*
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CHAPTER 5

Wynne and Beatrice spent the next twenty minutes getting on each other's nerves. Whenever Wynne said something she considered funny, Beatrice would snort in contempt. Whenever Beatrice said something she considered important to the ongoing case, Wynne asked for an explanation of all the fancy words which only made the deputy even more annoyed with her.

The air in the sheriff's office soon crackled with negative energy that for once wasn't created by nefarious external forces. Down on the floor, Blackie was on the brink of developing a sore throat from growling at the junior deputy so often, and Goldie had already developed a crimp in her neck from rolling herself into a ball of golden fur whenever the latest round of verbal blows were exchanged.

In the middle of all that negativity, Mandy sat at her desk trying to draw up a battleplan they could follow for when Brenda Travers would arrive with her technical equipment. The sound of Beatrice drawing a breath to add another theory or suggestion made her slam down her ball point pen and check the time on her telephone - it was getting close to the bottom of the hour which would be a good excuse for a change of scenery. "Deputy Reilly," she said and got up, "once it's half past, I want you to swap with Senior Deputy Gonzalez. If you wish, you can head over to the bar and grill first for some food and coffee. The drunkard has behaved himself and is to be released at ten. Any questions?"

"None, Ma'am," Beatrice said and glanced at the time. Though there were only four minutes left of her shift at the watch desk, she stayed in place to show that she wasn't about to skimp out of her duty just to get some coffee and snacks.

Wynne sent a dark glare at the abrasive junior deputy sheriff but kept quiet.

---

The four minutes went by in a crawl before Beatrice Reilly finally took her Mountie hat and left the sheriff's office.

"Lawwwwwr-die," Wynne said under her breath. Moving off the chair she had been sitting on since calling Brenda, she shuffled over to Blackie and Goldie to dish out a little doggy-loving. "This he' deal can't go on like this, Sheriff Mandy… som'tin's gotta give. Tho' I dunno whaddahell that might be. It sure ain't gonn' be me an' it sure ain't gonn' be ol' Quick Draw, neithah. But som'tin's gotta give."

"It'll be my sanity if it goes on for much longer… that's a fact," Mandy said as she moved over to the coffee machine to pour herself a mug of the rocket fuel that had been brewing all evening.

Though it was steaming-hot as required, the hours the coffee had spent on the hotplate meant it had gained an unfortunate bitterness that made her crinkle her nose. Once she had chugged down the mugful to get the shot of caffeine she needed, she strode into the bathroom to drain and rinse the coffee pot.

At the same time, Senior Deputy Rodolfo Gonzalez thumped the sticking door open and entered the office. When the wall of stale air and dusty heat slapped him across the face, he staggered back and whipped off his Mountie hat at once. "Madre mia!  It's hotter than a triple-chili baked potato in here!  Sheesh!"

"Howdy, there, Rodolfoh!  Been havin' fun next door?" Wynne said with a grin.

Rodolfo put the hat on the corner of the watch desk. Pulling out the hard, uncomfortable chair, he sat down to begin the next part of his evening shift. "Yeah… until Bea showed up. Yikes, did you guys have a fight or something?  The words foul mood don't even begin to describe it. She almost bit my head off just because I cracked a joke…"

"Naw, she wus jus' bein a-"

"Wynne," Mandy interjected as she came back from the bathroom with the clean coffee pot, "would you mind calling Mrs. Travers to hear how far she's come in her preparations?  We really need to get going with this thing."

"A-yup, Sheriff Mandy. No problemo," Wynne said; she had barely entered her telephone's registry when the old Bakelite telephone on the watch desk let out its typical shrill ringing.

Barry Simms returned from his speed trap duty up at the summit of Haddersfield Pass at the exact same time. Forgetting all about the sticking door, he smacked head-first into the pane of glass - the loud Thump! and Barry's subsequent "Owwwwch!" made Blackie jump up and let out a series of loud barks that only added to the mess in the sheriff's office.

Chuckling at his colleague, Rodolfo picked up the receiver and readied the pencil at the incident sheet, but Blackie's barking was so loud he couldn't hear a word of what was said over the connection. "Uh… Blackie… please pipe down… I can't hear- Blackie?  Hush!  Wynne?"

"Yuh-yuh, I'mma-gonn' take care o' bizzness… dontcha worry 'bout nuttin', there Rodolfoh," Wynne said and hurried over to her beloved dog to calm her down and show that the noise hadn't been created by a fierce critter attacking them but by Barry being Barry.

Once a modicum of quiet had been restored to the sheriff's office - although Barry continued to whimper and moan - Rodolfo pinned down the old receiver between his chin and shoulder to have both hands free to update the report sheet. "Good evening, you've reached the-"

Mandy, Wynne and Barry all turned to look at the senior deputy when nothing further came from him.

"Is that a fact, Miss Hayward?" Rodolfo said in a voice that held a strong undertone of sarcasm. "There's been a car accident on Main Street directly in front of the Town Museum?" While he spoke, he locked eyes with Mandy and shook his head.

A drawn-out "Lawwwwwwr-die!" escaped Wynne, but Mandy did one better: a guttural growl escaped her as she tore from the office and ran out onto the sidewalk. Though the daylight had been reduced a great deal from its mid-day intensity, she could still see clear up to the northern end of Goldsboro.

Nothing moved anywhere; there were no pedestrians, no trucks, cars or even agricultural vehicles in sight on Main Street. Turning around, she glanced south and got the exact same result save for a pair of headlights that cut through the mounting gloom somewhere out on the State Route.

A Psssshhht! heralded the arrival of a certain W. Donohue on the sidewalk - another "Lawrdie…" confirmed it. "Yuh, sure don't look like no accident ta me. Mebbe mah eyes ain't whut they used ta be, but… naw. Sure ain't no accident nowheah 'round he', no Ma'am."

"This cannot be allowed to go on!" Mandy barked and smacked a fist into an open palm. "It's got to stop before someone dies… sooner or later, a real emergency will happen that we won't have time to respond to because we're off on a wild ghost chase!"

"Yuh, sure ain't no lie… an' we deffa-nete-ly know 'bout chasin' wild ghosts, yuh?" Wynne said and took a long swig of the Double-Zero. Lights flashing to her left made her look toward the southern end of Main Street. "Haw!  Ain't that ol' Brendah's Foh-rd?  Why, it sure is… mebbe help be comin', Sheriff Mandy."

"Let's hope so," Mandy said and strode back into the office. Once inside, she stomped over to the watch desk, leaned forward and put her hands on the surface. "Deputy, were you able to record the conversation?"

"Ah," Rodolfo said and glanced at the Bakelite telephone. "I'm afraid not, Sheriff. All the hubbub made me forget all about it… I'm sorr-"

"Never mind. Something tells me it won't be the last call," Mandy said and moved away from the watch desk. "Deputy Simms, I need a sit-rep. Deputy?  Barry?"

When the deputy didn't respond, Mandy glared every which way to locate the missing deputy - she presented a figure wound-up so hard that a mere wrong look would make her explode. "Where the hell did he go now?" she said in a growl.

Rodolfo eyed the door to the bathroom in the hope that Barry would come out before the sheriff's temper would make the old building collapse on top of them. "Uh… he thought he had a nosebleed, Sheriff… so he went into the… uh, bathroom. Yeah."

Mandy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Grunting, she stomped toward the bathroom at the back to get an update on the speed trap assignment Barry had been on - and to tell him to drive up to the northern end of Goldsboro to retrieve their other speed gun that she'd had to leave behind when the prank call from the veterinarian had reached her.

---

Wynne had remained out on the sidewalk to wait for her neighbor. When the dark-bronze Ford SUV had parked behind one of the Durango police vehicles, she shuffled down there to greet her friend. "Howdy, there, Brendah!  Nice ta see ya ag'in an' all. We sure be havin' a buncha dang-blasted trubbel he'. Or them sheriff folks do, anyhows."

"Hello, Wynne. Well, I'm a problem-solver, so… I'm not sure what it's about so I need a briefing first," Brenda said and stepped out of the Ford. Reaching back in, she pressed a button on the center console that made the rear hatch open up.

"Haw-yup. It be them there prank calls that done bothah us, but Sheriff Mandy gonn' bring y'all up ta speed on all 'em details an' whatnots."

Befitting the official nature of her task, Brenda Travers had changed into the clothes she used when working on-site for one of her clients: a pair of Navy-colored ballet flats, stylish slacks in a matching shade of blue and finally a Western-style shirt made of white cotton. A red windbreaker and a Navy-blue blazer hung from the rear panic grips on coat hangers.

"Okay," Brenda continued as she reached into the back of the Ford and pulled out one large and several smaller bags. "When you called me, you said we need to analyze recordings, so I brought a little of this and a little of that."

"Haw, that be jus' fine, Brendah. Uh… wus y'all an' Vaughn really, ya know… doin' the lovely?" Wynne said and took a long swig of the latest can of beer to hide the uncharacteristic blush that spread over her cheeks.

Brenda chuckled and sent a saucy wink in Wynne's direction.

"Yuh. Okeh. Yuh. Okeh… awright, then… well, ev'ryboddah be waitin' so we bettah…" Wynne said and shuffled back to the office with the tech expert in tow.

-*-*-*-

Fifteen minutes later, the crew room at the back of the sheriff's office had been converted into a small-scale audio laboratory. The round table - that had been used for Artie Rains' notorious all-night poker games in the bad, old days - was now home to a wide selection of advanced electronic equipment. A bright-red cable ran between a top-of-the-line laptop and Beatrice's smartphone to transfer the appropriate sound files of the prank calls she had recorded.

A swivel-chair was soon wheeled into place so Brenda had the optimal working conditions. While the sound files were being transferred, she looked up at the sheriff and two deputies who hovered near the table. "This is exciting!  I almost feel like I'm in one of the Mission Impossible movies!"

Chuckling, Mandy reached up to scratch her eyebrow. "Well, let's hope nothing self-destructs in five seconds… it's certainly been an impossible mission so far. Or a hopeless one, anyway."

When the laptop sent out a Ding! Brenda made herself comfortable on the chair and opened the sound editing suite she had installed. "Okay, first we need to convert it from an AMR file to a regular wave-file. We better use forty-eight-K quality because it gives us a little more to work with. I'll probably need to run a two-pass noise reduction on it as well to filter out any hisses, but please keep in mind that it'll never reach CD quality. The AMR files are recorded in eight-bit, eight-K mono, so…"

Barry and Rodolfo exchanged a long look that spelled out quite clearly they had no idea what their guest was talking about. Mandy scratched her other eyebrow to show she was in the same boat as her deputies.

The old Bakelite telephone ringing out on the watch desk sent the deputies and the sheriff into action - though Barry stood closest to the door to the office, he managed to turn up last and was badly winded when he made it there.

Rodolfo hurriedly sat down on the hard chair by the desk, activated the voice recorder app in his smartphone and picked up the landline's receiver. "Good evening, you've reached the MacLean County Sheriff's Department, the Goldsboro office. How may we help you?"

He had already picked up the pencil to update the incident sheet when he stopped mid-gesture. "Mr. Browne, you're reporting two suspicious-looking men in jeans and T-shirts who are loitering close to your used-car lots?  I see. I have good news for you, Mr. Browne. They're actually Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon who've come back to Earth in a flying saucer. If you hurry, you can snap some photos of them that you can sell to the gossip press."

Mandy threw her arms in the air in frustration. On their way down, she buried her face in her hands and shook her head repeatedly. A few seconds later, she moved an index finger across her throat in the age-old gesture known as 'end this now.'

After hanging up, Rodolfo stopped the recording on the smartphone and pressed Play at once. Cletus Browne's voice was soon heard from the small speaker; although tinny, it was clear it was a perfect replay of the call earlier in the day.

Mandy smacked her fist into her palm all over again. "All right. That actually helps us a little. If someone is able to repeat a call down to the comma, it can't be anything but computer controlled. There's obviously someone sitting at a keyboard somewhere doing it, but-"

"Not necessarily, Sheriff," Barry said, shaking his head. "Don't forget the artificial intelligence thing. We could be dealing with evil-minded, sentient androids, auto-bots or cyborgs here."  Nodding at his flash of brilliance, Barry reached onto the watch desk to get his indispensable pack of cigarettes - one of his home-rolled horrors had soon been lit up.

Rodolfo and Mandy exchanged a long glance before Mandy deadpanned: "Noted. Thank you for your invaluable input, Deputy Simms. Personally, I suspect that whoever is responsible simply chose the wrong sound file for this call."

A foul-smelling cloud of smoke had time to escape Barry's mouth before he broke out in a shrug and a mumbled: "Yeah, I guess it could be that…"

A long squeak from the sticking door proved to be Wynne and the dogs back from a refreshing stroll up and down Main Street. "Howdy, fellas!  Anythin' awesome happen while we wus away?"

Blackie and Goldie ran back to the blanket laid out for them just inside the door. Mandy had made sure their water bowl was full, so they went to work emptying it at a faster rate than their owner could chug down a can of beer.

"Not really, Wynne," Mandy said.

"Okeh… haw, but anyhows. We jus' saw one o' them there big-ass bricklayah vans rollin' inta town from up north. The side o' their van done said they wus from da Stuart Duncan Bricklayin' an' Pavin' Comp'ny or some such. Up in Barton City. Yuh. Seems ta me it be kinda late fer that kinda work."

"Where did it go?"

"Ovah ta that there new part o' Goldsborah… that there ally offa Second Street where Nancy Noo-yen moved in the othah week. Mebbe somebodda done need a new driveway or som'tin. Still reckon it be a weird time o' day ta come he', but whaddahell do I know?" Shrugging, Wynne took off her cowboy hat and put it on the sheriff's desk. "Aw, speakin' o' time… it be Fenwyck time!  Yessirree!" - a can of Double-Zero was soon retrieved from her bottomless pockets and cracked open with the familiar Pssshhhht!

While Barry smoked and Wynne chugged down her beer, Rodolfo updated the incident sheet to stay abreast of the goings-on even though the call had been an obvious prank. Mandy strolled over to the dogs to dish out a little loving just to experience something positive for a change.

---

Another twenty minutes later, not one but two further prank calls had been registered by the hardworking deputies of the Goldsboro office of the MacLean County Sheriff's Department. One was supposedly from someone who reported that he had seen an individual break down the fences at the impound yard - Barry had been given the task of checking it; it had been another false alarm - while the other had caused much chuckling among the deputies: a tearful Moira MacKay had called to beg for help regarding a scary mouse on the loose in the Bar & Grill's storage room.

"Yuh," Wynne said and scratched her neck after the second recording had played from Rodolfo's smartphone, "this sure is creepy an' all. That be ol' Moira's voice doin' the tawkin', awright. But it ain't ol' Moira doin' the tawkin', if ya catch mah drift. Lawrdie, a scary mouse… haw!  She wus gonn' be all ovah that there mouse like stink-on-shoot. Yuh, a broom or a shovel or whutevah she could get her hands on… boom-whacka-bam-bam, no mo' mouse or nuttin'."

