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THE POOR YOU SHALL have with you always.
Deputy Rod Keller couldn’t remember where he heard that saying, but it was certainly true, even in a prosperous town like Blue Falls. His usual route included the community’s poorer citizens, most of whom were farmers, although he had yet to be specifically called to that area.
At just after ten, an hour and a half before Rod’s quitting time, the dispatcher reported a single mother who was having trouble getting her five-year-old to come in the house, so he headed down one of the dark rural roads. Rod might have missed the turnoff had the dispatcher not clued him in, on the one large in a row of three small mailboxes. He slowed, made the turn, and was not surprised to find the light in the yard not nearly as bright as those he had seen in front of more prosperous farmhouses.
He pulled up to a small house that was nestled among several shade trees and stopped. Just to be on the safe side, he left his headlights on and got out. “Mrs. Richards?” he asked when the woman came out to meet him. One corner of her front porch had almost completely collapsed, causing her to hang on to a sturdy post so she could safely descend the three slanted steps to the ground.
“I don’t mean to bother you, Deputy, but my son won’t come in the house again tonight.”
Her smile was warm and she was not shabbily dressed the way he expected someone living in poverty would be. “He’s done this before?”
“She lowered her voice. “His dad got run over by a tractor last year and the boy’s been mad ever since. I just can’t find the words to set it right for him. Normally, I haul him in, but I burned my arm.” She showed Rod the wide bandage on the inside of her left forearm.
“No other children to help you?”
“No, Willie is the only one.”
“Do you have any idea where he is?”
“Yes, he’s in the barn. The thing is, when he won’t come in, I can’t go to bed and I’m exhausted tonight. It’s planting time and....”
“I understand.”
“Give him a good scare, will you Deputy? That’s what he needs, a good scare so he’ll start minding me.”
With his cruiser headlights shining on it, the barn didn’t look in that bad of shape, although it could use a new coat of paint. Rod nodded to the boy’s mother, went to the barn and opened the door. It was a fairly good size barn, although it was completely empty of animals and equipment.
The blond-headed boy sat on the floor about to fall asleep, when his droopy eyes widened at the sight of the deputy’s uniform. “You come to arrest me?”
“You need arresting?” Rod asked. He crossed his feet at the ankle and sat down next to the boy.
“No.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
“What’d you hear?”
Rod noticed that Nancy had come close enough to hear, but he ignored her. “I hear you committed a class fifty-two felony.”
The boy’s eyes widened even more. “A what?”
“A felony. When kids do a class fifty-two felony, they end up in jail.”
Willie gulped. “Jail?”
Rod reached over and brushed a dry leaf out of the boy’s hair. “You take not minding your mother, for example. Now, that’s a class fifty-two felony of the worst kind, especially when her arm is hurting. Of course, a class fifty-one felony isn’t nearly that bad. It all depends on what you’ve done.”
“What’s a...the other one for?” the boy sheepishly asked.
“Well, in that case kids get to stay home with their moms even after they get in trouble. A class fifty-one felony is when a boy loves his mother and just messes up a little. Do you love your mother?” Rod watched the little boy nod and was pleasantly surprised when Willie climbed into his lap. “I suppose I could knock the charge down if that’s what happened. She says you won’t go to bed. Is that right?”
Willie bowed his head and nuzzled as close as he could into Rod’s arms.
“So you messed up a little?”
Willie nodded.
“But you won’t let it happen again, right?”
The child laid his head against Rod’s firm chest. “Can you be my dad?”
“No, but I can be your friend.”
Willie’s head sharply jerked up. “Really?”
“Really. All of my friends mind their mothers, though.”
“I can do it too, really I can.”
Rod playfully rubbed Willie’s hair. “That’s good enough for me. How about we go tell your mom?”
The boy scrambled out of Rod’s arms, ran out of the barn and to his mother as fast as his little legs would carry him. “Him going to be my friend,” he bragged.
