*
*
CHAPTER 8

Across Main Street - inside the furnace commonly referred to as the sheriff's office - Mandy stood by the windows watching Wynne and Goldie enter Moira's renowned establishment. Blackie rested on the blanket just inside the door; the German Shepherd looked miserable in the heat despite having her muzzle buried in bowl of water that she emptied as fast as it could be filled.

The sheriff had her hands folded behind her back to signal that she was in no mood to talk to anyone about anything. The suffocating heat, the sore cheekbone, the blossoming shiner and the aching nose formed an unholy alliance that left her with the disposition of a starving grizzly who had just been tricked out of a mammoth salmon.

The gusts of wind that had literally sandblasted Goldsboro all day had died down save for infrequent reminders that no one needed. Some of the town's residents had come onto the street to shovel piles of sand into buckets or burlap sacks, but most couldn't deal with the heat and thus stayed indoors.

Even keeping the sticking glass door fully open didn't ease the stifling conditions inside the office - what it did do, however, was to transport a smattering of sand onto the cracked linoleum whenever one of the increasingly rare gusts of desert wind decided to swing by Goldsboro.

Barry Simms, who sat at the watch desk, began coughing when he accidentally inhaled a fragment of the waste tobacco he used in his home-rolled cigarettes - he bought the bales wholesale from the factories to save a few nickels and dimes on his expensive habit.

His face turning red, he had to grab hold of the edge of the desk while hacking, coughing, spitting and spluttering. The coughing fit turned grosser by the second before he finally got rid of the dastardly shred of tobacco by hacking up half a lung.

Moaning and groaning, he fell against the hard chair's backrest while his complexion slowly returned to its regular, unhealthy shade of nicotine-induced amber. Two seconds later, he grabbed the cigarette he had needed to put down and stuck it between his lips to resume smoking it before it was too late. The occasional cough and splutter continued for the next thirty seconds before he could finally settle down and get back to work.

Mandy shot him a dark glare but soon returned to looking out onto the street. "Are you out of nicotine chewing gum, Deputy Simms?"

"No… Sheriff…" Barry croaked as he put an index finger under the collar of his ash-covered shirt to get some air down his front, "but I… found out… that it… made me… that… that all that… chewing gave… me… too much… gas."

"I see. Good point," Mandy said without looking at her deputy. Behind her, the door to the bathroom opened and was then shut. A small sigh escaped her; she was in no mood to deal with Beatrice Reilly's typically dour nature.

Down on the blanket, Blackie added her own two cents' worth in the shape of a growl.

"Deputy Reilly reporting for duty, Sheriff Jalinski," Beatrice said and saluted her superior. As she lowered her arm once more, she adjusted her necktie to make sure it had been slotted in between the third and fourth buttons like the code dictated - she had changed back into her regular uniform that was far more suited for the grind of the foot patrols around Goldsboro than the fragile dress uniform.

"Good. Deputy Simms will update you on what's been going on while you were away," Mandy said without turning around.

Beatrice furrowed her brow at the odd dismissal. She cast a puzzled glance at Barry who touched his eye and then pointed at the sheriff to illustrate that her shiner was a painful affair.

Nodding in understanding, Beatrice moved over to the watch desk to read the incident sheet but found it covered in ash and cookie crumbs. A wet, reddish splatter on a section of the important paper was the remains of a Summer Dreamz Sporty Red energy drink that had squirted out of Barry's nose during an earlier coughing fit.

"So what can you tell me, Deputy Simms?" she said, realizing that she could spend the next ten minutes wading through the mess on the desk without getting any closer to reading the report sheet.

"We've had… four more… prank calls," Barry croaked; he swallowed several times to get the rawness out of his throat. When it didn't work, he lit a new cigarette with the dying embers of the old one in the hope it would cure his ailment. Soon, a further column of foul-smelling smoke rose toward the poor felt tiles in the ceiling. "But then… the…" - Cough, hack, splutter! - "calls stopped. It's been… close to… twenty… five minutes…" - Hack, splutter, cough! - "since the… last one."

"Mmmm. Interesting. Maybe the person responsible has been too busy eating dinner to bother us?" Beatrice said and moved away from the watch desk before she could get any of Barry's ash or spittle onto her pristine shirt.

Over by the windows, Mandy let out a grunt and finally turned around to look at her deputies. The shiner she had received in the fisticuffs had blossomed into a bluish-purple patch that ate up a great deal of the upper-left side of her face; already looking evil, it seemed it might even end up closing her left eye. "That's not a bad theory, Deputy Reilly. Call the Chicky Kingz parlor to ask if anyone has been by to pick up food in the past thirty minutes or so. Also, call Moira MacKay. She may have noticed something out of the ordinary."

"Yes, Ma'am," Beatrice said and strode over to her own desk to carry out the order.

-*-*-*-

At much the same time, Wynne's lips were pulled back in a grimace prompted by equal measures annoyance and disappointment. Though the Bar & Grill didn't have too many customers, the pool table - that she had hoped to claim as her entertainment for the next few hours - was occupied by a pair of rank amateurs who had zero idea whatsoever how to play the classic game.

One of the tall barstools by the shiny counter was her home as she nursed an H.E. Fenwyck Double Zero and a world-class pout. The amateurs' usage of the cues was never shy of pitiful, their style was non-existent and they didn't follow any rules known to any of the pool associations. Feeling the gall rising within her, she turned away from the horrible spectacle and concentrated on champing on some free pork rinds and chugging down her beer - it came from a brand new six-pack of Double-Zeros that would soon be transferred into a very different container altogether.

Goldie rested on the floor by the counter instead of inside the doggy-cave that had been set up for her and Blackie. Like her owner, she wore a world-class pout, and like her owner, it had everything to do with the amateurs who had simply shoo'ed her away when she had wanted to visit her regular haunt.

Wynne's first beer didn't last long, so she grabbed the next one for dessert. As she leaned her head back to get the golden liquid down her gullet, she happened to cast a glance at the industrial stoves and cooking panels that had all been turned off when A.J. 'Slow' Lane was due in court.

An incessant - and certainly loud - rumbling that rose from her stomach was a reminder of the fact it had been a fair while since she'd had a more substantial meal than non-alcoholic beer and free pork rinds. "Yuh-yuh… I hear ya… ain't no need fer y'all ta be shoutin'," she said as she patted her tummy. "Lawrdie, I reckon I'mma-gonn' hafta chow down one o' them there dubbel-burgahs ta feed da beast. O' course, I'mma-gonn' hafta make that there darn thing first… Goldie, gal, y'all need some jerky?"

Yap!

" 's whut I done reckoned y'all would say. Okeh, then… les'see if I can 'member how ta operate them stoves an' one o' them there French fry baskets."

Yap!  Yap-yap-yap-yap-yap?

"Haw, sure y'all gonn' get some watah, girl. Yuh. We all need-a drink som'tin in this dang-blasted heat. Yessir. Which reminds me…" After downing the second can of beer in a series of gulps, she reached for the third at once but - most unusually - abstained from opening it. "Aw… tell ya whut, li'l Goldie. I'mma-gonn' leave this one on da table fer now-"

Yap?!

"Yes, Ma'am!  'Cos I know fer a fact that beah an' burgahs go so well tagethah they be one o' them there matches made in heaven, yuh?  Lack rasslin' on Satahrdy evenin's an' stock-cah-r racin' on Sunday aftahnoons," Wynne said with a grin; it faded after a short while. "Lawrdie, I ain't sure whaddahell I wus tryin' ta say there… shoot. Aw, anyhows… it be suppah time," she continued as she got up from the bar stool and shuffled around the corner to find the nearest apron.

---

A short fifteen minutes later, Wynne shuffled down to one of the available tables and put down a tray holding an over-sized double-decker cheeseburger, a soup bowl filled to the brim with extra-salted crispy fries, two bottles of different seasoning sauces - a Ranchero and a Triple Chili - and several napkins. She had in fact grabbed a cutlery set as well, but that was pushed aside for the time being.

The final item on the tray was a saucer featuring a wrapped stick of beef jerky; the trail snack was soon torn free of its protective plastic. "Goldie, he' be a li'l jerky fer y'all… yuh, smells great, don't it?  He' ya go," she said as she put the saucer on the carpet in front of the eager dog.

A golden rule in the Jalinski-Donohue household was to never get between Wynne and beer or Goldie and food - the golden rule was confirmed in spades when Wynne chugged down the next Double-Zero in no time flat while Goldie chewed on the jerky at an even higher rate of knots.

"Ahhh!  Yuh, that sure hit da spot. Haw… an' now fer da burgah, yessirree!"

---

Commotion at the door twenty minutes later proved to be the married couple who had arrived in the huge RV the day before. The husband was so bleary-eyed he could hardly walk straight; his wife didn't look much better as she pushed a baby stroller occupied by a babbling toddler.

Wynne rolled one of the cool cans across her forehead as she took in the sight of the exhausted couple who sat down at one of the tables and picked up a menu. "Shoot, Goldie… lookie at them friendly folks there. They prolly reckon they can get some grub he' tanight. Whaddaya say… mebbe I oughtta don the apron once mo'?"

Yap!  Yap-yap-yap-yap-yap-yap… - Goldie's answer meant 'By all means, but before you do, I need another stick of jerky.'

"Haw," Wynne said and got up from the chair. "I bettah ask what them folks be lookin' fer befo' I waste mah energy."

Yap! - 'Sure… after you get my jerky.'

For once, Wynne didn't have a clear connection to her dog. Instead of going into the storage room to get another stick of beef jerky, she shuffled over to the table occupied by the tired people.

"Howdy there, nice folks!  I be hopin' that there room o' yers be fine an' all?  'Cos I gotta admit y'all be lookin' plum worn out an' all…?"

Sue-Ellen Lockworth put away the menu to offer Wynne a nod and a dead-tired smile. "Our baby is teething," she said in a strained voice.

"Aw!  Yuh, that… uh… sure ain't fuh-n, nosirree…"

"No. And we couldn't get room Eighteen after all. We got Twenty-four. But beyond that, the room is very nice, thank you," Sue-Ellen continued. "The colors are certainly, ah… popping."

"Yuh, that be room twentah-foah in a nutshell. Yuh. Them oh-ree-gee-nal rainbow colahs, 'member?  Yuh. Them mid-nineties sure wus the days… okeh, I done rooted ag'inst 'em fer da longest time, but at least them Hendrick folks wus drivin' Chevrolets. Lawrdie, had they been drivin' Foh-rds, why, I dunno howdahell I woudda reacted-"

"My husband is more of a Toyota fan. Isn't that so, Louis?"

Though Louis's hands continued to hold a menu, the only word that came from his gaping mouth was a prolonged ZZZZZzzzzzzz…

"Oh… he's fallen asleep…" Sue-Ellen said as she stared at the sleeping part of their trio.

"A Tah-yoah-tah fan?!" Wynne said and stood up straight. "Haw!  I didden think them folks existed outside o' Californi-O… ya learn som'tin new ev'ryday 'round he', I s'pose. Yuh. But nevah mind that now. Whut can I getcha?"

"Do you have a vegan menu?"

Wynne racked her brain trying to remember what that word meant - she was pretty sure it had something to do with vegetarians, only to an even stricter degree. "Naw… naw, we sure don't. You folks really 'r from Californi-O, aintcha?  Naw, we ain't got no vegan stuff unless y'all count them pre-fab salads an' whutnots y'all can find in them refri-gy-rah-tahs."

"Oh…"

"Y'all want som'tin ta drink while y'all figger out wotcha want?"

"We'd like a pitcher of carbonated mineral water with a lemon or lime flavor, please."

"Haw," Wynne said and scratched her neck. "Y'all need-a hunt through 'em refri-gy-rah-tahs ta see if we got any cans o' that 'cos… shoot, that ain't nuttin' we got none of on tap, neithah."

Across the table from his wife, Louis Lockworth came to with a yawn and plenty of smacking of lips. He soon eyed the tall woman standing by their table. "Oh… hello. You wouldn't happen to have a vegan menu, would you?"

Wynne scratched her neck again before she broke out in a shrug. "Naw. Sorry. Can't help ya."

The married couple looked at each other for a moment before they got up from the table, took the baby stroller and left the bar and grill with a curt "Goodbye, Miss," as their only comment.

Wynne stuffed her hands down the rear pockets of her black jeans. One of those neon-green question marks flashed on-and-off above her dark locks, but she soon forgot all about it and returned to her own table.

Before she could sit down - and before she could get an increasingly impatient Goldie a new stick of jerky - the door opened once more to reveal the Travers'.

"Howdy, mah friends!" Wynne cried as she made a quick U-turn and strode over to the door leaving a whimpering Goldie behind. "Nice ta see y'all… Holy smokes, Brendah… y'all sure be dressed up tanight, aintcha?  Y'all be sure ya didden put that there thing on backwards, haw?"

The spirited Brenda wore a dark-beige tunic-style dress that only reached the mid-point of her tanned thighs; held in place by a wide belt with a shiny buckle, the loose fabric at the V-front revealed quite a lot of her skin from her collarbones to somewhere just north of her belly button. Her hair had been transformed into a curly haystack bringing back memories of Farrah Fawcett in Charlie's Angels. Pumps, round ear rings and a fashionable, rhinestone-riddled cowboy hat completed the ensemble.

"You like it?" she said and performed a quick spin that made the soft fabric flutter up and out to reveal even more of her thighs.

"Uh… yuh. Yuh," Wynne said and looked everywhere but at the acres of tanned skin on display. "An' y'all sure be lookin' fine too, Vaughn. Like a real Cowpoah-ke… izzat a new shirt?"

The bearded, bespectacled Vaughn Travers wore black shoes, dark-blue jeans and a checkered flannel shirt. The collar was home to a bolo tie that didn't look all that authentic, especially not around the neck of an IT-developer from the big city. "Yes it is, actually," he said with a smile. "I'm trying to get a more rural vibe going. I've even bought a hunting vest… or at least one of those multi-pocket vests, you know?  It's out in the car. Tell me, does this style work?"

"Yuh… yuh, kinda. I can see it… mebbe y'all need-a be a li'l mo' rugged, know what I mean?  Burly?  Mebbe not trim yer beard fer a cuppel-a days. Yuh?  But okeh, it sure be a nice try an' all," Wynne said as she took a long gander at her neighbor who still looked like a librarian, a pre-school teacher or, indeed, an egghead IT-developer despite his best efforts of blending in with the rural crowd.

Brenda snickered and hooked an arm inside her husband's to pull him close. "We're going up to the movie theater to watch Be Still My Heart in a little while. It got great reviews… I'll bet you and Mandy would enjoy it as well."

"Yuh, mebbe… but the Sheriff an' them de-per-ties o' hers 'r still tryin' ta crack that there case 'bout them nasty prank calls an' all. It prolly ain't gonn' work, time-wise. But much obliged fer da recommenda-shun an' all. Okeh, whut can I getcha in da meantime?"

"Well," Brenda said and reached up to caress Vaughn's cheek, "a bottle of quality white and a pair of crispy chicken salads. Hold the onions. And the garlic. And the chili. Oh, you know." - Just in case Wynne didn't have enough information to connect the dots, Brenda let a saucy wink follow the order.

The grin that spread over Wynne's face proved she had in fact connected all the dots, and that the picture they drew was a nice one indeed. "Uh-huh… comin' right up, folks!"

-*-*-*-

A short half-hour later, the rank amateurs who had been hogging the pool table had finally had enough and left Moira's Bar & Grill. Before the front door had even shut behind them, Wynne hurried over to the table to put her stake on it so others wouldn't steal it from under her nose for a second time.

Choosing the best of the rental cues was a challenge as always. Her task was made even more difficult by the fact the amateurs had just stuffed the ones they had used back onto the rack in a haphazard manner. A line of juicy grumbles escaped her as she had to rearrange no less than seven cues to get everything back into the proper order.

When she had found one that wasn't warped or frayed, she returned to the pool table whistling a jaunty tune. The frame taming the balls was soon set up so the game could begin. Leaning across the edge, she held the cue ready - and then her telephone rang.

"Aw!  Aw, fer cryin' out loud," she mumbled as she swapped the cue for the telephone. The ID that identified the caller as Mandy at least put a smile on her face as she accepted the call. "Howdy, darlin'!  Whazzup?"

'Hi, hon. Do you have time to come over to the office and take part in an official operation?'