Blackie let out a brief Woof! to show that even if the mouse had escaped the fiery Moira, her Jaws Of Doom would have finished it off had she been called into action. Goldie just looked pensive - whenever she came across scary critters like mice or other types of rodents, she preferred to run first and ask questions later.

A moment later, Brenda stuck her head out of the crew room at the back. "Guys, I think I've uncovered something interesting. There's something in the background that-"

"We better hear for ourselves," Mandy said and strode into the crew room with Barry, Wynne and Blackie in tow.

The quartet had barely left the watch desk before the old telephone rang again. Sighing, Mandy turned around and signaled Rodolfo that he should follow the regular procedures though they all knew it would be another prank.

The scaredy-dog Goldie got up for a moment under the erroneous impression there would be doggy-treats to be had - when nothing was offered her, she moved back down onto the blanket and let out a sigh.

In the crew room, Brenda sat down and moved her fingers across the touch-pad to highlight the part of the wave-file that had caught her attention. "Okay, look at this… well, listen to this… do you see this section here?" she said as she pointed at the laptop's display.

When a chorus of "Uh-huh!" greeted her, she moved her fingers to zoom in on the highlighted section.

"I gave it a two-pass noise reduction to remove the hisses and crackles. Then I boosted it by a factor of six-hundred percent. Okay?  So, here's what came out of it. "

Pressing play on the highlighted section made a line move across the display as it went through the recording. The section Brenda had found didn't contain any speech, but it was possible to hear fragments of modern music of the kind typically referred to as overly aggressive, inner-city hip-hop.

Barry needed another cigarette - and the technobabble had made him lose all interest in the matter - so he shuffled back into the office to feed his need.

Wynne furrowed her brow; then she scratched her neck. "Yuh… okeh… so there be music in da background… but I ain't gettin' why that be important or excitin' or nuttin' like dat…?"

When the playback stopped, Brenda used the touch-pad to reset it to the start of the highlighted section. "This is from the recording Beatrice made of Mary-Lou Skinner's call. We know it wasn't her, but the type of music makes me think it's a teenager."

"Haw, that be good thinkin', Brendah… yuh, ain't nobodda who be ovah twenty evah gonn' lissen ta that there abuse o' purrr-fectly good tones an' all. Yuh… o' course, there be plenty o' teenagahs around. Wus it made from he' in Goldsborah?"

Brenda chuckled. "I'm not a magician, Wynne… I can't see that from a recording."

"Naw, o' course y'all can't… I dunno whaddahell I wus thinkin' sayin' that," Wynne said and scratched her neck again.

Mandy let out a "Hmmm…" while she looked at the highlighted section. "Was that the only such instance, Mrs. Travers?"

"No, the music appears to be present throughout the call."

"All right. Hmmm…"

Out in the office, the old Bakelite telephone rang again. Rodolfo went through the regular introduction but soon fell quiet. A minute later, he and Barry poked their heads into the crew room - a cheeky grin on Rodolfo's lips proved that he had unexpected news to deliver. "Ma'am, the latest call came from the movie theater. It seems that someone called Barry Simms has caused trouble by smoking during the eight-o'clock showing of Chastaine, The Wonder Horse. Though he was fined and shown the door, he refuses to leave. They've asked us to intervene. Just so you know."

Barry rolled his eyes and took a deep puff of his latest home-rolled cigarette just to show that he was a proper rebel - not that Chastaine, The Wonder Horse was a movie he would pay to watch; had it been a cult classic like Night Of The Ghouls, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers or The Monster Of Piedras Blancas, he would have been tempted.

While Mandy shook her head in disgust, Wynne let out a resounding belly laugh that nearly brought down the ceiling. "Haw!  Why, Barry Simms!  Holy shittt, y'all be a reg'lar joo-venile delinquent, aintcha?!  Mah Lawrd, an' smokin', too!  Them folks doin' this obvis'ly know ya too well, mah friend…"

She continued to chuckle for a few moments longer; downstairs, Blackie had already made the connection and tugged repeatedly at Wynne's denim pantleg to bring it to the tall woman's attention. "Hey… wait-a-minnit… wait a dog-gone minnit… that means… haw!  If them folks responsible fer this he' deal know Barry, then they gotta be from 'round he', yuh?  Awww-shoot, they sure do!  Dang-blasted, Barry, y'all done cracked this he' case!"

A long puff of foul-smelling cigarette smoke escaped Barry's mouth at much the same time when he arrived at the same conclusion. "You better believe it!  I've always told everyone I know that I'm a top-class deputy sheriff."

Crickets had time to chirp merrily before Mandy turned to Rodolfo: "Were you able to record the conversation?"

"Yes, Ma'am," the senior deputy said and put his smartphone on the round table. "Do you want me to record any further calls?"

"No, I think we have enough now. Thank you."

Grinning, Rodolfo elbowed Barry in the ribs as they returned to the outer office. A clear "Owch!  Do that again and I'll fart in your direction!" was heard before their voices trailed off.

Brenda soon plugged in the telephone and transferred the appropriate file. After a short while of converting and manipulating the sound file, the familiar wave pattern was displayed on the laptop's monitor. She gave the squiggly lines a thorough study before she used the touch-pad to highlight a section with little speech. The section was swiftly put through the two-pass noise reduction process and then boosted to six-hundred percent to enhance the background.

When she pressed play, more of the same aggressive hip-hop could be heard - though tinny and warbled, the listeners were even able to discern some of the rapped lyrics of the song. "Same music. Same creator," Brenda said and leaned back on the chair. "And now we know it's local, too."

Wynne could do nothing but stare wide-eyed at Brenda's swift and efficient gestures, but Mandy leaned down to look at the display. "Please zoom out so we can see the entire recording."

Once Brenda had done so, Mandy put her finger on another section of the wave-file. "There seems to be something more there. Have you processed that part yet?"

"No, but that'll only take me a few seconds," Brenda said and repeated the same procedure she had already used several times. Pressing play on the new section, she leaned back to listen - Wynne and Mandy held their breaths to hear better.

"Haw… I didden hear nuttin'… aw, that ain't true 'cos there be som'tin there, awright, but mah ears ain't pickin' up what it might be," Wynne said after the highlighted section had stopped playing. "Did y'all hear som'tin, there, Sheriff Mandy?"

"Just barely, but… yes, I did."

Brenda's fingers zipped across the touch-pad to further manipulate the new section. "I'll boost it a little more. Another two-hundred percent might do the trick… okay. How about now?"

The extra boost made a mechanical, grinding noise flow from the laptop's speakers. The sound level was constant though it seemed to change pitch from time to time. A brief blip of something more showed up at the end of the highlighted section in the milliseconds before the speech returned.

"What's that at the end?" Mandy said; Brenda shrugged. "Is it possible to turn up the volume even further just on that blip?"

"In theory, yes, but it's already been amplified so much I'm pretty sure it'll be garbled. I'll try."  After the blip had been given another strong boost, Brenda's doubts were confirmed when it was nothing but a burst of noise.

"Haw, that ain't gonn' give us nuttin', Brendah… go back ta that there first noise… that there mechanical thing there." The grinding noise soon returned to the speakers. "Yuh… whaddindahell-izzat?  A hummin' refri-gy-ratah?  An A-C unit?  Someboddah's cah-r or truck idlin'?"

Woof!

The humans in the crew room had no time for Blackie's input, so the German Shepherd tried again with a strong Wooooof!  When she was still unable to get her point across, she put her front paws up on the round table, pointed her muzzle at the monitor and let out a bark strong enough to make Brenda Travers jump.

"Haw!  Blackie!  That wussen nice!  Wotcha tryin' ta tell us, girl?  Som'tin 'bout that there noise there?" Wynne said, scratching Blackie's fur.

Woof!  Woof-woof-woof-woof!

"Lawwwwr-die, this he' be one o' them there situa-shuns I done wished I spoke doggy… ol' Blackie he' be onta som'tin, but I ain't gettin'-"

Wooooooof…

"Whazzat?  Haw!  Aw… haw… girl, jus' one mo' clue…"

Wooof!

Wynne rubbed her face repeatedly to get her neural pathways lined up so they would make sense of the barking. She moved her lips in silence for a moment while she racked her brain to make the connection between the recording and what Blackie tried to tell her - then the proverbial light bulb went off above her head.

"A dang-blasted cement mixah!  Yessir, that might be a dang-blasted cement mixah!  When we wus out walkin', ol' Blackie an' Goldie an' me done saw them bricklayahs drive inta Goldsborah in that there van o' theirs… an' they done hadda trailah hooked onta it that wus a big-ol' cement mixah on wheels!  Yessirree!"

Mandy stood up straight and slammed her hands onto her hips. "Didn't you say the workers drove over to the new part of town?" she said in her patented steely voice that proved the Sheriff of MacLean County had shown up to carry out yet another tough assignment.

"Yes, Ma'am!  They sure did!"

"All right. I think we need to pay that area a visit. Blackie-"

A loud - and certainly joyous - Wooof! burst out of the German Shepherd before she spun around twice and tore out of the crew room as fast as her paws would carry her.

"Lawrdie, ain't dat som'tin?  Haw, mebbe we oughtta give ol' Blackie one o' them there Spe-shul De-per-ty Sheriff badges or som'tin…" Wynne said and broke out in a grin. It was high time for a beer, so one was soon dug out of a pocket and cracked open with a Psssshhht!

"I'll be on the radio. Thank you very much for your assistance, Mrs. Travers," Mandy said before she followed their eager dog away from the computer lab in the crew room.

Snickering, Brenda leaned back and put her hand next to her mouth. "Don't mention it, Sheriff!  It was way more exciting than my other plans for tonight!  Harder, too!"

The mouthful of beer that Wynne had just taken in threatened to come out of her nostrils, but she managed to gulp down the precious liquid without spilling any of it. "Lawwwwwwr-die, Brendah," she croaked as she wiped her lips on the back of her hand, "dontcha be sayin' som'tin like dat when I be drinkin' beer!  I almost done spewed it!"

Though Brenda did in fact say "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Wynne," the saucy wink that accompanied the message proved she wasn't entirely truthful.

-*-*-*-

Mandy flicked the switch for the Durango's emergency lights but held back from using the siren on her brief run over to the new part of town. The short stretch north to the intersection was soon dealt with as was the left-hand turn onto Second Street.

She noted with a grunt that the traffic lights above the intersection hadn't yet been turned on despite the mounting darkness - yet another thing that she needed to take care of later.

The alley off Second Street soon beckoned. Spinning the steering wheel to the right, she headed into the proverbial unknown. The endless, tragi-comic saga of naming the new street had yet to be resolved by the Goldsboro Town Council, and thus the post where the street sign should go remained a bare-metal pole stuck into the ground in a haphazard manner.

Up ahead, several strong work lights that were directed down onto a driveway revealed where the pavers applied their trade. Lights had been turned on in most houses along the alley, but a few were dark and quiet. The multi-colored LEDs installed all over the Dodge Durango cast plenty of psychedelic flashes onto the fronts of the brand-new bungalows as Mandy drove past them.

She slowed down to a crawl to make sure she was noticed by the residents. On her right, Blackie had her head out of the window to catch a little headwind - the fact the window had been rolled down offered a good impression of the churning cement mixer used by the workers.

Several of the alley's residents peeked through gaps in their drawn curtains or came out onto their porches to see where the official vehicle was going - one of them was Nancy Tranh Nguyen, the sketch artist who had only lived there for two weeks. Recognizing the sheriff, she stepped off her porch swing to offer her a friendly wave. When Blackie returned the gesture by letting out a gentle Woof, Nancy grimaced and hurried inside in case the fierce dog was about to pay her a visit.

The bricklayers, their heavy-duty van - that identified them as being from the Stuart Duncan Bricklaying & Paving Co. - and their cement mixer were soon reached. After pulling over to the curb, Mandy turned off the engine but left the emergency lights on to maintain the residents' attention. "Good evening, Gentlemen," she said as she strode across the alley.

One of the two workers - who were dressed similarly in black safety boots, pale-gray coveralls and yellow hard hats - turned to meet the sheriff while the other continued to feed the cement mixer with gravel and the other ingredients needed to complete their assignment. "'Evening, officer. Is there a problem?"

Not satisfied with dressing alike, the mid-thirty-something workers could go for being brothers if viewed in a dim light. Both were a shade above six-foot-three, both had angular faces, and both wore similar mustaches and fashionable three-day stubble. The main difference between them was provided by their hair: one sported a grand mullet that reached beyond the edges of his hard hat, while the other only had a few tufts left around the crown of his head - that fact became visible when he tipped his hard hat at the approaching Mandy.

"There aren't any problems as such," Mandy said and eyed the large, churning machine that continued to spin around and around to get the mix just right; up close, it was obvious that it was the same monotonous sound they had heard on the recording, "but your mixer there's a little too loud for a Saturday evening. How long are you planning on working here tonight?"

"Until eleven."

"That late?"

" 'Fraid so, yeah… it's just too damn hot to do it during the daylight hours, officer. Our boss told us to get it done yesterday already, but we couldn't work for more than maybe fifteen minutes at a time before we melted. Me and Greg here decided to do it now when it was cool. We're both bachelors, so…"

"I see. And your name is?"

"Keith Rayden, officer. You're not giving us a ticket or anything, are you?  Our boss is gonna kill us…"

"No. But I think you should stop at ten o'clock instead."

Grimacing, Keith turned to look at the stretch of the driveway they had laid down while they had been there; then he checked his telephone to get the current time. "We could… but then we'll have to come back tomorrow or Monday evening to finish up."

Mandy glanced at the thirty feet of driveway that the men had yet to cover. Though less than a year old, the original concrete had been crushed into tiny pieces by a pneumatic drill. The resulting rubble had been shoveled into a ten-foot tall pile to ease its removal.

Before Mandy could reply to the worker, the radio on her belt squawked to life.

'Base to Mobile Unit One. Base to Mobile Unit One. Sheriff, we have interesting news that I know you'd want to hear. Over,' Rodolfo said at the other end of the connection.

"Excuse me," she said and moved away from the coverall-clad fellow who went back to work at once to beat the ten o'clock curfew. Leaning against the side of the Durango, she keyed the mic: "Mobile Unit One ready to receive, over."

'The calls have stopped like someone flipping a switch. The last one came half a minute after you left, but that was cut short right in the middle of a colorful description. There's been nothing since. Over.'

"Now that is interesting, I agree," Mandy said and glanced around at the villas and bungalows closest to the churning cement mixer. There were people watching her from various windows and porches, but none seemed suspicious - at least not from a distance. She cast a quick look up at the emergency lights that continued to flash. "And I think I know the cause. I still have the lights on over here. I've found the cement mixer, and I can confirm that it's the same sound as on the recording. Over."

'Ten-roger, Sheriff. Is there anything you want us to do at present?  Over.'

"That's a negatory. I'll have a look-see over here first. Call me if the pranks start again. Mobile Unit One out."

