Vice and Verdict

by Nic Saint

  That’s how they rolled, him and Garrett. Ever since they started work at Charleneland, the well-known Californian theme park, they’d been goofing around and one-upping each other on the pranks.

  “I’ll get you for this, Steve,” Garrett promised.

  “I can’t wait.”

  “I’m going to get you good,” said Garrett, laying on the Southern drawl, even though his family originally hailed from San Diego.

  “Bring it on, big guy,” said Steve, his lips curling into a grin.

  They stood facing each other in the small room where cast members changed into their costumes. Cowboy costumes in Steve and Garrett’s case. The cramped space reeked of sweat, dirty clothes, and dampness from the next-door showers.

  “I’m gonna get you, Sheriff Wayne,” Garrett drawled.

  “Not if I get you first, Doc Killer,” Steve returned, his hand loosely draped over the six-shooter that was dangling from his gun belt.

  Garrett licked his lips slowly, getting into character. “Make no mistake—I’m still the fastest gun in the West, Sheriff.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “No one can beat me—least of all some two-bit cartoon sheriff like yourself, Jack Wayne.”

  “Well, I sure would love to see you try and beat me with that silly little peashooter, Doc.”

  “This?” asked Garrett, extracting his gun from its holster and then dropping it in again. “This gun was made by the best gunsmith in Tombstone, Sheriff. Shotgun Noodle—I mean Needle—I mean…”

  Both men burst into laughter and Steve clapped his buddy on the shoulder. “You’re a real hoot, Garrett.”

  “I was gonna say Shotgun Ned,” laughed Garrett, also in stitches.

  Steve gave Garrett’s shoulder an amiable squeeze. “Just make sure you don’t forget your lines once we’re live, buddy.”

  “I sure won’t, Sheriff Wayne.”

  Ever since they started working at Charleneland’s Main Street attraction, he and Garrett had become fast friends. Even though they had to shoot the shit out of each other on a daily basis—always firing blanks, of course—they’d been having a great time.

  The two eighteen-year-olds couldn’t be more different: Garrett with his chubby frame and cherubic features, and Steve with his good looks and slim, athletic build. But they both liked goofing around, and since that was a big part of the job, they couldn’t have picked a better place to earn some extra dough over the summer.

  “So who’s gonna win this time?” asked Garrett, as he returned to his struggle with his spurs.

  “Why, me, of course,” said Steve, checking his six-shooter and casually dropping it down into the holster and then snapping it out again. “I’m the law, man. And the law always wins.”

  “No way, buddy. I say Doc Killer gets to beat the law this once. I’m tired of having to die every time.”

  “You can be Sheriff Jack Wayne for the eleven o’clock show, okay? That way I’ll be the one dying.”

  Garrett shrugged. “I just think for once that sad old sack Doc Killer should win. Just saying.”

  “Sure thing, buddy,” Steve said, picking his phone from his pocket, checking for messages from his girlfriend.

  “Just make sure you don’t pick out your phone instead of your gun this time,” said Garrett.

  Steve laughed. Two days before, he’d accidentally drawn his smartphone and tried to shoot ‘Doc Killer’ with it. The crowd had roared with laughter. Maya Rugg? Not so much. Even though genuine authenticity wasn’t what they were going for at Charleneland, it still had to look real enough.

  He shot a quick picture of Garrett as he stood struggling with his boots and posted it on his Instagram, adding the comment ‘Meet the real Puss in Boots. Best colleague a guy could wish for.’

  He checked his look in the mirror. Snazzy cowboy hat, vintage sequin western shirt, and shiny gold sheriff’s star. Yep, Jack Wayne was ready to clean the streets of Charleneland of the scum of the earth.

  “Let me give you a hand there, slowpoke,” he said good-naturedly. He quickly adjusted the small straps on Garrett’s boots, snapped the spurs into place and gave them a whirl. “There you go, buddy.”

  “Thanks,” said Garrett, stomping his foot and making his spurs rattle. “Let’s do some shootin’!”

