Items that appeared to me to have very little value: record albums, a baby seat, a CD player, a tricycle, and two girls’ bikes with baskets. Shelves were turned over, and I realized the item I’d been staring at for the last few seconds was the cash register. I swallowed back a nasty taste. This was someone’s livelihood scattered across the floor like so much trash. I blinked back emotion. Was there anything left to sell that wasn’t damaged or destroyed?
Suddenly the front door opened, and I jumped back into the alley. I pressed my ear to the outside of the door.
“No sign of forced entry.” The voice belonged to Barnes. He must be on the phone. “I’d say they used a crowbar or a meat cleaver.” He broke into delighted laughter at his own wit. “Yes, sir.” He spoke with sudden deference and seriousness. Someone on the other end hadn’t found his laughter well suited to the situation.
I ventured to peek around the doorway. Barnes’s back was to me as he surveyed the room. “A lot of broken merchandise: radios, televisions, baby stuff.” There was a pause. “No, sir. I can’t tell what’s missing. If you were to ask me, which I guess is what you’re doing, I’d say it was vandalism—everything appears to be on the floor.”
“Don’t think about disturbing my crime scene.”
“Ahggg.” I jumped backwards, thunked into Lightfoot’s chest, thwacked his chin with the back of my head, and landed on his boots.
“Huh.” The air whooshed from his lungs. “Watch out!” Before I could permanently change his voice from bass to tenor, he grabbed me by the arms, lifted me off his feet, and set me down to one side. “Are you out of your mind, woman?”
My heart was racing. “Only on Fridays.” I laughed. “Oops, guess today’s Friday, isn’t it?”
“Who tipped you off?” He retrieved his hat from the weeds. “And don’t give me your Spidey senses bullcrap.”
The blood rushed to my cheeks. Lightfoot didn’t swear, at least not in front of me. For him to use even a mild expletive meant I’d done some damage. “Sorry about that.” I gestured helplessly. “You okay?”
He began to slap his Stetson against the side of his leg. “I might ask you the same thing.” A bit of dirt and a bird feather fell to the ground. He frowned, a deep line appearing between his pitch-black eyes. “I’m waiting.”
While I considered my answer choices, I straightened my brunette braid so that it lay over my left shoulder and smoothed the bottom of my chili pepper red Milagro golf shirt.
His eyes narrowed, too close to a glare for comfort.
“I heard it in passing.” I shrugged. “You know how gossip travels in this town.”
Raven brows lifted for a second and then plummeted, giving him the expression of an angry bull.
“I bet she heard it from Maria.” Barnes swaggered out the door, thumbs in his belt. He glanced from me to Lightfoot and shook his head in disgust. “You know, the wind?”
“No,” I said.
He puffed out his chest, pulled in a lungful of air, and warbled the familiar lyrics in a high tenor that matched his fair coloring.
I grinned. “Yeah, I’ve heard it—just wanted to see if you’d sing it.”
His freckled complexion reddened. “What are you doing here?” He shot a glance at Lightfoot.” You ain’t supposed to be at our crime scene.”
I stared around him. “What crime?” A large hand clamped onto my shoulder.
“Walk behind us, got it? You touch so much as a loose hair on your shirt, you’re out on the seat of your Wranglers.”
I stepped out of Lightfoot’s grasp, chin tucked, trying for cowed and intimidated. “Yes, sir. Not even to swat a scorpion from your hat.”
One side of Lightfoot’s mouth twitched. “Ten paces behind Barnes. Got it?” He stepped around me and gestured for Barnes to follow.
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“What is it with you and seamen?” Lightfoot murmured.
Pulling his hat down over his eyes, Barnes gave me a steely-eyed glare and turned abruptly away.
Once they’d entered the store, I followed and halted just inside the doorway.
“You call the owner?” On the far side of the room, Lightfoot lowered himself onto his haunches, the better to stare directly into the front door’s damaged lock.
Barnes cast me a suspicious look. “Just got off the phone with her.”
“Who’s she?” I resisted the urge to open my notebook.
Lightfoot stood. “Bubba’s mama.”
Bubba owned the BBQ joint of the same name. His mama, Mrs. McAllen, was a tough old bird. She was sweet as pecan pie around town, but I noticed that her six-foot-four-inch son jumped whenever she looked at him cross-eyed.
Stepping over a toppled copper planter with a plastic rubber plant still inside, I discovered shelves and their contents scattered as if a twister had blown through on its way to Oklahoma.
A white blur caught my eye through the gated front window. A white Lincoln darted into a parking spot followed by a loud, metallic screech as the fender ground into the curb.
“I thought she lost her license when she took out Bubba’s picture window.” Barnes hurried outside to help the elderly woman from her car.
Lightfoot gave me a stern look. “Who told you about the break-in?”
My neck stiffened at his tone, so I took my time. “Let’s see.”
“Knock it off or you’ll be wailing to that editor of yours about not getting your story.” He caught my reaction. “Sumter Majors did this? What’d he do, give you one of his police scanners?” He threw back his head and groaned, then his gaze became hard as flint. “He did, didn’t he?”
“Maybe.”
Bubba’s mama marched through the door on Barnes’s arm, hissing and spitting like an alley cat on garbage day. “What in tarnation’s going on?” She dropped the deputy’s arm and straightened up as far as her rounded back would allow. Behind her glasses, I observed the shine of tears. With a purse of her lips, her head snapped in