After putting the radio back on the belt, Mandy moved into the center of the street and put her hands on her hips. Blackie continued to sit in the Durango looking increasingly bored with the dull assignment. Chuckling, Mandy strode around the front of the vehicle and offered the fierce canine a little doggy-loving. "I'll start at Nancy's. She's afraid of you, remember?  You need to stay here."

A drawn-out Wooof… proved that Blackie wasn't too pleased with the situation. Breaking out in a doggy-yawn, she made herself comfortable on the driver's seat to wait for another opportunity to sink her eye-teeth into a nasty critter.

---

"Hello, Miss Nguyen," Mandy said as she walked up Nancy's garden path. She had to chuckle at the appearance of one of the newest residents of Goldsboro: the face, arms and clothes of the Vietnamese-American lady were all peppered with stains of white paint.

"Good evening, Sheriff," Nancy said and got up from her porch swing. "We better not shake hands as you can see… it's been so hot lately I can only stand painting my living room in the evenings. Would you like some pineapple juice?"

The 29-year-old artist wore plastic clogs and a pair of bib dungarees that had been dark-blue and pristine once upon a time - at present, the pants sported at least fifty paint stains. Further up, she wore a neutral, white T-shirt while a black-and-gold bandanna protected her near-black hair.

"No, thank you. I'm here on official business."

"Oh!  That sounds serious… well, the cement mixer is noisy, there's no doubt about that," Nancy said and nodded at the two workers a bit further up the alley.

"Yes. Have you noticed anything unusual today, Miss Nguyen?  Perhaps strangers in the neighborhood?  Apart from the workers."

"No… but honestly, I haven't been paying attention to what went on out here. I've been painting my living room for the past several hours. Before that, I worked on a drawing for most of the day," Nancy said and furrowed her brow. "Are there burglars around or something?"

"Oh no, nothing like that," Mandy said with a smile.

"Okay… I'm afraid I can't help you much, Sheriff. I still don't know everyone who lives here. Perhaps you should ask Eamonn and Esther next door?  They're more, ah…"

Mandy chuckled - "Nosy?"

"Weeelll… perhaps, but in a positive sense. Esther's been really kind to me and has helped me a lot. Let's be polite and call it 'greatly interested in what's going on,' " Nancy said and added a small wink to her air quotes.

---

The O'Sullivan residence had been next on Mandy's list from the outset, so it wasn't long before she strode up their garden path to use their doorbell. In the meantime, she had turned off the emergency lights on the Durango to see if it would tempt the guilty party into believing she had left.

Blackie had insisted on coming along, and the black German Shepherd ran along her owner's legs to get to the front door - she also knew she'd always get a treat there which didn't hurt.

Esther O'Sullivan opened the door after a brief delay. The early-sixty-something stay-at-home housewife wore a headful of pastel-colored plastic curlers that didn't seem all that comfortable. Below the classic accessories, she wore a far more cozy-looking evening set comprising of a pink-and-white bathrobe and pale-brown slippers. "Oh… good evening, Sheriff. Is something wrong?" she said as she wrapped the bathrobe closer around herself.

"Not in the least, Mrs. O'Sullivan. There's no cause for alarm," Mandy said while sporting a reassuring smile. "I just need to ask you a few questions about-"

"Questions are best answered in the living room," Esther said and moved aside so Mandy could step into the entrance hall. "Come in… oh, hello Blackie!  I didn't even see you without my glasses!" she continued as the black dog strolled in after the sheriff - a brief Woof! was uttered as a way of saying hello.

Esther reached down to stroke Blackie's fur. "C'mon, girl… I think I have a little something for you in the kitchen!"

Another Woof! and a quick spin proved that Blackie wouldn't object to being pampered for a change. Soon, her claws played a merry tap-dance as she went onto the linoleum floor in the kitchen.

Mandy walked past the kitchen and the bathroom before she turned left to get to the living room of the bungalow. Though the O'Sullivan's hadn't lived there for long, their furniture was old and made of high-grade wood that would last a lifetime if treated well. The wall-to-wall carpet and the drawn curtains were of a matching shade of deep-blue, and several original oil paintings showing various landscapes graced the walls.

A comfortable couch, a coffee table, two satellite chairs and a pair of low sideboards dominated the room; coffee cups, brandy glasses, plates, pastries and cookies had been put on the table as their post-dinner snacks. A large TV-set and a DVD player had been placed atop one of the sideboards - at present, a classic from the late-1950s had been paused so Esther could answer the door.

Muted snoring from the couch proved to come from Eamonn O'Sullivan, the 59-year-old disability pensioner who had been injured in an industrial accident years earlier. Just like his wife, he wore a fluffy bathrobe and slippers to kick back on a Saturday evening, but his relaxed pose seemed to suggest the movie wasn't to his liking.

"Don't mind Eamonn," Esther said and waved her hand at her husband. "We take turns at choosing our Saturday movie… well, it's my movie night and I'm watching Rock Hudson and Doris Day, end of discussion."

Chuckling, Mandy glanced at the paused image on the TV. "I understand. That's a recurring topic of debate in my household as well. Returning to why I'm here, Mrs. O'Sullivan, I need to ask if you've noticed any recent unusual activity in the neighborhood?  Apart from the workers who are here now." While she waited for any nuggets of gold to come her way, she retrieved a ball point pen and her indispensable notepad from her shirt pocket.

Esther furrowed her brow and sat down on the armrest of one of the satellite chairs. "Well… I was about to mention them. But other unusual activity… hmmm… yesterday, several people had to move their vehicles off the street to let an enormous moving van through… well, I say van, but it was really a truck. A very large one."

"I see?" Mandy said as she jotted down the information.

"Yes. It went down to the cul-de-sac at the end of the alley. It took the movers close to three hours to empty it… and then everyone had to move their vehicles all over again when it left. The moving company was from California, actually. I had meant to take a little walk down there to greet the new residents, but it was far too hot to do anything but laze about all day."

"I see," Mandy said, repeating herself in both statement and action as she continued to write in her notebook.

Smacking lips and a yawn-inducing stretch heralded the return of Eamonn O'Sullivan from the faraway fields of Dreamland. Sitting upright, he reached for his cup of coffee only to find it empty. His eyes were slower to come to than his hand, but he eventually noticed they had a visitor. "Oh… hello, Sheriff. Don't tell me you have more bad guys on the loose?"

"Not quite, Mr. O'Sullivan, but I do have a few questions that need answers."

"Oh… all right, I fess up," Eamonn said with a grin. "I did in fact steal a cookie tin when I was seven years old. Not just a single cookie, but the entire tin. Of course, it turned out to be empty… like my cup here. Honey, is there more-"

Esther shot her husband a stern look. "We're talking to the Sheriff, Eamonn!  The coffee can wait!"

"Yes, dear… what was your question again, Sheriff?"

Mandy opened her mouth to repeat the question, but Esther beat her to it: "The Sheriff needs to know if there's been anything unusual going on around here recently."

Eamonn scratched his neck a couple of times while he pondered the answer. A wall-mounted clock filled the dead space by tick-tocking a handful of times. "Well, yeah, sort of. Do you remember that… well, young punk, quite frankly… from the other week?  The chubby one in the torn jeans?  He had a wild beard and looked like a stowaway on a damned banana boat."

"That's right!" Esther said and clapped her hands onto her thighs. "Sheriff, in the days leading up to last weekend, one of our opposite neighbors had their oldest son visit them. From what I gather, he had hitch-hiked down here from Barton City or possibly Richmond Falls… or was it Rellinghausen up near the state line to Idaho?  Oh, I can't recall. But in my humble opinion, he was a classic example of a bad apple."

"He was a punk," Eamonn said decisively.

Mandy narrowed her eyes as she scribbled the fastest she could. "Interesting. Did he cause trouble while he was here, Mr. O'Sullivan?  I suspect he did considering that he left such an impression on you."

"Huh!  Trouble?  You better believe he caused trouble, Sheriff," Eamonn said as he struggled to get up from the couch. Once he had a firm grip on his cane, he managed to get on his feet and walk into the middle of the living room. "Yeah, he and his younger brother played that crappy-"

"Language, dear," Esther said under her breath.

"-Godawful aggressive music. The hippity-hoppity. You know?  But anyway, they played it at full blast down in their basement. And they had the windows wide open so the rest of us could get an earful of it, too…"

Mandy nodded as the ball point pen flew across the page of the notepad. "We have no reports of the incident. Were any complaints made directly to the family?"

Esther and Eamonn shared a mutually supportive look as they revisited the recent past. "Well, not by us," Eamonn eventually said. "Hell, I wasn't going anywhere near that punk. But someone probably did because one morning… must have been this past Monday, right, dear?  In any case, everything grew quiet again and we haven't seen the punk since. Good riddance."

Dotting the I's and crossing the T's, Mandy let out a brief grunt as she finished taking notes - although interesting, it hadn't brought her a step closer to finding the person responsible for the prank calls. "Very well. Anything else?"

The married couple looked at each other again; they broke out in identical shrugs. "Not that we can recall, Sheriff," Esther said.

"All right, then," Mandy said, but before she could go on, the radio crackled to life on her belt with a:

'Base to Mobile Unit One. Base to Mobile Unit One. We have a non-urgent update, Sheriff,' Rodolfo Gonzalez said from halfway across Goldsboro.

The radio was soon in Mandy's hand. "Mobile Unit One receiving. Stand by, Base."

'Base standing by.'

After attaching the portable radio onto her belt, Mandy turned to face the O'Sullivans once more. "There's one more thing. I'd like the address of the house where the loud music came from, please. It's always good to have a head start in case the disturbance returns at a later date."

"It's number nineteen, Sheriff. The Jensen residence," Esther said. "You can't miss it… they have a fake marble fountain on their front lawn. A horrible thing."

"Hell," Eamonn added, "it's not just horrible… it's butt-ugly!"

Esther replied with a: "Language, dear…" that made her husband shoot her an apologetic look.

Mandy chuckled as she put away her notepad and the ball point pen. "Thank you, Mrs. O'Sullivan. Mr. O'Sullivan. You may return to your movie now."

"And I'm going back to sleep now," Eamonn said and shuffled back to the couch.

Esther let out an impressive huff. "Don't give me that!  Last week, you made me watch that gross, violent gangster movie!"

"Goodfellas is an American classic!"

"Oh yeah?  So is Pillow Talk!  Pipe down or you can find somewhere else to sleep tonight!"

That particular threat seemed to do the trick as Eamonn did indeed pipe down. Sitting tenderly, he made a big production number out of being wide awake for whenever the sixty-year-old movie would be resumed.

Mandy scratched her eyebrow as she glanced at the combatants; stifling a chuckle, she strode over to the door to find her own way out. Blackie met her in the entrance hall with a sated look on her doggy features. "We have one more stop to make tonight, girl. Then you can get back to Goldie. C'mon," Mandy said and held the front door open so her dog had space to run out.

Before she reached the Durango, she pulled the portable radio off her utility belt. Though the workers' cement mixer was still in full swing across the alley, she keyed the mic to get the advertised update from Rodolfo. "Mobile Unit One to Base. Mobile Unit One to Base. Ready to receive, over."

'Sheriff,' Rodolfo soon said, 'we've had another prank call. Get this, the person identified himself as the caretaker of a church belonging to the local branch of the Virgin Tower!  According to the individual, someone tried to commit suicide by threatening to jump off a second-floor balcony. When I casually mentioned that the Virgin Tower neither owns any churches nor do they have a branch in Goldsboro, the person hung up on the double. Over.'

The expression on Mandy's face turned grim as she listened to the update. She cast a steely glare at the houses along the alley off Second Street like the actual buildings were behind the pranks. "We have got to find this person and teach him, or her, some damn manners. We can laugh over the report that Barry was thrown out of the movie theater, but to use a suicide as a prank is nothing short of disgusting!"

'I agree a hundred percent, Sheriff. A line was crossed with this one. Over.'

Mandy took several deep breaths before she pressed the transmit key once more. "Is Mrs. Travers still there?  Over."

'Yes. She and Wynne are in the crew room transferring and analyzing some of the first recordings. Do you want me to get her?  Over."

"That's a negatory, Deputy, but please ask her to stay a little longer if she's intending to leave before I get back. ETA ten minutes or so. I need to check one of the houses over here as a follow-up on an unrelated disturbance call. Over."

'Will do, Sheriff. Over.'

"Very well. Mobile Unit One out," Mandy said and put the radio on her belt. Instead of wasting expensive gas on driving the 150 yards to the cul-de-sac at the end of the alley, she and Blackie set off in their customary distance-consuming strides.

---

Reaching the far end of the street in the new part of Goldsboro didn't take long. Soon, Mandy put her hands on her hips while she observed the four plots that had been laid out akin to a horseshoe to fit the curvature of the street.

She could hear modern music wafting out of one of the houses, but it wasn't clear which of the four it came from. Number eighteen was a regular one-storey detached unit, number nineteen and twenty-one were larger bungalows with tall cellars, and the last of the four - number twenty - was a two-storey duplex that was equipped with two separate entrances and garages.

Just like Esther O'Sullivan had mentioned, a somewhat tasteless fountain graced the front lawn of number nineteen: it had a jet of water spewing from the mouth of a big bass into the bowl at the base. A suction pump enabled the water to return to the fish in an endless, kitschy loop.

Similar to the other three houses, the bungalow had been pulled back a good fifty feet from the alley. What appeared to be mood-lighting had been turned on in the kitchen that faced the cul-de-sac, but nobody seemed to be at home. Light shining onto a couple of bushes along the house's side suggested that someone resided in the tall cellar.

Mandy and Blackie moved closer to the bungalow to take a look at the name on the mailbox. Three names were in fact listed, but all were initials plus the surname Jensen which didn't provide much insight. A brief "Hmmm," escaped her as she wrote down the last name and the initials for later look-ups in various law enforcement databases.

Blackie sat on the sidewalk looking disappointed about the fact that she hadn't yet been asked to tear any critters to shreds. Casting a disinterested glance at the nearby houses, the German Shepherd was unable to find anything worthwhile to look at. Another few moments went by before she let out a Wooooof?

"I know, Blackie… that type of music sounds close to what we heard on the recording," Mandy said as she put her notepad away. "It'd be interesting to have a look-see, but we need a little more than a mere hunch to go by. We need solid proof or probable cause to get permission to enter the premises."

Woof…

Mandy put her hands on her hips all over again as she took a second glance at the house. "Well, that's the law. If we knew the names and backgrounds of the families who have moved in over the past few months, it would be a lot easier to deal with."

Woof?

Mandy furrowed her brow as a thought came to her. Reaching into her pocket, she found her personal smartphone and found Councilwoman Mary-Lou Skinner's number in the registry.

'It's Mary-Lou. Good evening, Sheriff… I hope you've called me to apologize for the fright you gave everyone at Doctor Gibbs' earlier. Quite frankly, that was terrifying. It took me ages to calm Foo-Foo down afterwards.'  As always when she spoke, the asthmatic woman needed to pause for a breath for every third word or so.