“Is he?” Nancy leaned down, and hugged her son as best she could without hurting her arm. She took Willie’s hand and then helped him safely up the steps. “Off you go,” She smiled when the screen door slammed and then turned to the officer. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Ma’am “He tipped his hat and got back in his patrol car.
Twice, as he slowly drove down the lane to the road, he looked in his rearview mirror at the pretty young widow still standing outside watching him.
*
AFTER HIS SHIFT ENDED, Deputy Rod Keller loaded the Woodbury kidnapping file folders into boxes and carried them out to his car. Before he left the office, he wrote a note and left it on Millie’s desk. It was the first of several jokes he intended to leave each night just to brighten her day. Laughter was something he heard little of at his job in Texas. His old department was huge and he couldn’t remember ever meeting any of the dispatchers, although he spoke to them from his patrol car often enough. Some nights he took call after call from the dispatcher involving knifings, shootings, domestic disputes, and car accidents. Even so, there was little to laugh about.
Rod hauled the Woodbury file boxes up two flights of stairs to his small apartment. It was located in one of the older apartment buildings a block from Main Street and the three rooms were nothing fancy. He laid his hat on a shelf, tossed his uniform jacket over the back of a chair, and then took the first set of files out of the box. He set them on his table, and then went to the small kitchen to make a pot of coffee and a sandwich.
At last he was ready to get started.
The first file folder contained three legal size yellow notepads on which the sheriff scribbled his handwritten notes. Every inch of the pages, front and back were filled with little room for anything else. Rod set that file aside for now.
The first page of the second file folder held an 8 x 10 color glossy of Tiffany Ann Woodbury. She was dressed in a little green dress, white socks and white shoes. A lock of curled hair on top of her head completed the smiling picture of a happy, heathy baby girl. Next to the photo was a lock of her hair that the sheriff had taped to the folder. Rod went to his kitchen drawer, pulled out a magnifying glass and carried it back to the table. Painstakingly, he looked at every inch of exposed baby skin, but found nothing to indicate the child had ever been abused.
He set the magnifying glass aside and turned the page. The second page consisted of a short summary and a list of file folders, with a numbering system in chronological order indicating where each section of the evidence could be found. As he continued to look through them, page after page of details began to draw a picture of what happened that night. As well, the sheriff had taken the trouble of drawing a sketch of the rooms on the bottom two floors of the Woodbury mansion, complete with where each window and door was located. Everything was locked up tight by the time the Sheriff arrived and no fingerprints were found on the sills or the frames. To get in through a window on the second floor, the kidnapper needed a ladder, and at least Earl’s ladder was still in the garage right where he always kept it.
Next, there was an extensive drawing and multiple photographs taken that night and the next morning of the front and backyard. A note indicated that Earl had a groundskeeper, a man hard of hearing, whom everyone loved. The harmless groundskeeper was the first to be eliminated as a possible suspect. The file further explained the extensive and immediate search of the grounds that night and again the next morning, but they didn’t find so much as a cigarette butt or a gum wrapper. A grid showed precisely where they searched, but they found no shoe prints, upturned dirt, or anything at all suspicious on the exterior of the house.
After the FBI showed up, the sheriff noted that he felt he lost control of the situation. There were new men asking the same questions and doing exactly what his deputies and the city police had already done. Instead of stepping on the FBI’s toes, he sent his people out to canvas the neighborhood. The neighbors were hardly asleep with all the ruckus going on anyway. Their names were listed, but none reported seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary that night.
In the meantime, the sheriff had the dispatchers notify all the neighboring counties of the baby’s disappearance. In the next county over, a car traveling at nearly a hundred miles an hour got pulled over, but a thorough search of the vehicle turned up nothing.
At the crack of dawn, the sheriff widened the search grid to include all the nearby properties, and then later widened it again to include the heart of the town and the farmlands. No one said it, but by morning everyone feared they would be looking for a body.
