Page 75 of A Spot of Trouble
“Can I get three of those Dalmatian cupcakes?” A customer slapped nine dollar bills onto the counter. “That fireman’s nutty Dalmatian is stealing the show out there.”
But what was good for Violet’s cupcake business wasn’t so great for Sam. Obviously distracted by his dog’s antics, he almost struck out when it was his turn on deck. With two strikes down, he hit a bloop single that, fortunately for Sam, landed in no man’s land between the infield and outfield. Rattled by the sight of their star player’s weak hit, the rest of the Hoses’ batting line-up promptly fell like dominoes. Every player up to bat struck out, one right after another. At the end of the inning, the police department was still up by one run. The game was officially over.
“Yes!” Violet screamed from the confines of her cupcake truck.
The Guns team celebrated as if they’d won the World Series. Violet had never seen Island Pizza so packed. Players, locals, and tourists alike jammed inside the pizza parlor to celebrate the continuation of the tournament. The Hoses players didn’t seem quite as disappointed as Violet would have imagined they might. She didn’t get to talk to Sam, because by the time she closed up the cupcake truck and got the Charlie’s Angels—plus Larry Sims, resplendent in a cardigan with red embroidered trim reminiscent of the stitching on a softball—to Island Pizza, there wasn’t an empty table in sight. But Sam’s fellow players kept slapping him on the back and vowing to take back the tournament next Saturday, and when Sam’s eyes met Violet’s across the crowded restaurant, he didn’t look at all like a man who’d just lost a championship game.
You win some, you lose some,he mouthed. Turtle Beach was in the throes of softball madness, and no one seemed to want to see the season come to an end.
Violet grinned, warmth spreading through her.
“You seem awfully happy about your team finally winning a game,” Ethel said above the din.
“What?” Violet said, tearing her attention away from the fire department’s table to glance at her friends. “Oh, right. The game. Yes, I’m thrilled, of course. Go TBPD!”
She snagged Mavis’s blue foam finger in the air and waved it around, bopping about half a dozen people on the head in the process.
“Violet, dear, do you mind if we skip pizza this time? It’s going to be hours before we’re served.” Mavis glanced at her watch.
“There’s a two-hour wait,” a passing server said. “And that’s once you get seated.”
Larry went pale.Jeopardy!started in an hour and a half. Opal and Ethel were fine leaving early, they said. The chef at the senior center was preparing fresh crab for dinner, an annual summer treat they didn’t want to miss. So Violet snuck Sam a flippy wave goodbye, hugged her brothers around their necks, and piled back into the cupcake truck with her friends.
They made it back to the senior center in record time, considering the journey included loading, unloading, and reloading four aluminum walkers and eight obnoxiously huge foam fingers. Violet had just gotten each senior citizen matched with the proper ambulatory assistance device when a police cruiser pulled up beside her sleek silver food truck in the retirement center’s parking lot.
“Dad?” Violet peered into the squad car as the driver’s side window rolled down, revealing a very weary-looking Ed March. “Is everything okay?”
She’d expected her father to be beside himself with joy in the wake of the TBPD’s softball victory. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d seen him being doused with a big orange cooler full of Gatorade near the police department’s dugout as she’d sold her last remaining Dalmatian cupcakes.
“I followed you here from Island Pizza,” he said, as if that made any sense whatsoever.
“Why? Was I speeding?” Violet laughed. The fastest she’d ever driven her cupcake truck had been a tame fifty miles per hour, and that certainly hadn’t been on the island.
Violet was a cop’s daughter. Sheneversped, just as she never rode in a car without her seat belt firmly fastened, never ran red lights, and never made rolling stops at any of the stop signs along Turtle Beach’s sandy streets. The rules of the road had been hammered into her before she even knew how to drive.
Similarly, Violet had never shoplifted a thing in her life—not even as a child. The closest she’d ever come to committing a crime had been joining a group of kids who’d toilet-papered the house of a baseball player from a rival high school when she’d been a teenager. Even then, Violet had been so guilt-stricken the following day that she’d shown up on the baseball player’s doorstep to help him clean up the mess.
Violet just wasn’t built for a life of crime. She knew this about herself. It was a rather convenient truth since she shared a home with half of the island’s police force.
“No, you weren’t speeding,” Dad said without a trace of humor in his tone. “But…”
Opal, Ethel, Mavis, and Larry glanced back and forth between Ed and Violet March in obvious concern.
“But what, Dad? Am I in some sort of trouble?” Violet laughed again, but it felt forced this time.
Something was definitely wrong. She could see it in the deep furrow in her father’s forehead.
He opened the door to the car and stepped onto the pavement, and that’s when Violet realized that he wasn’t wearing his softball uniform anymore. He was dressed in his police uniform, which seemed odd. He usually didn’t go in to the station on Saturday afternoons.
“Dad?” Violet had a sudden urge to hug her Dalmatian, but she couldn’t.
Sprinkles was waiting for her in Mavis’s room, like she always did when they went to Island Pizza. She was probably sprawled on the sofa, glued to DOG-TV right this minute, oblivious to Violet’s panic.
But why was she panicking? She had nothing to feel remotely guilty about—except yes, she’d accepted Sam’s invitation to the Fireman’s Ball. Her dad couldn’t possibly know about that yet, though. And besides, what was he going to do when he found out? Throw her in jail?
“I’m sorry, Cupcake.” Her father’s gaze shifted to the gravel parking lot. He suddenly couldn’t seem to look her in the eye. “But you’re under arrest.”
Chapter 17