  Chapter Two

  Garrett exaggerated his swagger as he and Steve strolled out of the Rusty Spur, a saloon doubling as accommodation for Charleneland cast members, and out into Main Street, which resembled an Old West shanty town.

  They’d done their little skit so many times now Garrett should have gotten the hang of it, but he still struggled to get into his part. He wasn’t used to walking around as if he owned the place.

  He adjusted the eyepatch over his right eye as indicated in the script and scrunched up his face into as menacing a scowl as he could muster. He wasn’t Garrett Midway now, budding UCLA law student, son of Frank and Myrtle Midway of Sapsucker, Cal. He was fearsome Doc Killer, the baddest Old West gunman, finally facing his foe Sheriff Jack Wayne and chomping at the bit to kill the notorious lawman.

  And, much to the audience’s surprise, he actually would.

  At least at first.

  The script instructed Garrett to be the quicker draw, shooting his opponent. The bullet would graze Sheriff Wayne’s shoulder and the man of the law would pretend to go down, but then nail Doc with a single shot to the chest, ending the evil gunslayer’s reign of terror and earning the respect of all.

  The only problem was that in spite of hours of practice Garrett still had trouble with his draw. Steve was a lot quicker and had had to learn to dawdle a beat and not shoot first, as was his instinct.

  Steve gave him a grin. Without thinking, he grinned back. Catching his mistake, he quickly rearranged his features into a deadly scowl. Sheriff Wayne was his mortal enemy, he reminded himself. The man who’d murdered no less than six members of his gang. Then again, according to the script, he’d murdered the sheriff’s wife, the man’s five daughters, his beloved mother-in-law, and even his favorite goat. No wonder Sheriff Wayne hated his guts and wanted him dead and bleeding out on Main Street.

  He let his hands dangle by his sides and stared at Steve, practicing his best menacing stare. A tumbleweed came tumbling by and he gave it a kick.

  “You’re going down, Sheriff!” he hollered, then spat a wad of brown tobacco on the dusty street. Well, it wasn’t really tobacco. Just a piece of brownie he’d stuffed into his mouth before walking out.

  There were murmurs of excitement in the crowd of spectators that had gathered. Every hour on the hour, he and Steve faced off. It was one of the highlights of the day for many of Charleneland’s thousands of visitors.

  “Not if you go down first, Doc!” Steve hollered back, then spat out a wad of brownie in response.

  Once again, Garrett had to suppress a grin. Steve was really good. He looked and sounded just like a young John Wayne.

  “I’m never going down!” he yelled. “You’ll never beat me, Sheriff Wayne! Never!”

  “You’ve been terrorizing this town long enough, Doc! Surrender now or else!”

  “Never!” he growled. “I will never surrender to the likes of you!”

  “If you don’t surrender now I have no choice but to shoot you dead!”

  “I wanna see you try!” said Garrett, not for the first time wondering who’d written this terrible drivel.

  “I’m gonna count to three and if you don’t throw down your piece I’m going to end you, Doc.”

  He grinned what he hoped was his best evil grin and spat out another piece of brownie. “Take your best shot, you piece of lawman scum!”

  “One…”

  Garrett’s fingers twitched. This was it. The moment the good people of Charleneland had all been waiting for. He ignored for a moment the fact that all the good people of Charleneland were really a bunch of moms and dads and assorted kids, for he was getting into his role well and good now.

  “Two…�
�

  He flexed his fingers, quickly glancing down to make sure his gun was where it was supposed to be.

  “Three!”

  At that moment, both he and Steve drew their guns. He was a little quicker—or rather Steve was a little slow on purpose. He took out his gun, took aim at Steve, and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud bang that echoed between the wooden establishments of Main Street and then Steve went down.

  Gasps of shock and cries of excitement rang out all around him as he waddled over to where his mortal enemy had bitten the dust. The clock over the little old church chimed and he prepared himself for the next part. The part where Steve turned the tables on him and justice was finally served.

  He walked up to Steve and kicked his boots. “Who’s laughing now, Sheriff?” he growled.