Turning around, Wynne leaned her rear-end against the edge of the pool table. "Well, I wus jus' gonn' shoot some pool an' Slow Lane ain't he' so I kinda be' mindin' them stoves as well, but… whut kinda oh-fis-shual opera-shun, Sheriff Mandy?"

'An undercover assignment-'

"Lawwwwwwwwwwr-die!  Y'all want me ta be Jane Bond, haw?"

'Yes, we're going to send all deputies on patrol around Goldsboro. We need to stop these damned prank calls once and for all. I know it's still hot out there, but I was thinking that you and Goldie could stroll around the new section of town pretending to be someone just out walking their dog.'

"Haw!  Me an' li'l ol Goldie sure can do that, yes, Ma'am!  An' dontcha worry none 'bout the heat or nuttin'. That be why them clevah folks invented beer!" Wynne said and broke out in a big nod though Mandy wasn't there to see it. "Uh… hold on, darlin'… I reckon I need-a know whut y'all want me ta do jus' in case I do uncovah that there bandit?"

'Well, if you see or hear anything suspicious, call us and we'll come over and take care of it.'

Wynne scratched her neck a couple of times while she weighed the options. Grunting, she crouched down to look into the doggy-cave underneath the pool table where Goldie had finally been given a new stick of jerky. "Darlin', I sure be up fer it, but Goldie ain't too glad fer them dainge-russ situa-shuns, ya know… mebbe I oughtta take Blackie instead so we ain't gonn' stress ou'ah li'l darlin'?"

'That's not going to work, hon. Blackie would attract too much attention from the residents. And I need her with me.'

"Aw. Yuh, Okeh. Well… yuh. Okeh," Wynne said and stood up straight once more. "Awright, I'mma-gonn' ask ol' Goldie, but mebbe she ain't sayin' yes. An' mebbe worse, I need-a ask Moira ta fill in at them stoves. This might be a bust. Jus' a heads-up, yuh?"

'All right. But you will be over with an update either way?'

"Aw, sure. Five minnits. Seven at da most, darlin'."

'Good. I'll talk to you then. Thank you… and love ya.'

"Haw, luv ya right back, Sheriff Mandy!" - Grinning, Wynne put the telephone away before she folded up her legs and sat down on the floor at the mouth of the doggy-cave.

The Yap? Goldie let out at the puzzling sight soon turned into a whimper; then she buried her face in her paws. She shook her golden head repeatedly until she was promised plenty of fur-rubbing, more jerky and even some of the extra-special, extra-expensive, top-quality dog food that she loved so much. The latter did the trick, and she let out a happy Yap! and shot out of the doggy- cave to receive the first round of fur-rubbing of what she hoped would be many.

---

Six minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, Wynne and Goldie exited the Bar & Grill and strolled across Main Street. Goldie ran ahead to hook up with Blackie sooner rather than later; Wynne took it a little easier so the portable cooler box she carried over her shoulder wouldn't get into one of those dreaded disharmonic imbalances that could cause the cans of inside to knock against each other and thus produce explosive beer and sodas.

Equipped with plenty of water for Goldie as well as a six-pack of H.E. Fenwyck Double-Zeros, two Pale Lagers, a 1910 Special Brew, a Dark Lager, a Super Summer Sweet Apple Twist, a Pineapple Perfection, a South Pacific Tropical Fruits Squash and two cans of the Go-Faster-Longer apricot-flavored energy drink for herself, she strolled along whistling a jaunty tune.

The sticking glass door had already been opened for her, so she stepped inside and whipped off her beloved cowboy hat. "Yeeeee-hawwww!  Howdy, y'all!  The Last Oh-ree-gee-nal Cowpoah-ke be he' ta save the day, dontchaknow!  Yessirree, we gonn' weed out them there crooks an' bandits an' landgrabbahs an' road agents an' low-down, no-good dirty-rotten skunks an' all!  Jus' point me t'ard the ac-shun an' me an' ol' Goldie he' gonn' be off fer some fast-shootin', fast-tawkin'- haw… whaddindahell all y'all starin' at?  I be perdy dang sure I done zipped mah pants… yuh, they is."

Barry - who sat at the watch desk - flashed a toothy, goofy grin, Mandy tried to remain neutral, Rodolfo laughed out loud and Beatrice didn't know how to react to Wynne's unbridled enthusiasm. Ultimately, the latter deputy let out a snort before she sat down at her desk to continue with her paperwork.

The door to the crew room at the back of the office opened to reveal the familiar figure of Don Woodward, the late-forty-something veteran deputy sheriff who often came to the Goldsboro office's rescue whenever they were short on manpower and long on assignments.

Don, who usually worked for Sheriff William 'Woody' Baker over in Jarrod City, wore a short-sleeved summer uniform in complementary shades of pale-brown and dark-tan unlike his Goldsboro colleagues who all wore their regular, long-sleeved black garb. "Oh… hello, Miss Donohue," he said with a smile once he spotted the tall dame in denim. "I thought I recognized your voice," he said before closing the door behind him.

"Yuh, ya sure did. Howdy, Don, ol' buddy," Wynne said as she placed a buttock on the corner of the sheriff's desk - she ignored Beatrice's predictable scowl. "Lawwwwwwwr-die, this sure ain't gonn' be no lite-beer opera-shun, huh?  Yuh, them there prankstahs bettah watch their bee-hinds or they gonn' get their chestnuts roasted ovah an open fiah tanight!"

Activity behind Wynne proved to be the retired dispatcher Bessie Robinson who carried a large reed basket over her shoulder. Unlike Wynne's portable beer depot, Bessie's basket contained needles for knitting and sewing, scissors, a powerful magnifying glass, miles upon miles of colorful yarn rolled up into neat balls, and a pair of soft cushions that were required to negate the effects of the hard chair at the watch desk.

"Good evening, everybody!" the seventy-something lady said in a cheery voice. She wore comfortable shoes, a flowery dress, non-slip wrist-protectors - to ease the knitting - and no less than two sets of spectacles: one pair sat low on her nose while the other had been pushed up into her gray hair.

"Howdy, Bessie!" Wynne said and held her cowboy hat high once more - the others were more subdued, but all said hello in their own style.

Bessie crinkled her nose in disgust when she caught a glimpse of the horrendous mess that Barry had made on the watch desk through his countless cigarettes and cookies. Working resolutely, she reached into the reed basket and found a battery-operated, hand-held vacuum cleaner that was soon in full swing sucking up all the ash, crumbs and anything else that wasn't bolted down.

A howl rose from the offended deputy sheriff when several items either disappeared up the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner or were blown onto the floor by the sidedraft. He hurriedly pulled away his Sally Swackhamer pulp paperback before it would lose any pages to the forceful stream of air.

"Yuh, that oughtta do it, Bessie… mebbe y'all need-a run that there thing ovah Barry's uniform as well, haw?" Wynne said and broke out in a snicker.

Barry tried his best to scowl at Wynne for even making such a suggestion, but his round, cuddly face just wasn't built for such a dramatic pose - even Blackie and Goldie doggy-snickered at his attempts to look mean, tough and in command.

Chuckling, Mandy went over to Don Woodward. "All right, Deputy. Now that Ms. Robinson is here, I want you to go next door and monitor the holding cells. We don't need further complications at this moment, so the political activists from out of town are to remain in Holding Cell One until further notice. And as for Mr. Rains, well, we can't release him until Judge Etherington has given us the all-clear. Expect plenty of angry shouting and histrionics from him. Just ignore all of it. Understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I'll be on the radio in case the prisoners really misbehave," Don said as he saluted the sheriff. After striding over to a corner of the sheriff's office, he took his uniform jacket, Mountie hat and a plastic bag containing a few personal items meant to kill time while sitting at the desk in the jail house next door.

Once Don Woodward had left, Mandy moved into the center of the sheriff's office and put her hands on her hips. Barry went into a small-scale bickering match with Bessie Robinson about the fact she had blown ash into his coffee, but a strong Ahem! by the sheriff made him pipe down and shuffle away from the watch desk.

"All right. Just to get everyone on the same page," Mandy said, looking at each of her deputies - and Wynne - in turn. "Deputy Reilly has learned from speaking to Mr. Lowe at the Chicky Kingz takeout parlor that a long-haired, teenaged male was in the store picking up several boxes of pre-ordered food. They had experienced a delay in processing the food when one of the rotisserie ovens had failed due to excessive heat. Therefore, the young man needed to stay longer than usual. Close to twenty-five minutes, in fact. There were no prank calls made during the same twenty-five minute period."

Wynne let out an excited "Oooooh!" at the news; down on the floor, Goldie shook her head all over again. Blackie took the opportunity to give her canine companion a little nudge that meant she didn't have to worry - if they met any bad people, Blackie would bite for both of them.

"And," Mandy continued, "further false alarms have been made since, offering a potential pointer that whoever the responsible party is… well, that he or she has finished eating and has gone back to pulling these pranks."

"Lawwwwwwr-die… yuh, sure can't be easy doin' crim-minal activities while eatin' one o' them Chicky Kingz' drumsticks 'cos they be plenty greasy, lemme tell ya," Wynne said and broke out in a knowing nod. A few seconds went by before she chuckled and said: "Haw, y'all know how greasy they be… we done ate plenty offem right he' an' out back in da crew room an' all. Haw!  Not ta men-shun them awesome mystery boxes them folks-"

"Indeed," Mandy said in a tone that asked Wynne to leave it there. "Mr. Lowe was unable to tell us the make or model of the vehicle driven by the long-haired teenager as the faulty oven demanded his undivided attention. All right. Deputy Reilly, I want you to patrol the entire west side of Main Street from the Bar and Grill up to Mr. Kulick's auto repair shop. Remain on that side of the street until we hail you. Keep your radio open."

"Yes, Ma'am!" Beatrice said and took her Mountie hat at once. She strode over to the watch desk and picked up one of the portable radios. The first she tried had a weak signal because of worn-down batteries, so she took the next one - Mobile Unit Four.

"Senior Deputy Gonzalez," Mandy continued, "your patrol beat will be the east side of Main Street from our location and north to the city limits sign. Similarly to Deputy Reilly, I want you to stick to one side of the street only, though feel free to move north or south at your own discretion."

Rodolfo offered Mandy a quick salute before he took the next radio - the one labeled Mobile Unit Two to mark his seniority over Beatrice. "Yes, Sheriff. I'll get on it straight away."

"In a moment, Senior Deputy. I want everyone to know our plan. It'll reduce the risk of any potential confusion later on," Mandy said - it made Rodolfo nod and lean against the watch desk.

Mandy turned to Barry and Wynne. "Deputy Simms, you're to patrol the alley adjacent to Mr. Lafferty's liquor store from the corner of Main, past the impound yard and all the way up to the other end. Once there, you need to take a closer look at the fields on the rear side of Mrs. Peabody's boarding house. Don't forget a flashlight. The shadows will already be deep there."

A shocked look fell over Barry's face as the scale of his patrol beat dawned on him. It was just a matter of time before he would break out in the most pitiful of whines; one so loud, nasal and insistent that he would make it sound like he had been ordered to complete a forced march through a hundred miles of the worst desert terrain wearing boots that were too tight and hauling an eighty-pound trekking kit on his back.

The expected whine came exactly four seconds later: "Oh, but that's a way big area, Sheriff… and it's still so hot out there!  I'll be much more effective here on Main Street…. can't I swap patrol areas with Bea?"

"No. Get on with it," Mandy said before she turned to Wynne. "Miss Donohue-"

"Yes Ma'am, Sheriff, Ma'am!  Ah sure be reddy ta do whutevah y'all want me ta!" Wynne cried before she jumped off the corner of the desk and smacked a hand against her temple in a fair approximation of a salute.

"Well, it's certainly nice to hear that someone is willing to work hard," Mandy said with a steely smile - hearing the jibe, Barry whined a little more and Beatrice let out a snort.

Mandy silenced Barry with a stern glare before she turned back to Wynne: "You and Special Deputy Goldie are to patrol the new section of town along the alley off Second Street. You're simply out walking your dog. Do what you do best, Miss Donohue. Chat with the locals. Listen. Observe. You'll need one of the portable radios in case you come across anything you feel should be investigated further."

"Haw!  Will do, Sheriff Mandy!  Yes, Ma'am!  I sure be takin' one o' them there ray-dee-ohhs."

Mandy smiled again before she assumed a neutral expression as she turned to her crew of deputies. "Unlike most such assignments, I want you to be visible. Stay within the cones of light from the street lamps. Turn up your radios so the squawking can be heard. Do everything you wouldn't normally do… remember, we carry out this operation to make the perpetrator nervous and thus make a mistake that we can exploit. If you see anything suspicious, regardless of how small and irrelevant it may seem at the time, hail me on the radio and we'll investigate it."

A chorus of "Yes, Sheriff," was uttered by Barry, Rodolfo and Beatrice - Wynne broke out in a grin while Blackie and Goldie woofed and yapped, respectively.

"Very well. Let's go to work. This deal ends tonight," Mandy said in a steely voice that made the deputies salute her before they left the office.

The hang-dog look on Barry's face proved he still wasn't pleased with his large patrol zone, but he soon grabbed a radio and shuffled off after Rodolfo and the far more eager Beatrice Reilly.

Wynne broke out in a cheesy grin as she moved over to the rack holding the portable radios. She had already picked up the one Beatrice had rejected when she remembered that something could be wrong with it. She tried pressing the transmit key a couple of times with little effect though the base unit stood right next to it on the desk. "Uh, Sheriff Mandy… I reckon som'tin's wrong with this he' ray-dee-ohh…" she said, holding up the radio. As she did so, she happened to spot the label on the side that said the unit was Mobile Unit 3. "Haw!  Haw, if it ain't da numbah three… aw-shoot… naw, I gotta have this one… I gotta… I jus' gotta… but it don't work too well or som'tin…"

"Maybe it just needs new batteries," Mandy said and walked around the watch desk to open a drawer - Bessie moved the hard chair aside to give her room.

A long, annoyed grunt escaped Mandy when she had to dig through a stack of crossword and sudoku puzzles, several Sally Swackhamer paperbacks, someone's long-forgotten comb, a box of paper tissues, a plate carrying a petrified glob of sour cream dressing, and last - but certainly not least - piles of ash and cookie crumbs that had fallen into the drawer as a result of Barry's inherent messiness and Bessie Robinson's eager vacuuming.

All those items were pushed aside one by one before she found a box of the type of batteries that fit into the radios. "Here, try these…" she said and handed the set to Wynne. She kept the box open in case the batteries were old and useless, but the noises that came from the base station when Wynne keyed the transmit button proved they worked.

"Wa-hey!  Mo-bih-le Unit Three, yessirree… hey, dat rhymes!  Lawrdie, this gonn' be a fine deal… sure ain't no lie. Bah-bah, Bessie… bah-bah, Sheriff Mandy… me an' li'l ol' Goldie be off now. Yeeee-haaaw!"

The first hurdle proved to be the sticking glass door, but it was manhandled open without too much drama save for an unhealthy squeak-and-rattle that came from the doorframe when Wynne really put her back into getting it open.

-*-*-*-

Pssshhht!

The first can of Double-Zero was cracked open when Wynne and Goldie strolled onto the alley off Second Street - a long swig and an "Ahhhhhh…" soon followed. "Haw, girl… 'membah da time when nasty ol' Artie Rains done gave me an mah dear friend Ernie one helluva raw deal… not ta men-shun a fine… fer drinkin' this he' non-alcoholic brew out in da open?"

Yap?

"Naw, y'all prolly wudden. Anyhows, we done took it to da top an' got confirma-shun from Mary-Lou an' the rest o' them nice folks at the Goldsborah Town Council that a beah with no alcah-hawl wussen no beah but some kinda soft drink. Yuh. An' that it didden fall undah dat dere city-law o' theirs that done banned consump-shun of alcah-hawlick bevve-ritches in da open 'cos it didden an' don't an' ain't nevah gonn' have no alcah-hawl innit!  Haw!  Yuh?"

A highly puzzled Yap? burst out of Goldie as her owner's words made very little sense to her.

"Yuh. 's whut I done said, Goldie. Sure wus."

Strolling along her owner's denim-clad legs, Goldie peeked up at the tall Human to see if the heat had caused her to finally go off the deep end. When everything seemed normal, she shook her golden head and concentrated on looking straight ahead.

Another fifty feet along the alley, she tugged at her owner's pantleg to indicate she needed some water of the pure rather than beery kind.

