Page 63 of Brewbies
The day began when a call pulled him out of a fitful sleep to check on an escaped alpaca from the Amber Lights B&B that was terrorizing the goats on theFromage de Chèvrefarm a couple miles out of town.
Things just got weirder from there.
What the fuck was with people today? Had he missed a full moon? Was Mercury in retrograde? Solar flares? Amphetamines in the water supply?
Something was off, and just as soon as he took this call, he intended to leave the wild goose chases to his deputies and figure out the crux of the fuckery.
“Say again, Judy?” Ethan tilted his chin toward his radio, paying close attention this time so the dispatcher didn’t sound like some grownup in a Charlie Brown special.
“Report of a 10-52 with possible 208 on Water Street, Townsend Harbor. TH Police requesting 510 from 1J-33.” Judy blew an against-regulation gum bubble and popped it loudly.
A burglary with possible suspect on scene. Code 510 was an officer in need of assistance.
1J-33? That was Ethan’s call sign.
Which officer from Townsend Harbor would be requesting his assistance, specifically?
“1J-33 responding. ETA two minutes.” Flicking on his sirens, Ethan made a quick U-turn and ran one of the town’s five red lights as Judy rattled off the Water Street address between audible clicks of her knitting needles.
Other than the B+E scare at Nevermore Bookstore the prior autumn—shamefully perpetrated by his own mother and her unlikely cohort—Water Street was considered the safest street in the state.
Property crimes compounded the bulk of violations in Townsend Harbor, followed closely by the usual small-town nonsense. Tourist issues, shoplifting, a bar brawl at a local watering hole or the yacht club, domestic disturbances, dog bites, and vehicle infractions. Occasionally the heir to a deceased retiree called to try to make a murder out of a molehill in order to control the will.
But a downtown burglary in broad daylight?
Unheard of in the town’s almost-two-hundred-year history.
Ethan didnotcount the KIKI FORRESTER FOR SHERIFF signs he passed on the way (eleven) and double-parked in front of Vee’s Lady Garden. Keeping his lights alternately flashing and his head on a swivel, he leapt from his vehicle and dove into the open door of the shop with his hand on his duty weapon.
Two familiar heads turned toward him, wearing comically identical expressions of relief at his appearance.
The first? Townsend Harbor Police Sergeant Dan Eccles, a deeply religious Episcopalian minister who fellowshipped at the soup kitchen he shared with his best friend and worst fishing enemy, Rabbi Moskowitz. Eccles was a good cop and a terrible prude, which made his current predicament more than a little amusing.
Feet planted wide in front of the beet-red sergeant, was Vivian “Vee” Prescott, a British waif of a woman with steel-gray hair and a backbone of titanium. Both literally and figuratively in her case, after a few recent surgeries had fused together a crumbling spine.
Blinking the daylight out of his eyes, Ethan quickly realized the three of them were alone in the store.
“There you are, sheriff, just in the nick of time.” Vee’s several silk scarves flowed from her like billowing tentacles as she rushed Ethan. “This Philistine refuses to believe I’ve been burgled and won’t take down a report for insurance.” Her gnarled fingers, tipped by unbelievable inches of claw-shaped acrylics, dug into Ethan’s forearm as she clutched him.
“She doesn’t have the receipts to match what she claims is missing,” Eccles said with biblical amounts of patience as he consulted his notes. In his plump, square hand, an iPhone looked like a doll toy. “Complainant did not witness the alleged robbery, can only identify three of the four missing items, and is claiming in excess of twenty-five thousand dollars of lost merchandise.”
“And is also standing right here, you absolute dullard.”
Ethan lifted his brows at Vee, whose talon-like grip relaxed when he patted her hand. “The shelves look stocked, Vee.” He gestured to her little storefront, replete with oils, nightgowns, bottles of supplements, nipple creams, warming and cooling gels, remedies for everything from hot flashes and stretch marks, to period cramps and body-hair removal. Feeling his own ears warm, he kept his demeanor soft and calm. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Wanna get rid of Porky Pig first?” She hitched a thumb at Sergeant Eccles, a stout, round-shouldered man whose stomach was expanding further over his belt with every year he inched closer to retirement.
“Hey, that was uncalled for, ma’am,” Eccles complained, rubbing at his solar plexus as if she’d struck it.
“So is your presence, and yet here you still are.” Vee motioned to the door.
“You called the police,” Eccles reminded her.
Ethan stepped in. “Damn, Vee, Myrtle is really rubbing off on you.”
The woman unfurled her dentures in a self-satisfied grin. “Were that the case, sheriff, I’d have said something about his mother.”
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose. “You have any pressing need to pull the jurisdiction card and keep this one, sergeant?”