  Then he threw back his head and let rip what he hoped was a blood-curdling hyena-like laugh—at least that’s what it said in the script. He’d had to practice hard to make it sound believable. He’d even watched videos of hyenas on YouTube. He now braced himself for Steve to suddenly rear up and shoot him dead between the eyes. His death scene was his favorite moment. He liked to milk it for all it was worth, producing an awesome death rattle.

  Only this time there was no loud cry of ‘Got you, you no-good son-of-a-thug!’ and when he looked down at Steve, he saw his buddy wasn’t moving. And that’s when he saw that there was a small round hole in Steve’s forehead, and a puddle of blood slowly spreading where his head lay. What the heck?

  He crouched down. “Sheriff Wayne?” he asked, then patted Steve’s cheeks. “Are you dead, sir?”

  No response.

  He gulped, and moved closer, whispering in Steve’s ear, “If this is one of your jokes, it’s not funny, Steve. Now shoot me dead already, will you? People are waiting.”

  When there still was no response, he pressed his finger into Steve’s throat, right where his dad had once taught him to look for a person’s heartbeat.

  There was none.

  Sheriff Jack Wayne, aka Steve Geyser, was dead.

  Chapter Three

  “Can I have some more coffee, honey?”

  Charlene held up her outsized personal cup. It featured her name and a stylized portrait of her most famous features: her big blond hair and her sizable chest.

  “Sure thing, Mom,” said my mother, and took the cup over to the coffeemaker for a refill.

  “You shouldn’t drink coffee, Charlene,” said my sister Maya with a reproachful look at her grandmother. “It’s not good for your complexion. Dehydrates the skin.”

  “I’m sure that’s just a bunch of poppycock, honey,” said Charlene as she tucked into her chocolate chip muffin with relish.

  “And you shouldn’t eat so much sugar either,” said Maya, flicking her long auburn hair over her shoulder. She’d recently made it her mission in life to make sure our grandmother stayed fit and healthy. She wanted her to live as long as Queen Elizabeth, something that was unlikely, given Charlene’s hard-partying ways back in the sixties, seventies and eighties. She’d slowed down some since hitting the big 7-0 but only some.

  Charlene didn’t even bother to roll her expressive eyes. She merely ignored the well-intentioned advice from her granddaughter.

  Mom plunked the refilled cup in front of the family matriarch. Extra strong. Lots of cream. Lots of sugar. Just the way she liked it.

  I saw that Dad was reading The Sapsucker Times and that my other sister Marisa was checking something on her phone, smiling to herself. Maya had noticed too, because she asked, “What are you smirking about, Brainy Smurf?”

  Marisa’s smile vanished. “None of your beeswax, Vanity Smurf.”

  Maya turned to Mom with a cheerful grin on her face. “Marisa has a boyfriend.”

  Mom seemed surprised by this. Well, we all were, actually. Marisa, who’s not exactly the prettiest of the three Rugg sisters, is what you might call a late bloomer in the romance department. To my knowledge she hasn’t even bloomed at all yet. So the news of her having a boyfriend was big. Real big.

  “You have a boyfriend?” asked Mom, and even Dad peered from behind his newspaper, his lined face displaying the appropriate parental concern.

  Marisa pretended not to notice the sudden attention. She put down her phone and took a long sip from her chamomile tea.

  “Honey, your mother asked you something,” Charlene said.

  “Oh? What did you want to know, Mother?”

  “She wants to know if it’s true that you have a boyfriend,” I said.

  Marisa displayed a mysterious smile. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”

  Charlene gave her a gentle shove. “Don’t be like that, Miss Fussy. We’re your family. We have a right to know what’s going on with you.”

  I didn’t know if that was necessarily true. It wasn’t because we were family that we were entitled to butt into Marisa’s life. Then again, I was as curious as the rest of them. If Marisa had managed to hook up with a guy, I was the first one to be happy for her. She deserved to find a great guy.

  Marisa shrugged. “I wouldn’t call him my boyfriend, exactly. He’s just someone who seems to be into me for some reason.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Maya. “I would have noticed.”

  “Guys can be into me,” said Marisa indignantly.

