Page 61 of Sirens
Probably all of them.
“Roundabouts are a menace!” barked an astonishingly blond man with a chin wattle that would make a turkey proud. Trent recognized him as Bradley Osgaard, the local self-appointed Port Townsend online censor, ran and moderated Port Townsend pages on various social media apps, turning them into his pathetic online echo chamber. His color was as ridiculously high as the belt cinching his chinos up to his armpits, voice quivering with passion as he shook his fist. “They’ll have us going ’round in circles, dizzy and more lost than a one-legged duck in a pond!”
Lyra snorted, pinning him with her unflinching, unsettling eye contact. “Statistically speaking, they reduce traffic accidents by thirty-nine percent!” The thick-framed glasses she wore told them she ate statistics for breakfast.
“Arrest Myrtle the turd-le, officer, we demand it!” Janet, her cheeks flushed with the kind of fervor usually reserved for discount sales at the local bakery, clutched her cardigan over a house dress and cast dirty looks at Lyra’s designer drip.
“Oh please, Janet, you’re complaining a lot for someone who smells like an old bowl of onions sat in the fridge too long,” Myrtle groused.
The pungent smell of manure thickened the air, clinging to clothes and churning stomachs. Trent grimaced, watching as protesters scattered to escape the stench. The woman had gigantic titanium balls to call someone out on their aroma.
He had to give it to Myrtle… It was the most effective and least violent protest disbandment he’d ever seen.
“Who is responsible for this biohazard?” Every time Trent heard Mayor Stewart’s voice, he had the spine-curling urge to cover his no-no squares.
“Don’t worry about it—the perpetrator is being dealt with.” Trent eyed Myrtle, who scraped her shovel across the concrete with more enthusiasm than necessary.
“Dealt with? She should be arrested!” The mayor stabbed a finger at Myrtle. “Disturbing the peace, illegal dumping—she’s a menace!”
“I understand your concern.” Trent kept his tone neutral, though inwardly he itched to elbow the guy into the pile, so the smell would match his personality. Myrtle might be eccentric, but she’d taken things too far this time. Still, he was in no great hurry to slap handcuffs on her itty-bitty wrists. “Rest assured, the situation will be handled appropriately.”
The mayor sniffed, clearly unappeased. “See that it is. Or on your head be it.”
Trent gave the man his bestwhat-the-fuck-everlook before replying, “Yes, sir.” As much as he loved his job, sometimes he hated it. “I will have to ticket and fine you, Myrtle. And if you don’t clean this up immediately…” He let the threat of arrest remain unspoken.
“Oh, I know—I brought my checkbook!” Myrtle grinned. “Worth every penny, and make sure you spell my middle name right. Here’s my license.”
Pulling a face, Trent took the black latex gloves out of his utility belt and donned them before taking the stained, well-used identification.
Janet stamped her clogs in protest. “This town’s gone to pot ever since that woman and her sort moved here.”
Lyra took a step in Janet’s direction, a dangerous gleam in her dark eyes. “What do you mean, her sort? Why don’t youteetotalers get a life, or at least a fucking hobby. Gathering a posse to bully an elderly lesbian isn’t a good look.”
“Who you calling elderly?” Myrtle chirped.
Uh oh.
Trent placed himself between the mini conclave squaring off like the generals meeting over the battlefield, their deeply weird armies bracketing them, waiting for the charge.
“Ms. McKendrick, Myrtle is in zero danger of anything like that happening.” He put up a hand against the local lawyer’s famously barbed tongue.
“I know that,” she replied. “How about someone WikiLeak that to the right hand of Jesus queer-hating Christ over there?”
“And while you’re at it, take this shit sack of a mayor and this Igor-looking muthafuckah out with the rest of this garbage.” Gabe threw every bit of his Southie accent into his tone.
“I will not stand here and be spoken to like this!” Mayor Stewart’s hair ruffled in the wind, showing the liver-spotted scalp beneath.
“Promise?” Myrtle said. “Why don’t you take your little secretary and split?”
“Secretary?” Gabe’s eyebrow went up.
“Yeah. Mayor Spewart’s wife won’t let him have female secretaries anymore, so he’s stuck with Bradley O, the keyboard warrior who wants to be like Michael Vick but with humans.”
“I’ll sue you for libel!” the pinkening Bradley O threatened.
“Good luck,” Myrtle spat. “The only lawyer in town is on my side.”
“The devil is on your side!” Janet cried, making the sign of the cross.
