8 Sweet Payback by Connie Shelton

from beside
the house, her face contorted in anger. “Take care of us?” she shouted. “You
did a helluva job taking care of us so far.”
    Beau took a deep breath. “Helen. I
know this hurts. Eventually it’ll get better.”
    “Better? My boy is dead and you
think this will ever get better ?”
    Beau started to apologize for his
poor choice of words but Helen interrupted.
    “My life hit its best point seven
years ago. It’s been nothin ’ but downhill since then.
And your department’s done diddly -shit to make it better .
Get out of my sight, Sheriff!”
    A younger woman wearing skin-tight
jeans and a baggy man’s shirt stepped forward and touched Helen’s shoulder.
“Come on inside, Helen. Let’s get you somethin ’ to
eat.”
    Beau surveyed the faces in the
crowd of a dozen or more, spotting Bobby’s wife JoNell, who placed restraining
hands on the arms of two long-haired teenage boys. This could get real dicey,
real fast. He raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture.
    “Listen, all of you,” he said,
working to stay in command. “We’re doing what we can. I got Lee Rodarte out of
town. I’m putting my whole department to work on solving Jessie’s murder.
Nobody in town wants trouble and I’m asking all of you to remember Jessie with
dignity, not to let this thing get out of hand where somebody else ends up hurt
and a lot of folks end up with regrets.” He met the patriarch’s stare, straight
on. “Joe? You keep ’em in line?”
    Joe Starkey nodded slowly but the
sneer on his face didn’t reassure Beau in the least.
    “Okay, then. I’ll put some of my
men around town, make sure Rodarte doesn’t come cruising for trouble. After the
funeral tomorrow I’ll expect everyone to get back to business as usual and do
your best to put this behind you and just let us do our jobs.”
    A couple of the men shuffled
slightly, scuffing toes in the dirt like young bulls, testing. Beau wanted to
give a warning about the amount of alcohol at the gathering, but this didn’t
look like the time to press his luck. Hopefully the message about extra law
enforcement would get through. He touched the brim of his hat and turned toward
his vehicle, making a show of getting on the radio before he drove away.
    With the order in for teams of
deputies to take turns patrolling Sembramos overnight, he made another run past
Rodarte’s parents’ old house, Sally Cayne’s, and the few others he knew to be
connected. All quiet. So far.
    Pulling over in the parking lot of
the now-empty elementary school, he used his cell phone to call home. No
answer.
    He dialed Sam’s cell. “I called
the house and you weren’t there. I thought we’d agreed on that.” He realized
that, technically, he’d issued orders which she hadn’t exactly said she would
follow.
    “Sweet shop emergency. I’m on my
way home now,” she said.
    “We’ll talk about this when I get
there.” He hung up without waiting for a response and pulled out onto the
two-lane road.
    Twenty minutes later he arrived at
the ranch. Sam’s red pickup truck sat in its usual place but her bakery van was
gone. He fumed, getting out of his cruiser. He’d said he didn’t want anyone on
the highway to recognize her truck and give her trouble. Did she have to take
his words so literally?
    He greeted the border collie and
Lab with pats on their heads and went inside. This whole day was really
beginning to wear on him. Pouring a short Scotch into his favorite crystal
glass, he carried it upstairs and started the shower. When he emerged, in a
mellower frame of mind, he heard sounds downstairs. He also smelled pizza.
    “I brought it from Giuseppe’s,”
Sam said, pointing to the box with the fantastic smell.
    It was, of course, his favorite
combo and when Sam launched into the whole story of the crazy lady at the
bakery who was about to drive all her employees off the cliff, he held back on
the list of warnings he’d been planning. And when, after pizza and a