Rod skipped a couple of pages and then came to a list of everyone with whom the sheriff came into contact, and some he didn’t. It included names, addresses, details of the interviews and the sheriff’s impression of each. Those numbered 206. Rod ran his fingers through his hair. Two hundred and six, most of whom were probably scattered to the four corners of the world by now. It seemed an insurmountable number of possible witnesses and/or suspects to comb through. Even so, if the sheriff overlooked something, Rod was determined to find out what it was.
He quickly skimmed through Earl Woodbury’s account of what happened – all of which was pretty straightforward. On the top right-hand corner of the page was a picture of a distraught, albeit much younger Earl Woodbury. Next were the initial statements given by Earl’s wife, Shelley Woodbury, and the housekeeper, Mariam Eggleston. Both women, the sheriff noted, were too upset to offer very much information. Both claimed they didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary and neither heard the baby cry. They gave the same description of what baby Tiffany was wearing when they last saw her, which was a pink, zipped up sleeper.
Mariam Eggleston said she last saw Tiffany after dinner when Mrs. Woodbury took the child upstairs. Mariam did the dishes, straightened up a bit, and then went to her apartment to read a book. Mariam’s downstairs private quarters were on the other side of the house, so it was probable she didn’t hear anything.
Finally, there it was – the reason the sheriff suspected the housekeeper. When the sheriff checked Mariam’s room, he didn’t find a book laying open or closed - not near her chair, her sofa or even her bed. When he asked about it, Mariam seemed irritated. She said she heard Earl coming and put it back in the bookcase. When asked what kind of book it was, she said it was just a mystery and not a very interesting one.
Rod got up, went to the kitchen and poured himself a second cup of coffee. When he looked at the clock, it was well past time for him to call it a night, so he dumped the coffee out, turned off the pot and the lights, and went to bed.
For several minutes he lay awake staring at the ceiling. Why would anyone need to hide a book from their employer? He thought of a few possible reasons and then drifted off to sleep.
*
THAT NIGHT AFTER CLOSING the bar, Birdie washed all the makeup off her face, took a shower and then dressed in a sexy blue nightgown. Michael hadn’t shown up, but then the night was not yet over. Maybe he wouldn’t come this time. That would be nice. On the other hand, she hated waiting for people, especially Michael. By three-thirty she guessed he had other plans and went to bed.
Yet sleep did not easily come and when it did, she had an unbelievably frightening nightmare that made her gasp and sit straight up in bed. Drenched in sweat, she got up, went to the bathroom and washed her face. For a time, she simply stood there and stared at her reflection. Her beautiful face was showing its age, tiny crows-feet had already appeared in the corners of her eyes and the rings under them seemed to grow puffier every day.
Everyone got old. It was just that she was getting old without having a chance to truly live.
*
THE NIGHT BEFORE, TIFFANY found her hotel room to be much nicer than most of the discounted hotels and motels she’d stayed in so far – and it had free Wi-Fi. Delighted, she changed into pajamas, took the small, six round 380 caliber pistol out of her purse, laid it on the night table, and then took her laptop out of the case. She called her dad, was careful not to tell him where she was, and then spent hours talking to her friends on social media.
The next morning, she got up and got ready for the day. In the lobby downstairs, she bought a local paper, sat at a little table, ate a free pastry, and sipped a cup of free hot coffee. The help wanted ads in the small newspaper consisted of only one possibility, and that was at the used bookstore, just like the mechanic said. Finished with her breakfast, she rented the room for a second night and then stepped out into the warm, albeit bright, Iowa sunshine. She nodded to Earl, who was sitting on the bench watching her, and then headed in the opposite direction.
Tiffany took her time walking to the end of Main Street, peeked in the windows of the shops along the way, and then stopped short when she got to the mechanic’s garage. Lucky Ben Coulter had two vehicles inside his three-door garage and three more cars lined up outside next to his sleek black tow truck. Hers was the last car in line. Attached to the garage was a small office/shop combination with both a soda and a snack vending machine. Various car parts, a case of oil, and a new battery was displayed in the picture window.