"I apologize profoundly, Councilwoman Skinner. All right, this is official business. Would you happen to know if the Town Council or another authority keeps a complete list of the residents of the new section of Goldsboro?"

'Well, yes. The property tax records. Why?'

"I need to compare the people on the list to-"

'Sheriff, I'm almost positive that we can't hand over tax records without a court order. In any case, I need to contact the council's attorney for advice before we do anything. And since it's Saturday evening, it'll be several days.'

Mandy bared her teeth in a disappointed grimace. Down on the sidewalk, Blackie mirrored her owner's gesture perfectly; her canines made it a far more impressive sight.

"Very well. We can continue the conversation tomorrow when we meet at the court session. Have a nice evening, Councilwoman Skinner."

'Thank you. I hope yours will be pleasant and quiet, Sheriff.'

Mandy let out a grunt as she put her telephone away. "That'll be the day."

Woof?

"Exactly. C'mon, Blackie, let's get back to the office," Mandy said as she turned around and began to stroll back to the waiting Durango. "I need some coffee and I'll bet you need some jerky. Maybe Mr. Lane can pop over with some sandwiches and treats. Wouldn't that be neat?"

Woof-woof-woof-woooooof!

-*-*-*-

At the same time over on Main Street, Wynne had relocated to the sidewalk in front of the sheriff's office. Her expression could best be described as a mix of concern and a faint shimmer of hope; she had her telephone to her ear while listening to Judge Cornelius Etherington informing her of the conclusion he had reached.

'-therefore, Miss Donohue, I want to invite yourself and Deputy Reilly to an informal conversation tomorrow once the official sessions have been concluded.'

"Yessir…"

'The three of us will have a private talk on the matter. Deputy Reilly can state her position and you can air the grievances you harbor.'

"Yessir…"

'Please note that it will be an informal conversation. It will not be legally binding, however I hope we can find common ground that will prevent further legal action from either party.'

"Yessir…"

'I understand your position and the dilemma involving your unique family situation, Miss Donohue. Similarly, I hope you understand Deputy Reilly's position as a law enforcement officer who cannot be seen to show leniency toward certain members of the public while others are issued fines for comparable offenses.'

"Yessir. Yessir, I do. It's jus'- naw, I'mma-gonn' keep mah powdah drah fer tomorrah. I'mma-gonn' be dere, Yer Honah. Much obliged, Sir."

'All right. Have a nice evening and see you tomorrow, Miss Donohue.'

"Aw, an' y'all, Judge Etherin'ton. Bah-bah, Sir."

After closing the connection, Wynne just stood there like a marble statue. She glanced up and down the semi-deserted Main Street while she tried to figure out if the informal meeting would be a good or a bad thing. "Haw, mebbe I oughtta ha' tole the Judge ta get them paramedics on speed-dial jus' in case me an' Quick Draw gonn' get inta one o' them there brawls or som'tin… shoot, that gonn' be a fun conversa-shun, awright. Lawrdie!"

Wynne let out a long sigh. Movement somewhere off to her right caught her eye. When it proved to be Mandy's Durango swinging onto Main Street, another sigh escaped her - one of relief. No sooner had the SUV parked at the curb before she stuck her head in through the open window and slapped a big, old kiss on the sheriff's lips.

"Howdy, there, Sheriff Mandy!  Lawwwww-rdie, am I gladda see y'all!  I jus' done heard from Judge Etherin'ton. He tole me he wanna see me an' Quick Draw tamorrah aftah them hearin's an' whutnot. We's gonn' be havin' a tawk 'bout that there y'all-know-whut. Yuh… Holy shittt, mah stomach's churnin' alreddy. Ain't gonn' be needin' no chili tanight, that's fer dang sure."

Letting out a burst of laughter at the colorful imagery, Mandy turned off the engine and climbed from the tall vehicle. She snuck a hand around Wynne's waist and gave it a little squeeze. "That's good news, hon. The judge is a fair man. He'll listen carefully and offer his unbiased advice."

"Yuh… aw, that's fer tamorrah," Wynne said as she, Mandy and Blackie strolled back to the sticking door to the sheriff's office. "Ol' Brendah done found some mo' in one o' them recordin's. Y'all oughtta lissen ta it. Sounds lack someboddah shoutin' or som'tin."

"Let's give it a listen," Mandy said and held the door open for her partner and their fierce German Shepherd.

Down on the sidewalk, Blackie found it appropriate to let out a thunderous bark at the empty street just to warn any ghouls, goblins, zombies, space aliens, vampire bats or indeed nasty deputies lurking in the dark shadows that they should stay away or face the messy consequences. Satisfied that her message had been delivered in an unequivocal manner, she broke out in a doggy-grin and followed her owners inside.

*
*
CHAPTER 6

Sunday, June 12th turned out to be bright, sunny and above all hot-hot-hot in Goldsboro and the trailer park eight miles south of town. Even at nine-thirty AM, a bone-dry, scorching breeze swept in from the desert. The perpetual wind soon caused the feared - and hated - Red Storm that saw reddish desert sand and dust go everywhere.

As long as the gusts of wind maintained their ferocity, spitting out grit was at the top of everyone's agenda - even Blackie and Goldie who for once couldn't wait to get onto the back seat of their owner's Chevrolet Silverado.

After offering Brenda and Vaughn Travers a wave and a bark or two, the people and dogs inside the mat-black Trail Boss Midnight Edition rumbled along the gravel road until they reached the State Route. Turning right, Wynne soon had the large truck up to the local speed limit.

All the stops had been pulled out for The Last Original Cowpoke. Instead of her regular combination of decorated boots, faded jeans and an old, well-worn denim jacket, she wore black wing-tips, black jeans, a white button-down shirt and even a bolo tie. A black denim jacket in a more subdued design compared to her regular duds had been put in the back so it would remain fresh for as long as possible.

Mandy wore her best uniform as well: her boots had been polished, the creases in her pants could cut a Mexican chorizo sausage, the shirt was pristine and the necktie had been tucked in between the third and fourth buttons as the uniform code dictated. Her expensive Mountie hat had been put on her knee to keep it safe. Chuckling, she looked up at Wynne's old, sweat-stained cowboy hat. "Hon, you look fantastic today… except your hat."

"Why, much obliged, darlin'!  Yuh, I reckon I be lookin' a million. I jus' hope ol' Judge Etherin'ton gonn' take it inta considera-shun. Aw, an' that there hat stays 'xactly where it be, yes Ma'am!"

In the back, Blackie and Goldie offered their view of their owners' clothes by letting out appreciative barks and yaps.

"Shoot, wouldya lookie at that there blacktop!" Wynne said and pointed out of the dusty windshield. "Lawrdie, mebbe we oughtta call it a red-top taday… good thing I jus' done filled up that there washah reservoir."

As she spoke, she activated the washers to remove the latest red coating; even with the added lubrication, the wipers squeaked incessantly as they shoved the dust back and forth across the glass.

The State Route was usually equipped with a yellow center line, but that and the rest of the asphalt surface had disappeared under a layer of red sand and dust that swept across it from the surrounding desert. As another gust of hot wind struck a tall drift, it picked up the sand and distributed it all over the road in an impressive flurry.

"Holy shittt… we gonn' need ta use that there foah-bah-foah perdy dog-gone soon. Haw, les'ha' some music ta take our minds offa all them negative things that be poundin' us. Yessirree, comin' right up," Wynne said and reached for the Silverado's advanced infotainment system.

Soon, the Down-Home Ol' Country Shack radio station out of Lansingburg took care of the musical accompaniment. The Sunday shows were dominated by Bible readings and live broadcasts of sermons and church services from around MacLean County and the neighboring Pacumseh and Wilmer Counties, but a few songs were played in the breaks - thus, The Shady Valley Quartet vocal group filled the truck's many speakers with their interpretation of the classic spiritual And Our Lord Sayeth.

It wasn't what Wynne had hoped to listen to, but a quick tour of the other pre-set radio stations offered no respite. "Yuh, okeh… I guess it be that or nuttin'," she said and gestured at the radio.

"Let's make it nothing," Mandy said and turned off the whole thing.

---

The southern city limits sign was reached before long. By sheer miracle, it hadn't been vandalized since the last repairs. The court sessions had caused Main Street to be far busier than usual for a Sunday: trucks, SUVs and normal-sized sedans lined both sides of the street from Moira's Bar & Grill and all the way up to Sam McCabe's gun shop on the left-hand side, and Derrike Iverson's notorious dive on the right.

Wynne let out a dark grunt when she clapped eyes on the unexpected crowding. She slowed down to hardly anything at all while she searched for somewhere to park. The dark grunt turned into a cheery "Yeee-haw!" when her regular spot in the alley next to Moira's was still available - as it should be considering the sign that had been bolted onto the wall that proclaimed it to be Reserved For W. Donohue.

"Wouldya lookie at all 'em folks in town taday!  Shoot, I hope they ain't all gonn' show up at them there meetin's an' all… I don't particularly feel lack bein' a monkey in a zoo, no Ma'am."

"I think they probably are, hon," Mandy said as she glanced at the sheriff's office when they trickled past it. Barry Simms sat at the watch desk, and Mandy rolled her eyes when it seemed the deputy sheriff was in the middle of a coughing fit. "Don't forget that Artie Rains' hearing is the first item on the agenda. Judge Etherington wanted it out of the way so the other cases could be treated in a respectful fashion."

Wynne nodded somberly; she reached down to pat the pocket that kept the notes she had scribbled at the breakfast table. "Yuh. Mebbe. Aw, anyhows… Sheriff Mandy, I'mma-gonn' drop y'all an' them dawggies off at that there hardware stoah, then I'mma-gonn' park in mah reg'lar spot he' by ol' Moira's an' wawk ovah ta all y'all. Zat okeh?"

"I can't have the dogs with me at first, hon. I need to get everything sorted with the judge and his people. Then I need to get back to the office to get an update on what's been going on throughout the night."

"Aw?  Okeh. Yuh, no problemo. Why, wouldya lookie up there… them there dog-gone traffic lights been turned on taday!  Ain't dat som'tin?  Mebbe y'all oughtta ha' De-per-ty Quick Draw on traffic duty. Yuh. Or mebbe she wus gonn' blow her lid an' take a pot shot at some po'ah dude!"

Mandy abstained from making a comment, but Blackie and Goldie both let out sounds that could be perceived as doggy-snickering.

After the Silverado had made the left-hand turn onto Second Street, it soon became clear there weren't any parking spaces left for any kind of vehicle - unless it was no larger than a tricycle.

"Haw!  Awwww-shoot, this he' gonn' be one helluva day, I be tellin' ya… scorchin' heat, a ton o' folks ev'rywhere, a Red Storm blowin'… an' Artie Rains. Why, that be all mah favorite things rolled inta one. Ugh…" Wynne mumbled as she spun the steering wheel around to make a U-turn in front of Wyatt Elliott's hardware store - the mat-black truck and the people inside it were greeted by several locals and out-of-towners who had flocked to the day's sessions.

The reason for conducting the court business at such an unusual location was the simple fact that Wyatt's executive office was the largest and most luxurious of the kind in all of Goldsboro and, in fact, most of MacLean County. Not only did the crafty entrepreneur make the premises available to the circuit judges for various court hearings, he also earned a pretty dollar on the side by renting it out to the Goldsboro Town Council and Mayor Holliman's office who conducted all their meetings at the hardware store as well.

Mandy opened the door as soon as the truck had come to a halt. She remained in the doorway for a moment that lasted long enough for a pair of winks and kissies to be exchanged. Once the sheriff had closed the door behind her, Wynne stepped on the gas to drive back to her regular parking spot in the alley next to Moira's Bar & Grill.

---

The formerly mat-black - and presently reddish - truck soon reversed into the parking slot in the alley. The evil, red sand piled up all along the bottom edge of the wall to Moira's establishment, but the town's buildings prevented the hot gusts of wind from being too intrusive. The wide-open Main Street was another matter, and sand swirled around and around in impressive eddies from the southern to the northern city limits signs.

After switching off the engine, Wynne climbed down and let out the dogs. Blackie's loud, disapproving bark greeted her as she held up a pair of leather leashes. "Yuh, I know these he' suck som'tin fierce, girls, but there ain't no way 'round 'em taday. There gonn' be too many folks 'round ta keep y'all runnin' free. An' besides, y'all nevah know how them de-per-ties an' othah law folks gonn' react to y'all. Don't y'all be fergettin' it only be he' in Goldsborah that we ain't got no leash-law no mo'. Them othah towns 'round he' still be kinda strict on them mattahs. C'mon, girls, les'get this ovah with. We ain't got much time. Yuh?"

Blackie and Goldie exchanged a long look; while the Golden Retriever let out an immediate and enthusiastic Yap! - she had always been positively-minded of the entire leash-thing - the German Shepherd appeared to shrug her doggy shoulders thus accepting her fate.

-*-*-*-

A short twenty minutes later, Mandy stepped out of the sheriff's office and slammed the sticking door shut behind her. With Beatrice Reilly tied up in court for most of the day as the arresting officer in several ongoing cases, Barry Simms had been ordered to show up at work at five AM in case further prank calls would be made.

The early start had not helped his yellowish complexion nor his less-than-sunny disposition; it had been even worse on his uniform that looked as if it had taken part in both World Wars after being treated to a horrible mix of sandwich and pastry crumbs, half a mugful of coffee, ash, more ash, even more ash and finally a yogurt that he had dropped when the telephone rang at the exact wrong moment - at least he hadn't burned another hole in his shirt, his pants or the brown linoleum floor.

Mandy let out a dark grunt as she held up a piece of ash-covered paper that Barry had written for her. It listed and described no less than seven prank calls that he had received since arriving at work in the early hours of the morning. All followed the same method: using a familiar and trustworthy voice, the unknown caller had reported a burglary, a road accident, two instances of mysterious-looking men in people's gardens, a rabid dog, graffiti-vandalism and even a UFO sighting - Mandy grunted again when she realized the latter could in fact be true.

Just to be on the safe side, she cast a long look at the sky above her to see if any unexplainable blinking lights, strangely-shaped saucers or suspicious weather balloons were in the vicinity. A flash of metal reflecting the sun caught her eye, but it proved to be a patrol jet from the Bradley Air Force Base further south.

A third grunt escaped her as she strode along the sand-swept sidewalk to get back to the hardware store. The amount of traffic on Main Street had eased off now the hands of time were moving closer to the official starting time, but a few cars and trucks were still circling to find somewhere to park.

On her way over to Second Street, she nodded a Hello to the teenager Kevin Tobin who pushed his ailing grandfather Clifford in a wheelchair. The elder Tobin, now the victim of dementia, didn't stop talking about the baseball game they were going to see - if nothing else, the old boy had a smile on his face proving that he was enjoying himself.

