“No, ma’am.” I inched back toward the wall, hoping to disappear into the woodwork.
Lightfoot removed his hat and stepped between us. “Mrs. McAllen, do you keep an inventory of your goods?”
“I’m waiting on you to answer, girl.”
Lightfoot lifted a brow and crossed his arms across his chest. “This ought to be good.”
I gave him a look that would have frozen pond water. “Well, I’m an investigator.”
Lightfoot’s brow lowered, a bull ready to charge.
“Of sorts.” I licked suddenly dry lips. “I’m investigating local crime for the Bugle.”
She stepped closer and gave me a slow look from my boots to my braid. “The Bugle could use a good toot of young blood, if I do say so myself.” After a glance at the notebook in my hand, she tottered off toward her office.
After Barnes and Lightfoot followed in her wake, I breathed a sigh. I was alone at last. I stood perfectly still, searching the floor and the room for a pattern to the clutter. Wasn’t that what they did on television? Looked for clues, a pattern to things that would reveal something about the criminal’s psyche? I opened my notebook and began to note the items on the floor, the ones left untouched, and those utterly destroyed. My heart sickened at the hours of work it would take to put Pinyon Pawn back together. How many employees did she have? I caught myself just as I started to kneel down and begin picking up the scattered items. It was a crime scene after all, no touching allowed. I did permit my gaze to land on first one thing and then another, and then I walked back to the open front door to view the place from a slightly different perspective.
“What do you see?”
I jumped again. “How do you always do that?”
Lightfoot watched me from the doorway to Mrs. McAllen’s office. “Practice.” A smile played at his mouth.
“Is that your superpower? Walking on light feet?”
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s a Native American thing. Your name is Lightfoot.” Sometimes I say stupid things.
His eyes narrowed, searching my face for signs of ridicule. He must have decided I was sincere—in my own ditzy way. “Lightfoot is English Welsh.”
“Shut. Up.” Other times I’m just dumber than a doornail. “You’re Native American and . . . you walk lightly.”
Glancing around the room, he removed his own notepad from his breast pocket and his usual stub of a pencil. “Look it up. Lightfoots immigrated. No Native blood.”
I moved closer, hoping to sneak a peek at his writing. I’d expected a list of items, but instead I spied a list of adjectives. “You can’t deny you have Native American blood.”
“Are you so sure I’m not Mexican?”
“Yes.” I studied his sharp cheekbones and crossed my fingers. “Why else would you permit Senora Mari to call you Indian?”
After a pregnant pause, he gave a quick nod. “My father is three-quarters because his father’s father was a Lightfoot.” He held up a hand to stall my interruption. “And he was three-quarters as well.”
Something familiar stirred in my memory. “Your parents live in Albuquerque, right?”
“Yes, but closer to the Mescalero Apache Res.”
In the other room, I could hear Bubba’s mama giving an account to Deputy Barnes of what was missing and where things should be.
“Crowbar, right?” I pointed to the gouge in the front door.
“Close enough.” Pencil poised above his notepad, he turned. “What’s missing, to your eyes?”
Little butterflies of happiness started to soar in my belly. Unless I had lost all my senses at the fairgrounds, Detective Lightfoot was asking for my opinion. “There’s not a lot of stereo equipment out here.” He didn’t write that down.
What had I missed?
“Lightfoot.” Barnes’s voice held urgency.
“Guns and jewelry.” The words exploded from my mouth before the freckle-faced deputy could steal my thunder.
“Bingo.”
“She says the gun safe is missing.”
With a slight nod in my direction, Lightfoot pocketed his notepad and pencil. “What about her jewelry?”
“We’re headed that way. Want to come?”
We followed Barnes and Mrs. Bubba to a back room that held a microwave, fridge, and metal cabinet. The older woman grabbed ahold of the small black fridge and started to pull. She was surprisingly strong and had inched the thing across the faux wood linoleum before Lightfoot and Barnes jumped in to help. “No need,” she insisted. She pushed Barnes out of the way, walked to the space behind the fridge, and opened a panel in the wall. Made of plywood, the hard outer surface appeared to be the same color as the bisque drywall, but on closer inspection, it was plywood painted the same color. She pried open a small door with her fingernail and removed a metal cashier’s box from the recess.
Barnes and Lightfoot exchanged glances above her head.
Slowly she placed the box on a nearby Formica table. From inside the neckline of her blouse, she withdrew a slender gold chain that bore a minuscule key. Inside the unassuming container were pearls, topaz, jade, gold chains, and diamond wedding rings. Before she closed and locked the box once again, I could’ve sworn I spotted what appeared to be a championship ring, glittering with diamonds.
“Is anything missing?” Lightfoot’s voice was firm and steady.
“No.” She grabbed the fingers of her other hand. “But you gotta get my weapons back. They’re my bread and butter.”
Only in Texas.
“What was in the gun safe besides guns?” Barnes placed his hand on his holster.
Her mouth turned down like a horseshoe. “Not just guns. Weapons, son. High-caliber, military-grade, police-issue weapons. Every kind.”
“Show me your license to sell firearms.”
With a grunt, she removed the support stocking on her right foot and handed Lightfoot a worn and folded bit of paper. “Here you go.”
“Why do you keep it in your stocking?” Barnes asked.
“‘Cause it falls out of my shoe otherwise.”
Gingerly, Lightfoot attempted to unfold the license using only his fingertips.
“Mrs. McAllen?” I chuckled at her
