Penny (5)—Sheriff Grady Harrison’s sister; owner of The Mule Train Diner
Mississippi Brown (3,4,5)—FBI agent responsible for keeping an eye on Ronnie
Joe Martino (1,2,3,4,4.5,5)—Deceased; Ruby’s first husband, previous owner of the Dancing Winnebagos RV Park
Deputy “Dipshit” Ernie (1,2,3,4,5)—One of the sheriff’s deputies
Aunt Millie (3,4,4.5,5)—Sheriff Harrison’s aunt, leader of the library gang
Lyle Jefferson (3,4,5)—Ronnie’s ex-husband
Gary (2,3,4,5)—Bartender at The Shaft
Cherry Haywood (4.5,5)—Owner of Dirty Gerties
Elizabeth Harrison (3,4,5)—Grady Harrison’s ex-wife
Dick Webber (1,2,4,5)—Old rancher, Butch Carter’s neighbor
Tank (5)—Owner of Hummingbird Towing
Mindy Lou Harrison (3)—Sheriff Harrison’s niece
Steve Horner (3,4)—Jessica’s father, Ruby’s ex-lover
Ruth and Greta (3,4)—Members of Aunt Millie’s library gang
Chapter One
Jackrabbit Junction, Arizona
Friday, December 28th
“You know what sucks about being in jail?” Claire Morgan asked. She stopped pacing the floor inside Cell A at the Cholla County Sheriff’s Office to glare at her sister.
“The smell of urine coming from the corner,” Kate said. She’d been holding up the concrete block wall since they’d been hauled in by Deputy “Dipshit” Ernie almost an hour ago, refusing to sit on the cot that had been supposedly deloused of late.
“No.” Claire crossed her arms. “Being in jail sucks. Period. And it’s your fault I’m here, crazy.”
Studying her nails, Kate harrumphed. “I’d use an exclamation mark rather than a period after that first sentence to make it more effective.”
“I’m going to leave an exclamation mark in the middle of your forehead if you correct my English again, teacher.”
“I didn’t correct your English. I simply made an editorial suggestion.”
Kate looked up from her nail inspection. Her double-wide smile and shifty eyes made Claire cringe. The porch light was on in Kate’s head, but nobody was home at the moment. Her sister had been wearing that same manic expression outside of the grocery store earlier right before her nutty train derailed and careened into Claire.
“You need to chill out, Claire,” ol’ shifty-eyes whispered. She leaned closer. The whole left side of Kate’s face twitched. “Gramps will be here soon to spring us.”
No he wouldn’t, not unless their grandfather had recently developed the ability to read minds across vast distances. “Gramps will not be here soon,” Claire whispered back. “I wasn’t granted a free call this time, remember? And you used your one call to order a freaking pizza.”
Kate snort-cackled, returning to her nail inspection. “You shouldn’t have tackled a cop.” Her voice returned to a normal level. “Even if it was Deputy Dipshit.”
“For the millionth time, I didn’t tackle him. I was trying to shove him out of the way of your so-called runaway shopping cart and tripped on the front wheels.”
“Then how do you explain his bloody nose? Let me guess, your fist accidentally rammed into his face during your heroic attempt to save his life?”
“It was my elbow, not my fist. And yes, it was an accident. If I’d intended to do it on purpose, I’d have given him more than a bloody nose.”
Kate sniffed. “Didn’t look like an accident from where I stood.”
“Yeah, well your head is a big coconut full of funhouse mirrors these days, so your eyewitness report is suspect at best.” Claire resumed her pacing. “This is the thanks I get for trying to protect you and your kid. An hour penned in the pokey with you.”
“Don’t even try to make this about the baby.” Kate patted her little round belly, her face morphing into a loving matronly expression.
Just over four months pregnant now, Claire’s willowy blond sister had finally begun to show. Sadly though, Claire had looked more pregnant than Kate after Christmas dinner last week, a truth that their mother had made sure to point out in front of everyone during her spontaneous toast with her fourth glass of cognac.
“I don’t have to try, Mad Hatter,” Claire mumbled.
Getting preggo had rocketed her younger sister’s usually grounded brain clear into the thermosphere, where it orbited at the edge of outer space, radioing in for earthly updates once or twice a day.
“I heard that, brat. Next you’ll start harping again about my lack of mental stability.”
Claire contemplated banging her head on the cell bars until someone came to cart her away in a straitjacket. At least she’d have some peace and quiet locked away in a padded room. “Kate, you were attempting to commit a hit-and-run crime on a deputy of the law with a shopping cart in the grocery store parking lot.”
“I told you that I lost control of the cart. Plain and simple. You and Deputy Ernie are making too much out of a minor mishap.”
“How could you lose control on a flat stretch of asphalt?”
“The handle was slippery.”
That wasn’t going to fly in front of a judge. “What about the incident that happened before that?”
“What incident? I don’t know what you’re talking about. You mean putting groceries in the trunk of my car? Is that illegal now in Yuccaville? It’s not like I was trunk-or-treating in a bikini, offering high-mileage lap dances in exchange for a carton of lactose-free milk.”
“High-mileage?”
Her sister sighed. “Don’t you remember last week when Chester was explaining the difference between high- and low-mileage dances to us during our game of euchre?”
Chester Thomas was their grandfather’s old Army buddy who spent way too much time at Dirty Gerties, Yuccaville’s only strip club, for a seventy-year-old man. Claire’s and Kate’s older sister, Ronnie, claimed Chester had the hots for the club’s owner. She believed he hung out there trying to land more than a peep show or two, but Claire had her doubts due to the old boy’s fondness for bikini mud wrestling.
Claire squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remove all the images from her head that came with Chester and mud and bikinis. “I’m referring to the threat you made.”
Kate scoffed. “That wasn’t a threat. It was more of a recommendation.”
“Wow, that’s a serious case of liar-liar-pants-on-fire there. You threatened to punch Ernie in the mouth for calling you fat.”
“That’s not true. I merely suggested that someone needed to feed the deputy a knuckle