When he finally noticed her, Ben tossed a tool in his toolbox, grabbed a grease rag to clean his hands, and came out of the garage to talk to her. His coveralls looked practically new with only a few grease spots on both knees.
“Guess it’s going to be a while,” she said.
“I thought you needed to stick around and make a ton of money...”
Tiffany smiled. “So I can pay you a ton of money. That’s true, come to think of it.”
He noticed her looking at the two cars in front of hers. “Don’t worry, I only need to rotate the tires on the first one, and do an oil change on the second. Then I’ll see what it will take to fix yours.”
She peeked inside his open garage doors. “What about the two in there?”
“I’m waiting for parts on those. They treat you good at the hotel?”
Ben looked even more handsome in the daylight than his dimples made him look the evening before. She was so taken with the brown eyes that were fixed on hers, she had to look away. “You always up this early?”
“Nine o’clock is early?”
“It is when you’re on vacation. So how far away is this used bookstore?”
“Not far.”
“Within walking distance?” she asked.
Ben pointed. “Other end of Main Street on the right-hand side.”
“Know of any other jobs in town? It sounds boring.”
“Not unless you know how to change a tire.”
There was his dimpled smile again. Tiffany blocked the light out of her eyes with her hand so she could pretend not to be looking at him. “Sorry, not my kind of fun at all.”
“The bookstore it is, then. You might find it more interesting than you think.”
“In what way?”
“You’ll see.”
“Well, tell me this much at least.” She shifted her weight to the other foot. “Is the woman who owns it the kind that thinks she is entitled?”
He was stumped. “Entitled?”
“You know the type. Take Carl Slone for example. He was the school quarterback, all the girls loved him, and the administration thought he could do no wrong. He liked making weird noises in class and shooting rubber bands at the teacher when her back was turned. One day he broke his leg in three places and had to wear a cast from his thigh to his ankle. Man, oh man, he milked that injury for all it was worth. He got the guys to help him up and down the stairs, and got a different girl to carry his books and his lunch tray every day.”
Tiffany was serious as she told her story, but Ben couldn’t help but grin. “All the girls but you?”
“Me? Oh please. His girlfriend taught him a lesson though. While he was asleep, she painted his toenails bright red and when no one would take the polish off, not even his little sister, he found out he wasn’t as entitled as he thought.”
“Mariam is not that kind at all. She’s a little erratic sometimes, but I think you’ll like her. She loves books and does all she can to get kids to read.”
Someone shouted something Tiffany didn’t catch and when she turned to look across the street at the bank, several people were heading that direction. “What’s going on?”
“Not sure exactly.” Ben pulled his cellphone out, made a call and watched a man across the street answer his phone. “What’s going on? ...You’re kidding.” Ben laughed and then hung up.
“A run on the bank?”
“Even better. You met Michael last night. Well he and Jerry Terrell are in the middle of a feud. It’s a long story, but one is always trying to get something over on the other one. This time Jerry managed to change something on Michael’s billboard.”
“Michael’s billboard is in the window of the bank?”
“No, but there is a webcam that watches the billboard day and night, and nearly every business in town has a computer set up to see what’s on the webcam.”
Tiffany was intrigued. “What changed?”
“Well, yesterday Michael’s billboard promised 100% satisfaction guaranteed on all Woodbury tiles, but someone changed the 100% to 50%.”
Tiffany’s smile widened and her eyes began to sparkle. “What do you think the other guy will do in retaliation?”
“Waiting to see is half the fun. Blue Falls has the kind of entertainment even money can’t buy.” He motioned toward his shop. “You want a soda? I’m buying.”
“No thanks.” She took a longer look around, and noticed a picnic table under a tree, on a small patch of grass just beyond the parked cars. “Tell me more about this feud.”
“They used to fight with printed flyers, which they put on everybody’s windshield once or sometimes twice a week. Jerry had one printed up announcing a Woodbury tile recall. The flyer claimed that even the slightest spark on a Woodbury floor could cause the whole house to explode. Michael was mad about that one for a full week.”
