, or you sign up for traffic school.”

  “Traffic school?” Lilac was as indignant now as she’d been for any of her tickets.

  Duke appeared at Nate’s side. He pointed to Lilac. “Time-out?”

  The audience laughed.

  “Yes.” Nate scooped his son into his arms. “Lilac gets a time-out.”

  * * *

  NATE WAS GOING to be hard to beat.

  He’d handled Lilac with humor and sensitivity. If Julie pulled over a driver who’d hit a dog and nearly run over a man—and then driven off—she’d have very little respect for them. Not that she gave speeders a chance to talk their way out of tickets. In fact, she’d never let anyone off. She’d had one of the highest ticket rates in the department.

  “And now for our second driver,” the mayor was saying. “Prescott Driscoll.”

  There was a murmur in the crowd. Pews creaked as people twisted in their seats to look.

  A man near the back of the church stood and made his way to the front. He was tall and slender, wearing cowboy boots, jeans, a tan chambray shirt and a black leather vest. His sparse gray hair was long and thin, and fell over his equally long and thin face. His footsteps rang in the church ominously.

  Julie glanced to Nate, who held Duke in his lap. He was looking at the approaching volunteer with something like regret in his eyes. Who had he chosen for her?

  Prescott plunked himself heavily in the driver’s seat, shifted sideways as if leaning on a car door and held the imaginary steering wheel with one hand. “Ready.”

  “Prescott was pulled over for drunk driving,” the mayor said.

  Drunk driving. The goal of the stop was clear to her. Julie needed just cause to check Prescott’s blood alcohol level.

  Julie slipped on mirrored sunglasses and came to stand next to Prescott the way Nate had done with Lilac. Except she kept a hand at her hip where her weapon would be in a live situation.

  But before she could ask Prescott if he knew why he’d been pulled over, he began talking, enunciating as clearly as if he was performing a play. “How are you tonight, Officer?” He glanced up at her with a smile that had decades of charm behind it. “You’re looking mighty fine.”

  “I’m feeling mighty fine.” She went with the flow. Was that alcohol on his breath? Had he shown up drunk to a simulation of a drunk driving incident? “How are you feeling, sir?”

  “I’m so good, I feel like dancing.” He got out of the pretend car and did a dance that was part tap, p
art line dance and part disco.

  The audience applauded.

  Julie flushed with the heat of embarrassment. “Sir, you need to stop.” She held up one hand, keeping the other on her imaginary gun.

  “Is she going to shoot him?” a woman asked in a concerned voice.

  “I suppose you want to give me your tests.” Prescott clapped once, and then rubbed his hands together. “I’m ready. Give it your best shot.”

  Julie glared at Nate. “This is not how he acted when you pulled him over.”

  “It is.”

  Nate’s mouth slanted toward an apologetic half grin.

  It was too late for apologies. She was going to make a fool of herself.

  “Welcome to Harmony Valley,” someone in the audience said.

  She’d been in tough situations before with the odds stacked against her. Julie eased her shoulders back and pushed her sunglasses up her nose. She proceeded to put the old man through his paces. Arms out to the side, alternating touching a finger to his nose. The man didn’t so much as wobble. She asked him to recite the alphabet backward. He sang it as ordered, quickly, as if he’d had a lot of practice.

  “Wow,” Julie said to Prescott, honestly impressed. “I’ve never actually seen anyone do that.”

  Doris was practically convulsing with anger in the front row, pressing her lips together in a disapproving flat line.

  “I’m ready to walk the line.” Prescott slapped a hand against his thigh. “Five, six, seven, eight.” He started down an imaginary line. “Step-bump. Step-bump-bump.” He swayed his hips to the side on every bump and yet he kept walking in a straight fashion. “Step-bump. Step-bump-bump.” He reached the end of the altar, pivoted on his toes and returned the way he’d come.

  The crowd hooted and cheered.

  Julie’s cheeks were hot. She was going to fail the simulation. She’d lost control of the traffic stop. Prescott had given her no reason to administer a Breathalyzer test. She hated losing, but she’d be graceful in defeat. “Well, sir. I’ve got to admit it. You’re a good dancer.”

  Prescott turned to face her, that charming grin splitting his face. “I’m a good drunk, too. I’m drunk now.”