LITMIR.BIZ

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cheese, maybe. And Listerine. It was his neighbor, Vita.

      Clay wasn’t sure exactly how old Vita was, but she had to be a lot younger than she looked because she had a thirty-year-old daughter, Mila. Yet she looked to be a hundred and sixty. Or maybe that wasn’t actually wrinkles upon wrinkles but instead she was smearing her face with Limburger cheese.

      Like the other times he’d seen her, Vita was wearing a long brown skirt, so long that the hem was dusting the floor, and enough cheap bead necklaces to act as an anchor if she ever got caught in a tornado.

      “I came,” Vita announced as if he was expecting her. He wasn’t. But then you never really expected Vita. She was like a cold sore and just showed up.

      Best to cut her off at the pass and make this visit as short as possible. The longer she stayed the more air freshener he’d have to use. “If this is about my sister and Brantley—”

      “No. There’s nothing to be done about that.” Her attention landed on the pink envelope. “Or that, either.”

      Well, this was a cheery visit. Not that he had any faith whatsoever in Vita’s future-telling/ESP powers that she claimed were in her gypsy blood, but if she’d offered him any hope, he might have latched on to it.

      “I came about the chickens,” Vita said. “They’ll attack again soon.”

      That got his attention, and Clay frowned over the way his gut suddenly tensed. “How do you know this? Have the chickens been talking to you?”

      The woman didn’t crack a smile at his bad joke, but she did take something from her skirt pocket. An egg. Not a clean one that came in a carton from the grocery store. This one had what he was pretty sure was a smear of chicken shit on it and a bit of a feather.

      “It belongs to one of them,” Vita went on, her voice all low and dramatic. “Keep it with you at all times, and they won’t attack. Their scent is on it, and they won’t risk hurting one of their own.”

      Clay had no idea how to respond to that so he just grunted. Vita must have taken that as an agreement that he would go along with this because now she smiled. The joke hadn’t amused her but a grunt had.

      He made a mental note to talk to her daughter about getting her some psychological help.

      Vita pulled something else from her pocket. A massive can of Mighty Lube. It was shaped like a penis but double the size.

      “For Sophie,” Vita said.

      All right. Clay wanted to know why Vita believed Sophie would need glorified vegetable oil and why the woman couldn’t just give it to Sophie herself. But he was afraid this was meant to be a sex aid, and like feral chickens, he didn’t want to discuss that with Vita. He just thanked her, said goodbye and asked her to close the door on her way out. She did those things but not before uttering what sounded like a threat.

      “If you hurt Sophie, you’ll be sorry. I’ve read her palm so I know your paths cross.”

      “Of course they cross. It’s a small town.”

      But he seriously doubted that Vita meant that.

      “They’ll cross,” she went on, “but it’ll be up to you which direction she takes after that. Hurt her, and you’ll have to deal with me.”

      As the interim chief of police, Clay supposed he should remind her that it wasn’t a good idea to threaten a cop, but instead he reached for the air freshener in his bottom left drawer. It was next to the whiskey. Once the Limburger smell had been cloaked with the scent of fake flowers, Clay turned back to the envelope. Best not to put this off. He reached for it, but reaching was as far as he got because there was another knock at the door.

      Hell.

      “Yeah?” he snapped, not bothering to sound even remotely receptive to a repeat visit from Vita. But it wasn’t her. It was Garrett.

      “Got a minute?” Garrett asked, coming in before waiting for an answer.

      Reena was right behind him, and since she was frantically trying to fix her hair, it was obvious she wanted to impress their visitor. Clay had noticed that a lot whenever he’d observed women near Garrett. Even though he was married to the town’s former prom queen, Sophie’s brother caused women to primp, flirt and do other things that were normally directed at good-looking, single men.

      Clay had seen a whole lot of eyelash batting going on.

      “Vita,” Garrett remarked, glancing at the egg.

      Maybe the air freshener hadn’t done its job. Or else Garrett guessed that Clay wasn’t the sort to have a shit-streaked egg on his desk. Thankfully, his attention didn’t seem to land on the Mighty Lube, or Garrett might have had some questions that Clay couldn’t answer.

      Garrett looked at Reena. Smiled. It seemed a little forced to Clay, but he wasn’t exactly a smile expert. Still, it started the eyelash batting, and Reena coiled a strand of hair around her finger.

      “I need to speak to Clay in private,” Garrett added to the deputy.

      “Oh, sure.” Reena stuttered out a few more syllables, and eyelash batted her way out the door. Which she closed.

      Clay had already done some bud-nipping with Vita, but he figured he was going to need another round of it with Garrett. “If you’re here to threaten me not to hurt Sophie—”

      “I am. In part. But since you’re not involved with her, not yet anyway, just keep the threat for future reference.”

      It probably wasn’t the average response, but Clay liked the guy. It’s something he would have said to anyone getting involved with April. Of course, Clay’s threats hadn’t worked, and in Garrett’s case, it wasn’t needed. Clay wasn’t getting involved with Sophie.

      “The other part of why I’m here is something I’d like to keep just between us,” Garrett went on. “I’d like for you to question Arlo Betterton.”

      Clay knew the name. Arlo owned the run-down gas station on the edge of town. He was in his sixties and resembled Santa Claus in grease-splattered overalls. “Has he committed a crime?”

      Garrett shrugged, put his hands on his hips. “He was Billy Lee Seaver’s best friend when they were kids.” No need for Garrett to clarify who Billy Lee was. “The feds have already talked to him, but Arlo probably didn’t do much talking back. He might know something, though, and you might have better luck getting it out of him.”

      “I doubt it. To Arlo I’d be as much of an outsider as the feds or Skunk the pig farmer.”

      Garrett didn’t argue with that. “Lie to him. Cops can do that. Tell him you’re sleeping with Sophie, and you’re worried about her. Tell him that you need to find Billy Lee because you’re afraid Sophie’s about to fall apart.”

      “Is she about to fall apart?” Clay asked before he could think about why he shouldn’t ask it.

      It was a personal question, not related to this investigation. And it was what his granddaddy would have called a red pecker flag. Pecker as in dick. Flag as in Clay’s dick that had prompted the personal question about Sophie. Garrett picked up on it right away and scowled.

      “No, she’s not about to fall apart,” Garrett assured him. “She’s a lot tougher than she realizes, and that means she doesn’t need a shoulder to cry on or a fuck buddy to console her. She just needs time to realize that Brantley is cow shit and that she deserves a whole lot better. Sorry,” he added, no doubt because Garrett remembered that the cow shit was now Clay’s brother-in-law.

      Clay was sure he scowled, too, at that thought, but it was easy to push cow shit aside when Garrett had just dished up some official business. “Wouldn’t you have better luck talking to Arlo than I would?”

      “No. He doesn’t trust me. He thinks all I want is to find Billy Lee, lock him up and throw away the key.”

      “Don’t

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