“Delivering cocoa to the library volunteers, shoveling snow for a few of our seniors … But the best will be the caroling downtown. I won’t let them explain why they’ve suddenly beenstruck with the holiday spirit. They’ll have to make some specific stops—like the salon. That should do it.”
“The salon,” she echoes.
“Nothing gets done or said in there without it spreading to everyone within five square miles.”
Alex laughs. “You’re almost diabolical, Officer Heinz.”
“Just making a point they’ll remember next time they get a wild hair that involves public or private property.”
We resume our tour of Bordeaux. It’s getting late. Only two hours until our shift ends. I don’t tell Alex, but I’m having more fun than I’ve had in years—on or off the job.
“What’s that?” Alex asks as we pass Cues and Brews—a familiar figure is napping on the sidewalk.
“Oh, that? That’s Cooter.” My voice has a tone of nonchalance. Years of escorting Cooter out of other people’s homes, off porches, and out of bars has me numb to the novelty of our town drunk.
He’s curled up next to a blow-up snowman that’s sitting on the sidewalk outside the row of shops.
“Should we wake him?” Alex asks. “I’m used to seeing people on sidewalks in New York. It feels … out of place here.”
“He’s the only one—for the most part,” I tell her, easing the cruiser to the curb.
Alex is out before I can open my door. She crouches beside Cooter, shaking his shoulder with the same patient rhythm a mom uses to wake a teenage son who overslept. When she looks back over her shoulder at me, her smile—half amusement, half respect—hits something deep and half-forgotten in me, a place that just wants to be seen as more than a local joke.
“Cooter?” she says softly.
He rouses, squinting at her. “Who are you?”
“I’m Alex. You’re sleeping on the sidewalk. Do you want to go home?”
“Am I breaking the law?” he asks, eyeing her badge.
She looks up at me, obviously waiting for me to recite all the ordinances related to his choice of locations for a late-night nap. Normally, I’d just tell Cooter to take himself home. Occasionally, if he’s sauced, I drive him home, leaving it up to him to come back for his truck in the morning. On the rare occasion, when he’s been belligerent or feisty, I’ve had to lock him up for the night. But I can only count those episodes on one hand. We try not to put him in jail. He’s mostly harmless.
“Cooter, you’d be looking at obstructing sidewalks, loitering or sleeping in a public place, and public intoxication,” I say, more for Alex’s sake than Cooter’s.
“I’m not that drunk,” he slurs. “And since when are you gonna throw the book at me, Jesse?”
“I’m not,” I tell him honestly. “Just telling you what you’d be up against if I were going to take you in. Let’s get you home.”
“Too bad reindeer can’t actually fly,” he mutters.
Alex shoots me a questioning look. I shrug.
Cooter stands and walks toward our cruiser. He climbs into the back seat and we drive him to his house on the outskirts of town. In the warmer months, the overgrown grass distinguishes his place from the others around him, but the snow has blanketed the unsightly yard in a pristine cover that makes his home seem more typical of any built in the early days of Bordeaux.
He climbs out of the back seat when I come to a stop. “G’nite, Jesse. And you, miss. Welcome to Bordeaux.”
Alex and I watch Cooter weave toward his door, fumble with his keys and let himself in the front door.
After another round through town, we head back to the station to file paperwork.
“What do you make of Cooter mentioning reindeer?” Alex asks.
“Nothing,” I tell her. “He’s always rambling about this or that.”
“It could be a clue,” she says.
“Cooter doesn’t have it in him to steal anything,” I assure her. “You saw him. He couldn’t walk a straight line. Besides, his home isn’t decorated. If he took the reindeer, he’d have put them out front.”
