It's Murder at the Buy-Right

16

Deke drove down Main Street. As he neared Albion's sandwich shop, he slowed to a crawl. The place was packed. Like always. The shop lights threw shadows in the parking lot.

Deke saw several young people milling about outside, leaning against their pickups, munching on subs and sodas.

He parked his truck toward the back side of the building. Heat lightning jitterbugged across the cloud tops, silhouetting the gently sloping western ridges.

The air smelled of ozone and dripped of humidity. Deep bellows and chirrups punctuated the night. Lightning bugs flickered along a distant tree line. The gravel crunched under his boots. Far in the woods, he heard the coo of a mourning dove.

He rounded the corner, scoping out the back of Albion's shop.

"You lose something back here, Dewitt?"

It was Deputy Richmond Eades.

Even in the shadowy light, Deke could tell Eades was smiling his oily grin. It always made Deke feel like Eades witnessed you splitting a cow pile with your brand new Sunday shoes.

Deke shook off the feeling.

As usual, the hairs on the back of his neck were at full attention. That always happened whenever Eades was near.

"Thought I saw a cat that looked like Daisy Ann's run behind here. It's a stray she's been feeding at the store. The thing ran away, and she's giving me grief to find it for her."

"Stray, huh," Eades said. "Seems like I seen you more than once hangin' 'round back here. Must be a lotta strays slinking off. Maybe they're looking for scraps, huh."

"It's dark back here, Richmond. Easy to mistake me for somebody else."

"Uh-huh."

His eyes were small and close set, but they burned in the deputy's sockets like glowing coals. Deke shifted his weight uneasily to his left foot.

"Don't see no cats back here, Deke. Not the four-legged kind, anyway."

"No. I don't either. You're right, Richmond. It's gone."

Deke pivoted, walking slowly back to his truck. The hairs on the back of his neck still stood straight up. A chill swept over his skin, and goose bumps prickled his arms. Above the crunch of gravels under his shoes, he heard a metallic click, click, click.

He knew that sound.

He turned back to see Eades playing with his revolver.

"Hope you find that stray. You have a nice night, you hear?"

Deke cranked his truck.

He looked in his rearview mirror as he drove away. The deputy was still leaning against the corner of the building, the gun held loosely in his hand.

Deke gunned the engine, hearing the squeal of rubber as his tires lost traction on the wet pavement of the sandwich shop parking lot.