Wynne came to a stop at once and unzipped the cooler box. A drinking bowl and a large bottle of fresh water were soon dug out; the latter was poured into the former. "There be plenty where that done came from, girl. Y'all nevah hafta worry 'bout nuttin' when it comes ta drinkin' in this he' family, nosirree!"

While Goldie lapped up the cool water, Wynne glanced around to see if any of the locals had noticed them yet - when everything seemed quiet, she reached into the cooler for a drink of her own.

"Ack-chew-ly, it ain't as hawt no mo' as it wus earliah," she said as she took a swig of a can of Go-Faster-Longer apricot-flavored energy drink. She looked up at the darkening sky. "Yuh. Mebbe I oughtta mosey on back ta da Silveradah fer mah windbreakah… woudden wanna catch a cold or nuttin'."

Yap?

"Yuh."

Yap…

"Haw, I bet the ground is still hawt fer ya paws an' all. But mah arms be feelin' the chill, bah-lieve it or not. Tell ya whut, I reckon we oughtta swing bah mah truck. It ain't gonn' be but five minnits befo' we be back he' on patrol. Yuh?"

Yap!

---

Eight minutes did in fact go by before Wynne and Goldie were back at the spot where they had left off earlier. The cause for the extra minutes had come in the shape of a brief conversation with Grant Lafferty on the status of Wynne's latest large-scale beer order - so far, the order was being processed according to plan, but snags could always occur when they were least expected. Wynne had replied with a "Yuh, y'all bettah bah-lieve I know that too dang well…"

---

Once Wynne and Goldie were back on the alley off Second Street, she zipped her windbreaker all the way up - she always kept a spare jacket in her truck in case of sudden chills or beery accidents involving her denim outfit.

The ambient temperature had already dropped a great deal from the noon high, and the approaching darkness would only see it get chillier as the desert breeze would soon rule the streets once more.

As to be expected, Wynne Donohue would never settle for a neutral windbreaker when she could have one in the same color as a NASCAR sponsor, so it was bright-red with white and black highlights, a stylized '8' on the left front, and the likenesses of Dale Earnhardt jr. and his 2004 Daytona 500-winning Budweiser Chevrolet Monte Carlo draped all over the back.

The portable radio - that Wynne had stuffed into her rear pocket - continued to squawk with plenty of chatter between the various deputies who reported back from their patrol areas:

Rodolfo Gonzalez had found nothing up near the movie theater save for a group of grungy teens who had arrived far too early for the eleven-thirty showing of Slash & Burns II.

Beatrice Reilly thought she had encountered a burglar, but that had turned out to be a local resident smoking on their porch because the person's wife didn't allow the smell of tobacco inside their house.

Predictably, Barry Simms tried to worm his way out of patrolling by claiming a foot injury by way of a sharp piece of gravel that had found its way through the inch-thick sole of his left boot, but the ploy hadn't worked.

A few minutes went by without any updates from anyone, but then Bessie Robinson informed the sheriff that she had received a call that she suspected was another prank. Mandy agreed but told the dispatcher to make a note of it on the incident sheet.

Up ahead of Wynne and Goldie, the pavers from the Stuart Duncan Bricklaying & Paving Company continued to toil away even on a Sunday evening. In addition to the noisy cement mixer, they had rigged up a strong work light on a tall pole that illuminated the section of the driveway they had yet to fill out.

An additional, dark-blue GMC van from their company was parked at the curb. A burly fellow leaned against it smoking a cigarette; it was obvious he kept a close eye on the two younger pavers as they worked.

"Haw!  Mebbe I oughtta add mah two cents' worth ta that there ray-dee-ohh chattah… whaddasay, Goldie?" Wynne said and came to a halt. "Well, it don't mattah 'cos I'mma-gonn' press this he' li'l key an' repahrt ta da sheriff, yes Ma'am!"

Holding the radio up to her mouth, she depressed the transmit key and let rip: "Breakah one-nine, breakah one-nine… this he' be the one an' only Wynne Donnah-hew on this he' Mo-bih-le Unit Three, yessirree. Why, me an' li'l ol' Goldie ain't be seein' nuttin' suss-pi-shuss ovah here yet. Them pavahs or bricklayahs or whutevah they be 'r still he' an' they got mebbe some kind o' supah-visah or someboddah' watchin' 'em. Wudden want that job, that be a dog-gone fact. Anyhows, there ain't nuttin' ta repahrt ovah he'. Mo-bih-le Unit Three ovah an' out an' ev'rythin'."

Two seconds went by before Beatrice Reilly's voice could be heard loud and clear over the airwaves: 'Mobile Unit Four to Mobile Unit Three. Unit Three, if you can't follow proper radio procedure, stay off the air until hailed!  Out!'

"Whut?!  Why, the… that… aw, she… didden… Holy shittt, an' there I thunk she wus comin' 'round or som'tin!  An' now she done threw a bucket o' bull-dung at me!  Why, I oughtta kick her bee-hind from he' ta Shallow Pond, Texas… but I ain't. Naw. I ain't. The hell I ain't!  I bettah have a beer first, tho'. Quick Draw is strong."

A can of Double-Zero was soon retrieved from the cooler box she wore over her shoulder. After glancing at it for a moment, she put it back and took one of the Dark Lagers instead. She glanced at that for a moment as well before she reverted to her initial plan and took the Double-Zero after all.

Down on the ground, Goldie shook her head at the bizarre nature of it all. A series of concerned yaps and even a muted woof or two escaped her as they carried on strolling along the sidewalk.

---

When they reached the address where the workers toiled at re-paving the driveway, Goldie ran out onto the street so she wouldn't get her paws stuck in anything nasty.

Wynne soon emptied the Double-Zero to quell the gnawing annoyance in her gut that Beatrice 'Quick Draw' Reilly had caused with her caustic radio message. "Howdy, fellas. Workin' late, eh?" she said once she was close enough.

The burly man - the logos and name tag on his blue coverall did in fact confirm that he was a supervisor from the Stuart Duncan Bricklaying & Paving Co. - stepped forward and turned on a flashlight that he used to shine down onto the ground. "Watch your step, Ma'am. The concrete is still wet."

"Haw, much obliged, Mista. Yuh, bein' a statue sure ain't no career I be lookin' fer. Wussen y'all saposed ta be done bah yestah'dy or som'tin?  I reckon I done heard som'tin along them lines…"

"We were," the supervisor said as he cast the cone of light onto another stretch of the driveway that had been drilled into jagged pieces for the second time. "But the quality of the work didn't meet our company's stringent standards. It had to be redone."

"Owch… yuh… well, best o' luck gettin' it right the second time o' askin'. See ya, fellas," Wynne said before she moved out onto the street to rejoin Goldie.

---

A few minutes later, Bessie Robinson's voice could be heard from the radio in Wynne's rear pocket. 'Base to Mobile Unit One. Base to Mobile Unit One. Sheriff, there's been an emergency call. I'm afraid I couldn't get the smart telephone to work so the call wasn't recorded… but it sounded real this time.'

'Base, this is Mobile Unit One,' Mandy's disembodied voice replied. 'Don't worry about the recording. I need the details of the call, over.'

"Lawwwwwr-die, now whaddindahell's been goin' on?" Wynne said and hurriedly grabbed the portable radio from her pocket to turn up the volume.

'A woman reported seeing a man lurking around in the darkness outside her home. He appeared to be carrying a weapon of some kind. Over.'

Wynne let out a dark grunt. "Haw, girl, mebbe there really been an emergency this time?  Sure don't hope so, but ya nevah know with them things. Sombitches 'r everywheah, ya know?"

Yap!

"We done seen enuff off'em ta know, yuh?  Why, with all them crittahs an' ghouls-"

'Did the caller state her name and address, over?' Mandy said over the radio.

'Yes. It was Mrs. Brenda Travers-'

Wynne jerked upright and let out a resounding "Whuddahell?!  That ain't right!  No way that be right!  Brendah an' Vaughn be up at that there mooh-vie theatah… or mebbe they done drove hoah-me early 'cos they wanted ta… ya know. Be gettin' on with'it."

Yap!  Yap-yap-yap-yap…

"Whazzat?  Call 'er?  Haw, that sure be good thinkin', dawggie!  Yessirree, Ah'ma-gonn' call Brendah onna dubbel an' find out whut's whut in this he' crappy mess," Wynne said and hurriedly swapped the portable radio for her own telephone - Brenda's number was soon found in the registry.

Two rings later, the connection was established. A whispered 'Hi, Wynne!' came through the small speaker.

"Brendah, y'awright?!  Them folks ovah at the sheriff's office jus' done got a call from y'all!  Y'all repahrted some nasty-ass fella lurkin' with a gun or som'tin… prolly out at da trailah park tho' they didden ack-chew-ly say!"

'What the hell?  Vaughn and I are still here in town watching the movie!  Oh God, this is creepy…'

"It be one o' them there dang-blasted prank calls is whut it is!"

'Do you think someone found out I helped the sheriff analyze the recordings?'

"Ah ain't got a clue whaddahell's goin' on he' no mo'!  Okeh… okeh, Brendah, dontcha worry none. Sheriff Mandy an' them de-per-ties got yer back, yuh?  An' so do me an' Blackie an' Goldie. Jus' squeeze ol' Vaughn a li'l hardah an' tell 'im ta be a man an' take care o' ya fer a change. Yuh?  Once ya done watchin' the mooh-vie, purhaps y'all could come down ta da sheriff's office fer some coah-ffee an' a tawk or som'tin…"

'I… I think we'll do that right now… I don't feel like watching a romantic movie now…'

"Yuh, I sure heah wotcha sayin' an' all, Brendah. Okeh, I gotta go. I gotta inform Sheriff Mandy befo' she done calls in them stormtroopahs. Okeh?  Bah-bah, Brendah."

Down on the ground, Goldie had spent the past forty-five seconds curled up into a ball of golden fur. She had her doggy-face buried in her front paws and pretended to be anywhere else than at the center of yet another horrific happening.

"Lawrdie, that sombitch creep done went too far this time," Wynne mumbled as she swapped her telephone for the radio once more. "Mo-bih-le Unit Three ta Mo-bih-le Unit One. Mo-bih-le Unit Three ta Mo-bih-le Unit One. Sheriff, this he' be Wynne Donnah-hew with a dang-blasted urgent update!  Come back!"

'This is the Sheriff. Go ahead, Wynne. Over.'

"I jus' got offa the phoah-ne with Brendah. She an' Vaughn be jus' fine. They be he' in Goldsborah watchin' a mooh-vie so they wussen at hoah-me or anywheah else. They be swingin' bah the sheriff's office in a very short while fer some comp'ny an' protec-shun. Uh… over."

'Mobile Unit One to Mobile Unit Three,' Mandy said in a voice that sounded as if she was running; in the background, Blackie let out several barks to show her annoyance with the pranks. 'Thank you. I already have an eyeball on Mr. and Mrs. Travers. I'll escort them back to the office. Stand by for further transmissions. Mobile Unit One out.'

Behind Wynne's clenched lips, her jaw moved in a pattern that proved she had a very long line of juicy curses lined up and ready for blast-off the second she allowed them to. Though she tried to keep it back, the anger inside her begged, pleaded, demanded and downright screamed to be released - it came a moment later.

"Dat sombitch ain't nuttin' but a low-down dirty rotten sonova-skunk!" she bellowed at the top of her lungs. "Miserable piece o' dang-blasted cowflop preyin' on decent folks like Brendah!  Why, Ah'ma-gonn' open up a can of prihhhh-me whoop-ass on dat dere scum-suckin' sonova… Lawwwwwwr-die, he bettah start runnin' like da wind or mah boot's gonn' catch up with'im!  Hell, Ah'ma-gonn' barbecue his ass in molasses once Ah get mah paws on 'im!  Ain't dat so, Goldie?!"

A drawn-out whimper was the only answer to come out of the Golden Retriever.

"It sure as stink-on-shoot is… yuh. Dang-blasted all them foo's an' bandits we got 'round he'… buncha yella-bellied cowards is whut they is!  Hidin' behind them there computah monitahs an' makin' ev'ryboddah else scared or jus' feelin' vulnerable… but Ah be tellin' y'all one thing right he' an' now, Goldie… this he' bull-dung stops tanight. Even if I gotta go from how-se ta how-se from now 'til the crack o' dog-gone dawn, I ain't stoppin' befo' we got dat dere sombitch behind bars. Nosirree!"

Wynne's torrent of vitriol was suddenly the only sound heard in the new section of Goldsboro; the pavers having turned off their cement mixer after their work had been given a seal of approval from their supervisor.

The silence made Wynne pipe down as well. Breathing heavily to recover from her outburst, she slammed her hands onto her hips and glared at the workers, the two vans, the houses where nobody was home and those where the lights had been turned on as a result of all the roaring.

A grunt escaped her as she returned to what she and Goldie were there for: patrolling the new part of town. Moving on along the sidewalk, her temper soon fell from the stratospheric levels it had been at. Goldie seemed happier as well and let out a few merry yaps as she ran ahead.

Wynne walked a little slower so she could reach into the cooler box for a new beer. After opening a Double-Zero with a Pssshhht! she came to a halt to take a long swig so she wouldn't risk getting the golden liquid onto her Sunday finest.

She and Goldie had made it down to the cul-de-sac at the bottom of the alley. A gray Dodge sedan and two trucks were parked in front of the houses down at that end. The first truck was a rusty, old GMC that had been given a yellow door and a pale-blue hood as replacements for the original parts. The second was a white Ford from the mid-1990s that had a vast collection of dings, scrapes and dents down the left flank.

Somewhere up in Wynne's gray matter, a couple of neurons began to ask their neighbors if they didn't feel there was something they needed to remember about the white Ford. After several more neurons had joined the discussion, they agreed to send a request further up the line to create a spark of a thought regarding the truck.

Wynne cocked her head as she took a gander at the white Ford. A slow sip of beer followed as she took in the details while trying to remember when and where she had seen it before.

Nothing came to her so she and Goldie walked on. Thirty feet further along the sidewalk, she turned around to look at the Ford from another angle. "Haw… there be som'tin 'bout that there Foh-rd… but whut?  Shoot… som'tin 'bout… som'tin. Som'tin or othah… but…"

Yap?

"Naw, Goldie, I sure can't 'mem- naw, not the Foh-rd… the drivah. Yuh, the drivah. Whut 'bout the drivah?  Wussen someboddah I knew or I woudda said Howdy. But I didden so it wussen."

Yap… yap-yap?

"Lawrdie, I ain't even sure when it- yuh, it wus when me an' Quick Draw had ou'ah tawk ovah bah the hardware store!  Yuh… yuh, someboddah with long hair done drove it. A fella or a gal?  Ain't sure. Haw, a fella 'cos he done had fuzz on his face… sure had. But whaddahell that gotta do with anythin'?  Long hair… I done heard that elsewheah tanight… long hair?"

By now, Goldie had curled herself up into a ball again - she was certain the entire Human world had just gone mad.

Wynne rubbed her chin, mouth, nose and brow to try to make some sort of connection further upstairs in her brain box. "Long hair?  Aw-hell, it ain't no use. C'mon, Goldie, mebbe we oughtta go back ta Sheriff Mandy an' them there de-per-ties. We sure ain't makin' much progress ovah he', that's a dog-gone fact. Shoot."

Goldie let out a cautious Yap to probe the waters; it seemed her owner was back to normal, so she got to her paws and began to walk alongside the black denim.

The neural pathways in Wynne's gray matter continued to see a stream of information flowing from one memory bank to the next. Potential shortcuts were explored and rejected; ideas were formed and then discarded.

A separate section of her brain tried to employ lateral, associative thinking to form images that could lead the clueless memory banks in the right direction. After a while, one of the images created a spark. In turn, that spark lit a fuse that - although it took its sweet time getting around all the twists and turns - gained a strong head of steam as it went on its way.

As always, the answer came to Wynne a split second after she had decided to forget all about it and get another energy drink. "Chicky Kingz!" she suddenly roared; the Go-Faster-Longer was thrust high in the air.

Downstairs, Goldie let out a wild yelp and took off at maximum doggy-speed to get away from the sneak attack. The Golden Retriever didn't stop running until she found a large bush to hide behind; a long sequence of yelps and whimpers followed her there.

"Oh-hell-yuh, ol' Barry or someboddah done tole me there wussen none o' them there pranks when mah ol' boss Trent Lowe ovah at them Chicky Kingz wus servin' a fella with long hair… an' then that same fella done drove past me an' Quick Draw ovah bah Wyatt's place in da ol' Foh-rd!  An' then them there prank calls started comin' in thick an' fast all ovah ag'in!  Hell-yuh!  Lawwwwr-die, ain't no way that be a co-inky-dink… nosirree!"

