With the Texas Rangers being state cops, Buddy and his colleagues typically took on major crime solving only in rural counties that had limited or inexperienced law enforcement.
“Nah. Midland doesn’t need the Texas Rangers,” she told Edwina. “They’ve got their own cops. But it doesn’t matter anyway. The guy’s already arrested.”
“But Buddy must know something about it. What did he say?”
“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘Don’t even think about it.’”
And that had been the extent of this morning’s conversation about John Wilson between Debbie Sue and one of the best cops in the great state of Texas. She loved Buddy from the depths of her soul, but she hated him trying to control her before she even needed controlling. And the question of if she ever truly did need controlling was still being debated between them. She sometimes wondered if the whole thing was a ruse on Buddy’s part because they seemed to settle every one of those arguments in bed.
Edwina looked up from the paper and adjusted her new lime-green cat’s-eye glasses. For years, she had worn glasses with red frames covered in bling, but the glasses she wore today had a plain retro look. “Hmm. Imagine that. Was he reading your mind again?” She blew a gum bubble the size of a golf ball and popped it.
“I wasn’t thinking about getting into it. But hell, Ed, how could we not be curious about it? We’re detectives.”
“No, we’re not, Debbie Sue. We’re nosy women who follow cheating spouses and insignificant others and pry into who they’re cheating with.”
“Ed! How can you say that about us? We’re licensed private investigators. We took the test and everything.”
“I don’t care, girlfriend. We don’t chase down cold-blooded murderers.”
Edwina had never had the enthusiasm for crime solving that Debbie Sue did. For Edwina, their investigative adventures had been mostly about having fun and being in the know of some of the locals’ best kept secrets. Thus, serious crime like murder turned her off.
“If you aren’t interested in it, why did you bring it up?”
“I’m interested as a concerned citizen, not as an insane woman who wants to chase after a killer.”
In a way, Edwina was right, but Debbie Sue had a hard time admitting it. She released a great sigh. “I know, I know. Buddy’s still pissed off over what happened with Roxie Jo Denman’s murder. I’m afraid he’s going to divorce me for the second time any day now.”
Edwina’s brow furrowed. “Well, I have to say Vic wasn’t crazy about that one, either.”
Vic Martin, Edwina’s husband, had a more liberal attitude than Buddy about the cases the Domestic Equalizers had taken on. Like Edwina, he had been interested in the fun of it. A retired US Navy SEAL who stood six-foot-five, weighed two-fifty and knew three hundred ways to kill you quietly, he feared neither man nor beast. But even he had worried when the Domestic Equalizers ended up right in the middle of solving the murder of up-and-coming country music singer Roxie Jo Denman.
Edwina wagged her crimson-tipped finger like a pendulum. “Like I told you, girlfriend. Cheating spouses and insignificant others.” She returned to her reading.
But Debbie Sue wasn’t one to give up, especially when the Domestics Equalizers, which she regarded as “her baby,” was under discussion. “I remind you, Ed, since Roxie Jo’s murder, the Domestic Equalizers has been idle except for a few cheating husbands and that fiasco where LaDonna McKenzie suspected her silly husband was sneaking up to the top of the water tower with Marilyn Haygood.”
Edwina looked up. “And I remind you, Dippity-Do, that it might not have been a fiasco if you hadn’t followed Earl up there, then been afraid to come back down. Calling our pitiful little fire department to climb up there and bring you down wasn’t your finest hour. You should’ve remembered you’re afraid of heights. Thank God you had your phone with you or you might still be up there.”
Debbie Sue hated admitting it, but sometimes curiosity and hardheadedness got the best of her good sense. Half of Cabell County had been gathered around and staring up at the water tower, watching poor Johnny Bolling—who was an auto mechanic most of the time—coax her into letting him carry her down the water tower ladder long after she had failed to find Earl and LaDonna. Being reminded in such a public way that Debbie Sue Overstreet wasn’t Wonder Woman had tarnished the Domestic Equalizers’ reputation, for sure.
Her mouth automatically twisted into a scowl. She summoned her indignation. “Well it didn’t look as scary climbing up as it did going down.”
“Hmm. What was worse was finding out later that Earl and Marilyn had really been in a motel in Odessa all that time. They hadn’t ever been up there on that water tower. It was all an ugly rumor.”
“Oh, hell, Ed. Now you’re starting to sound like Buddy.”
“That’s because I agree with him. I repeat, we’re not supposed to investigate murders. My God, Debbie Sue. We could get ourselves killed. And I like my aging hide and body all in one piece.”
“But can we get hurt just looking into it a little? What if we were able to discover something important to the investigation? Just think what that would do for the Domestic Equalizers’ reputation.”
Edwina folded her paper, rose from her chair and began putting her station in order for the day. “Speaking of Midland, remember my niece Sandi? My middle sister’s youngest?”
Debbie Sue knew Edwina as well as she knew herself. The hardheaded woman simply didn’t want to discuss the murder in Midland, so she changed the subject. Debbie Sue swung her
