Dani could only apologize for Randle and Friar so much before it started sounding insincere, so she invited Nola to go on patrol with her. It was the least boring of the boring shit Baptist Flats deputies were required to do.
They pulled out of the station and headed toward Main Street. When Dani saw a group of old rednecks standing in front of the pharmacy, she realized that Friar was right. A black woman wearing a uniform and carrying a badge in this town was going to be a hard sell. She felt her face flush as she imagined all the inappropriate shit the townsfolk would say, under their breaths at first, but over time they would become more brazen about their objections.
Dani gave Nola a sideways glance to see if she could detect a look on the deputy consultant’s face that said she regretted agreeing to take the temporary position. In the shifting of her eyes, she saw a decal on a pickup truck parked in front of Glendale’s Department Store. It was a rebel flag sticking out of the barrel of a gun with a G above the gun and an R below it.
She didn’t even bother parking legally. She slammed on the brakes and clicked on the emergency lights.
“What’s going on?” Nola asked. “Trouble?”
Dani climbed out of the cruiser. “Nothing serious. You hang back with the car. Monitor the radio.”
Nola nodded, her attention split between Dani’s instructions and a gaggle of teenagers on skateboards coming up the sidewalk.
Dani rushed inside the store and was greeted by Little Tom, that’s the ironic moniker Dani knew him by anyway. His name tag simply said THOMAS.
“Dani Savage,” Little Tom said, “we were starting to think you forgot about us.”
Dani scanned the store. “Hmmm?”
“You ain’t been in here in a year. You too good to shop in Glendale’s?”
“What?” Dani asked, not hearing a word he said.
“I said are you too good…Never mind. Wha’cha in the market for today? New dress? Makeup?” He looked down at her clunky boots. “Shoes?”
“I ain’t buying, Lit…Thomas. I’m looking for the owner of that truck out in front of the store.”
Thomas leaned back and shifted his gaze out the door to see what truck she was talking about. “That truck? That’d be Jimmy Cole. He walked to the lingerie section.”
Dani gave Thomas a surprised look.
Thomas smirked and held up a hand. “I do not want to know, Deputy. I do not want to know.”
Dani returned the smirk and quickly set out to find Jimmy Cole. She found him standing next to a bin of panties. He had both hands buried in the mound of Lycra and cotton. The look on his face was pure euphoria. He pulled his cupped hands out, overflowing with women’s underwear, and slowly brought them to his face.
Dani cleared her throat.
Jimmy turned to her with a start. “Deputy!”
She snorted back a laugh. “Jimmy…”
“I was just…I dropped…my phone in the bin…”
“I don’t care, Jimmy. I wanna ask you about a decal on your truck.”
“Decal? You mean like a sticker?”
“If that helps you understand better, yeah, like a sticker.”
“Which one?”
“The one with the gun and the Confederate battle flag sticking out of the barrel.”
Jimmy considered the information. He had more stickers on his truck than he could count, literally. He snapped his fingers. “The one with the G and the R?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“What about it?”
“Where’d you get it? What’s it for?”
He brushed the top layer of panties with his fingertips in the bin without thinking about it. “Can’t say. Come with the truck.”
Dani couldn’t hide her disappointment.
“Asked the dealer about it. When I bought the truck.”
“And?”
“I think he said it was some gun club or something.”
“He say where?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Nah. Truck come by way of a dealership in Titus Grove. If that helps.”
Hearing Jimmy say Titus Grove sent a chill up Dani’s spine. “It does actually.” She was about to leave, but stopped to give Jimmy a scolding. “If you’re gonna snake your hands all through them panties, just wash them first.”
He blushed. “I just like the way they feel.”
She held up her hand. “It’s creepier when you explain it.”
Dani gave Thomas a nod of thanks on her way out of the store. Once under the heat of the day, she saw all manner of teenagers scattering in every direction. A small crowd started to gather around the cruiser. Here we go, she thought.
Dani got out ahead of the approaching crowd and zipped around the front of the cruiser to find Nola with her knee planted squarely in the spine of Buster Spree, a cracker kid who was trouble from the moment he’d grown hair on his balls.
“He groped me,” Nola said.
Dani squatted down to get a look at Buster’s beet-red face. His chin was laced with gravel from the road. “You groped my deputy, friend?”
“Didn’t know she was a deputy,” Buster said. “Thought she was just some dumb nig—”
Nola slapped him in the back of the head before he could get the word out. “What did I tell you about the word?”
Buster screeched.
Someone in the approaching crowd yelled, “Get off that boy, woman!”
Dani stood and ordered everyone to stay back.
One of the old men from the pharmacy protested. “She can’t come in here and treat one of ours like that. Arrest her, Deputy. Arrest her.”
“She’s one of mine,” Dani said defiantly. “Don’t you people recognize a uniform when you see one?”
A series of confused mumbles were exchanged amongst the crowd.
“She ain’t got no authority,” someone insisted.
“She has my authority,” Dani said, tossing Nola her handcuffs.
“Ain’t this something we should vote on?” another unidentified person asked.
“You don’t vote on hires, people. What is wrong with you?” She helped Nola load Buster into the cruiser and ran around to the passenger side while Nola got behind the wheel.
The crowd converged on the cruiser and Dani switched on the siren, an act that nearly startled the older members of the group to death.
“Drive,” Dani said.
With that, Nola put the cruiser into drive and carefully pulled away from the crowd.
Dani couldn’t help but notice that Nola had a big grin on her face.
“What?”
Nola let a chuckle slip before saying, “This is gonna be fun.”