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“Luke is pretty easy on the eyes, huh?”
Haley looked up from her laptop to see the waitress who had taken her order standing in front of her. She glanced over her shoulder in case she’d somehow sat herself in the middle of someone else’s conversation. But except for her, no other patrons occupied the Wheelbarrow Café.
“Excuse me?” Haley said.
“Luke Justice.” The waitress settled in Haley’s booth, sagging against the seat on the other side of the table as if she expected to roost there for a while. “The police officer outside. He’s a real looker.”
A smile stretched across her round face. She looked to be not much older than Haley, somewhere in her mid-forties. Haley attributed her ample figure to being employed by a restaurant whose claim to fame—a laughable notion given the barrenness of the establishment—was their volcanic mashed potatoes, if the menu could be believed. As described, volcanic mashed potatoes were supercharged regular mashed potatoes bursting with cheese and butter, and sporting a huge crater of turkey gravy in the center. The description alone prompted Haley’s arteries to constrict a millimeter. Why the restaurant would offer such fare, let alone boast about it, eluded her.
The waitress’s smile faded. “Don’t tell me Luke didn’t introduce himself.”
Haley looked down at her computer, not sure what to make of this conversation. In Seattle, she’d never had a restaurant employee join her table. Nor had she ever had one comment on her activities before she’d entered the establishment. In Seattle, food-service workers limited their client interactions to taking orders and money, and absorbing the occasional verbal beating.
Although, Haley considered, glancing around the empty room, this waitress didn’t exactly have a thriving population of hungry clients to tend to at the moment.
“The lunch rush doesn’t start until noon,” the waitress said, following the direction of Haley’s gaze. “You’ve got me all to yourself till then, honey.”
The prospect failed to excite Haley.
But, thankfully, she had already sent the email she owed Nexus. She’d suffered through two frustrating bouts of getting disconnected from the restaurant’s wireless network before her MIT attachment uploaded, but it wasn’t as if she had any other way to connect to the Internet. She would just have to view befriending the establishment’s staff as essential business networking.
“That’s a nice shirt you have on.” The waitress eyed Haley’s chest. “What’s it made of, rayon?”
“Silk.” Haley pulled her blouse away from where it had stuck to the sweat pooling in her cleavage.
The woman whistled. “Silk, eh? Mind if I touch it?”
The request stunned Haley into silence.
“Maybe it would help if I introduce myself first.” She thrust her hand across the table. “I’m Mindy. Mindy Larkin.”
Haley stared at Mindy’s palm for a moment before allowing the handshake. “Haley Winequest,” she returned, slipping her hand into her lap as soon as Mindy let go.
“You look like you come from the big city. Are you passing through town?”
Haley leaned back in case Mindy opted to follow through with her urge to finger her blouse. “I actually moved here this weekend.”
Mindy bent forward as though to compensate for Haley’s retreat. “You must be Bill’s new renter. 1042 Mountain Crest, right?”
Haley started. “You know my address?”
Mindy erupted in a belly laugh. “Don’t look so surprised, honey. There ain’t many rental homes here, and I know Old Man Ron just moved out of that house to go down south.”
Maybe even old men found the lack of reliable Internet too frustrating to consider spending their precious golden years here, Haley thought.
“He fancied living closer to his kids,” Mindy supplied, as if she could read Haley’s mind. “Although, I don’t reckon I should be calling them ‘kids.’ His son just turned fifty, and his daughter is on the fast track into menopause. She’s already pushed out a couple grandbabies for Old Ron so she’s good to go.” Mindy tilted her head. “You got any kids?”
“No.” Haley felt a pang in her chest as she said the word. She’d always figured she and Michael would start a family a few years after they married. That dream had ended as soon as Michael had died.
“Me neither.” Mindy patted her sizable stomach. “There ain’t no telling what childbirth would do to this figure. For me, it’s dogs all the way.”
Haley doubted a few pregnancies could do more damage than consuming an order of volcanic mashed potatoes, but she refrained from saying so.
“What brings you to Sobaco?” Mindy asked.
Haley shifted in her seat, not wanting to go into the details of her fiancé’s death and her vigilante justice mission. “I needed a change.”
Mindy nodded. “Sometimes a woman just has to put her past behind her.” She beamed across the table. “You’ll love it here. You can’t beat our little corner of the world.”