When Mandy reached the entrance to the hardware store, she stayed there to have a professional look at the people who filed past her. Other residents that she greeted were Tabitha Hayward from the Goldsboro Town Museum, Derrike Iverson - who wouldn't return her 'Hello' - Cathy Pearson from the Tack & Saddle leathergoods store, Dorothy Tyler from the Yarn Spinners knitting store and J.D. Burdette from Sam McCabe's gun shop. The latter also gave the sheriff a wide berth indicating that he was still peeved over the incident at Doctor Gibbs'.

Grant 'The Grant-Master' Lafferty - whose liquor store had received more than its fair share of Wynne's cash in exchange for hundreds of crates of H.E. Fenwyck Brewery Co. products - hobbled along the sidewalk in his Sunday finest and a pair of slippers that didn't appear to be too roadworthy in the sandy conditions.

Mandy winced as she watched the gentleman's tender-footed gait. "Hello, Mr. Lafferty. Are your bunions bothering you today?"

"They're like hellfire, Sheriff… like hellfire," Grant croaked as he hobbled past the uniformed sentry and into the hardware store's courtyard.

Although the flow of pedestrians had been reduced to a faint trickle, Mandy spotted Holly Lorenzen strolling down the shady side of Main Street with Abraham Rosenthal by her side. The two made an odd couple: Holly - the owner of Holly's Homey Hair & Nails Salon - wore three-inch pumps and a pair of black, form-fitting tights that were extraordinary on several levels. A flowery top left her shoulders bare while a tall, bouffant-style wig graced her head.

Abraham Rosenthal wore a somber, charcoal-gray business suit like he was going to a funeral and not a court session. The senior figure at the Goldsboro Movie Theater - whose primary job was to negotiate the rights packages with the various film studios and distributors so the independent theater could screen all the latest releases - needed to walk a lot slower than he normally would so the mincing Holly could keep up with him.

Mandy scratched her eyebrow once Holly Lorenzen had come close enough. As always, the amount of makeup the lady had smeared onto her face was staggering. It was still a mystery to everyone concerned why the fifty-something hairstylist insisted on wearing so much when she was perfectly attractive without any sort of blush, shade, eyeliner, garish lipstick, extra lashes or other artificial enhancements. "Hello, Miss Lorenzen. Mr. Rosenthal," Mandy said once the two people were within earshot.

After the greeting had been returned in a muted fashion, Mandy looked around for other late-comers. The blustery Main Street was deserted once more, so she turned around, strode into the courtyard and went up the stairs to get to Wyatt Elliott's executive office.

-*-*-*-

On the business floor above the largest hardware store in all of MacLean County, Wynne rested her nervous self on a bench that had been put up in the corridor outside the converted office. She only used the outer ten inches of the bench and had her back turned to the other person sharing it with her. Her head was propped up on her arm while she cast a somber look at the top of the stairwell in the hope that Mandy would soon show up to pull her out of her misery.

Blackie and Goldie rested at Wynne's feet. Much like their owner, they had their tails and backsides turned toward the other individual. The dogs were still attached to their leashes that had in turn been tied to the underside of the bench so Wynne could have her hands free to fidget.

With so many people gathered in one place, small mishaps were inevitable. The gangly and somewhat uncoordinated teenager Richard 'Ritchie' Lee caused the biggest one by tripping over his own feet in the middle of a group of people. One of the court ushers misunderstood the situation and hurriedly reached for his service pistol before he was able to collect enough pieces of the puzzle to get a clearer picture.

Wynne nodded a Howdy to Eamonn and Esther O'Sullivan who had decided to swing by to see what all the hubbub was about. A little later on, Nancy Nguyen showed up with a large sketchbook stuck under her arm - since the court proceedings would not be broadcast on TV or streamed on the Internet, the highly talented artist had been given the job of preserving what would transpire during the day's various cases through old-fashioned charcoal drawings.

The other person on the bench that all and sundry in the corridor seemed to take great pride in ignoring was the disgraced former sheriff Arthur 'Artie' Rains. He and his appointed attorney had their heads together and spoke in hushed tones - or what amounted to hushed tones for the ever-loud Rains - about the upcoming session.

Wynne thought she had reached rock bottom when Artie Rains insisted on sitting on the same bench as she, but rock bottom proved to have a full-height cellar beneath it when Deputy Sheriff Beatrice Reilly showed up in full dress uniform looking as if she had just stepped off a recruitment poster.

Her dark-blue fatigues carried several golden tassels, merit badges and multi-colored ribbons that sparkled under the strip lights. Without doing anything except simply showing up, Beatrice drew plenty of admiring glances from the non-law enforcement people in the corridor.

Wynne just sighed.

When Mandy finally arrived at the top of the staircase, Wynne's typically rotten luck meant they could only spend a brief minute in each other's company before one of the senior court ushers heralded the arrival of Judge Cornelius Etherington.

The distinguished gentleman wore a black cape over a dark business suit. His gray, voluminous hair had been reined in through hefty use of a comb, and his reading glasses sat low on his nose. As always, his features gave him the look of a friendly grandfather who had only shown up to take care of the hot cocoa and tell spooky tales around a campfire - however, the steely glare in his eyes proved that particular notion couldn't be further from the truth.

A secretary and several uniformed ushers followed hot on the judge's heels as the small group made their way to the door of the executive office. Once there, Judge Etherington cast an all-seeing glance at the motley gathering of Goldsboro residents. An "Mmmm," escaped him before he and his entourage entered the office and closed the door behind them.

Artie Rains kept talking, his attorney kept listening and Wynne kept her back turned to show her personal nemesis what she thought of him. Unfortunately, her rotten luck struck again a moment later.

"Hey, Dumb-ahue…" Rains said in his customary gravelly voice. "Tell me something… how come you're all dressed up?  Don't tell me the long arm of the law finally nailed your sorry ass?"

Sighing, Wynne turned around to face her old adversary. Unlike the last time she had seen Artie Rains, he was clean-shaven and wore a fresh set of clothes consisting of a checkered shirt, a necktie that was too short for his fat neck, gray Polyester pants that left a clear view of his socks and hairy calves, and finally a pair of ungainly loafers.

Shaving couldn't cure all his faults: his eyes were still beady and angry, his veins were still bulging and his triple-chins continued to wiggle-waggle as he spoke. His complexion remained on the ruddy side though he did seem to have lost a little of the unhealthy color that had tainted his skin upon his arrest at Thunder Park Raceway two weeks earlier.

Wynne glared at the fat man at the opposite end of the bench. Down below, Blackie growled while Goldie whimpered. "Ah be he' 'cos Ah be havin' a tawk with Judge Etherin'ton aftah y'all been sent up da rivah."

A nasty chuckle escaped the former sheriff. Though his appointed attorney said a few words in his ear about keeping quiet and remaining calm, the moment was too good to miss for Artie Rains. Getting up, he strolled down to Wynne's spot with an evil grin etched onto his meaty face. "Yeah?  'Bout what?  Been tryin' to smoke a cactus again?  Or were ya caught wet-handed in debauchery of the worst kind?  No, I got it… your hyenas down there finally mauled someone to death?"

"Naw!  Nuttin' o' da kind!" Wynne said and spun around on the bench. When the former sheriff's nasty laugh continued to ring out behind her, she clenched her fists and faced him once more. "Y'all don't know jack-shit 'bout it so quit yappin'!  If y'all jus' hafta know, it wus fer a movin' viola-shun… but it ain't none o' yer dang-blasted beeswax, anyhows!"

"Awww… is that it?  Damn, and here I thought you'd finally get sent to the correctional institution for wayward womenfolk up north in Barton City. A moving violation… hell, that ain't even a big fine."

"It ain't da fine, it be da principle!"

The conversation was interrupted when the man Artie Rains had assaulted at the race track, A.J. 'Slow' Lane, turned up with his mother and a legal advisor. The two vastly different men glared at each other for a moment before Rains' attorney finally made the former sheriff understand that he needed to sit down and keep quiet.

Wynne let out a sour grunt and whipped up her smartphone. To take her mind off Artie Rains and to kill time while she and everyone else waited for the court proceedings to commence, she began to play the stock-car racing game Rubbin' Fenders that her old friend Ernie Bradberry had introduced her to. Soon, getting around a half-mile paved oval in an '87 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Aerodeck was all she cared about.

-*-*-*-

A short fifteen minutes later, Wyatt Elliott's executive office had been transformed into a proper courtroom. Judge Etherington sat at the center of the large mahogany desk with a few law books, a pile of notes, various writing utensils and the regulatory gavel within easy reach. The secretary sat ready to perform her shorthand duties while two ushers kept a watchful eye over the spectators.

To the judge's left, a chair intended to be used by the accused, the victims and the witnesses had been placed on a foot-tall dais so everyone among the spectators and the legal teams could see and hear what was going on. A microphone stand had been put up in front of the chair to amplify the words of the mumblers and those reluctant to speak out.

Ten benches had been lined up inside the office; all had room for twenty-five spectators, and all were filled to capacity - Artie Rains' case was big news among the residents of Goldsboro and the rest of MacLean County.

A pair of tables reserved for the various legal teams and their clients had been set up in front of the spectator enclosure. At present, Rains sat wide and mighty on a wooden chair that was too small for his large frame. His appointed attorney had unpacked an enormous pile of law books that took up most of the space on the table. To their right, A.J. Lane and his legal aide went through the same motions as their counterparts - save for the fact that 'Slow' Lane was far skinnier than Rains and could thus sit on the chair without having either buttock droop over the edge.

Nestling on the back row, a group of men consisting of Derrike Iverson, J.D. Burdette and several out-of-towners - who all wore camouflaged hunting fatigues and impressive facial hair - were there to offer Artie Rains their support. Though the former sheriff had resigned from his post as the leader of the local branch of the nationwide J6 Brigade that celebrated the January 6th insurrection in Washington D.C., the men still considered him their Commander In Chief.

Mandy stood just inside the door to the courtroom keeping a close eye on the men on the back row. The risk they were going to make some kind of political statement at some point during the proceedings was so overwhelming it was almost tangible. Sighing, she looked further up the rows to find Wynne.

The Last Original Cowpoke sat next to their trailer-park neighbors Diego Benitez and Brenda Travers. Brenda's husband Vaughn had arrived later after needing to jog back from the sole remaining parking spot in all of Goldsboro, so he sat two rows behind his wife.

The din that rose from the large crowd was deafening as expected, but everyone piped down when one of the ushers announced - in a Stentor voice that took care of the din in no time flat - that the court session was declared open and that His Honor, Judge Cornelius Etherington was ready to hear the scheduled cases.

---

After the judge had used his gavel to knock twice on a small block of wood to get the show on the road, Anthony Joseph Lane was asked up to the stand - or rather the dais and the lone chair that waited for him there.

The young man, who had earned his unfortunate nickname the hard way toiling at Moira MacKay's stoves with little talent for the important job, appeared nervous and had an expression of pure discomfort etched onto his face. He gulped audibly when he glanced at the more than two hundred people present staring back at him.

The major event had necessitated A.J. combing his hair and shaving off his fuzzy downs, and he wore a pale-gray rental suit, a white shirt and a black necktie that bothered him to such an extent that he continuously tried to loosen the knot to breathe.

"Very well," Cornelius Etherington said. "Mr. Lane, would you care to explain the particulars of the matter?  From the start, please."

A.J. gained an even more harried expression in his eyes while clearing his throat several times and shuffling around on the chair. "Yes, Your Honor. It all started when-" he squeaked, but his voice didn't even carry over to the judge's desk despite speaking into the microphone.

"A little louder if you please, Mr. Lane. Go on," Etherington said, leaning toward the young man on the stand.

One of the ushers moved over to A.J. to push the microphone stand closer to him, but true to 'Slow' Lane's burger-dropping style, he leaned forward at the exact same time and bumped his nose against the microphone's black foam cover. The resulting BA-DA-BUMP! and electronic whine that burst from the twelve speakers lining the walls caused everyone to jump up and nearly fall off their seats.

The loud and sudden noises caught Nancy Nguyen by complete surprise; shrieking, she involuntarily jerked the charcoal across the drawing she had been working on. The printing-quality paper was nearly torn in half by her actions, and that took some doing. When she had recovered the piece of charcoal she had used, she sent a dark, evil glare at A.J. Lane.

"Sorry…" A.J. mumbled as he stared at the upset spectators.

When Judge Etherington repeated his call of "Mr. Lane?  The particulars of the matter in your own words, please," A.J. gulped again and began relaying the unfortunate sequence of events that had ended in Artie Rains punching him in the face and throwing him onto the ground.

-*-*-*-

At the first recess, Wynne got up to stretch her legs. On her way over to Mandy, she gave A.J.'s shoulder a squeeze as a sign of support - she had often complained about 'Slow' Lane's speed when it came to flipping burgers and cooking frankfurters, but not even something as gross as serving a semi-raw hot dog should earn him a black eye, a busted lip, a split eyebrow and a trip to Thunder Park Raceway's medical facilities to get the injuries patched up.

Wynne had soon threaded her way through the crowd to join Mandy at the door. The sheriff wore her steely game face to maintain her authority and keep everything and everyone in check, but she managed a brief wink at her partner once the denim-clad lady was close enough to see it.

"Lawrdie, I be tellin' ya, Sheriff Mandy… mah stomach is churnin' som'tin fierce. I sure hope I ain't gonn' burp or fart or nuttin' when I be tawkin' ta da Judge latah on. Wudden be a good first impres-shun, nosirree."

"I agree."

"Yuh," Wynne said as she took a gander at the other spectators. She made a literal double-take at the sight of the camouflaged men on the back row. "Holy shittt, wouldya lookie at Derrike an' them good ol' boys o' his down dere at da back!  Whaddindawohhhh-rld?  I sure ain't no ex-puhrt or nuttin', but I be gettin' a mighty strong no-shun them boys gonn' trah som'tin stoo-pid. Whadda-y'all reckon?"

Mandy let out a dark grunt. "Oh, they definitely are. No two ways about it."

"Well, cantcha jus' tell 'em ta get lost?"

"The sessions are open to the public. And they haven't done anything yet, so… no, I can't."

"Aw, gosh-darn'it," Wynne said and scratched her neck. "Yuh. Okeh. But they bettah not try nuttin' that gonn' jeppah-dih-ze mah tawk with the Judge aftahwurds. If that done happens, I'mma-gonn' get real P-O'ed at 'em an' read 'em da riot act, yes Ma'am!"

Chuckling, Mandy leaned a little sideways to bump hips with her partner. "Are you running for Sheriff next year, Miss Donohue?" she said with a wink.

"Oh-hell no!" Wynne said and broke out in a chuckle that petered out before long - then she looked at Mandy with a large, neon-green question mark hanging over her head. "Lawwwwwr-die, y'all be pullin' mah leg!  That there elec-shun alreddy be next yeah?  Good shit almighty how time flies. Aw, then we gonn' hafta go through that entiah circus act ag'in… awwww-brothah!"

Up at the mahogany desk, the usher announced in his customary Stentor voice that His Honor Judge Cornelius Etherington would return within a few moments so everyone should find their seats.