The apricot-flavored energy drink was soon cracked open and swigged in no time flat. Wynne held it away from her fine clothes as she opened it; it turned out to be the right decision as it exploded due to the violent thrusting it had been exposed to.

Once the can was empty, she reached for her telephone at once. She had already entered the registry when she reconsidered and took the portable radio instead. A wide grin splashed all over her face as she keyed the mic: "Breakah one-nine, breakah one-nine, this he' be da one an' only Wynne Donnah-hew ag'in. Mo-bih-le Unit Three, yessirree!  Tell ya whut, mah fella de-per-ties, I reckon I done cracked this he' case!  Y'all can thank me latah 'cos mebbe this ain't ovah yet. Naw. But anyhows, I reckon I done found the how-se where that there fella lives who done bought them fried chickens ovah at Trent's… yuh?  'Membah?  Come back if y'all got yer eahs on. Ovah but sure ain't out!"

Several seconds went by before one of the other deputies keyed the mic. In the background, Beatrice's voice could be heard saying '-is exactly why we shouldn't allow civilians to join our operations!  It can be a matter of life and death if someone doesn't follow the proper radio proced-'

"Aw, Quick Draw… tawk 'bout havin' a one-track mind," Wynne said and rolled her eyes.

Another couple of seconds of silence went by before Rodolfo's voice hailed Wynne: 'Mobile Unit Two to Mobile Unit Three. Mobile Unit Two to Mobile Unit Three. Wynne, the sheriff can't talk right now. She's busy comforting Mrs. Travers. Please repeat what you said about the case. Over.'

"Haw!"  Wynne shook her head as she keyed the mic once. "Howdy, Rodolfoh. Well, I reckon I done cracked the case. Mebbe. It be a fact that I done found the how-se where da long-haired teen who done bought them chickens lives. An' wussen that da period when dere wussen no calls?"

'Stand by, Three.'

"Haw?  I be standin', awright. Whut, ya reckon I be lyin' down on da job or som'tin?  Whaddahell that mean in reg'lar lang-vitch, Rodolfoh?  Uh, ovah."

A fumble could be heard through the airwaves before Beatrice Reilly took over where the senior deputy had left off: 'It means you need to get off the air and await further instructions, dammit!  Out!'

Wynne's eyes narrowed down into icy-blue slits. Instead of burning off another powder keg of profanity, she settled for an overly cheery "That's a big, ol' ten-foah, good buddy!  This he' be da one an' only Wynne Donnah-hew signin' off fer now, but rest assured I be he' waitin' fer whenevah y'all feel lack tawkin'!" before she stuffed the portable radio into her pocket and slammed her arms over her chest in an impressive fit of pique.

---

Five minutes went by before Wynne's telephone rang down in her front pocket. Although she was still grumbling inwardly, her mood improved by leaps and bounds when the caller-ID said Mandy.  "Howdy, darlin'!  First of all, how's Brendah?"

'She was really upset when I caught up with them, but coffee and a small brandy helped. I think some of the horrors from what happened down at Silver Creek came back to her.'

Smacking a hand over her eyes, Wynne shook her head and mouthed several curses at herself. "Dang-blasted!  Awww-shoot, that wussen mah inten-shun… I jus' needed ta know if she wus awright!  I wus gonn' race hoah-me at the speed o' sound if there really wus someboddah down at the trailah park!"

'I know… so does Brenda. She isn't blaming you, but the person behind the prank calls. She and Vaughn are in the crew room.'

"Yuh… Lawrdie, when I get mah hands on that dirty, rotten sombitch causin' so much pain ta decent folks lack Brendah… plentah o' things gonn' happen, that sure ain't no lie, Sheriff Mandy!  An' speakin' o' which, wouldya mind if I done kicked ol' Quick Draw's bee-hind up one wall an' down the othah?  Jus' once?  Or mebbe twice?"

'I'm afraid it'll have to wait. I couldn't make heads or tails of your first call or Deputy Gonzalez' abridged version… what's going on, Wynne?'

Wynne turned around to look at the white Ford truck that was parked in front of a house that was mostly dark and quiet - a light that shone onto the bushes on the far side of the house could potentially come from a basement apartment, and there was also a distant rhythm of a hip-hop snare drum. "I reckon I done found the teen who bought them chickens from the Chicky Kingz. I saw 'im earliah an' he had long hair an' some fuzzy downs in his mug. He be drivin' a white Foh-rd… an oldah model. Didden y'all say them calls stopped comin' at the exact same time that such a fella wus ovah at Trent's?"

'Yes, that's correct.'

"An' them calls deffa-nete-ly came back aftah that there fella got hoah-me an' all. He clapped eyes on me an' Quick Draw ovah at Wyatt's when he done drove past. In hindsight, I be thinkin' he looked kinda guilty an' all."

'What's the address, hon?'

"Uh… numbah nineteen ovah he' on-"

'That's the house that raised my suspicions yesterday evening!  Can you hear any kind of music?'

"I ain't close enuff… hold 'em hosses fer a minnit while I mosey mah nosey a li'l closah, pardnah…" Wynne said and took off at a brisk pace. She glanced around for Goldie, but her brief search yielded nothing. "Yuh, okeh, I be closah ta da how-se now… well… there be a windah open out da back or som'tin… but… yuh, mebbe a… haw, I deffa-nete-ly hear that there hip-hop. Yuh. Someboddah's bangin' a snare drum."

'The O'Sullivans' mentioned aggressive hip-hop. It could be the same music we heard in the background on one of the recordings.'

"Haw!"

'Hon, don't do anything before we get there. At present, we only have a suspicion of wrongdoing but we need probable cause to even enter the house. Do you understand me?'

"Yuh, I sure do, Sheriff Mandy… but lissen, I don't need-a do nuttin' but ring that there doahr-bell an' ask fer a cup a sugah or som'tin-"

'No!  Please don't. We'll be right over.'

"Yuh, okeh. No worries, darlin'. I ain't stoo-pid. I done seen them ac-shun mooh-vies where them lone wolf folks be packin' an automatic or som'tin… yuh. I be stayin' right he' 'til ya come. I need-a find Goldie, anyhows. She done ran away befo'. Tawk ta ya a li'l latah, Sheriff Mandy."

Grunting, Wynne closed the connection and put the telephone into her pocket. "Whaddahell-a praw-babbel cause mean, anyhows?  Dang'it, I wish Mandy an' them folks 'round he' would use them normal words instead o' all that there fancy tawkin'," she mumbled, scratching her neck.

When she couldn't connect the odd phrase to anything that would seem logical, she shrugged and moved onto the next item on her agenda: "Naw, I bettah find Goldie befo' she getz in mo' trubbel. Girl?  Girl?  Goldie?  Y'all he' somewhe'?  Goldie?  Aw, that silly li'l scaredy-dawg… Goooooah-ldie?  Whe'dahell y'all at?"

*
*
CHAPTER 9

Just shy of four minutes later, a dark and quiet Durango turned into the alley off Second Street. It soon made its way down to the cul-de-sac at the far end without drawing attention to itself and thus arousing anyone's suspicion. Three of the four doors opened before the vehicle had even come to a full stop at the curb; the driver's side door remained closer for a few seconds longer, but it was soon opened and then clicked shut.

"All right, listen up," Mandy said in a hushed voice as she went around to the back and released the rear hatch with as little noise as possible, "Deputy Simms, stand guard out here. Senior Deputy, secure the premises on the right-hand side of the house. Deputy Reilly, you and I will try the front door first. If there's no answer, we'll go left through the garden. Any questions?"

As Mandy spoke, she slid aside the door keeping Blackie in the Durango's transport bay - once liberated, the fierce German Shepherd jumped out and onto the ground.

Blackie spun around a couple of times to take in her surroundings. Once that had been accomplished, she went into her favorite offensive stance that was sure to intimidate anyone from a foot-tall green goblin to the fifty-foot gorilla-like creature that called the deep caves along Maynard Canyon its home.

Barry promptly shot a hand skyward. "I have an important question, Sheriff. I have so much to live for…. would you mind if I went back to the office and-"

"Deputy-"

"-grabbed the Kevlar, Sheriff?  I don't feel safe without it…"

Mandy put her hands on her hips while Beatrice snorted and Rodolfo let out a muted cough that sounded just like the word "Chickenshit!"

"Deputy Simms," Mandy said in a voice that made it very, very clear she wouldn't accept further nonsense from Barry, "we're not dealing with John Dillinger here. No, you can't go back to the office. Stay at the vehicle."

"But-"

Spinning around, Mandy went back to the Durango to close the rear hatch with a soft click. "Senior Deputy Gonzalez, move out."

"Yes, Ma'am," Rodolfo said and ran past the ugly fountain up to the house at number nineteen on the unnamed street. Once he reached the corner, he turned to the right and vaulted over a low hedge to get into the garden.

Barry continued to whine under his breath, but Mandy had no time for that. Unbuttoning the flap holding her sidearm in place, she sent Beatrice Reilly a sharp look and an even sharper "Are you ready?"

"Yes, Sheriff," Beatrice said; as expected, she had already drawn her pistol and held it in the regulatory two-hand grip.

"Let's go up the hill, Deputy," Mandy said and strode along the garden path to get to the front door. Blackie let out an excited Woof! and followed her owner.

---

Wynne had watched all that unfold from her spot over by a maze of leafy shrubbery and prickly bushes. She had managed to locate Goldie - the golden dog had backed herself into the deepest, darkest recesses of the local flora to be as far away from any scary stuff as possible - but none of the many attempts at getting the dog back out had worked.

"Awwwwww-Goldie!  C'mon, girl… we gonn' miss the ac-shun!  Lookie ovah yondah!  Sheriff Mandy an' them de-per-ties done showed up… an' Blackie!  We oughtta be dere, not he'!"

Yap?

"Naw, I ain't got no jerky!  I done tole ya that alreddy, didden I?"

Yap…

"Awww, it ain't gonn' be scary… jus' a li'l ac-shun. Goldie!  C'mon, fer Pete's sake!  Naw, I'mma-gonn' leave y'all he' then. I be goin'. Yuh, I really be goin'. Right now… I be goin'… goin'… gone."

A whimpering Yap? followed, but there was still no sight of the golden dog moving even an inch ahead.

Wynne sighed and looked toward the heavens for guidance. All she saw were a few twinkling stars, the blinking lights of a commercial jet traveling east and the final reddish-purple haze on the western horizon that signaled the end of the day. "Fine. Jus' fine!  Y'all can stay he', but I sure as stink-on-shoot ain't gonn' miss the ac-shun, nosirree!"

Getting up, Wynne stomped along the sidewalk to get back to the major scene - although there were no flashing emergency lights involved, it resembled something from one of the cop shows she occasionally watched on TV whenever the NASCAR coverage suffered yet another frustrating rain delay.

---

Mandy and Beatrice reached the front door. Before either could touch the doorbell, their radios crackled to life with a: 'Mobile Unit Two to Mobile Unit One. Listen to this, Sheriff, over!'

Hard, aggressive hip-hop was soon carried over the airwaves from the radio. The radio's tinny quality when it came to transmitting music made it sound even edgier than usual, but there was no doubt it was the same kind of music they had discovered buried in the background noise of the recordings.

Letting out a grunt, Mandy pressed the transmit key. "That's a match. Can you see anything from your position, over?"

'There are no lights on in the house itself,' Rodolfo said from his vantage point somewhere in the back garden, 'but everything's lit up down in the cellar apartment. I can't see any movement, though. Over.'

"Very well, Unit Two. Mobile Unit One out."  Once the radio was back on her belt, she reached for the doorbell.

While Blackie bared her fearsome canines in a pre-emptive snarl, Beatrice took a step back and held up her firearm to be prepared for anything. It was all for naught as nobody came to greet the visitors - not even after Mandy had tried the doorbell twice more.

"Sheriff, if the suspect is downstairs playing loud music, he or she won't be able to hear the bell."

"That's a good point. Let's go around to the left," Mandy said and moved off the garden path to find an alternative route.

-*-*-*-

Wynne had walked slowly over to the unfolding events in the hope it would persuade Goldie to follow her, but the scaredy-dog had remained hidden in the shrubbery. Reaching the Durango, Wynne just caught a glimpse of Mandy and Beatrice moving into the garden on the left-hand side of the house.

Barry Simms had remained by the police vehicle as ordered - it wouldn't take a spy satellite to detect the huge cloud of foul-smelling smoke that hovered around him. Though the intervention had only just commenced, there were already two crushed butts down on the ground next to his boots.

"Howdy, Barry!" Wynne said when she reached the deputy sheriff.

The deputy had been so focused on the house that an entire tank battalion could have rumbled past without him noticing a thing. Startled by the sudden sound right next to his ear, he jerked up, spun around, tripped over his own feet and landed on his rear. Not only did his service pistol fall out of its holster and rattle along the pavement, he had gasped in shock which had sucked in the cigarette he had been smoking.

Naught-point-two seconds later, his face changed from shock-white to a shade of red colloquially known as 'I need to get this out of my mouth now or I'll croak right here!'

A lengthy bout of hacking and spluttering followed before he could finally spit out the burning, home-rolled cigarette that had been reduced to its base components by then. "Gahhhhhh!  Don't do that…" he croaked as he wiped his lips on the sleeve of his uniform. As he spoke, smoke wafted out of his mouth and nostrils as if something was still alight somewhere down the back.

"Why, Ah sure be sorry an' all, there, De-per-ty Barry!" Wynne said and put out a hand to help the unfortunate deputy sheriff back on his feet. "Ugh, dat be too dang-blasted gross, Barry… wipe yer chin, fer cryin' out loud!  Y'all got drool an' green shit all ovah yer… ovah yer… aw, dag-nabbit!"

While Barry rubbed his lips, cheeks and chin on a handkerchief, he managed to clamber to his feet by himself. The first thing he did was to reach into a breast pocket to find a new cigarette and a matchbook - the second was to send a withering glare in Wynne's direction.

"Why, I done said I wus sorry, didden I?  Lawwwwr-die," Wynne said and shuffled sideways to get away from the glare. "Mercy Sakes, Barry, mebbe y'all oughtta smoke less while ya be workin' or som'tin…" she continued as she reached into the cooler box for a fresh Double-Zero.

"I'll do that the day after you stop drinking beer, Wynne!" Barry said in a growl.

Wynne looked at the can; then her eyes traveled up to the annoyed expression on Barry's face. "Haw. Point taken, pardnah," she said and cracked open the beer with a Pssshhhht!

A cry of "Oh, Gawd… I lost my gun!" suddenly burst from Barry - it was delivered in such a high-pitched squeal that Wynne's first gulp nearly went the wrong way altogether.

"Son, dontcha be hollerin' like that when Ah be drinkin' beah!" Wynne croaked as she needed to wipe plenty of suds and drops of beer off her chin. "An' yer gun be right dere… lookie," she continued as she pointed down on the ground.

Barry let out a sigh of relief as he bent over to pick up the errant pistol. It had received a few scratches from sliding across the coarse pavement, but it was nothing a little oil couldn't cure - it was soon back in the holster.

Wynne waited for a 'thank you,' but none came. "Yuh. Yer sure is welcome an' all, there, De-per-ty Barry," she mumbled as she returned to her beer.

-*-*-*-

Mandy, Beatrice and Blackie soon found their path around the house blocked by a padlocked gate made of high-quality wood. Peeking over the gate's upper edge, Mandy was able to see a back door leading to a small, enclosed courtyard that featured all the regular ceramic flower pots, gardening tools and sacks of enriched humus usually kept in such a spot. Off to the left, a shed fit for a lawnmower was also equipped with a padlock of a similar design and sturdiness.

Further along the side of the house toward the back garden, one of the cellar windows had been opened - though the actual song had changed, the music that continued to stream out of the window remained the same kind of aggressive hip-hop.

"Hmmm," Mandy said and moved back from the gate. "There's no way through here. There's a back door to the house, but a matching gate on the far side of the courtyard prevents Senior Deputy Gonzalez from reaching the door from the other side."

