Page 4 of Half Blind

When she said the names, Myrtle indicated the heads in the pickle jar.

Helen, her face expressionless, didn’t miss a beat. “I assume Larry was the cobra.”

“Yeah, how’d you figure that?” Myrtle asked.

“Because Frank is a name you give to a bad son-of-a-gun who looks cute but is deadly,” Helen said. “The Gaboon looks like a friendly little pet but is truly toxic, kind of like a mobster named Frank.”

“Exactly,” Lemon said. “I think I might like you. Him, I don’t like.”

“He was right to take them down versus allowing them to get away or find a dark spot to hide,” Helen said. “What if he’d bitten one of the girls or worse? Will it be possible for you to get more?”

Jared was watching the women closely. The one who arrived made him feel uneasy. Her eyes assessed everything and she was assessing him. He didn't like it in the least. It felt as if she were attempting to unravel his soul.

Helen watched the stranger with a mild interest. His eyes were scanning everything around him. Suddenly, the scanning stopped and his eyes fixed on an image. He reached for the pickle jar, snatching from Lemon’s hand. In one motion, he scooped up the carcasses from the ground, moving at a clip to the barn.

Helen turned to see what the stranger spotted, noticing the arrival of the squad car. When she turned back, the man was standing at a respectable distance from Lemon.

He spoke, barely moving his lips as the squad car approached, saying, “I’m Jared. Jared Bane.”

“Myrtle Kainker, Ph.D.,” Lemon added.

Helen said, “I'm cousin Helen McDaniel from Indiana.”

The squad car came to a stop. A Smokey the Bear hat came out of the vehicle first, followed by a burly man with a shock of ginger hair, a wide, bulbous tipped red nose, and mirrored glasses over a porn star mustache.

“Doc Myrtle,” the officer said.

“Sheriff Sparta,” she replied as the nosey man took in the new people who stood between him and wooing the woman he wanted in his bed.

“Tornado last night did some damage. We spotted a crumpled overturned truck in the field about five miles down the road, and this is the nearest farm. Figured if anyone made it out that vehicle alive more’n likely ended up here.”

“I survived and ended up here,” Jared said. “Not sure how my truck is faring, though.”

Sheriff Sparta didn’t like another cock being in the house with the hens he’d planned to take over. “You stayed here last night?”

“Yes, Doc Myrtle let me stay in the barn on a cot,” Jared said, maintaining eye contact with the officer.

His eyes went to Helen. “And you?”

“Just arrived,” Helen said. “I’m Myrtle’s cousin Helen from Indiana. My Ma still likes us girls to stay close.”

Jared drew the attention back to himself, diverting the shifty cop’s chances to probe deeper. “Officer, how bad is my truck?”

“Yeah, it’s gonna need some work for it to be to be roadworthy. I know a couple of tow places nearby,” the officer said, his eyes going to the girls. “You ladies made it in last night as well?”

“No Suh,” Bria, the oldest of the two said. “We were on an away volleyball game to Cincinnati. The bus dropped us off a little while ago at the school and we just drove home.”

Myrtle didn’t like Cletus Sparta. He was the worst kind of cop, overly fucking helpful to the point of being nosey and annoying. Several times he’d popped up on Myrtle while she was working and always when she was home alone. Thus far, he’d just been helpful, but she could tell he was always checking to see if there was a man about. She also didn’t like the way he looked at the girls, meaning she knew his type. If he worked his way into the door, he would end up spending the night in different beds. She had no use for a man like him. If the Jared fella was the same sort, he could get the hell on as well, and she’d pay his bus fare.

“You moving on once you get your truck?” Officer Sparta asked Jared.

It was the way he asked which raised the hackles on Jared’s back. His eyes went to the lady who seemed uncomfortable with the line of inquiry. He also noticed the tension in the girls, and the woman who’d just arrived, her body language also changed, registering the officer as a threat. He went into protector mode.

“Depends on how long it takes to repair the truck,” Jared said. “In the meantime, Doc Myrtle here has a lot of damage around here that I plan to clear out for her. I need to fix that roof, put in those missing windowpanes, and a few other things the storm damaged.”

Officer Sparta asked, seeming irritated for no apparent reason, “You’re hanging around?”

“I’m going to stay and take care of whatever Doc Myrtle and Ms. Helen need me to do around the place,” Jared said.

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