"Whut?  Alreddy?!  Shoot, I didden even get no beah or nuttin'!" Wynne croaked as she stared at the uniformed usher. "Aw, gosh-darn'it… naw, I bettah get back befo' them big fellas arrest mah bee-hind. Tawk ta ya latah, Sheriff Mandy!  I be outtah he'!"

---

Arthur 'Artie' Rains soon walked from the narrow chair and up to the raised dais. Sitting down, he discovered the second chair was wider and thus a better fit for his large rear-end. A nasty grin spread over his fleshy face as he attempted to stare down the spectators.

Unlike A.J. Lane's rampant nervousness that had been prompted by everyone gawking at him, Rains thrived on such attention and visibly enjoyed being in the spotlight once more. The nasty grin widened when he clapped eyes on his cohorts down at the back row of the office. He nodded at them to show his gratitude for their continued support.

Mandy caught the nod. Sighing, she turned toward Derrike Iverson and the other potential troublemakers in the hope of catching a sign of an impending disturbance before it could evolve into something that she and the ushers wouldn't be able to contain.

---

The incident Mandy had hoped to prevent happened less than two minutes later. Artie Rains had just stated his name for the records when Derrike, J.D. Burdette and the men in hunting fatigues jumped up onto their bench and unfurled the Stars & Stripes. Holding it high, they began shouting "Honor our proud nation!  Honor our flag!  Honor our pure American blood!" over and over.

Up at the stand, Artie Rains rose to his feet, thrust a clenched fist in the air and repeated the phrases at the top of his lungs.

Pandemonium erupted like a volcano in the temporary courtroom. Although Judge Etherington repeatedly slammed his gavel onto the base and let out roars of indignation, his actions had little effect. Everyone among the spectators jumped up to see what went on behind them; the majority was opposed to the political propaganda, but there were several who smiled and nodded at the statements - one or two even joined in on the slogans.

Mandy simply groaned and went to work. She and the ushers rushed toward the troublemakers to manhandle them out of the office. Derrike Iverson had little interest in getting his nose bloodied so he calmed down at once, but the younger J.D. and the men in camouflage were feistier and responded to the approaching law enforcement officers by engaging them in shoving matches and fisticuffs.

It took three minutes, four sets of handcuffs and an entire thunderstorm's worth of anger, aggression and hateful shouting before the troublemakers had been pacified and led out of the courtroom - a further fifteen minutes went by before they had all been locked up in the holding cells across Main Street.

Though a modicum of order had finally been restored in the temporary court, it was severely disturbed two seconds after Mandy had come back inside to resume holding her position at the door.

Wynne jumped to her feet and let out a loud "Lawwwwwwwwwwwwr-die!  Ah'ma-gonn' kick them som'bitches' asses from he' ta Alvarez, Texas if Ah evah done clap mah eyes on 'em!"  Scooting off the bench, she was at Mandy's side in an instant despite Judge Etherington's groans and incessant gavel-knocking up at the mahogany desk.

The sheriff's necktie had been ripped in two and her uniform shirt had received a long, jagged tear in the scuffle. Much worse, a red bruise was already developing on her left cheekbone, and several droplets of blood from her nose tainted her upper lip before they went further down onto the shirt's lapels.

"Good shittt almighty, Sheriff Mandy!" Wynne cried as she took in the unpleasant sight. "Y'all be bleedin' an' shit… y'all need-a siddown befo' ya faint or som'tin!"

"I'm all right, Wynne… listen, it's nothing. I'll be fine. You need to-"

"Hankie… Ah need-a hankie to wipe this he' shit offa yer face… anyboddah got a hankie?  Noboddah?  Awwww, that ain't right, folks!

"Wynne-"

"Whodunnit?  Haw?  Which o' them sombitches done this to ya?!  Wus it J.D.?  Tell me an' Ah'ma-gonn' deal with 'em Texas-styhhh-le!  Yessirree, Boot Hill gonn' get a cupple-a new residents come nightfall, that sure ain't no lie!"

"Wynne, please calm down… I'm fine. Okay?  I'm fine," Mandy said and put her hands on her partner's arms to still their frantic motions. "Please sit down so we can get this damn thing over with!"

"Aw… aw, ya sure?"

"Yes. Please."

"Aw. Yuh. Okeh. Ah'ma-gonn' siddown… okeh. But this ain't the last we heard-a this, Ah'm tellin' ya," Wynne said and leaned in to place a supportive kiss on the cleanest part of Mandy's lips. "An' ya still need a hankie or som'tin. Yer' bleedin' from yer nose an' all."

"I know. I'll use my shirt. It's already ruined, so…" Mandy said with a small smile.

After returning the smile, Wynne returned to her spot on the bench. Judge Etherington sent her a scathing glare for disturbing the peace all over again, but she couldn't care less - some things were more important than keeping quiet.

-*-*-*-

Later into the examination, Artie Rains let his beady eyes roam over the spectators for a moment before he leaned forward to speak into the microphone: "That's correct. I'd been drinking heavily for a good portion of the evening, but I'm used to liquor so it didn't influence my actions. I smacked the little turd-"

"Mr. Rains!" Judge Etherington said in a booming voice.

"Pardon, Your Honor. Let me start over. Yes, I smacked Mr. Lane but good. He deserved nothing less," Rains said and leaned back on the chair. A moment later, he continued: "And as for your second claim, no, I didn't put Mr. Lane in an armlock and throw him onto the ground. He would have known if I had. The clown fell over his own feet. Yes, he simply dropped like a little turd someone had squeezed outta their ass."

The Judge slammed his gavel hard onto the wooden base and leaned toward the accused. "That does it, Mr. Rains!  If you do not moderate your language, I shall hold you in contempt of this court!"

"Oh, you do whatever the hell you feel like doing, Etherington," Artie Rains said and crossed his arms over his chest. "I ain't sure I even recognize this monkey show as a proper court. And that's the last I'll say today."

Down among the spectators, Wynne needed to chomp down on her lips, cheeks and tongue to stop herself from letting out a few truths that would only see her get into trouble as well.

Judge Etherington shook his head in frustration. "Very well. You leave me no choice. This case is suspended," he said and gave his gavel another hard workout. "Sheriff Jalinski… please escort Mr. Rains to the holding cells until I shall see fit to pass judgment on the matter."

Mandy let out a sigh as she made eye contact with Wynne; the Last Original Cowpoke's scrunched-up face proved she was still steaming mad about the whole thing.

Another sigh escaped Mandy as she strode away from her spot at the door to move up to the stand. The holding cells were already full so it would be impossible to keep Artie Rains separated from his troublemaking associates. It was an open invitation for more trouble, and she suspected it had been Rains' plan all along - the cocksure grin that spread over his fleshy face seemed to prove it.

-*-*-*-

The mess proved as difficult to unravel as 500 feet of yarn tangled into a ball of nothing but knots, but the situation was eventually resolved by releasing Derrike Iverson and J.D. Burdette who both had businesses in Goldsboro and thus were less inclined to make a run for it - that left Holding Cell One open for the out-of-towners which meant the disgraced former sheriff found himself all alone in Holding Cell Two.

Artie Rains' angry shouting as his plan fell apart continued to attack Mandy's eardrums even after she had shut the sturdy cell door and secured the locks.

She strode over to the desk where all the prisoners were processed before they were put behind the proverbial bars. Letting out a deep, annoyed sigh at all the nonsense, she leaned down to observe the CCTV monitors that offered clear views of the two cells and the people inside them.

Rodolfo Gonzalez soon returned carrying a medical kit he had taken from the sheriff's office next door. Putting it on the desk, he opened the lid and took out a few swaths of cotton wool, a plastic bottle containing demineralized water and finally a small pack of painkillers.

"Thank you," Mandy said as she took the cotton wool and soaked it in the water.

"You're welcome, Ma'am."

The dried blood was soon wiped off Mandy's upper lip. Once the clean-up process had been accomplished, she took another section of cotton wool, rolled it into a cylindrical shape and stuffed it up her left nostril. "Well… it looks stupid, but it does the trick," she said in a muffled voice. "All right, what's been going on over here, Deputy Gonzalez?"

The senior deputy moved around the sheriff to pull out the swivel-chair at the desk. As he sat down, he retrieved his notepad. "We've had four additional calls while you were in court. All false alarms-"

"All were pranks?"

"Yes, Ma'am. All four were proven to be false by returning the calls and speaking to the people in question," Rodolfo said as he glanced at his notes. He let out a chuckle. "One of whom wasn't even in Goldsboro but visiting relatives over in Brandford Ridge."

"Hmmm."

"Sheriff, what I don't understand is why the person continues to pull these pranks?  He or she has to be aware that we've called their bluff by now."

"I can't say. Maybe it's a child who thinks this is the coolest thing ever," Mandy said and broke out in a shrug.

"Maybe. Deputy Simms and I were able to record the conversations in case you want Brend- pardon, Mrs. Travers to analyze them in her computer."

"Good work. I don't think further analyses will be necessary. They're all from the same source and I'm pretty sure the person responsible lives somewhere over in the new section of town," Mandy said as she moved back to the door leading to Main Street. She put her hand on the doorknob but didn't yet turn it. A quick glance onto the windy, dusty street followed before she turned back to her senior deputy: "Still, keep the recordings for now. They may come in handy."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"I obviously need to change my uniform first, but then I'll be in court if you need me. My radio will be turned off, so if there's a real emergency, you'll need to get someone to run over to inform me."

"Yes, Ma'am. That probably won't be Barry… he'll never make it across the street," Rodolfo said with a cheeky grin that was responded to in style by his sheriff.

Once Mandy had closed the door behind her, Rodolfo opened the desk's top drawer to pick up the Sally Swackhamer pulp detective novel he had been reading before the sheriff came to pay him a visit.

Settling down - while taking the occasional gander at the CCTV monitors to keep track of the prisoners - he was soon back on the mean streets of the big, bad city in the company of the wisecracking, gun-toting, trench-coat wearing Private Eye.

-*-*-*-

After changing into her spare uniform, Mandy strode across Main Street to get back to the hardware store that doubled as the courtroom. On her way there, she nodded and grunted various good-byes to locals and others who had only come to Goldsboro to watch Artie Rains get his well-deserved comeuppance - that a brawl had broken out was only icing on the cake and would certainly lead to spirited discussions around the Sunday dinner tables.

The desert wind continued to howl around every corner; each gust depositing yet another quarry's worth of red sand and dust in all the town's many nooks and crannies. Window frames rattled and TV-antennas swished as they were exposed to Mother Nature's foul mood, and there were plastic bags, scrap paper and every other sort of man-made debris swirling around everywhere - the only thing that prevented Mandy's expensive Mountie hat from joining the flotsam and jetsam was her hand clamped down on it.

---

Even though it took her less than two minutes to stride from the sheriff's office over to the hardware store, her clean uniform had become anything but even in the short amount of time. Now covered in a layer of reddish dust, it looked even worse than the torn one had - and worse, she had so much grit between her teeth that she didn't dare swallow.

The stairs to the upper floor were soon dealt with. After stopping at a water cooler to rinse her mouth, she stepped into the hallway just in time to hear one of the ushers inform the waiting spectators that the recess was over and that Judge Cornelius Etherington would soon return to hear the next cases.

She assisted the uniformed usher in shepherding the last remaining people inside before she re-took her spot at the closed door. Now that all the regular cases were to be heard, the number of interested spectators had been cut to less than half of the previous high.

A quick glance proved that those who remained were just ordinary citizens out to witness justice in action rather than disturbing the peace by shouting political slogans.

When she and Wynne locked eyes, the Last Original Cowpoke's ice-blue orbs grew wide at the sight of the filthy uniform and the wad of cotton-wool stuffed up Mandy's nose, but a grin and a shrug by the sheriff seemed to defuse the situation before anything could get going.

"All rise for His Honor, Judge Cornelius Etherington!" was soon proclaimed by the usher with the Stentor voice. A moment later, the judge arrived from another door - one that Mandy knew led to Wyatt Elliott's luxurious private bathroom.

Etherington eyed the remaining spectators warily before he grabbed his gavel and performed a quick triple-knock on the wooden base. The reading glasses were given a small adjustment before he looked down at his notes. "Ladies and Gentlemen, you may be seated. All right. Next up, we have…"

*
*
CHAPTER 7

After all had been said and done in the rest of the day's many cases, the senior usher declared the court adjourned. The spectators all rose as Judge Etherington left the desk and moved through the executive office to get to the exit - he nodded a greeting to the bruised Mandy who stepped aside to let the distinguished gentleman out.

Once the door had been opened, Mandy observed the rest of the spectators closely as they filed past her to get back to the hallway. None triggered her internal alarms. Those who had stayed in the temporary courtroom until the end were nearly all family members of the people involved in the cases.

Wynne shuffled over to the door as one of the last. She shook her head at the sight of the bruising and the wad of cotton-wool stuffed up Mandy's nostril. "Good shit almighty, Sheriff Mandy… y'all gonn' have one helluva shinah come tamorrah. But dontcha worry none 'cos I'mma-gonn' pampah ya but good. Y'all can take that ta da bank, yes Ma'am!"

"I need to work all day tomorrow, Wynne," Mandy said in a somber voice that continued to be muffled by the cotton-wool up her nose. "We can't allow ourselves any time off until we've caught that damn prankster."

"Sombitch… awrighty, then I'mma-gonn' swing bah he' an' pampah ya but good ovah in that there office o' yers."

Smiling, Mandy reached out to put a hand on Wynne's waist. "Thank you. Before we draw too many plans, we better wait and see what the future has in mind for us. Right?"

"Aw… yuh. Okeh. Sure ain't ta mah likin', but okeh. If y'all say so, Sheriff Mandy," Wynne said and broke out in a wide shrug. "Lawrdie, mah stomach be jumpin' through hoops, I be tellin' ya. Big-ass hoops!  I ain't been this ner-vuss since I don't know when… aw, that ain't true 'cos I do know. It wus them final laps o' the Daytohnah five-hundred back in 'eighteen… when that there three cah-r wus waitin', waitin', waitin' fer an openin' ta strike an' all."

"I remember that," Mandy said with a grin. "And I remember that when it finally won, you screamed so loud it took your voice a week to recover."

"Yuh, well… I didden reckon I wus evah gonn' see that there three cah-r winnin' the five-hundred no mo' so it wus a perdy giganto occa-shun. Yuh, sure wus. Haw, that there Coke Zero Foah-hundred night race gonn' come up befo' too long, so… who knows, yuh?"

Amused at Wynne's unbridled enthusiasm for all things related to stock-car racing, Mandy briefly went up on tip-toes to place a kiss on the enticing lips. "Well, I wish you good luck. I'll catch up with you later-"

"Wait a minnit… aintcha gonn'… Lawrdie, I wus hopin' y'all would… haw." Wynne's shoulders dropped when she realized she had jumped too far ahead in the script too soon. She scratched her cheek a couple of times before she went on: "Ya know, I wus kinda hopin' that y'all would be mah moral support or som'tin… or mebbe interpretahr. I guess not. Durn."