“It’s certainly different than Seattle,” Haley said, reluctant to insult the town where Mindy had likely been born and raised. Mindy probably figured Internet connections were spotty by design and only royalty wore silk.
“You certainly chose a good neighborhood.” Mindy winked. “Living next door to that stud of an officer, it must be tough to think about anything else, huh?”
Haley emitted a noncommittal sound.
“What are you grunting like a chimp for?” Mindy straightened as if bracing for a fight. “Luke’s a looker. There’s no denying that.”
“I suppose I didn’t notice, what with the way he questioned me like he would a criminal.”
Mindy waved her hand. “Aw, he’s just doing his job, honey.”
“He stopped me for driving on Main Street.” Maybe Mindy hadn’t yet put together a connection between Sobaco’s preposterous traffic laws and her now-empty restaurant.
“You’re a foreigner.” Mindy eyed Haley up and down as if trying to ascertain whether the silk shirt concealed atmospheric burns or other indications of her beaming down from outer space. “Luke doesn’t know you from a no-good hooligan. Of course he’s gonna be concerned given that you found that ganja the moment you set foot in town.”
Haley’s eyes snapped toward Mindy’s. “How do you know about that?”
Mindy’s grin threatened to envelop her entire face. “Honey, as soon as I realized where you lived, I knew you must be Luke’s neighbor girl who found that ganja.”
Haley fingered the tabletop, wondering if Mindy would volunteer more background on Luke Justice, whom she viewed as something of an enigma. She could no longer write him off as just an academy-trained animal trapper disgruntled with his job. The man was genuinely unpleasant.
Although, regardless of his sour personality, she did have to admit that Luke had transformed into a rather good-looking man when he’d smiled those two short seconds. That was probably the Luke Mindy knew, the winsome restaurant patron rather than the suspicious cop.
Mindy regarded her. “A few folks think you swiped a couple of those buds you found.”
“Great,” Haley muttered, wondering what other lies were spreading through town. She didn’t have much faith in the accuracy of rumor mills. The whole population of Sobaco probably thought she had brought the marijuana with her from Seattle.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it,” Mindy said. “According to the scuttlebutt, some of those plants were too mature to have sprouted overnight. And nobody of any intelligence thinks you planted all that ganja on your first day in town.”
Haley didn’t derive much comfort from the assurance. She hadn’t concluded yet whether Luke qualified as someone of intelligence.
“And if you did swipe a few buds, I wouldn’t fret over it,” Mindy added, giving Haley’s elbow a maternal pat.
Haley pulled her arm away. “I didn’t swipe anything.”
“Nobody would blame you. A little ganja never hurt anybody.”
“I’m not sure about that.” Haley’s stomach clenched as she considered the pesticide-laden substance that had proven fatal for Michael. “Street drugs can be very dangerous.”
Mindy stared at her for a moment before chuckling. “Oh, now honey, you don’t gotta go proving your innocence to me. I ain’t one to judge.”
Haley fell silent. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised Mindy thought she was guilty. After all, besides drugs, what other entertainment options existed in Sobaco? She had yet to notice a movie theater or bowling alley within town limits.
Heck, after the abysmal morning she’d had, even Haley was tempted to reconsider the merits of mind-altering substances.
“If you’re trying to deflect suspicions, I wouldn’t waste your breath,” Mindy advised. “A little recreational drug use ain’t grounds to be arrested.”
“Really? The police stopped me just for driving through town. Or maybe local law enforcement will overlook someone taking a toke as long as they don’t do so during their fourth pass down Main Street.”
“Pfft. Now you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. I saw the whole exchange, and Luke merely engaged you in some friendly conversation.”
“He had his cruiser lights on.”
“Well, how else would he get your attention, honey?”
Haley folded her arms across her chest. “How about by treating this marijuana case seriously and going after the people responsible so his eyewitness doesn’t feel like she suffered through an interrogation for nothing?” She snorted. “Oh, that’s right. Marijuana isn’t a big deal here. People can smoke it and grow it and sell it without fearing any repercussions.”
Mindy’s expression tightened. “Now you’re twisting my words. Manufacturing drugs ain’t something we take lightly. Here in Sobaco, we expect our illegal substances to originate from your big cities rife with corruption.”
Mindy’s logic failed to impress her, but Haley didn’t see the value in continuing with this line of discussion.
