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“He was,” Meadow said, and fought tears.
“Sorry again,” Dana grimaced. “It must be hard.”
“Did you ever run down that lamp of Harlow’s that was stolen?” Dal asked Jeff.
“Not yet. Meadow’s on the case.”
Dal gave her a speaking look. “Well, that certainly raises the level of confidence, doesn’t it?”
Meadow glared at him. “I’ve been in law enforcement for years,” she began.
“Did I mention that your father and I found the bullet that lodged in the tractor housing . . . ?” Dal interrupted.
Meadow’s lips made a thin line. “You’ve told me a number of times.”
“The waitress is motioning to you,” Jeff said quickly, nodding toward her.
Dal smiled sarcastically. “Then I guess we should go. Good seeing you, Jeff.”
“Sure.”
“Nice meeting you, Miss Dawson,” Dana added.
Meadow just nodded. She wasn’t sure she could get words out, she was so angry. Leave it to that, that, cattleman to make her feel small! He worked overtime at it, too.
“Don’t let him rattle you,” Jeff said, noting her irritation. “He just does it to get a rise.”
“He is the most irritating, unpleasant person I’ve ever known,” she said through her teeth.
“And he works at it, too,” Jeff returned with a grin.
She laughed. “So he does.”
The waitress came back by and freshened their tea. Talk turned to work while they waited for their orders.
* * *
It was a pleasant meal. Meadow enjoyed Jeff’s company. He was interesting to talk to. He’d been in law enforcement much longer than she had, from the age of seventeen, in fact, and he had a wealth of stories that he shared about life in Raven Springs, past and present.
“What’s the most unusual case you’ve covered?” she asked.
He laughed. “The Peeping Tom.”
Her eyebrows arched in a question.
“We had this guy peering in windows, always very early in the morning, when women were getting ready to go to work. It was always the same houses, too. He was barefoot, we could tell by the prints he left. He never tried to break in or anything, but just the fact that we had such a guy in the community was disturbing.”
“Did you catch him?”
“Oh, yes.” He forced down laughter. “He tripped over a child’s tricycle and went down in a mud puddle after a spring rain. It turned out to be that he wasn’t trying to look at naked women at all. He’d lost his cat and he thought one of two families had stolen it, so he peeked in early in the morning, hoping he’d see them feed the cat.”
“Now I’ve heard everything.”
“It gets worse.” He was choking back laughter. “It turns out that one of the houses actually did have his cat. The little girl—the one whose trike he fell over—had taken it home with her and hidden it in her room. No litter box, you understand. Her mother did notice a smell, but she thought it was the garbage can outside the window.”
“Did he get his cat back?”
“He did, with an apology from the child. However,” he added, sipping tea with a laugh, “he did get probation for the peeping charge.”