“What did Michael do?”
Ben stuffed his grease rag in his pocket and then folded his arms. “He announced a half-off sale on all of Jerry Terrell’s expensive scenic prints. Jerry hid most of his prints in the back and then put a sign claiming to be sold out in his front window.”
“I’m starting to like this town already.” The crowd across the street had grown to nearly twenty, all laughing and joking with each other.
“The sheriff put a stop to the flyers. The people loved them, but the street cleaners weren’t thrilled. Shoot, I was constantly picking the flyers up around here too. Between you and me, I think the sheriff gets a kick out of the feud, as long as it stays relatively harmless.”
“Jerry doesn’t have a billboard?”
“Not yet, but we’re expecting him to come up with one any day now.”
Tiffany grinned. “Maybe I better stick around just to see what happens?”
“Maybe you should. One thing though, the smart people stay out of it. Michael’s the town hothead. He hasn’t killed anyone that we know of, but he gets mad enough to.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Hey, how about letting me take you to the annual picnic at the lake. That’s when the fireworks between Jerry and Michael might really get interesting. Every year like clockwork, they get into a shouting match over something. Last year, they almost went to blows.”
“When is it?”
“Weekend after next. We only have one requirement of guests.”
“What’s that?”
“Come hungry. It’ll be a great place to meet people and you never know who might have a job opening.”
“Really?” she asked
“Really.”
She abruptly frowned. “You’re not trying to trick me into going to an AA meeting, are you?”
Ben laughed. “No, they hold that on the Monday after the picnic, when everybody’s sobered up.”
“It’s at a lake?”
“Yep. The kids swim in the lake, there is always more food than we can eat, and like I said, there’ll be plenty of down home entertainment.”
Tiffany could think of at least three clichés he could have said and didn’t. Things were looking up. “Okay, sounds like fun. What time?”
“I like to go around ten and then harass the ladies until they finally feed me.”
“I can’t wait to see that. Well, I better go to that used bookstore.”
“You’ll like it there, I promise.”
She looked up the street and tried to see the bookstore on the other end of Main Street, but a large sign was in the way. “I hope you’re right.”
“Want me to call you when I figure out what’s wrong with your car?”
“Sure.” She gave him her cellphone number and then walked away.
Lucky Ben Coulter couldn’t help but slowly exhale as he watched the town’s new beauty walk away. He glanced at her car, headed back inside the garage, and then muttered, “Finally beat Alex Woodbury to the draw.”
*
TIFFANY LOVED WALKING, especially since Iowa wasn’t as humid as it was on the east coast, and she didn’t have to worry about her hair wilting immediately after curling it. Lately, she didn’t take the time to curl it anyway. Today however, she simply braided the length and let it hang down her back. Her walk to the bookstore allowed her to become more familiar with the town, and when she looked, Earl was sitting on that same bench watching her. She smiled, waved for a second time that morning, and then kept going.
Tiffany spotted Crazy Eddie right away, after all, there was no mistaking his old, beat up blue pickup truck. This time however, he wasn’t speeding down the street. Instead, he drove at a snail’s pace and although she couldn’t see through his tinted windows, she suspected he was trying to get a good look at the new girl in town. “I wonder what his story is,” she whispered aloud.
Just as Ben said, the bookstore was easy to find. The outdated sign repeatedly flashed Just books, and her first impression of the place was not a good one. Instead of an attractive display, there were piles of books in the window in no particular order. Some had the binding showing and were right side up enabling the shopper to see the title, but most where just haphazardly arranged.
Tiffany tried not to let her displeasure show, timidly opened the door and listened as a set of tiny bells attached to the door announced her arrival. Interestingly, the place didn’t smell like old books, which was a pleasant surprise. Instead, there was a hint of potpourri.
