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“I will. Thanks.”
She started out the back and followed the tracks. It was like bread crumbs, she laughed to herself. What a strange thief.
The trail led down the hill, across a frozen stream, and up to the back of the local barbecue joint. In fact, it led right to the back door.
She knocked, and a surprised young man opened it and gaped at her.
She looked down. He was wearing boots. Snow boots. With snow still clinging to them.
“Well, damn!” the boy burst out.
“Would you like to explain?” Meadow invited.
He let out an angry sigh. “Billy Joe stole my girl,” he blurted out. “I was mad as hell. I saw her drive off from the convenience store and I threw a limb, I was so mad . . . I rolled down the hill and into the creek. Soaked my sneakers and my coat. So I went in the back door and took Billy Joe’s,” he added belligerently.
She noted the pile of soaked sneakers and jacket on the floor beside him.
“Go ahead, cuff me, lock me up,” he muttered. “I got nothing to live for anyway, since Billy Joe stole my girl!”
Meadow grimaced. “I’m really sorry,” she said, “but regardless of the reason you took them, the fact is that you did take them. I have to arrest you.”
“I understand. It’s okay.” He drew in a breath. “What a lousy day!”
Meadow called one of the deputies to pick him up and take him to the detention center while she carried the boots and jacket down to the convenience store and had the owner identify them.
He did, but he said he wouldn’t press charges. “I didn’t mean to take his girl, but she liked me better and she wouldn’t go away,” he said simply. He laughed. “I guess some girls are hard to hold on to. Anyway, he shouldn’t have to lose his job and his freedom because he pitched a temper tantrum.”
She smiled. “You’re a good sport.”
He laughed. “She’s a sweet girl.”
* * *
Jeff chuckled when she told him about her morning’s work. “You can’t say this job is ever dull,” he pointed out.
“No. You certainly can’t.”
She and Jeff stopped by the local restaurant to have lunch. It was buffet style. The food was good and inexpensive. A lot of people had lunch there every day.
As she and Jeff took their trays to a booth, Meadow noticed Dal Blake and Dana Conyers sharing a table nearby. She averted her eyes from them and smiled at Jeff as they unloaded their trays.
“I like the way they do fish,” Jeff commented. “The cook came here from LA. He said the traffic was driving him nuts.”
She laughed. “The slower pace is pretty nice,” she said. “St. Louis has its share of traffic as well.”
“Dana’s from LA,” Jeff commented, glancing irritably at the table she was sharing with Dal. “Her aunt loved it here, but Dana has champagne tastes. She’d better not be banking on Dal putting a ring on her finger. No woman’s ever been able to get him to an altar.”
“I’m not surprised,” Meadow said nonchalantly. “He likes to play the field.”
“If I had his money, I might . . . no, that’s not true,” he added on a sigh. “I’d like to find a nice woman and settle down. Raise a family. I’m thirty-five this year. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone.”
“There are worse things,” she pointed out.
His eyes slid over her face. “Do you want to get married?”
She shrugged. “It’s not high on my list of priorities,” she confessed. She didn’t add that nobody yet had wanted to marry her. She was everybody’s kid sister at work, usually. Her dates were infrequent and usually miserable. She had no illusions about herself. But she didn’t say that to Jeff.
“It’s hard for people in law enforcement to settle down with someone who doesn’t share the job,” he commented. “I’ve seen plenty of divorces since I started out. You don’t want to take the job home. There are so many horrible things you have to see, things you can’t tell outsiders about.”
