There was more shouting and words I couldn’t parse together, and then I heard, “Leave her alone!”
Both Coco and I narrowed our eyes, figuring they were headed straight for us, but that wasn’t the case at all.
They were headed straight for Fabritzia.
She was easy to pick out, tall and slender, gorgeous and doe-eyed—a beacon in the sea of average. I haven’t a clue why she’d be in Shrimpies only a day after Myron’s death, but at this moment, I didn’t care.
This particular group had cornered her near the bar, their eyes glassy from too much alcohol and too little sleep. But it was Fabritzia’s face that worried me as everyone shouted and demanded she answer questions about her conversations with the police.
She looked terrified. Absolutely panicked, and I couldn’t stand the thought. Things began to get ugly when the tide turned and the paranoia, rampant in this bunch, started to seep through the cracks in their crazy skulls.
“Maybe she’s with the government, and she’s in on it!” the guy who’d approached me this morning declared.
Coco and I only had to look at each other before we were sliding out of our chairs and pushing our way across the bar.
I ducked low while Coco went high, yelling an order. “Out of the way, varmints!”
When I reached Fabritzia, tears were streaming down her face, making me feel worse than ever. I grunted as I grabbed for her hand and instead, ended up falling into her when one of the thugs knocked against me.
Whirling around, I stood in front of her to keep them from getting any closer, for all the good that did me. I’m five foot two on a good day, maybe five three when my hair’s bent on revenge when it’s rained on. Meaning, the group of men looming around us towered over me by at least six or eight inches.
So I yelled as loud as I could over the raucous chanting and backslapping, “Back off! You’re scaring her!”
“You’re that one from this morning! The one whose mother they’re blaming for this!” a rather ragged, unkempt man seethed in my face as though he’d discovered the key to solving Myron’s murder. “Maybe you’re in on it with her!”
As he caught everyone’s attention and moved in closer, I grew more agitated. I sounded out a warning again. “I’m telling you, if you don’t back away from us, I’ll sock you in the face! Now back up!”
“Did you hear her? Back away, goon!” Coco yelled, grabbing at the back of the man’s dirty T-shirt.
In his attempt to shove Coco off, he ended up knocking her down, but all I had to hear was her grunt of pain and see his face glaring down in mine, and I swung before I gave it a single thought.
I swung hard, crashing my fist right into his nose, which in turn knocked his head back on his neck.
Of course, the second I’d knocked his block off, not only did my hand throb (because wow, his face didn’t look like concrete, but it was as hard as some for sure), I became horrified. I don’t get physical often. I usually don’t get physical ever, but my dad had taught me a little boxing here and there when I was a kid. I guess I’d retained more than I thought.
My intent was to instantly apologize, but that didn’t last as the bar erupted and Barton Winkle, who’d helped Coco up, grabbed the guy around the neck and dragged him backward, launching him to the floor with a dull thud. “The lady said back up!” he shouted down at him, his face an angry mask.
Both Coco and I looked at each other, her eyes filled with as much surprise as I imagine were in mine. I don’t know about Coco, but if we were to add pros to Barton’s list of already pretty great attributes, knight in shining armor had to move to the top.
After that, everything’s a little bit of a blur. I admit it got really hairy. Coco smashed a bottle over one of the zombie hunters’ heads when he went after Barton like a raging bull. The attorneys and the fishermen banded together and went into battle against the zombie hunters like gladiators.
And everything turned into a huge mess. Glass broke. Tables smashed. Food flew. Beer toppled. Shrimpie, the owner of Shrimp Cocktails, exploded from the kitchen in the back with a bat in his hands, shoving two of the waitresses behind him, only to stop dead in his tracks when he saw the brawl.
Until Justice and the rest of the Fig Harbor PD blew in the doors, and the sound of a single shot filled the air.