In short order, a woman raised her head above a shelf of books in the back, and pushed her ill-fitting glasses back up her nose. As soon as she spotted the stranger, she shoved a book in place and then headed to the front. Mariam Eggleston never walked anywhere – she marched. A woman with a purpose, she owned a small house a couple of blocks away, arrived at precisely the same time each morning and closed the store at exactly seven in the evening. “Thank goodness you are here.”
“What?” a confused Tiffany asked. Her eyes widened as she watched the older woman continue to trudge toward her. The shop owner wore a pink blouse, a brown, knee-length skirt, and white tennis shoes. Her short, dark hair was a mess, a perm gone bad Tiffany guessed, although it was apparent the woman had done her best to tame it.
“Michael called me. I’m Mariam Eggleston, but you can call me Mariam, and you are Tiffany something or other. Michael said your last name and I promptly forgot it. I’m getting old, I hate very much to say, and my memory doesn’t do a thing for me. We don’t have many named Tiffany around here, come to think of it, you’re the only one in just ages. Interesting name, Tiffany. Follow me.” Mariam did an about face and started back down the aisle.
It was certainly not the kind of job interview she was expecting, but when Tiffany noticed a price tag struck to the seat of Mariam’s skirt, she knew right away she was going to like the place.
Mariam abruptly stopped and turned around. “You want the job? It’s only part time, from two in the afternoon to seven at night, or maybe split shifts, or...whatever. I’ve never hired anyone before.” She put a finger to the side of her face. “That’s true, I suppose, now that I think about it. Sometimes the high school girls help me out in exchange for free books to read.”
Mariam turned back around and started down the aisle again. “You’ll get in trouble if you let the young ones read anything their mother’s might object to. Now, these three rows are fiction and naturally that’s most of what we get in here. The children’s section is against the far wall, and the non-fiction is...let me see, I meant to move it. I wonder if I did? Follow me.”
Tiffany hid her grin. Already Mariam had pushed her thick glasses up her nose three times.
Once more, the store owner abruptly stopped and turned around. “You know how to run a cash register? Never mind, I’ll teach you.” Again, she took off down the row. “I’m a bit of a neat freak and do my best to keep the place clean. I’ll be asking you to help with that too. Hope you don’t mind.” She swiftly turned the corner, went around the end and started down the next aisle. “These are the more, shall we say, racy books. I keep them down the center isle so I can make sure the younger girls don’t choose them. Of course with everything on TV these days, the kids probably already know everything anyway. Just the same, I dare not let their mothers know I allowed it.”
“Miss Mariam, I...”
“Mrs., sort of, I guess. I’m divorced, but then isn’t everyone? I suppose you’re not. This section is...” she continued, hardly pausing long enough to take a breath.
Tiffany couldn’t remember meeting anyone who rattled on as much as she did. She followed her new boss from aisle to aisle and listened as carefully as she could, but it was not until they were back to the front counter that she managed to ask, “Mariam, when would you like me to start?”
“Well, are you busy now?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Excellent. You find a place to live?”
“I’m staying at the hotel down town.”
“Well, you can’t live in the hotel. No one can afford that. I’ll see if anyone has a room they’ll let you have.” Mariam walked around the front counter, finally stopped and picked up a note pad. “I have a few friends that request certain books should I get them in. This is the list of the books and the telephone numbers to call. They’re mostly new books just out on the market, you know the bestsellers, and it takes a while before anyone brings one in. By then, my friends usually can’t wait and buy a new copy anyway. Just the same, it never hurts to have good friends, especially in this town. You just never know when you might need them.”
“Why especially in this town?” Tiffany asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Mariam brushed the top of her unruly hair back with her hand. “Oh well, I might as well tell you. There are some in town who think I had something to do with a kidnapping. I didn’t, but some...”
“Earl Woodbury’s baby?”
“You know about that?”
“Michael mentioned it to explain why his father doesn’t speak,” Tiffany answered.
“Well, I was Earl’s housekeeper the day the baby got taken. I never heard a sound, but there are some who think I had something to do with it, especially the sheriff. I didn’t, and he can’t prove I did, but some...”
“I understand.”