Beatrice glared at the padlock and the gate it was attached to. "This is the place. We both know it, Sheriff. We all have picklock sets. Let's use them on those gates… or blast the padlocks off, for that matter-"

"We'll do nothing of the kind, Deputy!" Mandy said in a stern voice. "What we will do is to go back to the main entrance and try the doorbell again. If that still doesn't work, we'll look up the phone number and call. If we pester them long enough, they'll answer the door. All right?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Good," Mandy said and spun around on her heel to get back out front.

---

"Howdy, Sheriff Mandy!  An' Blackie!" Wynne said and waved her cowboy hat high in the air at her first glimpse of the striding sheriff and the German Shepherd. She hurried ahead to be closer to them, but almost reeled at the dark look etched onto Mandy's fair features. "Holy shittt… I sure know that expres-shun, yes Ma'am… it usually means y'all done hit a brick wall or som'tin. Didya?"

"Close. A padlocked garden gate," Mandy said as she came to a halt. She cast a sideways look at Barry's disheveled state but chose not to ask about it - after all, she could almost guess what had happened.

"Lawrdie… okeh. Is this whe' dat dere praw-babbel cause thing-"

"Yes."

"Okeh…" - Wynne scratched her neck - "If I done asked real nice an' all, wouldya mind explainin' whaddindahell dat even means 'cos I ain't got noooooo clue he', darlin'."

Before Mandy had time to explain the ins and outs of the judicial term, an SUV pulling a rental self-haul trailer drove into the cul-de-sac and up onto the driveway at number nineteen. The passenger-side door was soon flung open; a woman in her mid-forties dressed in slacks and a blazer jacket jumped out and ran over to the deputies.

"What's going on here?" she said with a look of raw concern etched onto her face. "Did anythin happ- is Tor all right?  Please tell me he's all right!"

Mandy stepped forward at once and put her hands on the woman's flailing arms. "We're here on official business, Ma'am. Is Tor your son?"

"Yes!  Torsten Jensen… he goes by Tor… please tell me what's happened?!"

"Nothing as far as we know," Mandy said in the calmest voice she could muster. "We would like to ask him a few questions. That's all." Movement beyond the terrified woman's shoulder proved to be a man in his late forties hurrying around the front-end of the SUV.

"What the hell's the meaning of all this?" the man said as he took in the sight of the four deputy sheriffs and the fierce-looking German Shepherd. "I'm Matthew Jensen… this is my wife Carole. Has something happened to Tor?"

Much like his wife, Matthew wore a casual set consisting of cargo pants, a down vest and a long-sleeved shirt. He whipped off a baseball cap that advertised none other than the H.E. Fenwyck Brewery Co.

Wynne almost let out a whoop and a "Wa-hey!  Brothahs in Beer!" but stopped herself in the nick of time. "Wynne Donnah-hew," she mumbled under her breath, "ya dang-blasted hayseed… this he' ain't da time nor da place ta be spoutin' crap like that!  Whaddahell's wrong with y'all?"  To punish herself for her uncharacteristic near-gaffe, she reached into the cooler box to get one of the soft drinks - the first can her fingers met was the Pineapple Perfection that was soon cracked open.

Mandy continued: "We have no reason to believe any harm has come to your son, Mr. Jensen. I'm Sheriff Mandy Jalinski from the MacLean County Sheriff's Department. We are merely here to ask him a few questions with regards to an ongoing investigation."

The parents of the teenager in question fell silent and shared a long, knowing look. Matthew broke the silence first with a rasping curse: "Sonovabitch!  Now we can't even be away for a day and a half without all hell breaking loose!  What's Tor done now?  Did Lukas come back?"

"Lukas?"

"Torsten's older brother," Matthew continued in a voice that turned hoarse and pained. "He was here last weekend. They got into so much crap we had to send him packing… that damned, no-good troublemaker."

Carole interjected with a shocked: "Matthew!"

"Well, he is!  You can't deny that!  How the hell that boy ever turned out that way is beyond me… but he's a troublemaker, Sheriff."

Mandy eyed the bickering couple for a short moment - Eamonn O'Sullivan's comments about a 'punk' stirring up trouble in the neighborhood came to her. She let out a small grunt as another dot was connected to the overall picture. "At present, we can't say whether or not if both your sons are here, Mr. Jensen. Torsten doesn't answer the doorbell," she continued in a calm voice.

Though Matthew pulled his wife in for a sideways hug, the fire didn't leave his eyes. "Yeah?  I'm not surprised. He listens to that crap hip-hop twenty-four-seven… it fries his brain!"

Carole used the sleeve of her husband's shirt to wipe her eyes. "Sheriff, we've been down in Cavanaugh Creek buying a new set of dining room chairs- oh, that doesn't matter now… but we left just before noon yesterday and spent the night at my sister's down in… in Cava- down there. Will you please tell us what's really going on here?"

"Mrs. Jensen, I'm afraid we have reason to believe that your son… and possibly his brother as well… may be behind a series of prank calls made to the sheriff's office over the course of the past two days," Mandy said while keeping one eye on the parents and the other on the house in case Torsten Jensen would open the front door to see what all the hubbub was about.

"I don't- I don't get it… prank calls?  To whom?  You?" Carole said in a strangled voice.

"Yes. Deliberate false alarms and reports. A great deal of them, I'm afraid. It's a felony to do so here in Nevada. Prank calls may put lives at risk in case victims of real emergencies can't get through, or if law enforcement or EMTs are unable to respond because they're off chasing ghosts."

Matthew Jensen turned dead-silent. He rubbed his mouth and chin several times while a look in his eyes betrayed that a violent volcanic eruption wasn't far away.

Carole eventually spoke up in a small, somber voice: "Matthew, I… I think we should invite the sheriff and the deputies in… so… so they can ask Torsten about it…"

"That's a good idea," Matthew said in a voice so hoarse and raw it hardly carried past his lips. Leaving his wife in Mandy's safe hands, he stomped up the garden path while digging into a pocket to find the house keys.

The front door was soon unlocked and pushed open. He moved over to another door at once, opened it and threw a light switch; the light revealed it was a stairwell down into the basement. He drew a deep breath to yell: "Tor, get up here at once!  Tor!  Turn that Goddamn crap music off!  Now!  There's someone here who wants a word with you!"

When nothing happened, Matthew Jensen stormed down the staircase to get his son to come up the hard way.

---

Out on the street, Wynne had been observing the goings-on with a dark grimace on her face - though she certainly understood the emotions involved, the man's harsh tones had given her an unwanted flashback to how her own father had often spoken to her when she was a teen. The return of the long-forgotten memories gave her such a bad taste in her mouth that she needed to crack open a beer at once despite not finishing the Pineapple Perfect yet.

As the can of Double-Zero was opened with the familiar Psssshhhht! a happy Yap! uttered somewhere behind her made her turn around to see if it really was Goldie or another of the local dogs. "Why, if it ain't mah darlin' li'l Goldie!" she cried as she hoisted the beer high in the air to celebrate the return of the Golden Retriever - a series of deep swigs followed until the entire contents of the can had been transferred to her system.

"Awwwww-shoot, wouldya lookie at yer coat, girl," she said and wiped the suds off her lips with the back of her hand. "Y'all got twigs an' leaves an' clumps a-dirt an' all kinds-a crud all ovah the dang-blasted place… haw, wus it really worth it hidin' in them bushes?"

Yap?  Yap…

"Yuh, that's whut I done reckoned y'all would say. 'Cos now me an' li'l ol' you gonn' hafta spend an hou'ah pickin' out them prickly thorns an' whutevah else y'all got in there… an' then y'all be needin' a bath!"

Yaaaaaaap…

"Yuh, but there ain't nuttin' we can do 'bout it now," Wynne said and swapped the empty beer can for the Pineapple Perfection that soon followed the Double-Zero down her gullet.

Rodolfo and Barry came over to look at the dog whose golden coat was messy as rarely before. While Barry lit a new cigarette with the dying embers of the old one, the senior deputy let out a grunt at the sight of the filthy state of the usually so pristine Goldie.

"Wynne," Rodolfo said and used his elbow to poke the denim-clad woman in the side, "did you guys play mud-tag or something?  I don't think I've ever seen her that, uh…"

"Naw, she wus jus' bein' a scaredy-dawg iz all," Wynne said before she leaned her head back to get the final few drops out of the soft drink.

A horrible stench in her vicinity made her crinkle her nose. Grimacing, she took a long step sideways to get away from the column of foul-smelling smoke that rose from the tip of Barry's cigarette. "Pee-U'ah, Barry… Gawdalmighty, where d'y'all buy that there tahbaccah, son?  Ya sure it ain't dried horse droppin's or som'tin'?  'Cos dang, it sure be stinkin' dat way!"

"It tastes the same as always," Barry said as he took a deep puff of the home-rolled cigarette just to check. "And I got it from the same company, too. I buy it wholesale."

"Yuh, I know. Betcha ten bucks they jus' be gladda get it offa their hands… not ta men-shun earnin' a cuppel-a bucks sellin' it ta some foo' in Goldsborah!"

"Can't say," Barry said and kept puffing. "I buy three bales of waste tobacco each month or so. Each weighs about one hundred pounds, so… you know."

Wynne shook her head in a slow, deliberate fashion as she stared at Barry's waxen skin and yellowish eyes.

Over by the house, Matthew Jensen came back up from the basement and returned to the doorstep. His face had gained another few shades of red since the last time he had been there. "Torsten's locked himself in. He won't come out," he said in a strangled voice.

Mandy let out a grunt. "All right. Mrs. Jensen, you said something about inviting us in for a chat?  And maybe a cup of coffee?"

"Yes… yes," Carole Jensen said, nodding. "That's a good idea, Sheriff. Torsten can be a… a real handful at times, but… but I'm sure he doesn't have anything to… to do with any prank calls. Matthew, I'll try to get him to come up. Pl- please show our guests in."

Beatrice, Rodolfo and Barry all filed into the house to have some coffee and the type of conversation that few parents would want to have. Goldie didn't want anything to do with it, but Blackie followed almost at once with Wynne in tow.

Mandy soon stopped The Last Original Cowpoke by putting a hand on her elbow. "I'm sorry, hon… this is official business," she said in a quiet voice so the Jensens couldn't eavesdrop. "Please wait out here with Goldie. All right?"

"Haw, sure thing, Sheriff Mandy… yuh. It prolly be bettah if I done waited out he' an' all 'cos I got plenty o' things ta do, anyhows. Mebbe I'mma-gonn' have som'tin ta drink an' play' a li'l Rubbin' Fendahs on mah phoah-ne," Wynne said and patted the cooler box that held her beers and the pocket where she kept her telephone.

Winking, Mandy leaned in to give Wynne a small bump to show her gratitude.

-*-*-*-

The electronic sounds of crumpling fenders and screeching tires soon burst from the tiny speaker in Wynne's telephone. Biting her lower lip, she stared wide-eyed at the display as she tried to keep her stock car from scraping the wall or crashing into the competitors. The fictional three-quarter-mile short track she had chosen proved to be too great a challenge as she needed to restart again and again after wrecking.

"Awwww-shoot," she mumbled as she ran out of tries in the current game. The dreaded Game Over flashed a couple of times before the game reverted to the menu. "Durn!  This game be kickin' mah buhhh-tt… mah fingahs jus' ain't built fer all that there rapid tappin' an' shit. Durn. It be almost as tuff as that there Pinky Porkah's Flah'in' Circus game that deah, ol' Ernie done showed me. 'Membah that, Goldie?  Naw, y'all prolly wudden. But it wus tuff, lemme tell ya," she continued as she put the telephone away.

Since her hand was already in the vicinity of the cooler box, she reached into it to grab a random can of something. The first she wrapped her fingers around was pulled out and grinned at - it just happened to be a Double-Zero. It was soon cracked open and swigged. "Y'all need some watah, girl?"

Yap!

"Okeh, then… lessee… the watah bowl… an' da watah. Yup," Wynne said as she put the former item on the ground and poured a healthy amount of the latter into it. She chuckled at the sight of the hastily drinking Goldie before she leaned her head back to enjoy the delicious, golden liquid inside the can labeled H.E. Fenwyck Double-Zero.

As she did so, a drawn-out squeak somewhere off to her right caught her attention.

The squeak was repeated moments later. Then a figure tip-toed along the garden path to get to the Ford truck parked out front. The person did everything they could to remain in the shadows for as long as possible, but the final stretch over to the truck had to be undertaken in plain view of everyone who happened to be there.

"Whaddahell zat sapposed ta be?" Wynne mumbled as she spotted the tip-toeing individual. She furrowed her brow as she took in the odd sight of a late-teen wearing bathing slippers, home-cut denim shorts and a white T-shirt. The person had long hair and patches of fuzzy downs on the cheeks; a trucker cap featuring the familiar logo of H.E. Fenwyck's Summer Dreamz brand of soft drinks sat acocked on top of the haystack.

A strong Yap! from Goldie made Wynne snap out of her stupor. When reality slapped her across both cheeks at once, she let out a resounding: "Holy shittt!  That fellah there be da sombitch ev'ryboddah be lookin' fer!  Da prankstah!  Sure iz!"

Striding forward, Wynne held up the can of Double-Zero like some kind of secret weapon. "Hey!  Hey, Mistah, dontcha be goin' nowheah… hey!  Y'all bettah step away from that there Fohhhhh-rd, son, befo' Ah lose mah tempah… an' y'all sure as stink-on-shoot wudden wanna experience that, nosirree!"

The young man - Torsten Jensen - had almost made it to the driver's side door of his truck, but he spun around and pressed himself against the vehicle with a horrified expression in his eyes.

Wynne continued to stride along with her beer thrust ahead of her; down on the ground, Goldie let out a long string of whimpers and moans but stuck to her owner's legs. "Ah got a humongus bone ta pick witcha fer scarin' mah good friend Brendah Travahs!  Ah oughtta give y'all one helluva spankin' fer frightenin' anyboddah, but 'speshually deah, ol' Brendah!  Whaddahell y'all be thinkin' doin' that, son?  Betcha wussen even thinkin' nuttin'!"

"Get away from me… you crazy broad!" Torsten squeaked in a voice that hit such a high register that it made the glass in the side mirror rattle.

"Aw, an' now he be gettin' personal. Yuh. Why'dahell not?  Son, them de-per-ties wanna word witcha, dontchaknow!  So Ah'mma-gonn' leave mah fierce bloodhound he' ta make sure y'all ain't goin' nowheah while Ah be off findin' Sheriff Mandy an' them folks o' hers!"

Hearing that, Goldie came to a screeching halt and let out a frightened Yap?! Yap-yap-yap-yap-yap-yap-yap… - Two seconds later, she spun around and literally high-tailed it out of the danger zone in a flurry of golden fur, twigs, leaves and all the other debris that had been trapped in her fur.

"Now whaddahell iz wrong with her?  Awwwwww-shoot…" Wynne said as she took her eyes off Torsten to watch where the Golden Retriever went this time.

The teenager grabbed the opportunity with both hands by reaching for the Ford's door handle. When he realized his getaway plan lacked a certain element known as 'car keys', he let out another high-pitched squeak and sprinted away from the truck.

His trajectory took him dangerously close to Wynne's outstretched can of beer - an impact was inevitable. It happened a split second later and thumped the Double-Zero out of Wynne's hand and onto the ground where it exploded in a shower of white suds and golden brew.

Wynne Donohue was a good-natured individual 97.2% of the time. She would get defensive when someone treated her loves of NASCAR, pro wrestling, pork rinds, classic Westerns and all car brands under the General Motors umbrella with disrespect; she would go on the offensive when someone acted rude or worse toward Mandy or any of their close circle of friends - and when someone caused the death of an innocent can of beer, she would go ballistic.

"Aw, ya didden!" she barked at the top of her lungs. She glared at the lake of suds and beer that slowly ran down the driveway and into the rain gutter. "Yuh, ya did!  Why, y'all bettah run from he' ta eternity 'cos Ah'ma-gonn' whoop yer ass but good when Ah done catch ya!"

Spinning around, she set off at high speed to pursue the fleeing bandit like a latter-day Buford T. Justice.

---

All the commotion out on the sidewalk had made Barry Simms take a peek outside; not quite believing his eyes, it took him a couple of seconds to react. "Sheriff… Sheriff!  Come quick!  There's something going on-"

He never made it any further before the unexpected excitement made him break out in a hacking, rattling, spluttering coughing fit. Turning beetroot-red in a matter of seconds, he had to slam a clenched fist against his chest to get a nasty clot of mucus to release so he could breathe once more. The violent coughing even made his latest cigarette fly out of his mouth followed by a dense cloud of spittle. When the lit cigarette hit the doorjamb, it produced an impressive shower of burning embers before it rolled off the doorstep and into the bone-dry garden.

