AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s okay, Marshal Forrester. You can call me little lady if I can call you Ted.”
“Ted it is, little lady.”
Was she flirting with him? Or was she sort of hero-worshipping and flirting with all of us? It could be weirdly hard to tell the difference sometimes.
Deputy Frankie laughed; it was damn near a giggle. It made me frown at Edward, but he either missed it or didn’t care, probably the latter.
She got Rico fast enough, but then the conversation began to go downhill. Rico couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the idea of looking for a deer in a tree. “Rico, stop overthinking it and just look for a deer in the damn tree,” she said. A few moments of silence followed as she listened to him, and then she said, “Because we’re trying to check the suspect’s version of things, that’s why. Now, just go do what I asked.” She lowered her voice a little, and said, “You’re making us look bad in front of the feds, Rico.”
Duke had moved out into the office—to make more coffee, I hoped. I was starting to need more. It meant we could see Frankie in the doorway. She hung up and sighed, shoulders slumping.
“It’s okay, Frankie,” Newman said. “We don’t blame you because Rico is an idiot.”
Edward and I both looked at him, but Edward remarked on Newman’s comment in his best Ted voice. “Now, there, pardner, not sure that was very politic.”
“I know Rico personally, Forrester. Trust me. I could have said worse, and it would still be true.”
“Win, I know you don’t like Rico, and I know why. He’s always tomcatting around after some woman, but he’s usually better on the job than this,” Frankie said.
A laugh came from the other cell, which we were all sort of ignoring. Deputy Troy Wagner laughed like he meant it. “God, Frankie, that was the politest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about Rico and women. He’s a man whore, and everyone in town knows it.”
“Well, at least Rico isn’t in a cell with attempted-murder charges hanging over his h
ead,” she said.
The laughter died, and Troy leaned the top of his head against the bars of the cell. “Yeah, I guess you’re right on that.”
“I’m sorry, Troy. I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” Frankie said.
“Don’t be sorry when you’re right,” he said.
“I still shouldn’t have said it to you.”
“I don’t want Troy to go to jail,” Bobby said.
“He tried to kill you,” I said.
“I know, but if the only difference between it being legal and illegal to shoot me is having the right badge and the right name on a warrant, then it seems almost wrong to punish Troy.”
“That’s mighty decent of you there, Marchand,” Edward said.
“I don’t deserve any mercy from you, Bobby,” Wagner said.
“I don’t think mercy is something you deserve. I think it’s just something you’re supposed to give to people,” Bobby said.
“If you’d done your job like you were supposed to, Troy wouldn’t have gotten tempted to do something stupid,” Duke said.
“Regardless of what I did or didn’t do, what Troy did was against the law,” Newman said.
“I can’t make it up to you, Bobby. I can only say that I couldn’t do it. Even when I thought you had killed Roy, I couldn’t shoot you,” Wagner said.
“I know, Troy,” Bobby said, walking closer to the shared cell bars between them.
“He shot into your cell while you were chained to the bed, Bobby. I think he missed the first shot by accident,” I said.
“Are you saying you wouldn’t forgive him?”
“Yeah, I’m saying I wouldn’t forgive him.”