“You still want the job?”
Tiffany smiled and nodded. “I do.”
Mariam let out a sigh of relief. “Great. All those books in the window need to be put on the shelves somehow. I expect you should get familiar with how things are arranged first, though it doesn’t really matter that much. We’re not a library and no one is going to be looking by ISBN numbers. Even so, I do try to keep them organized alphabetical by author.”
“Got it,” said Tiffany. Now that Mariam was her boss, Tiffany decided she should say something. “There’s a price tag on your butt.”
Mariam gasped, “Oh dear, I must have sat on one.” She twisted the top half of her body so she could look, spotted the tag and pulled it off her skirt. “Thank you.” Mariam looked at the price on the sticky tag and then rolled her eyes. “I’ve been looking everywhere for this. No wonder I couldn’t find it. It goes on the most expensive book in the shop, which is a collection of old maps. I suspect that collection might be worth something someday, and I mean to get my share off the top.” Mariam reached under the counter, pulled out a large book and pressed the sticky part of the $199.00 price tag on the front. “There, that should do it.”
“You want me to put it in the window? Maybe someone will see it and buy it.”
“Yes I do, you put it right in the window while I go next door and get Harold to make a second key for you. I’m hoping you can lock up at night. I get tired earlier in the day than I used to.” She grabbed her purse, but before she made it out the door, the old fashioned princess telephone on the counter rang, Mariam immediately picked it up. “Just...” the caller on the other end didn’t give Mariam time to complete her sentence. “Now? He’s headed into the Sheriff’s office now?” The store manager hung her head. “It is times like these I regret never going into law enforcement.” She put her hand over the transmitter and whispered to Tiffany, “Michael is furious, but who wouldn’t be?”
The bookstore, Tiffany noticed, had no computer set up to display Michael’s billboard, which would likely show someone climbing up to change the 50% back to 100% any time now. She regretted not being able to watch that, but oh well.
*
WITH GREAT INTEREST, Earl Woodbury watched his son recklessly pull into a diagonal parking place, slam on his brakes, and yank the driver’s side door of his red sports car open. Wasting no time, Michael stomped across the sidewalk and entered the door to the Sheriff’s office.
When Michael was in a mood like the one plainly on his face just now, even Millie knew better than to laugh. She got up, approached her side of the counter and sweetly said, “May I help you, Mr. Woodbury?”
“I doubt it,” Michael grumbled. “Where’s the sheriff!”
It was obvious he had been madly running his fingers through his hair and didn’t bother to comb it – both sides were ruffled and out of place with an odd curl hanging down the middle of his forehead. Even then, Millie didn’t so much as smile. “In his office. Shall I ask if he will see you?”
“Oh, he’ll see me alright.”
Just as Michael headed to the back, Sheriff Pierce came out of his office. “Forget it Michael, I’m not going to arrest Jerry Terrell over something as little as making a slight change to one, or perhaps two letters on your billboard.”
“It’s defamation of character,” Michael insisted.
“So get a lawyer and take him to court. You’ve been itching to do that for weeks now anyway.”
“If you don’t arrest him, I swear I’ll have your job.”
“On most days,” Otis nonchalantly said, “you’d be welcome to it. Unfortunately, you don’t pay my salary, the county does.”
“And because we have a stupid Mayor, the Woodbury Tile Company pays half the county’s taxes.”
The sheriff put a hand on Michael’s back and started urging him toward the door. “I don’t doubt that.”
“So you refuse to do anything?”
“I could have another talk with Jerry if you like, but then when you get even, I’ll have to waste my time having a little talk with you too. Maybe it’s time for the two of you to bury the hatchet before somebody gets hurt.”
Michael huffed and walked out the door.
“Might have to arrest that kid someday,” the sheriff mumbled as he watched Michael get in his car and nearly hit another car getting out of the parking lot.
Millie burst out laughing. Across the street, Earl just shook his head.