  “Only if they’re dead.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Dead men have no taste, and that’s exactly what a guy should have to be into you.”

  Marisa’s serious face crumpled into a frown. “You take that back.”

  “I’m not taking anything back. I mean, you don’t even pluck your eyebrows!”

  “I do pluck my eyebrows!”

  “No, you don’t. Look at that bush. It’s almost as if you’ve got a bird’s nest over your eyes.”

  “We can’t all be self-centered and vain like you,” Marisa shot back.

  “It’s called having a sense of style and beauty.”

  “Girls,” said Mom, holding up her hands like a referee. “Be nice to each other. You’re too old to fight like a gaggle of kids.”

  “Yes, behave yourselves,” said Charlene. “Or else you’re out of my show, young lady,” she added for Maya’s sake.

  Maya’s eyes widened in shock. “I can’t be out of your show! I just got in!”

  “I’m not having any prima donnas in my show,” Charlene stated primly.

  “There can be only one,” Dad muttered.

  He was right. There was only one prima donna allowed in this family and that was Charlene. She’s the star of Charleneland, the theme park that carries her name, and of her own life. I’ve often wondered when Ryan Seacrest was going to come knocking on our door, offering to produce ‘Keeping Up with the Ruggs.’ With the amount of drama ratings would go through the roof.

  Oh, my name is Mia, by the way, and I like to think I’m the sensible one in this crazy family of ours. Together we own and run Charleneland, the well-known theme park located in Sapsucker, California.

  I run security at the park, Dad is the technical guy, Mom combines human resources and admin duties, Maya is in charge of entertainment—and dealing with our main star Charlene—and Marisa is our IT and accounting whiz. And not only do we run this park together, for some reason we also live together in the same house. Good thing it’s a very big house. Like, huge.

  And just when Maya was about to tear into Marisa again, a large man strolled into our kitchen.

  “Hey, Leo,” I said. “What’s up?”

  He had that slightly worried look on his face that told me he wasn’t the harbinger of good news. Luitpold ‘Leo’ Shearwood is our chief of security so he reports directly to me. He’s also had a crush on my grandmother for as long as I can remember, though he’s never had the courage to act on it.

  “There’s been an accident,” he said in that rumbling baritone of his.

  “An accident?” asked Dad, finally putting down hi
s newspaper. “What kind of accident?”

  Leo rearranged his features in the requisite look of seriousness. “One of the cast members was shot. He’s dead.”

  Start Reading Final Ride Now

  About Nic

  Nic Saint is the pen name for writing couple Nick and Nicole Saint. They’ve penned 60+ novels in the romance, cat sleuth, middle grade, suspense, comedy and cozy mystery genres. Nicole has a background in accounting and Nick in political science and before being struck by the writing bug the Saints worked odd jobs around the world (including massage therapist in Mexico, gardener in Italy, restaurant manager in India, and Berlitz teacher in Belgium).

  When they’re not writing they enjoy Christmas-themed Hallmark movies (whether it’s Christmas or not), all manner of pastry, comic books, a daily dose of yoga (to limber up those limbs), and spoiling their big red tomcat Tommy.

  www.nicsaint.com

  Also by Nic Saint

  Washington & Jefferson

  First Shot

  Alice Whitehouse

  Spooky Times

  Spooky Trills

  Ghosts of London

  Between a Ghost and a Spooky Place

  Public Ghost Number One

  Ghost Save the Queen

  Box Set 1 (Books 1-3)

  A Tale of Two Harrys

  Ghost of Girlband Past

  The Mysteries of Max

  Purrfect Murder

  Purrfectly Deadly

  Purrfect Revenge

  Box Set 1 (Books 1-3)

  Purrfect Heat

  Purrfect Crime

  Charleneland

  Deadly Ride

  Final Ride

  Neighborhood Witch Committee

  Witchy Start

  Witchy Worries

  Saffron Diffley

  Crime and Retribution

  Vice and Verdict

  Witchy Fingers

  Witchy Trouble

  Witchy Hexations

  Witchy Possessions