"I can't, hon. I'm sorry. I wouldn't be unbiased. There'd be no end to the problems it'd create… for starters, it wouldn't be fair on Deputy Reilly-"

"Right at this he' very moment in time, I ain't sure I give two shits 'bout De-per-ty Quick Draw's feelin's!"

Mandy was about to counter the statement when the door opened and the senior usher poked his head inside. "Miss Donohue?" he said after spotting the Last Original Cowpoke - the task hadn't been too challenging as Wynne was the only non-law enforcement person in the executive office. "Judge Etherington is ready to see you now."

"Why, much obliged, Sir. I sure be thankin' ya. I be right ovah," Wynne said with a grin; she had already turned back to face Mandy when a thought struck her: "Hang on a minnit, there, fellah!  Someboddah done skipped a cog in that there thinkin' process. Where exactly does Judge Etherin'ton wanna see me?"

"A smaller office further down the hallway. You can't miss it… I'm guarding the door," the uniformed usher said before he backed out of the executive office to return to his new post.

"Okeh!  Heh, yuh, I oughtta be able ta find that, huh?" Wynne said as she turned back to Mandy. Her smile faded and soon turned into a frown. "Mebbe I shudden ha' set all o' this in mo-shun… now it be too darn late. It wussen the fine… it nevah wus about da fine, it wus da principle, yuh?"

"Don't tell me, tell the judge. He's a strict but fair man. You and Deputy Reilly just need to present your cases in a respectful manner and he'll take it from there. All right?"

Wynne scrunched up her face for a moment before she performed a shrug instead. "Yuh. I guess. Okeh. But it sure ain't gonn' be no bundle o' fuh-n, that's a dog-gone fact. Aw-shoot, mebbe it gonn' be a bundle o' that there dyh-no-mite instead, haw?  Ain't too sure. If y'all heah a wham-bang or som'tin, it be the office that done exploded."

"Let's hope that won't happen… Wynne, you better hurry. Etherington hates waiting for anything or anyone," Mandy said and guided her partner over to the door.

"Yuh… yuh, I be off. Love ya, Sheriff Mandy!"

Mandy offered a small push to get Wynne's reluctant drivetrain going. "Love you too, Wynne… now git!" she said with a wink and a smile.

"Ah be gittin'!  Ah be gittin'!"

---

As the door to the smaller office closed behind Wynne with a soft click, she whipped off her battered cowboy hat and scuffed her shoes on the back of her pantlegs. Beatrice Reilly sat prim, proper and pristine in one of two satellite armchairs; the deputy sheriff shot Wynne a sideways look but kept quiet. Judge Etherington stood at a small table by the windows trying to get an advanced coffee maker to produce the requested beverages.

"Howdy, Judge Etherin'ton. De-per-ty Reilly," Wynne said and made a beeline for the second armchair. Reaching it, she had no idea if she could allow herself to sit down without the judge's approval, so she kept standing behind the backrest.

Beatrice just grunted, but the judge turned to Wynne and said: "Good afternoon, Miss Donohue. Please, have a seat. Like I've already mentioned, this will be an informal chat, not a legally binding session."

"Yessir. Much obliged, Yer Honah," Wynne said and sat down on the armchair. Placing her cowboy hat on her knee, she folded her hands in her lap and sat as quiet as she could possibly be.

The office belonged to one of Wyatt Elliott's import managers and was a great deal smaller than the executive suite down the hall; even so, it was still far more opulent than any of the circles that Wynne usually traveled in. A desk had been cleared to make room for Judge Etherington's needs, and he had exploited that fully by putting half a library's worth of law books on it.

The rug on the floor was a genuine Hong Kong Traditional imported through one of Wyatt's overseas business associates - not that Wynne had ever seen one so it could had been bought at a flea market in Rickenforth Springs for all she knew.

One wall was home to two large windows that overlooked the hardware store's inner courtyard; the three other walls all carried colorful reproductions of flowers or lush landscapes from around the world.

"Oh, never mind this stubborn thing," Cornelius Etherington mumbled as he gave up trying to get the advanced machine to do anything but beep.

Moving back to the central desk, he sat down and eyed the two women sitting opposite him. "Deputy Reilly, Miss Donohue, the objective of this informal conversation is to find a middle ground that both parties can agree to. I've looked over the particulars of the matter and have found certain aspects that are ideal to form the base of the discussion. Deputy Reilly, would you care to describe the incident as seen from your perspective?"

As Beatrice leaned forward to retrieve her notepad where she had jotted down the exact sequence of events, Wynne fell against the backrest and stared at the distinguished gentleman in wide-eyed disbelief and concern. She had guessed the language would be so high-falootin' she would have a hard time hanging onto it, but the judge's opening volley had lost her almost as soon as he had begun to speak.

Wynne's face fell and turned into a grim mask - she understood that Beatrice Reilly would score all the major points, that much was clear.

"Very well, Your Honor," Beatrice said. "At eleven forty-five AM on Saturday, May twenty-eighth of this year, my fellow deputy sheriffs and I were directing traffic at the entrance to Thunder Park Raceway a few miles north of Goldsboro. The weekend's race meeting proved to be exceedingly popular and drew spectators from all over the State. This caused a large-scale congestion to develop out on the State Route. After a while, Sheriff Jalinski ordered us to separate the blocked traffic into several groups so the eighteen-wheelers, delivery vans, overland buses, et cetera, that had been caught in the congestion could get through. Naturally, such a procedure greatly increased the delays for the individuals there to see the races. Some grew too impatient and took matters into their own hands by breaking out of the lanes and advancing past the blocked vehicles at great speed. At five minutes past noon, we encountered Miss Donohue who-"

The Judge had been leaning back on the exquisite leather armchair while Beatrice had spoken, but he raised his reading glasses in the air to stop the flow of words; then he pointed the frame at Wynne. "Miss Donohue, this is literally where you enter the picture. In your own words, please bring us up to speed on what transpired."

Wynne glanced at Beatrice for a brief second before she said: "Well, Yer Honah, me an' mah friend Ernie Bradberry wus drivin' north on that there State Route when we done saw all them tail-lights ahead offus, yuh?  We done stopped at the end of a helluva long line. We saw them semis an' buses an' whutnots drive past but we didden ha' no trubbel with that, no sir, 'cos we done lissened ta music an' chewed da fat an' had a great time. Then someboddah done had cah-r trouble up ahead… yessir, an' ol' Foh-rd done blew a radiatah hose or som'tin 'cos there wus steam all ovah the dang place. Well, we hadda get past it or we wudden go nowheah fer the rest o' the day, yuh?  There wus all kinds o' vee-hickels on ou'ah left so I turned right offa that there blacktop an' ran along the hard shouldah. Didden pose no trubbel fer mah truck or nuttin' 'cos it be a foah-wheel drive. An' we didden ack-chew-ly go particularly fast neithah 'cos mebbe someboddah up ahead done opened a passenger doah or som'tin an' that wudden ha' been safe. Once we done reached the head o' the line, we wus pulled ovah bah De-per-ty Reilly there who-"

"Thank you, Miss Donohue," Etherington said and pointed his spectacles at Beatrice. "And then what happened, Deputy?"

Smiling, Beatrice briefly returned to her notes before she continued: "We watched Miss Donohue's truck approaching at great speed-"

"Whut?!  Great speed, mah furry behi- uh… that sure ain't whut done happ-"

"Miss Donohue," Judge Etherington said in a stern voice, "Deputy Reilly has the floor."

The odd phrase caused a large question mark to flash on-and-off above Wynne's head; she furrowed her brow before she broke out in a shrug "Aw… yuh. Okeh. Ain't too sure whut that… nevah mind."

"Go on, Deputy," Etherington said and leaned back in the comfortable chair.

"Thank you, Your Honor," Beatrice continued. "When my fellow deputy sheriffs and I saw Miss Donohue's truck approach us at great speed on the hard shoulder, it was obvious it had the potential to develop into a dangerous situation. I decided to pull her over and give her a stern talking-to for endangering the lives of her fellow drivers. When Miss Donohue chose to feign innocence and responded in an aggressive, mouthy manner, my initial plan of merely speaking to her changed into issuing a fine for reckless driving."

Judge Etherington nodded before he turned to Wynne. "Miss Donohue, you had strong objections to Deputy Reilly's assessment of your speed. How fast would you say you were going?"

"Cert'inly wussen any kind o' high speed, no sir!  Lawrdie, I be drivin' a Silveradah, not one o' them there Baa-haa off-road racin' trucks… that there desuhrt there is uneven, lemme tell ya!  Y'all can't even go twentah without gettin' thrown thru' the roof… or outtah the windah!  At no point wus we goin' fastah than mebbe fifteen miles per hou'ah."

Beatrice shook her head; the judge noticed and turned back to her. "You disagree, Deputy?"

"I do, Your Honor. We didn't have the speed gun set up, but a guesstimate based on the plumes of dust kicked up by its wheels is that Miss Donohue's truck was driving at closer to thirty miles per hour."

Wynne drew a sharp breath to counter the statement, but remembered that she needed to wait for the deputy to get off the floor even though she was actually sitting down. The moment came a short while later when the judge pointed his spectacles at her.

"De-per-ty," Wynne continued, showing remarkable restraint, "y'all know dang well we wus in da middle of one helluva dry spell. We still is!  Lawrdie, there ain't been no moisture in that there desuhrt since last wintah!  O' course there gonn' be dust all ovah the dang-blasted place!  Y'all oughtta see them plumes o' dust mah dawggies kick up when they be playin' in the wildahness back hoah-me… an' they sure ain't goin' thirty miles per hou'ah. Yuh?  Lookie outside them windahs today… ain't there loose dust all ovah Main Street now?"

"That's irrelevant!" Beatrice said in a growl.

"Naw, it ain't!  We wus goin' at fifteen miles per hou'ah at the dang most!  An' y'all can take that ta da bank, De-per-ty!"

Judge Etherington eyed the women warily; he leaned forward at once to put the proverbial lid on the discussion before it would get out of hand. "Ladies, please. Let's keep this civil."

Wynne shot Beatrice a final dark glare before she rolled her shoulders and sat up straight. "Yessir. Yer Honah, may I be allowed ta make a closin' statement?"

"Go on, Miss Donohue."

"I ain't one o' them chickenshits who be tryin' ta weasel mah way outtah gettin' fined. It ain't da fine, it be da principle, yuh?  The situa-shun wussen dainge-russ at all. We wussen goin' fast an' I woudda been able ta drive furthah inta that there desurht if someboddah had done opened their door… but noboddah did an' there jus' wussen no dangah ta noboddah. End o' discus-shun. I done rest mah case like them fine folks say on that there Perry Mason teevee show."

"Thank you, Miss Donohue. Deputy Reilly, do you have any closing words?" the judge said; when Beatrice shook her head, he slid his spectacles up his nose and rose from the armchair. "Thank you, both. Please wait outside while I mull over the details and compose an answer."

---

Save for a snoozing Goldie, the hallway was deserted by the time Wynne and Beatrice came back out of the office. They sat at opposite ends of the long bench that Wynne had shared with Artie Rains earlier in the proceedings; as expected, they turned their backs to each other.

Wynne found her telephone to play a little Rubbin' Fenders to have something more positive to do than lock horns with stubborn deputy sheriffs, but she didn't make it too far before Goldie stirred and grew aware of her surroundings.

The Golden Retriever let out a happy yap as she noticed her owner's legs right next to her. A sequence of yaps and small barks followed that explained that Blackie had gone on a foot patrol with Mandy.

"Howdy, there, darlin'!" Wynne said and performed a little fur-rubbing. "How y'all been while I wus away?  Good, I hope?  Yuh… girl, where Blackie be?  Haw?"

A sequence of puzzled yaps escaped Goldie - the noises meant 'I just told you where Blackie went…'

"Aw, mebbe she done went with Sheriff Mandy an' all," Wynne continued. "Yuh. Whadda'day, haw?  Lawrdie, an' this dang heat, too… I need a showah."

Yap!

"Haw!  Whazzat saposed ta mean, girl?!  Ya sayin' I smell?  Lawwwwwwr-die, this gotta be harp on Wynne-week all ovah ag'in!  I need a beah… naw, two beahs… naw, a six-pack o' them there Dubbel-Zerahs. Yessirree. An' a showah."

Yap!

Chuckling, Wynne reached down to add a little more fur-rubbing just for the hell of it. Not ten seconds later, her good mood was given a severe dent when Beatrice let out a sour comment:

"Sometimes I wonder if your dogs wouldn't outscore you in an IQ test."

"Izzat a fact, de-per-ty?" Wynne said without turning around. Despite the heatwave, the ambient temperature in the hallway dropped by a handful of degrees if not more. "Lemme give y'all a word of advice… I done had this he' conversa-shun with nasty ol' Artie Rains plenty o' times. That sombitch could nevah bring me down. Whaddahell makes y'all think y'all can, De-per-ty Quick Draw?"

The ambient temperature fell another handful of degrees - down on the floor, Goldie buried her head in her paws as a precautionary measure in case the situation would escalate even further.

Beatrice shot plenty of daggers at Wynne's back, but none seemed to inflict the amount of damage she had hoped for. Before it could go any further, the door to the sales manager's office opened and Cornelius Etherington stuck his head out:

"Ladies?  I believe I've reached a possible solution to the problem at hand that might satisfy both parties. If you'd care to join me once more, I'll present the details."

A self-confident grunt escaped Beatrice Reilly as she rose from the bench and straightened her dress uniform. She had a final dagger to shoot at Wynne, but that was no more successful than the others had been.

Down the other end of the bench, Wynne sighed. She gave Goldie another good rubbing before she got up and shuffled back to the office.

---

The same three players soon faced each other once more. Tension rose by the minute for Wynne and Beatrice while Judge Etherington made another attempt at getting the advanced coffee machine to work. When he gave up for the second time, he sat down and tapped a stack of papers into order.

He gave the ladies sitting opposite him a look over the rim of his reading glasses before he cleared his throat. "I have reached the conclusion that the fine and the charge of reckless driving should be rescinded and thus declared void. Deputy Reilly-"

Beatrice's face gained a thunderous shade; her eyes did their worst to reduce Wynne to a pile of ash not unlike those found in Barry Simms' ashtrays.

The judge continued unawares: "-although I recognize and in fact laud your concern of the road safety of the public at large, Miss Donohue's comment about the lengthy dry spell and the resulting amounts of desert dust kicked up by her vehicle was the deciding factor. Deputy, with no speed gun aimed at the vehicle in question, you could only hazard a guess at how fast it was going."

Beatrice knew better than to raise a point of contention about the judge's logic, but her lips began moving in silence as several juicy curses ran past them.