Mandy arrived another split second later - the hacking and spluttering Barry was soon shoved aside with little regard to his condition. The lake of beer on the driveway indicated that yet another strange incident had occurred in the Goldsboro, The World Capital Of Weird, Spooky Or Just Plain Bizarre.

Hurrying down the garden path and onto the sidewalk at the cul-de-sac, she soon caught a glimpse of Wynne hustling along the alley seemingly chasing an individual in shorts and a T-shirt. "Dammit!  Why do these things keep happening?!" she cried before she ran back to the house. "Deputy Reilly!  The suspect is fleeing!"

"I'm on it, Sheriff!" Beatrice said and took off in a fast sprint to catch up with the rest of the foot-race - Blackie followed the deputy out of the door with an ecstatic look on her face.

Mandy shook her head as she looked at Barry who was on the brink of being down for the count. "Senior Deputy… help Barry before we have to call the coroner!"

"Yes, Sheriff," Rodolfo said and began slamming his fist onto the back of the tomato-red Barry.

---

Further up the alley, the frantic foot-race was about to come to a halt sooner than anyone had expected. Despite her sublime annoyance with the teenager she chased, Wynne couldn't help but chuckle at him.

They hadn't even made it two hundred yards from the Jensen home before the youngling's poor level of fitness caught up with him. Wynne didn't even need to run to keep up with the escapee as he staggered along on leaden legs that flat out refused to move past each other.

Wheezing and moaning even worse than Barry Simms would have in a similar situation, Torsten Jensen's face had turned an unhealthy shade of bluish-red, and his eyes were wide and frantic. The wheezes grew louder and more insistent as he fumbled and stumbled along to get beyond the reach of the woman chasing him. Though his trucker cap didn't sit well atop his haystack, the headwind had been so meager it hadn't even blown off.

The endgame of the less-than-hot pursuit was reached when a one-two combination of shock and horror got the better of him: not only did he let out a shriek at the appearance of a barking demon dog in the shape of a black German Shepherd, the tip of one of his bathing slippers caught an edge between two flagstones which sent him sprawling onto the hard ground.

Once down there, he whimpered out loud and curled himself into a hedgehog-like ball to protect his face and everything else from the fierce dog's glistening fangs.

Two seconds later, Beatrice Reilly blasted onto the scene with her firearm drawn and ready to combat anything that could pose a threat; it was obvious that the suspect was in no condition to show any kind of aggression.

Wynne soon caught up with the barking dog, the scowling Beatrice and the whimpering Torsten. "Haw!  If it ain't mah Blackie!" she said in a cheery voice. "That wus bayoo-tah-ful, girl… jus' bayoo-tah-ful. Now lemme at 'im so he can get the ass-whoopin' I done promised 'im fer scarin' ol' Brendah!"

Woof!  Woof-woof-woof-woof-woof-woof-wooooof!

"Y'all reckon I oughtta wait fer Sheriff Mandy?  Yuh, mebbe I oughtta… but… us Cowpoah-kes ain't known fer goin' back on promises we make!  An ass-whoopin' iz an ass-whoopin', an'-"

A shout originating somewhere behind the small team made Wynne look over her shoulder. "Why, there she be!  Aw… I bettah not do nuttin' until she done getz he', then."  Turning back to face the frightened Torsten, she pointed a strong index finger at him. "Lawwwwwr-die, this he' be yer lucky day, son!"

Mandy caught up to Blackie and the group of people in a hurry. She glared at the curled-up ball of humanity on the ground before she wrapped an arm around Wynne's waist. "Good work, Miss Donohue. I hope you didn't push him onto the pavement… we don't want to give him a reason to sue you."

"Naw, I sure didden, Sheriff Mandy. He done tripped ovah that there edge there an' went belly-flop all on his lonesome. Yes, Ma'am. Then he balled up when ol' Blackie done arrived… an' Quick Draw, o' course," Wynne said and reached into her cooler box to get a replacement for the beer Torsten had knocked out of her hand. She found a Super Summer Sweet Apple Twist which hadn't been what she'd had hoped for, but she opened it anyway now she had it in her grasp - the familiar Pssshhhht! soon followed.

"Sheriff," Beatrice said while she reached behind her to open the leather pouch where she kept her metal handcuffs, "should I pacify him?"

"Not yet, Deputy. We merely have a few questions for Mr. Jensen. Come on, let's get him back to the house… and his parents."

"Yes, Ma'am," Beatrice said and put the handcuffs back into the pouch. Reaching down, she grabbed hold of Torsten's arm and pulled him upright.

The various noises uttered by the teenager changed from mere whimpers and moans to all-out whines. He stared at the three women and the fierce dog that kept him covered. "Can't- can't we… can't you ask me over in your office or something?  Dad's gonna kill me…"

"Y'all gotta be shittin' me, son!" Wynne said in a stern voice. "Ya do that buncha crap y'all been doin' an' now ya soil yer shorts when the day o' reckonin' iz he'?  Heeeellll, y'all shoudda thunk 'bout that a li'l soonah!  Y'all sure ain't gettin' no dang-blasted sympathy outtah me… nosirree!" - A thunderous bark from Blackie proved she agreed with her owner's words.

"Let's go," Mandy said and took Torsten's other arm.

Behind the small-scale prisoner transport, Blackie let out a constant growl to remind the young man that she was there as well - with his hind quarters lined up in her sights - in case he would change his mind with regards to surrendering.

*
*
CHAPTER 10

Before they made it back to the house where the Jensens lived, Blackie ran ahead on her own to find her missing four-pawed companion. She looked high, low and everywhere in between for several minutes until she found Goldie hiding in the bushes a good distance from the cul-de-sac.

A sound akin to doggy-snicker escaped Blackie while she ran over to the inherent scaredy-dog to inform her that, at least for the time being, all the horrific stuff was over and done with.

The Golden Retriever had stuck her head into a patch of dense shrubbery believing she would be fully out of sight of anyone or anything chasing her - unfortunately, her entire rear-end stuck out like a golden flash among the evergreen leaves of the greenery. She pretended to be a natural part of the shrubbery to begin with until Blackie's amused woofing convinced her to reverse out of the hiding place and face the music.

Once Blackie had let out a loud and surprised Woof! at the sight of the filth that had invaded Goldie's golden fur, she moved in close to rub shoulders with her dearest friend among Goldsboro's dogs. A few barks, woofs and yaps were exchanged before they ran back to the humans.

Mandy and Beatrice kept a firm grip on Torsten's arms all the way up the garden path - not because they feared he would run away, but because his knees knocked so hard he could barely keep a forward motion.

The cause for the teenager's nervousness stood on the doorstep with his arms crossed over his chest: Dad.

A thunderous expression had Matthew Jensen's face just as red as his son's - though for polar-opposite reasons - and it was plain to see for everyone that he only held back from delivering a speech containing a boatload of fire and brimstone because of the presence of the Sheriff and her deputies.

Carole appeared next to her husband. Holding onto Matthew's tense shoulders, she stared wide-eyed at Torsten as he was escorted up to the door. "The coffee's almost ready… let's sit in the living room," she said in a frayed voice.

Mandy left Beatrice and Rodolfo to handle the young man the rest of the way. Once they had moved away from the door, she turned around and went back down the garden path to Wynne's spot by the white Ford.

"Howdy, darlin'!" Wynne said with a grin as she pushed herself off the old truck's fender. "Snakes Alive, we wus in a hi-speed pursuit!  Jus' like in Smokey an' da Bandit, yuh?  Okeh, wussen all that hi-speed. I didden even get winded or nuttin', but anyhows… a li'l ac-shun goes a long way, don't it?"

"It certainly does," Mandy said and broke out in a wide grin. "The MacLean County Sheriff's Department wishes to express our gratitude to the members of the public who take an active role in the pursuit and-or detaining of suspects or individuals wanted for questioning in connection with ongoing investigations."

Each word uttered by the sheriff caused the neon-green question mark above Wynne's head to grow in size - when the long sentence had been delivered, the punctuation mark was the width and breadth of the famed H.E. Fenwyck blimp that often showed up at big sporting events all around the country. "Whuhhh-t?  Ah didden get nuttin' o' that, Sheriff Mandy… nuttin'… not a dang sylla-"

To cut to the chase, Mandy winked and said: "In short, lean down so I can kiss you."

"Haw!  Yes Ma'am, Sheriff, Ma'am!"

They locked eyes for a moment before they came closer and met in the middle for a nice, lengthy smooch. Though their lips eventually separated, they remained close to savor the moment.

Mandy pulled her necktie straight; the gesture seemed to restore her official 'face' as a stern look fell over it. "This won't be a pleasant conversation. I'm worried about Mr. Jensen's reactions. We haven't actually proven anything yet, so the young man might be an innocent party, but…"

"He done a runnah fer a reason. Okeh, mebbe he got a stash o' weed or some porn magazines somewheah in his bedroom or som'tin," Wynne said and scratched her neck. "Naw, I reckon he be da guilty party in this he' deal, awright. His body lang-vitch when we mosey'ed on back he' done tole a tale o' knowin' the jig wus up."

Sighing, Mandy reached out to toy with the zipper on Wynne's windbreaker. "I agree. That's why I need to keep an eye on Mr. Jensen. I won't yet call it a dysfunctional family, but there's a risk he'll be abusive toward the young man once we leave."

"Yuh… he be da type fer that, sure ain't no lie. An' trust me, I know 'em when I clap mah eyes on 'em. Haw, Sheriff Mandy… I got a no-shun… I done noticed he wore a Fenwyck cap when he an' the wife done drove up. Talkin' an' relatin' be easy-peasy when y'all got som'tin in common. Yuh?  An' I be tawkin' 'bout beah jus' in case y'all wus wonderin'."

Mandy broke out in a smile as she put a hand on the small of Wynne's back to lead her up to the front door. "Now that's great thinking, hon. Yes, I'd like that. Thank you."

"Lawwwwr-die, Wynne Donnah-hew always been a great thinkah… who knows, mebbe ol' Matthew likes rasslin' and stock-ca'hr racin' too?"

Moving over to the door, they were joined by Blackie and Goldie who ran out to see where their owners were hiding - several woofs and happy yaps followed as they all moved into the house.

---

To describe the Jensens' living room as a crowded affair would be an understatement. Built for three or four at the most, it now held no less than eight plus two dogs - three of the eight people present were seated while the rest towered over them wearing dark, somber expressions.

Most of the furniture had disappeared behind the human wall of deputies, but the Jensens had a three-seater couch, a coffee table, a satellite armchair, two low sideboards - one of which carried a television set - and a handful of wall-mounted glass display cabinets.

One of the cabinets held a collection of porcelain figurines of ballerinas in various poses; another saw a range of commemorative items like coasters, tumblers, small beer mugs and large tankards as well as colorful, classic enameled signs and advertisements all made by the H.E. Fenwyck Brewery Co. from the 1910s to the present.

Torsten cowered between his parents looking ten years younger than his actual age. He looked down at his feet the whole time. Carole continued to dab her leaky eyes with a handkerchief while Matthew carried an expression that said he was about to murder someone slowly.

Mandy stepped forward to begin the official business. "Torsten, we have a few questions we need answered. Do you know anything about a slew of prank calls that have been sent to the sheriff's office over the past thirty-six hours or so?"

A mumbled something-or-other was the only noise that came from the young man.

When nothing further came, Matthew grabbed his son's shoulder hard and let out a bellowing: "Answer the sheriff, Tor!"

The young man finally looked up for all of two seconds; then he looked down at his feet again. "I don't know anything about that."

"I see," Mandy said. "Have you heard your friends talk about it?  Maybe online?  Perhaps someone bragged about it?  Or maybe it was a dare?"

Tor shook his head. When his father grabbed his shoulder again, he let out a mumbled: "No… I don't know anything."

"Sheriff," Carole said in a raw voice, "it's clear that Tor doesn't know anything about it. This is really stressful for us… can't we call it a night?  Maybe we could come by your office tomorrow?"

Carrying a grim expression, Mandy reached into her pocket to retrieve her smartphone. "Tor, I need your help to identify a song. Do you think you can help me with that?"

"A song?  I… I guess. I'll try," the young man said; his eyes grew wide as they zoomed in on the smartphone. His face seemed to grow even paler than its usual pasty hue that everyone who spent most of their time indoors had.

Mandy accessed the menus and found a sound bite that Brenda Travers had created for her; it had been run through several levels of noise reduction and other types of electronic enhancements. After turning up the volume, she pressed play and held out the telephone so they could all hear the clip.

Soon, the typical tones of a hip-hop tune could be heard in the living room. Though the quality of the original recording wasn't the greatest, Brenda's electronic trickery had made it surprisingly clear. The hard snare drum struck an aggressive breakbeat supported by a rap artist who didn't hold back when it came to making his knowledge of four-letter words, racial slurs and misogynist observations public.

Torsten shook his head. "I… I don't know that-"

"Bullshit!" Matthew bellowed as he grabbed his son by the scruff of the neck and gave him a strong shove. "You listen to that piece of shit all the Goddamned time!  It's almost on repeat!  Don't you dare lie to us!  Or the Sheriff!"

The young man's chin began to quiver; his wide eyes darted around the room from one somber individual to the next before they landed on Mandy's determined and unwavering gaze. After a moment, he broke out in a jerking nod and said in a mumble: "I… I know the song… I…"

His face lost the rest of its color. Wringing his hands, he nodded again. "I did it… it was me. I'm… it was just for fun…"

On Torsten's right, Carole began to cry for real prompting Rodolfo Gonzalez to dig into one of his pants pockets to find a fresh handkerchief. It soon became obvious it took more than a hankie to stop the flow of tears, so the senior deputy helped the crying woman up from the couch and into the kitchen to get away from it all.

Matthew bared his teeth in a sneer as he strengthened the grip on the scruff of his son's neck. "Now look what you did, you Goddamned criminal!  You made your mother cry!"  As he spoke, he gave Torsten another hard shove by the neck.

"Mr. Jensen," Mandy said in a stern voice. She stepped forward and put a calming hand on top of Matthew's. "We'll take it from here."

"Yeah, you better!" Matthew said and shot up from the couch. Spinning around, he glared at Torsten with the intensity of a King Cobra about to strike. " 'Cos if I stay, the little turd's gonna end up black and blue!  I'll be outside!" With that, he stormed over to a glass sliding door, shoved it aside with excessive force and went into their back garden.

Mandy and Wynne exchanged a quick glance. The Last Original Cowpoke nodded and reached into her cooler box at once - an H.E. Fenwyck Dark Lager was soon chosen as the perfect remedy for volcanic tempers. She followed the irate man across the back porch, down a short flight of steps and onto a well-groomed lawn.

---

Once Matthew reached a square patch of concrete that had been created as a sort of recreational proto-patio in the center of the garden, he threw himself into a wicker chair and buried his face in his hands. The open area was home to a portable charcoal grill, a café-style round table, a closed parasol, a pair of wicker chairs and a three-seater bench in the same material.

"Howdy, Mista," Wynne said in a calm voice so she wouldn't cause additional grief.

"Hi. You're definitely not a deputy," Matthew said as he took in the sight of the woman in black denim who approached him.

"Naw, sure ain't. I be in charge o' da liquid rescue opera-shun," Wynne said and held out the Dark Lager. "Wynne Donnah-hew. Howdy."

A brief smile flashed across Matthew's face as he took the can and opened it with the familiar Pssshhht! - Wynne followed suit after finding a Double-Zero for herself in her cooler box. She sat down on the second wicker chair and waited for the family man to feel comfortable enough to perhaps strike up a conversation.

The task of enjoying the golden liquid took precedence over speaking for the first part of their impromptu meeting, but Matthew Jensen soon let out a sigh and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "I knew something like this would happen one day. Tor and all his damned electronic gizmos. I don't know anything about any of that… neither does Carole so we couldn't keep an eye on what he was doing. You know?"

"Yuh, I reckon. All o' that there computah shit go way ovah mah head, too."

"Yeah."  Matthew fell silent once more. After a moment, he made a sweeping gesture at the back garden and their house. "I thought we'd get a fresh start here. Tor's older brother Lukas got involved in some crap back home in Richmond Falls… dealing weed, you know. That sort of thing. Well, I thought a change of scenery might do us good."

"Wussen no bad thinkin' on yer part."