*
TIFFANY COULDN’T EVEN guess how it could take an hour to go next door and have a key made, but in Mariam’s case it did. That wasn’t all, when she returned Mariam had the answer to Tiffany’s most pressing Michael question – what happened at Birdie’s the night before.
“Really?” Tiffany gasped. “Three ex-wives?”
“And hopefully the last. If Michael was smart, he would marry Pamela again and keep her forever, but about some things Michael is just not that smart.”
Mariam approved of the new display in her window, picked up her dust rag, started to take the books off a nearby shelf one at a time, and gave each a thorough cleaning. “Well, it’s not like anyone expected his third marriage to work out any better than the first two. It’s sad when you think about it. Michael just can’t seem to get his slice of happiness, no matter what he does.”
“He must like being married, though.”
“Some men just can’t stand the loneliness, I guess.”
*
MARIAM WAITED ALL DAY to hear what happened when Michael stormed into the Sheriff’s office, but none of her usual sources were there at the time, and Millie could always be counted on to keep her mouth shut. At around five in the afternoon, Mariam showed Tiffany how to close up and then left for the day.
Running the register was easy, once Mariam showed Tiffany how. Several customers came in that evening to pick up a book or two, with the inevitable questions for the town’s newest arrival. Patiently, she answered the ones concerning where she was from and how long she intended to stay, but when the questions got more personal, she expertly changed the subject.
Before she knew it, it was closing time. Tiffany’s first day at her new part-time job lasted several hours longer than she anticipated, and by the time she closed at seven, she was exhausted.
On her way back to the hotel, she took a seat next to Earl on his bench, and once more watched the beat up blue pickup truck slowly drive by. “That’s Crazy Eddie, they tell me,” she said. “There’s a guy back home just about as crazy. I like the one back home, but then I like almost everybody. I don’t like Molly First though. She’s two years older than me and takes her last name far too literally. She’s the immaculate dresser type. You know, the kind that wears the most expensive clothes and only shops at exclusive Boston boutiques. She wears high heels even with blue jeans too. Molly is just a showoff. Of course, it’s her father’s money she shows off. I bet she spends more on a pair of shoes than most people spend on groceries each month.
Tiffany paused to watch a couple of kids play ball in the park. “Mr. Woodbury, I have a question. Would you say I can trust Ben Coulter? He asked me to go the picnic with him and, well, if he’s not one of the good guys, I’d just as soon know about it in advance. So what do you say, can I trust him?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Earl nodded.
“That’s good enough for me. Thanks, Mr. Woodbury.” She hopped up and continued on her way.
Tiffany was already gone by the time Earl tipped his cowboy hat.
*
AS TIRED AS SHE WAS when she got back to her room, Tiffany was never too tired to fill her social media friends in on everything she’d been up to during the day. She mentioned Michael Woodbury a time or two, but she couldn’t wait to drop little hints about Ben, even though she didn’t know much about him yet. Her friends demanded more details, but she didn’t want to jinks their relationship of only a few hours.
When Ben called, the sound of his deep, teddy bear voice thrilled her. She could get used to hearing that voice. “You fix my car yet?”
“Nope. You’ve got an electrical problem.”
“That figures.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the guy who sold it to me said it would last at least three more years. What I got was three more weeks.” She sighed. “Please tell me it’s fixable?”
“It is, but I don’t have the parts. It shouldn’t take more than a week to get them in though. What did you think of Mariam?”
“You were right – she doesn’t act entitled at all. I have yet to think of someone back home she reminds me of, but I’m working on it.”
“You compare all people to the ones you know at home?”
“Sure I do. We only know what we experience ourselves. People can tell us all day long what a pathological liar is, but if you’ve never met one, how can you learn to know one when you see one?”
“I guess that makes sense.”
The pause between them was a little awkward before she asked, “So a week to fix the car?”
“Sooner, if...”
“Ben, is there a laundromat around here I can walk to?”
“Just a block over. It’s on the street behind the bank.”
“Great, thanks.”
“Later,” he said and then hung up – way too soon.