"While Miss Donohue said that no dangerous situations arose as she traveled along the hard shoulder, you said that such an incident could indeed have occurred. I agree. Fact is, however, that nothing happened. Therefore, Miss Donohue's vehicular approach toward the spot where you and your fellow deputies stood cannot be categorized as reckless driving but rather a mere foolhardy undertaking. Now, having said all that…"

Etherington took off his reading glasses and waved them at Wynne. "Miss Donohue, I recommend that you will still receive a fine, though a lesser one, for your trip along the hard shoulder. Not because of excessive speed, but because you relied too heavily on the peripheral vision of the passengers in the vehicles in front of you. I know you said you had time to, and were prepared to, swerve further into the desert if the need arose, but few expect to be passed in such a manner. It's not beyond the realms of possibility to imagine that a child, or even an adult, could have made a swift exit from their vehicle without looking back first. Had you been too close to swerve, a tragedy would have been inevitable."

Wynne chewed on her lower lip for a moment; she cast a sideways glance at Beatrice who promptly broke out in a smirk. "Yessir, Yer Honah. I accept yer conclu-shun. If y'all will lissen ta me fer a second, I have a proposi-shun o' mah own… I heah wotcha sayin' bout mebbe a kid jumpin' out of a vee-hickel without lookin' back. If y'all reckon I ovahstepped a line I shudden ha', I'mma-gonn' take that on da chin an' pay da fine. Like I done said a hundred times alreddy, it ain't the amount that it done says on that there fine that wus the trubbel. Naw."

Shuffling around on the chair, Wynne moved out to the edge as she continued: "Okeh… whut I do not wanna happen is fer some folks ta start thinkin' I got preferen-shual treatment 'cos me an' Sheriff Mandy be an item, yuh?  Okeh. So, I wus thinkin'… how 'bout I done som'tin like that there community service or som'tin?  Mebbe, oh… haw… I dunno… mebbe two hundred hou'ahs or so. Lawrdie knows this he' town needs a good cleanin'. Spe-shu-ally now with all that there dust blown inta town an' all. I done worked all kinds-a jobs in mah life an' I sure ain't high-an'-mighty enuff not ta grab a broom an' start sweepin'. Nossirree."

The judge had already opened his mouth to reply when Beatrice butted in with her own two cents' worth: "You can take your put-upon martyrdom and shove it!" she barked while pointing an accusing index finger at Wynne. "Now that I have the court's word that you were in fact breaking the traffic code with that stunt, don't think for a second that community service will cut it!"

"Deputy Reilly!" Etherington barked at such a volume that time seemed to come to a standstill. "Threatening a member of the public in the presence of a county circuit judge is exceedingly idiotic!"

"My apologies, Your Honor. I am merely stating the facts," Beatrice said and slammed her arms across her chest.

Cornelius Etherington glared at the deputy sheriff for a while longer before he ran a hand through his voluminous hair and leaned against the backrest. "Noted. Miss Donohue, your offer of committing yourself to performing community service is highly commendable. As you both know, this meeting is not legally binding, but I will write Sheriff Jalinski a letter in which I will draw up my recommendations. All right?  Very well, this meeting is adjourned," he said and got up from the chair. Soon, he was over at the small table - for the third time that afternoon - to try to get the advanced coffee machine to do his bidding.

Beatrice rose from the armchair faster than Wynne could even get her hat off her knee where she had put it. The deputy sheriff strode out of the office and continued at the same speed down the hallway.

Grunting, Wynne got up and donned her beloved cowboy hat. The situation that had weighed on her mind from dawn to dusk for two weeks straight had been resolved, but perhaps not one-hundred percent to her liking. A small sigh escaped her as she made for the door; a mumbled curse by the distinguished gentleman prompted her to turn around to see what had happened.

It was obvious the judge had reached his limits with regards to operating the coffee maker, so Wynne pushed her hat back from her brow and shuffled over to the small table to help. A single glance at the machine's countless knobs and push-buttons made her reconsider. "Aw, Judge Etherin'ton… y'all know whut I reckon?  I reckon it gonn' be much easiah if I got someboddah from Moira's ta bring y'all some fresh coah-ffee… 'cos dat thing dere is eeeevil. Yessir."

"Would you?  I'd appreciate it, Miss Donohue. I really need some coffee, but… it won't happen on this thing. I suspect I'd need to read a fifty-page instruction guide just to turn it on."

"Haw, yessir. Sure ain't no friend o' all them fancy appliances, neithah. Me an' Sheriff Mandy got an ol'-fashioned coah-ffee machine an' that ain't nevah let us down. I'mma-gonn' git mah Goldie now an' mosey on ovah ta Moira's ta ordah that there coah-ffee an' shoot some pool. Will y'all stay he', or 'r ya goin' back ta yer room?"

"I'll stay here for the rest of the afternoon. I have plenty of paperwork to fill out, Miss Donohue," Judge Etherington said and took off his reading glasses to polish the lenses.

"Okie-dokie. Aw, in that case, perhaps y'all need some pastries too?"

"If we could make it those delightful chocolates again, my sweet tooth certainly wouldn't object!"

"Deal!" Wynne said with a grin. "Have a nice aftahnoon an' evenin', Yer Honah."

Cornelius Etherington turned away from the obstinate coffee machine to offer his denim-clad guest a smile. "Thank you, Miss Donohue. You too."

-*-*-*-

The conditioned air slowly gave way to a wall of desert heat as Wynne and Goldie walked down the stairs. By now, the employees and regular customers of the hardware store were the only ones there, but everyone was too busy buying nails, plywood, plaster, cables or a thousand other items to pay any attention to the people coming from upstairs.

"Aw-hell, it still be hawt. I'mma-gonn' need-a wash fine mah clothes tamorrah… at least they ain't gonn' ha' no trubbel gettin' dry, haw?  Lawrdie. I need-a beah, too. Whaddaya say, Goldie?  Y'all need some jerky or som'tin?"

Yap!

"Yuh, I sorta reckoned y'all did. Okeh, girl, les'go ovah ta Moira's. Once we done made that there coah-ffee fer da Judge, it be time fer some pool an' jerky an' Dubbel-Zerahs. Yes, Ma'am!"

The steps weren't designed with dogs in mind so the Golden Retriever needed to take it slow or else she might slip and fall - a long sequence of grumbling yaps followed each probing step as a result.

They eventually made it onto even ground despite the tricky obstacle course. Turning into the store's courtyard, a sigh escaped Wynne as she spotted Beatrice Reilly waiting for her out by the gates to Second Street. "Aw, fer cryin' out loud… whaddahell's wrong with dat woman?"

Yap!  Yap-yap-yap-yap… yap?

"Yuh, ain't dat da truth, girl. Ain't nuttin' worse than someboddah holdin' a grudge. Hate it. But awright, she obvi'sly got som'tin mo' on her mind so I'mma-gonn' lissen. Yuh. And speak. Don't think fer a second I ain't gonn' be speakin'. Nosirree."

When Goldie heard the determination in her owner's voice, she let out another Yap! and slowed down at once so it would take longer to arrive at the inevitable confrontation.

The hot gusts of wind had eased off as the afternoon hours had progressed. Almost a constant threat earlier in the day, they had become an occasional affair that stirred up the piles of sand and dust that had been deposited at the foot of nearly every building. The downside to the reduced amount of activity in the air was that everything was being broiled by the sun's rays with no soothing breezes to be found anywhere.

"De-per-ty Quick Draw," Wynne drawled once she was close enough. "Y'all fergot ta tell me som'tin befo'?"

Beatrice stood with her legs planted on the ground and her arms crossed over her chest. Though her lips were clenched, her eyes provided plenty of venom and vitriol as they glared at Wynne with the intensity of a late-summer thunderstorm.

Wynne came to a halt a handful of feet from her opponent. The only sounds heard at first were the whimpers produced by Goldie - a moment later, the scaredy-dog lay down flat and buried her golden head in her paws.

The double stonewall-act went on for nearly thirty seconds. The silence turned deafening until Wynne had had enough: "Okeh, y'all go right ahead an' play an insulted li'l brat, De-per-ty. It be way-da-hell too hawt out he' fer me an' spe-shually mah dawg, so we be movin' on now. In othah words, if y'all got som'tin ta say ta me, y'all bettah say it now or else ya gonn' be tawkin' ta da sidewalk."

"You're not going to worm your way out of this one, Donohue," Beatrice said in a strangled, hoarse voice. "You heard the judge. I will issue a fine, and you will pay up. I don't care how close you and the sheriff are… if she won't accept it, I'll take it to someone else higher up the chain of command. But you will pay the fine."

Goldie's whimpers turned to outright doggy-wailing down on the ground; the tension grew so fast it nearly sucked the oxygen out of the air surrounding the two women.

"Yuh?  How many times do Ah gotta tell ya it ain't got jack-shit ta do with the dang-blasted fine, De-per-ty!  It wus da principle!  Ah wussen drivin' fast so there wussen evah no dainge-russ situa-shuns or nuttin'!  Judge Etherin'ton said much the same. He done sided with both offus on this he' deal, didden he?  An' jus' fer the record, Ah agree with whut he done tole me 'bout mebbe a kid not lookin' back-"

"Which is reckless driving!"

"Not accordin' ta da Judge it ain't!  Naw!  This he' bull-dung gotta stop, Quick Draw!  An' it gotta stop right now. Whaddahell's wrong with you, anyhows?  Whodahell stuck dat broomstick o' righteousness down da back o' ya shirt?  Now, Ah wantcha ta notice that Ah coudda said it in anothah, crudah way, but Ah didden."

"I beg your pardon?!  You have no right to-"

"Lemme tell ya som'tin, there, de-per-ty. Y'all gonn' wreck ya career if y'all insist on bein' so dag-nabbit pigheaded 'bout this an' that an' a-hundred othah things y'all been pursuin' fer da past-"

"You don't know a damn thing about me, Donohue!  You have no right to tell me how to conduct my affairs!"

"That's right, Ah don't know jack 'boutcha 'cos y'all put on dang-blasted plate armah whenevah Ah done tried ta offah y'all an olive branch or whaddahell them things iz called. Okeh… okeh, I'mma-gonn' try ag'in. All Ah be askin' is why'dahell y'all jump inta this he' ferroh-shuss frame o' mind whenevah y'all clap eyes on me!"

A stony silence returned as if someone had flicked a switch. Wynne and Beatrice glared at each other for a long while before the deputy moved her arms down from their defensive position across her chest; instead, she put them on her hips for a more open stance.

An old, white Ford truck with a noisy exhaust rumbled past on Second Street. A teenaged driver with long hair and a faceful of fuzzy downs cast a cautious glance at the confrontation on the sidewalk before he drove into the alley and the new section of Goldsboro.

Beatrice's face remained stony, but it lost enough of its hard edge to make her seem more like a human being rather than a talking uniform. She let out a sigh. "I need to be strong and assertive to be taken seriously. Aggression. That was the only language spoken by the tutors at the Academy. Getting results is all that matters. I'm not here to make friends among the locals or even my fellow law enforcement officers. I'm here to close cases and put the guilty parties behind bars. To get the job done-"

"Regardless o' them consequences fer yerself?"

"Yes."

"Haw. Okeh. Mandy done tole me she hadda go thru' the same dang-blasted crap back when she first got he'. Back when ol' Lionel Pershin' wus the Sheriff an' Artie Rains wus his seniah de-per-ty, but… I done reckoned them times had changed an' all."

"They have and they haven't. There's just as much misogyny out there today as in the bad old days. The people responsible for it have just learned to hide it better. But it's still there."

Wynne tugged at Goldie's leash to get the Golden Retriever on her paws. Once the dog stood up, they shuffled along the sidewalk to get back to Main Street and out of the suffocating heat.

"Yuh, that does suck, I agree. But lissen, Bea… mebbe that applies to that there Academy o' yers, but it sure don't apply he' in Goldsborah. Or I don't reckon it does, anyhows. Them de-per-ties he' be a friendly bunch now. Holy shittt, when I think back ta them sombitches who wus he' when I done bought mah trailah… Evan Chaff… Dan 'The Ferret' Murphy… that there Tony Reed fella. Tom Kincaid, that creepy sombitch. He wus the fella y'all replaced. Gee-Dubya Tenney wus the only decent fella on da rostah back then an' he be that there sheriff ovah in Brandfoh-rd Ridge now. Yuh?  An' then there wus nasty ol' Artie Rains, o' course. Y'all seen whut done happened ta him latah on."

Beatrice walked next to Wynne and Goldie; she glanced at the taller woman on occasion but mostly kept her eyes on their surroundings. "But Sheriff Jalinski defeated the brotherhood by being tougher than those guys. Tougher, cleverer, more ruthless."

"Why… yuh. I sapose… altho' I'mma-gonn' call it bein' more profes-shunnal an' not ruthless."

Silence fell among the trio for a short while. Reaching the corner of Second and Main, Beatrice pulled them to a halt and put her hands on her hips once more. "Miss Donohue, it may have improved here, but it's still the exception. About six months back, I came across an online support group for female deputy sheriffs. They were searching for volunteers from within the various branches of law enforcement, so I responded. Beyond the online activities, we hold a closed meeting every month up in Barton City. Even to this day, female deputies continue to face verbal abuse and unwanted sexual advances… not from the criminals, but from their uniformed male colleagues."

"Haw… no shit?"

"No. The female deputies have breasts and ovaries instead of testicles so they're clearly less capable of performing law enforcement duties… right?  Despite female homicide detectives, FBI agents, sheriffs, police chiefs and even commissioners, we're still not being taken seriously. We need to fight the brotherhood on their terms… and that means through strength, assertiveness and aggression. We can't defeat them unless we use their own weapons."

Wynne let out a grunt and scratched her neck. "Yuh. Okeh. That wus an insight I didden even know I needed ta have. But Bea, I still reckon y'all can loosen them reins a li'l on occa-shun. Yuh?  Not ev'ryboddah out dere is an enemy waitin' ta pounce. Some o' us civilian folks 'r ack-chew-ly kinda nice once y'all getta know us."

"The jovial approach works for you, Miss Donohue. It doesn't work for me."

"Okeh… so I can't tempt y'all with a Dubbel-Zerah an' some pool ovah at Moira's?"

"No. I need to change into my regular uniform and then I'll be at the watch desk for the rest of the evening."

"Okeh."

Down on the sidewalk, Goldie looked from one of her human companions to the other. When nothing seemed to happen, she prepared to lie down - but just as she had found a nice, comfortable position in the deepest shade Main Street had to offer, the conversation continued:

"Well, then, De-per-ty Quick Draw, I sure wish y'all a nice evenin' an' all. I need-a fix some coah-ffee fer da Judge an' then get someboddah ta mosey on back with it."

Beatrice merely let out a grunt that was meant as a goodbye; then she spun around on her heel and crossed Main Street to get to the sheriff's office.

Wynne kept track of the deputy sheriff who soon barged the sticking glass door open and went inside the office. It was much too hot to be standing in one spot for too long, so Wynne leaned down to release Goldie's leash so they could get a move on. Once the Golden Retriever had been liberated, they continued onto the bar and grill for a few frames of pool and a great deal of liquid nourishment.

Continued

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