"No… but it didn't work out the way I planned it," Matthew said and took a long swig of the beer. He fell silent for a moment; a sigh escaped him before he continued: "Carole isn't my first wife. Lukas and Tor aren't her biological sons, but we were a good, solid family… until that point. The crap between us really started when Lukas didn't want to leave his old turf. I mean… he's twenty-three so I couldn't do a damn thing about it. We got in a shouting match and he split."

"Been dere, done dat… yuh, me an' mah ol' man wussen no different," Wynne mumbled before she silenced herself through a long swig of beer.

Matthew nodded as he looked at Wynne. "I guess most of us had to rebel against our old folks."

"Yuh."

"Anyway, we tried to stay in touch, but he didn't give a shit about me or his stepmother. Tor continued to talk to him over the Internet. Video chat and all that hocus-pocus. Well, okay, skip ahead two months. We had settled in here and Tor behaved himself apart from the usual teen mood swings and stuff… well, you know."

"Lawrdie, yuh!"

"Then Lukas showed up last weekend like a bolt from the blue. Jesus, it was like seeing a complete stranger. He was bloated and had turned into a careless slob… I knew he was smoking weed before he split, but it was obvious he had turned into a heavy user. Ever tried weed?"

Wynne nodded. "Yuh, when I wus young an' stoo-pid. It kinda helped me 'cos I hadda medical condi-shun back then, but I done got outtah that shit befo' it swallowed me whole."

"That's a good description. It swallowed Lukas, all right. We had to kick him out after a couple of days… he and Tor got into a mess with the neighbors about that crap music of theirs. They played it at full blast by the open windows so the entire neighborhood could hear it."

"I bah-lieve them de-per-ties didden heah nuttin' 'bouddit until aftah the fact… or else they woudda swung bah an' asked them young'uns ta turn it off," Wynne said before she emptied the Double-Zero and put the empty can on the ground next to the wicker chair.

"I wish they had shown up. Lukas stole fifty bucks from Carole's purse before he split again."

"Haw… that sure be a nasty-ass thing ta do ta yer family, yessir…"

Matthew put away his own can and rubbed his face. "I wasn't home for much of that weekend. I had to pull a triple shift at my job… the Fourth of July is just around the corner so everyone's stockpiling meat. I work down south at Hanson's Meat Processing Company. It's one of the largest packing facilities in the state."

"Yuh, I be familiar with'it."

"The fresh meat rolls in on assembly lines from the slaughterhouse and we need to sort it and ready it for the deep freeze… all kinds of shit. I get bloody up to my feckin' armpits. It makes my stomach churn but it was the only place who looked past the fact that I'm an ex-con. Grand Theft Auto thirty years ago. I hung with the wrong crowd up in Richmond Falls… I wised-up but it was too late by then."

"Mmmm. I heah ya… I sure know plenty 'bout wrong crowds," Wynne said and broke out in a somber nod. "Yuh. Anyhows, I done had a-buncha crappy jobs as well, like shovelin' bull dung down on one o' them there cattle ranches not too long aftah I settled here in Goldsborah. Wussen much fuh-n, lemme tell ya."

Matthew let out a grim chuckle before he took the can of Dark Lager. "Here's to crappy jobs," he said and held it high.

"Lawrdie, I'll drink ta that," Wynne said and dug into her cooler box to get something that could wet her whistle - finding a Double-Zero, she downed most it in one go.

Silence fell among the Fenwyck-enthusiasts, but it was broken when Barry Simms stepped out onto the back porch: "Wynne!  Tor has agreed to show us how he did it. It's down in the basement."

"Okeh, De-per-ty Barry!  I be right ovah!" The rest of the beer was soon gone before she put the empty cans in her cooler box - for recycling - and got to her feet. "Y'all comin', Mista Jensen?"

Matthew looked up; a moment went by before he shook his head. "No, I better stay out here. Say… you wouldn't happen to have an Extra Strong or a Midnight Velvet Stout in there, would you?"

" 'Fraid I don't, Mista, but I do got a Nineteen-Ten Spe-shual Brew," Wynne said and held up the familiar dark-golden can. When Matthew broke out in a grin at the sight, she handed over the beer and made her way back up to the house.

-*-*-*-

Wynne was met by Blackie and Goldie who broke out in merry barks and yaps when they saw her. Goldie's golden coat looked even worse indoors under regular lights than it had in the faint cones that shone down from the lamp posts out on the street.

"Lawwwwwr-die, girl… y'all deffa-nete-ly gonn' need a bath… an' it ain't jus' gonn' be one o' them there normal baths, neithah, no Ma'am. It gonn' be one helluva bath, I be tellin' ya!  Mebbe we need-a hose ya down!  Y'all got twigs an' leaves an' mud an' ev'rythin' all ovah the dang-blasted place… shoot, it gonn' take half a day ta getcha cleaned up an' all. Ya comin'?"

Blackie let out a long line of depressed woofs and barks that meant 'I wish!  But the staircase is too steep for me and Goldie… I could probably jump down, but I worry that my friend might fall and hurt herself.'

Wynne shuffled over to the open door that led to the basement. When she peeked into it, she let out a comical whistle. "Holy shittt!  That ain't no staircase… that be a dog-gone hencoop laddah right there!  Man, I bettah watch whe' I done put mah feet. Wudden wanna take up a new career as a stunt performah… hell, I bet that even Rob… uh… wotshisname… the giant fella from my Westuhrn?  Aw, nevah mind… I bet that ain't even that big, ol' fella could get down there in one piece."

'Are you coming, Wynne?  Everyone's down here!' Barry shouted from downstairs.

"Haw!  If Mista Sixty-Cigs can do it, so can I!  Yuh… Lawrdie, I bettah hold onta that there handrail, tho'," Wynne said and began the perilous journey into the basement.

---

Not only was the staircase a little too steep for her liking, the ceiling was a little too low for her cowboy hat - not to mention her head. The first thing she did once she had put her feet on the concrete floor was to thump her beloved hat against a water pipe that ran across the ceiling. The impact sent it flying onto the floor after it had bounced off a few earthenware flower pots.

"Owch… awwww-shoot, mah hat!" she said in a mumble while she tried to see where it might have ended up. When she finally found it, she had forgotten all about the low ceiling and rose to her full height. Then she thumped the crown of her head against the same water pipe - the second impact produced a metallic Clang-lang-lang-lang-lang that seemed to go on forever.

'I think Wynne's here,' Barry said from one of the rooms.

"No shit, Barry," Wynne mumbled as she rubbed the top of her head.

In addition to the steep staircase and the low ceiling, the cellar corridors were narrow and could only fit one person at a time. Six doors led off from the main corridor that had yet to gain the characteristic smells of dust, wood, paint thinner, books and old clothes that always seemed to inhabit such places.

Four of the doors were closed, but the fifth and sixth were both open; in fact, they both led to the same room that turned out to be a typical abode for many a male teen:

Various fold-out posters and pages from old calendars that featured scantily-clad beauties of the bosomy kind had been attached to the dark-gray walls through generous use of wallpaper paste. A dart board had been hung up next to a wall-mounted clock that didn't run. Another section of the wall was occupied by a small collection of pro-sports jerseys and banners, but the amount of dust on the items proved that the enthusiasm for collecting such items had fizzled out before it had really begun.

In addition to an old bean-bag chair and an even older two-seater couch that had several springs sticking through the fabric, a newer swivel-chair fit for gaming purposes had been wheeled over to a wooden desk. The desk itself carried all kinds of electronic gadgetry in the shape of several tower computers, a laptop, a large monitor and a keyboard that seemed to have neon lights installed in it. Tall racks on either side of the centrally placed desk held home-burned CDs and DVDs full of pirated music, movies, adult pictures and various other things leeched off the Internet.

A strange-looking, apparently home-made device had been connected to the laptop through a USB cable. The box had no cover which left a dark-green circuit board and an abundance of multi-colored, crisscrossing cables in full view. An LED on the circuit board flashed red as if it was ready for input or some other kind of action.

Mandy, Beatrice, Rodolfo and Barry had lined up in a semi-circle around the desk where young Torsten had already pulled out the gaming chair; each of the deputies held a mug of coffee made for them by Carole Jensen. Wynne took full advantage of her height by scooting up behind Mandy to see what was going on.

Gulping hard, Tor shuffled around to make himself comfortable on the padded chair. "Okay," he said as he pointed at the open box of wires. He gulped another few times as the gravity of the situation continued to weigh on his mind; his voice gained a small tremble as he went on: "This is a Synthe-Sizzler. I found the how-to guide online, and… uh… replicated it. They're all stock parts so there aren't any secrets in the hardware. The real magic starts with the programming. I downloaded the open-source code and made a few modifications here and there to… to make it cooler. I guess."

Mandy furrowed her brow - she looked at her deputies who were all in over their head. "But how do you operate it?  And how can it copy people's voices so perfectly?"

"Actually… it doesn't copy their voices. It emulates their timbre, speech patterns and modulation through a set of parameters-"

"Lawwwwr-die… mebbe y'all oughtta show us wotcha tawkin' 'bout instead o' usin' all them hi-falutin' words, Tor."

The puzzled look that flashed across Torsten's eyes proved he hadn't understood a syllable of that. "I didn't… you want me to do what?"

Mandy leaned forward to point at the box in question. "Show us how it works."

"Oh… okay… gotcha," Tor said and swiveled around to face the laptop.

While the young man began hacking on the keyboard to produce an example, Wynne scrunched up her face in frustration. Soon, she dug into her bag to find a Double-Zero that was cracked open at once with the familiar Psssshhhtt!

"Really, Miss Donohue," Beatrice Reilly said in a frosty voice, "do you honestly think this is the right time to drink beer?  No, I take that back. Why don't you go upstairs and drink it so the rest of us can conduct this investigation in a profess-"

Mandy stood up straight and shot her junior deputy a dark glare. "Miss Donohue stays, Deputy Reilly. All right?"

"Yes, Sheriff."

"All right," Mandy continued as she leaned forward once more to keep up with Torsten's high-tempo hacking.

Behind Mandy's back, several dark glares - and a flaming arrow or two - were exchanged between Wynne and Beatrice. The fun and games continued for a short while until they both decided to concentrate on their respective beverages so they wouldn't get into a mouthing-off contest right next to the sheriff.

Rodolfo and Barry shared an amused look. Similar to their sisters-in-arms, they were soon busy with their coffee mugs so they wouldn't accidentally throw fuel onto the fire by snickering.

It didn't take long for Torsten to write a paragraph of text and feed it into the Synthe-Sizzler's voice emulation program. After the program had processed the paragraph, a regular wave-file was created as output.

"Okay," he said and moved the mouse over to hover near the sound file. "This is just the basic voice the Sizzler comes with. To make it sound like a real person, I need to load a pre-set emulation pack. When… when I… when I made the calls, I just played the wave-output file into my telephone."

Beatrice let out a grunt. "Weren't you worried we might trace the call?  Or simply check the caller-ID?"

"Trace it… maybe. But the ancient telephone you use on your watch desk wouldn't know what to do with a caller-ID," Torsten said with a grin; when he remembered he wasn't bragging to a potential girlfriend but explaining his criminal activities to a deputy sheriff, a red tidal wave surged over his face. "I went to… last month, you had a visitor's day at the sheriff's office. I… I went 'cos I was bored and… and a little curious."

A grim chuckle escaped Mandy as she shook her head. "Play the sound file, Tor."

"Y- yes, sheriff," Torsten said and double-clicked on the file in question. The clip soon played through the laptop's stereo speakers. Although the pronunciation was near-perfect, it sounded like a stereotypical robot monster from a 1950s Science-Fiction B-movie: 'Hello!  I've just seen a helicopter land in the desert about five miles south of town!  There were sparks everywhere and black smoke came from the engine!  You need to come quick!'

"Whaddahell?  That there artifi-shual twang ain't gonn' foo' noboddah," Wynne said and took a long swig of her beer.

"No, no… like I said, that's the voice the Sizzler comes with," Torsten said and returned to the original paragraph of text, "but I can make it sound like anyone I have on file. I just need to filter it through the pre-set parameters-"

"Just do it, Tor," Mandy said.

"Okay… I recorded the voice samples when me and Dad visited one of the Town Council's open meetings. Telephones were meant to be off, but I had two and I only showed one to the security guy at the door. You know those open meetings where they discuss-"

Mandy nodded. "We know. Go on."

"Well, there isn't much more to say," Torsten said and loaded the voice pre-set file into the Synthe-Sizzler's main program. "This pre-set data of the timbre, modulation and the other things is based on Bonnie Saunders reporting on… whatever… at the meeting."

Once the program had finished crunching the data, Torsten played the new sound file. The same words were replayed: 'Hello!  I've just seen a helicopter land in the desert about five miles south of town!  There were sparks everywhere and black smoke came from the engine!  You need to come quick!'

Although the words and intonation remained the same as the first sample, the comical robo-voice had been replaced by a 100% perfect clone of Councilwoman Bonnie Saunders.

"Hooooly shittt!" Wynne croaked around a mouthful of beer. "That sure be Bonnie Saundahs awright!  I mean… whaddindahell kinda black magic izzat?  No wondah y'all wus able ta foo' them de-per-ties with them calls o' yers!"  Once she had wiped a few droplets of beer off her chin, Wynne pointed her thumb at the people in question just to show which de-per-ties she meant.

Beatrice growled; Barry shrugged and Rodolfo scratched his neck. Mandy simply let out a long sigh at how easy it had been for Torsten to bend reality to fit his needs.

"Dad-gummit, that sure be Bonnie Saundahs… 'cept it wussen. It wus a dang-blasted machine!  Lawrdie, this he' deal iz givin' me da creeps, son!  An' dat's how y'all did it?"

"Yes…"

"Dog-gone… who else ya got on them recordin's?"

"Oh, plenty of people…"

"Well, play someboddah else, then!  Lawrdie, this is scary an' excitin' all at once, innit?"

Beatrice growled again; Barry nodded while Rodolfo shrugged.

Torsten looked over at Mandy with a concerned expression on his face. "Well… I don't know…"

"One more is all right, Tor," Mandy said, "but then you need to turn it all off and unplug it. We have to confiscate it. It's evidence."

Nodding, Torsten swiveled around and went through the regular procedures one last time. "Okay, this is the old black woman from the town museum… she spoke at the same meeting about funding or volunteer work or whatever."

Tabitha Hayward's characteristic dark timbre was soon heard from the laptop's speakers: 'Hello!  I've just seen a helicopter land in the desert about five miles south of town!  There were sparks everywhere and black smoke came from the engine!  You need to come quick!'

Wynne shook her head repeatedly as the new sound clip gave the same message its third different voice in a matter of minutes. "Lawrdie, I done changed mah mind… this ain't excitin'. This is jus' plum scary!  With all them voice recordin's floatin' around out there on that there Intahnet an' all, y'all can make Ronald dog-gone Reagan call in 'bout a seein' a flyin' sau-sah!  Or absah'lutely anyboddah!"

Torsten nodded. "Yes. If the soundbite's long enough so there's enough data for the pre-set, the Sizzler can… well… emulate it."

"We've heard enough," Mandy said as she moved ahead and put a hand on Torsten's shoulder. "Turn everything off and disconnect it. Senior Deputy, I want you and Deputy Simms to carry everything up to the Durango. Store it safely. Label it. You know the drill."

Rodolfo and Barry - who had been far busier looking at the pin-ups gracing the walls - turned around to stare in wide-eyed disbelief at the vast amount of electronic equipment they would have to haul up the narrow, steep staircase.

Barry let out a long, pitiful whine as expected, but Rodolfo steeled his resolve and said: "Yes, Sheriff. Will do," in a remarkably strong voice.

While Torsten shut everything off and began unplugging the various cables from the equipment, Mandy moved over to the far wall by the ruined couch. Taking her portable radio off her belt, she keyed the mic: "Mobile Unit One to base. Mobile Unit One to base. Ms. Robinson, have Mr. and Mrs. Travers left yet?  Over."

'Base here. No, they're still in the crew room, Sheriff,' Bessie's disembodied voice said. 'Do you wish to speak to them?  Over.'

"That's a negatory. But I'd like you to tell Mrs. Travers that she can relax now. The case is closed. Also, please ask her if she would mind staying a little longer. The equipment that created the prank calls is on its way to the office as I speak. I'm hoping it might help her to see that the thing that frightened her is only a circuit board and some cables. Over."

'Will do, Sheriff. Anything else, over?'