Her gaze drifted across the sea of empty tables surrounding them. She wondered whether Mindy’s proclivity to chat or the amount of time it took to receive a food order was more to blame for the lack of customers.
“He might still be on his cigarette break,” Mindy said.
Haley turned back to her. “Who?”
“Timmy.” Mindy gestured toward the kitchen. “He’s the owner and cook of this fine restaurant you have the pleasure of dining in today. Smokes like a chimney, and he can’t stop till he’s inhaled at least three of those cancer sticks. If he’s on his cigarette break, your sandwich might not be ready for a while yet.”
“Oh.” In Seattle, a business run by a man who valued his cigarette breaks more than serving the only patron in his establishment wouldn’t last two days.
Mindy reached over and patted Haley’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you entertained. The time will just fly by.”
Haley slumped in her seat. “Great.”
“Now, where were we?” Mindy fingered the edge of the table for a moment, then looked at Haley. “Word on the street is that you found miles of ganja growing unchecked.”
“I don’t know about miles, but there were quite a few plants out there.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she recalled her promise to Luke about not discussing the pot and felt a pinch of guilt. She couldn’t imagine his disposition improving when he learned about this chat.
Mindy flicked her wrist. “Ah, well, that will all be taken care of soon enough. The police should be just about finished harvesting all those little buggers as we speak.”
“Hmm.” Although Haley didn’t know how long it took to dismantle a field of that size, she would have thought the police would make seizing the plants a priority and assign anyone without more pressing business—in other words, Luke Justice—to help with the effort.
Or, remembering her ten-day Internet-installation delay, maybe residents of Sobaco considered a week to be a quick turnaround time.
Mindy propped her chin on one hand. “Hmm, what, honey?”
“I was wondering why Luke Justice isn’t helping more with the collection effort.”
Mindy’s eyes widened. “Oh, I reckon he’s fully devoted. He most likely finished before he chatted you up in the street.”
Haley would have used a different term than “chatted up,” like “harassed,” but Mindy seemed fond of the officer.
“In fact, Luke probably is the collection effort,” Mindy continued. “Brian’s not much of an outdoors person, if you know what I mean. He prefers a cold beer in hand and the company of the television in front of him.”
“Brian?”
“Officer Brian Holstead, one of Sobaco’s finest. He’s technically Luke’s partner, but they’ve pretty much divided up their responsibilities and usually work separately.”
“Sounds reasonable.” Haley couldn’t blame Brian. She wouldn’t doubt he had soon realized that lasting on Sobaco’s police force hinged on his ability to avoid interacting much with his unpleasant partner.
“Brian’s a good man,” Mindy said. “Real quiet. His wife and kids talk enough for the whole family.”
“Do you know everyone on the police force?”
“I know most everyone in town.” Mindy laughed, presumably in response to Haley’s look of surprise.
Haley forced herself to perform a mental shift once again. She kept forgetting that in towns the size of Sobaco, everyone knew everyone else. In fact, they probably all shared a gene pool.
“Besides, there’s only three boys on the force,” Mindy went on. “Brian, Luke, and the chief, Victor Lamb. Victor spends most of his time at the station nowadays. I’m telling you, with the budget crisis of the past few years, that poor man’s got his hands full trying to make ends meet.”
Haley hoped the police at least had enough resources to pursue a drug bust.
“Him and the missus have their own set of problems, but I don’t hold that against either one of them. Both Victor and Tracy are real nice people.” Mindy grinned. “Don’t worry, pretty soon you’ll know everybody here by name, too.”
“That certainly would have made identifying the man in the woods easier,” Haley reflected.
Mindy patted her hand. “Those boys at the station will catch the guy soon enough, don’t you worry about that. This ganja bust is the most exciting thing our little town has had to buzz about in a long time, and they ain’t gonna rest until the people responsible are in custody.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Mindy bustled out of the booth and smoothed her apron around her hips. “Now, I’ve gotta go check on Timmy before you starve yourself into nothingness.”
Haley watched as Mindy walked toward the employee exit behind which Timmy was presumably working his way through a carton of cigarettes.
Her image of Timmy morphed into Michael, a lit joint wedged between his teeth. She hoped Mindy was right and the person she’d run into two days ago would soon be in police custody. She hated to think she’d come so close to nabbing one of the individuals responsible for Michael’s death only to have him slip away.