"Not at present. Mobile Unit One out," Mandy said and attached the radio to her utility belt. Moving back to the desk, a classic look of being greatly satisfied with a job well-done was etched on her face.

---

Ten minutes later, Mandy and Wynne had relocated upstairs to the sidewalk in front of the Jensen house so the sheriff could supervise the proper storing of the delicate electronic equipment in the back of the Durango.

A Psshhht! was soon heard; inevitably followed by the characteristic glug-glug-glug created by Wynne Donohue whenever she chugged down the contents of yet another can. "Way ta go, darlin'," she said after gulping down half a South Pacific Tropical Fruits Squash in one go. "Justice been served, yuh?  Whaddaya reckon gonn' happen he'?  And with young Tor, there?"

"I imagine he'll be grounded until he's thirty… but the case will have legal consequences. If he'd only made one or two calls, it could perhaps have been filed under typical adolescent behavior. That would have earned him a severe reprimand, but… no, there were too many calls made to sweep it under the carpet. He'll have to face the music."

"Mmmm," Wynne said as she drained her latest can of liquid enjoyment - it was soon back in the cooler box for recycling. "Matthew Jensen is an awright fellah, tho' he deffa-nete-ly got a short tempah. An' he be perdy dog-gone disappointed in his son. Mebbe y'all need-a be a li'l active in mendin' them family ties an' all."

"That's a good point, hon. Tor needs to get out of this dungeon as well."

The radio on Mandy's belt suddenly crackled to life with a 'Base to Mobile Unit One. Base to Mobile Unit One.'

"Now what?" Mandy mumbled as she pulled it from its holster. "Mobile Unit One ready to receive. Go ahead, Base."

'Sheriff Rains, we've received… oh… I'm… I'm sorry,' Bessie Robinson said in an embarrassed voice. 'Sheriff Jalinski, we've just received a call from a motorist. His car suffered an engine fire at mile marker two-five-one north of Goldsboro. The fire's out at present, but he needs assistance as he can't drive to town and his only fire extinguisher is empty. Over.'

"Ten-Roger, base. We'll deal with it. Mobile Unit One out."  Once the portable radio was back on the utility belt, Mandy nodded at Beatrice Reilly who had been over at the Durango helping Rodolfo and Barry store the equipment. "Deputy Reilly, you're up. You need to run back and get Durango number three. Make sure the extinguisher is full. Take a new bottle from storage if needed."

"I'm on it, Sheriff," Beatrice said and jumped into a salute. "At least we know it's not a prank. I'll keep you posted."

"Very well, Deputy," Mandy said and mirrored the salute before Beatrice ran off to deal with the latest crisis to strike Goldsboro.

Wynne tracked the eager deputy sheriff before she let out a dark grunt. "Sheriff Rains… pah," she said and let out another grunt. "Seems ta me that deah ol' Bessie be gettin' mo' an' mo' confused ev'ry dang time she done comes back as a temp. Okeh, I be livin' in da past as well, sorta-kinda, but I sure ain't callin' ya Sheriff Rains, darlin'."

"And if you ever do, I'll make sure to let you know," Mandy said and leaned in to bump shoulders with her partner - Wynne let out a loud guffaw as her only comment.

"Okay," Mandy continued, "let's wrap up things here. We have a long evening ahead of us. All of this needs to be cataloged and boxed tonight. Yes, I said tonight, Deputy Simms."

As expected, the pained whine uttered by Barry Simms as he heard the sheriff's comment was long, pitiful and just plain embarrassing for everyone who stood within earshot of him.

"Also," Mandy continued, "you may need to get in touch with Tucker Garfield in case Deputy Reilly deems the stranded car to be in a dangerous location."

"Tucker Gar- on a Sunday evening?!" Barry screeched in a voice that had a definite nails-on-chalkboard quality to them.

Mandy's answer was a curt, steely: "Yes."

For a moment, it looked as if Barry was about to break out into tears. Instead of doing so, he reached into his breast pocket to find not one but two cigarettes that he stuck between his lips. The home-rolled horrors were soon lit up to give him enough strength to deal with the perennially angry Tucker Garfield - and since they produced twice the amount of foul-smelling smoke, they made everyone else take two long steps away from him.

"Say, fellas," Wynne said and broke out in a grin, "if all y'all need help catalogin' an' boxin' them there computahs an' stuff, I be your Cowpoah-ke, yessirree!"

Rodolfo and Barry each let out a mumbled reply that resembled "Be my guest!"

After shaking her head at her deputies, Mandy put a hand on Wynne's elbow. "Were you able to strike up a rapport with Mr. Jensen when you spoke to him?  From one Fenwyck enthusiast to another?"

"Yuh, sorta… he did open up ta me, so, yuh… why?"

"I think we should go back and talk to them… off the record, if you will," Mandy said and pointed at the house. Because the lights had been turned on in the kitchen, they were able to see Matthew, Torsten and Carole Jensen standing at the window looking back at them. "Tell them the potential outcomes for their son. Things like that."

"Sounds like the propah thing ta do, darlin'."

"Yeah. The road ahead will be rocky for them. They'll need support."

"They sure will. An' that be whe' Da Oh-ree-gee-nal Cowpoah-ke an' Sheriff Mandy Jalinski really show whut kinda wimmenfolk they be… or we are… or whutevah. Yuh?  Les'go," Wynne said and strode up the garden path to take care of business in her inimitable style.

*
*
EPILOGUE

Three days later - Wednesday, June 15th.

Life soon settled down to its usual, low-key rhythm in the small trailer park eight miles south of Goldsboro. The weekend's major and minor incidents and events had all been consigned to the town's annals save for the odd loose end that still needed to be stitched up. One of which was Artie Rains who remained in the holding cell for repeatedly refusing to acknowledge the court's validity - Judge Carl E. Milton would take over the case as the rules demanded.

Brenda Travers had decided to pull the proverbial plug. The prank emergency call had made all the horrors she had experienced at the hands of the vampire creature down in Silver Creek come back with a vengeance, so she and her husband Vaughn had jetted out to a five-star Californian luxury resort overlooking the Pacific to get away from it all.

Diego Benitez wasn't just out of the state but out of the country: the hunter and his sister had gone down south in connection with a traditional Mexican baptismal service for the youngest twig on the family tree. He had promised Wynne to bring back some authentic hot sauces, but he couldn't say whether or not the canned goods would be allowed onto their commercial flight.

Frank Tooley had been read the riot act by Mandy for driving under the influence. It remained an open question if he understood the potential implications if he didn't shape up, but Wynne and Mandy let him know in an unequivocal manner that they would be watching him closely from that moment on. Estelle Tooley and young Renee continued to suffer in silence.

The heatwave persisted so Wynne was unable to work on her pet project, the 1979 Chevrolet K10 truck that only existed as a bare frame and several piles of parts that needed to be either refurbished or replaced. Instead, she had spent the three days drinking cold beer and watching old NASCAR races from her favorite period - i.e. the 1980s and 1990s.

Goldie's much-needed bath had been a two-hour affair first thing Monday morning, but at least the Golden Retriever's coat was shiny and fluffy once more. She was soon back playing mini-soccer and Goldie At The Beauty Parlor with Renee Tooley under the shade provided by Wynne's H.E. Fenwyck Brewery Co. promotional parasol.

Neither game seemed all that attractive for Blackie. The fierce German Shepherd had wanted to sprint around the desert to hone her chasing skills, but the baking sun had been too much for her black fur. Instead, she had been forced to surrender and simply lie down in the shade with a gallon of water and several sticks of jerky within easy reach.

The only one who had kept working until then was Mandy Jalinski - the sheriff had overseen the thorough cataloging of the electronic equipment confiscated from Torsten Jensen. It wasn't until the items had been picked up by the MacLean County Sheriff's Department's IT & Technical Analysis team late on Tuesday that she could relax and declare Wednesday a day off.

Thus, she and Wynne shared the couch in similar states of undress. The ambient temperatures had in fact taken another leap upwards, so anything beyond the flimsy T-shirts, spaghetti-strap tank tops and loose-fitting cotton shorts they wore would have been suicidal.

Having their feet and legs bare to such an extent did give them a chance to play a little footie with each other, but even that pleasurable activity couldn't go on for too long before the skin-on-skin experience grew too hot and uncomfortable.

Wynne rolled a can of chilled beer back and forth across her forehead and neck to keep cool; Mandy waved a hand-held fan in a lazy fashion - she had sprung for a gallon-sized pitcher of peach-flavored iced tea instead of the offered beer.

They had just finished watching the mid-day news hour on Channel 78 - the key words had been 'record highs' and 'water preservation' - when one of their telephones rang. "Haw, that ain't mine so I ain't movin' a fingah ta get it," Wynne said while pressing an unopened can of Pale Lager against her neck.

"No, it's mine," Mandy said and got up from the couch. Their phones were recharging on a shared extension socket over on their sideboard, so she padded over there to check out the caller-ID. "It's Judge Etherington," she said as she accepted the call.

"Haw!  It only took the ol' judge a day ta return that there call…" Wynne said before she moved the can around so it could continue to work its magic on her throat and upper chest.

"Good afternoon, Judge Etherington. This is Sheriff Jalinski speaking," Mandy said as she leaned her rear-end against the sideboard.

'Good afternoon, Sheriff. I've given your idea a great deal of consideration. Although it's certainly unorthodox, I believe there's legal authority to carry out such a plan.'

"I see. That's good news," Mandy said and offered Wynne a thumbs-up.

Grunting, Wynne sat up straight and used her cooling can the way its designers had envisioned: she cracked it open and chugged most of it down in one go.

'Quite. I'll write up an official recommendation based on your suggestion and get one of the juvenile correctional staffers to act as the probation officer.'

"That would be a positive outcome for all concerned, Your Honor."

'Indeed it would, Sheriff. Perhaps we can set a precedence on this matter. Now, as to Miss Donohue's offer of carrying out community service almost on a voluntary basis…it's utterly unheard of, frankly. I've spoken to three of my colleagues who've been circuit judges since the nineteen-eighties, and none of them could recall such a peculiar outcome to a fairly standard case involving a moving violation. I'm afraid it would be seen as something of a provocation given your close ties. Therefore, I cannot agree to Miss Donohue's offer.'

"Oh… I see," Mandy said and furrowed her brow. Turning around, she pulled the charging cable from the telephone and padded back to the iced tea - and Wynne.

'However, Sheriff, I do have a suggestion of my own. If Miss Donohue is willing to-'

"Your Honor, I have Miss Donohue here if you wish to speak to her directly."

'Ah!  Excellent!  Put her on,' Cornelius Etherington said before the familiar sound of paperwork being rustled filtered trough the connection.

Wynne furrowed her brow in confusion but nevertheless took the offered telephone. "Uh… howdy, there, Judge Etherin'ton. This he' be one an' only Wynne Donnah-hew, dontchaknow."

'Good afternoon, Miss Donohue. Like I just told the sheriff, I'm afraid I can't approve of your plan to volunteer for two hundred hours of community service solely on the background of a simple, straightforward moving violation.'

"Aw, shoot-"

'There's a risk it would be viewed as a gimmick or, perhaps worse, a self-promoting publicity stunt that would see you exploiting your close ties with Sheriff Jalinski to get off lightly where others would face a harsher penalty.'

"Aw-fer cryin' out loud!" Wynne said and bolted upright on the couch. "That right there wus exactly whut Ah done hoped ta avoid!  That wussen why Ah done suggested it!  Ah sure ain't no yella-tinted bowl o' Jell-O, nosirree… it wussen payin' da fine that made me come up wi'that, it wus da principle!"

'I understand it perfectly, Miss Donohue, but I'm afraid that others wouldn't.'

Sighing, Wynne fell against the backrest once more. "Okeh… gosh-darn'it. I done hoped we wus gonn' avoid furthah o' that there legal bizzness-"

'Hang on, Miss Donohue. I have a suggestion you need to consider.'

"Aw… y'all got da floah-r, Yer Honah!" Wynne said with a proud grin for remembering the odd phrase the judge had used earlier - when Mandy shot her a puzzled glance, she offered the sheriff a wink and a kissy.

'You can carry out the hours of community service if you're willing to take on the important role of being young Mr. Jensen's hands-on mentor as he carries out his own community sentence.'

"Haw!  Yessir!  Yessirree, I ain't got nuttin' ta object ta that, Yer Honah!"

'Excellent!  A little manual labor will do Mr. Jensen good, I think. Not only does he need to learn that his actions will have direct consequences, it will be beneficial for him to get away from all those computer monitors.'

"Yessir. Yessir, ain't no way I could be agreein' mo', Yer Honah!" The smile that spread over Wynne's face was soon so wide that her lips couldn't deal with it - a moment later, she broke out in a big, ol' toothy, goofy grin.

'Very well, Miss Donohue. I want you and Mr. Jensen to show up at the sheriff's office in Goldsboro tomorrow morning at eight A.M. sharp. Sheriff Jalinski will give you a list of chores you and Mr. Jensen are to carry out over the course of the coming period.'

"Haw… eight A.M. sharp?  In da mornin'?  At the sheriff's office?" Wynne said while winking at Mandy who broke out in a grimace at the news - the office usually wouldn't open for business until nine at the earliest. "Yessir, me an' Tor gonn' be there. Y'all can take that ta da bank!  I promise ta keep the fiah lit undah his backside… an' mah own fer that mattah… until we get thru' them hou'ahs we be sapposed to serve. Yessir!"

'Very good!  I'll be in touch later. I need to speak to Sheriff Jalinski now, please.'

"Haw, sure thing, there, Judge Etherin'ton. Bah-bah. He' she be right now an' all," Wynne said and handed the telephone back to Mandy.

While Mandy went over to the sideboard to wrap up the conversation with the judge, Wynne leaned back on the couch and swung her legs up on the table - she wiggled her bare twinkletoes a little to get some air to them.

"Haw, pullin' that there gig sure as stink-on-shoot gonn' be hawt an' sweaty… but I done worse. A lot worse," she mumbled to no one in particular. "Yuh. An' as long as we got plenty o' beah an' sodas… an' who knows, mebbe even some watah… there ain't nuttin' we can't do. Lawrdie, it gonn' be good gettin' back ta doin' them odd-jobs. Yuh…"

Over by the sideboard, Mandy finished speaking to the judge. Now that the idea had been given the official stamp of approval, she called the Jensens at once to inform them of the news - Matthew thanked her and promised that he and Torsten would be there at eight on the dot.

Mandy closed the connection and returned to the couch. "Tomorrow morning at eight," she said in a monotone as she snuggled up close to Wynne. "Well, all right. If it can't be helped, I'll be there."

"We all gonn' be there, Sheriff Mandy… yes, Ma'am. Wotcha got in mind fer us?  Sweepin' them streets?  Givin' them Durangahs a tune-up?  Polishin' them windahs around Goldsborah?  Fixin' that dang-blasted stickin' do'ah?"

"That's for me to know and for you to find out, Miss Donohue," Mandy said in a mock-stern voice. She added a wink to take the steel out of her words, but the wide grin on Wynne's face proved The Last Original Cowpoke had read between the lines and understood that it would be an improvised affair.

"Yes, Ma'am!" Wynne said and saluted the sheriff of Goldsboro. "Lawrdie, that sure gonn' be an eye-openah fer young Tor, I be tellin' ya."

"Probably."

"Yuh," Wynne said and picked up the fan that Mandy had used earlier. After using it for a short minute, she grabbed a chilled can of beer and rolled it across her forehead instead. "On anothah note, I sure ain't feelin' lack cookin' suppah tanight. Whaddaya'say we done called them Chicky Kingz fer some French fries an' a couple o' them there awesome mystery boxes o' theirs?"

Mandy picked up the discarded fan and used it to get some air down her neck. "I agree. Fried chicken sounds nice. We have coleslaw in the fridge," she said after a brief delay.

"Haw, we sure do!  Wa-hey!  Love me some coleslaw. Okie-dokie… I alreddy got their numbah on mah phoah-ne an' all. So… whut'll we do 'til then?"

Several moments of silence went by during which Wynne seemed to have something stuck in her eye - she winked so hard and often it almost looked as if she was trying to send a message in Morse code.

"Well… we could sit here and make out?" Mandy said after the delay had been long enough.

"Lawwwwwwr-die!  Why, I thunk ya'd nevah catch on, Sheriff Mandy!" Wynne said and broke out in a cheeky laugh. A moment later, she leaned in for the first of many kisses they would share that afternoon…

*
*
THE END.

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