“Yeah, nobody will mess with her when she’s got that spoon nearby,” Rob said loudly.
“It’s like her witch’s wand,” Angelica piped up.
“Witches… wand?” Goldie said, turning to her daughter in law, eyebrows raised almost to her hairline.
“Don’t you test me Momma, I ain’t getting spanked with that spoon.”
Rob whispered something to her, and Angelica burst into giggles. Goldie’s face turned crimson when Angelica replied, “Maybe later then?”
“This is uh…” Gorman started.
“Yeah, uh… oh fuck it,” Korey said and leaned over and grabbed two beers from the cooler and put one in front of each of them.
“A toast!” Anna said suddenly. She’d had a few beers and, despite being tequila buddies with Angelica, she didn’t hold her alcohol well either.
“To good friends, new acquaintances and future allies!”
“Cheers,” several of them called immediately.
“Are we considered new acquaintances or allies?” Korey tried to whisper to Gorman, but he wasn’t as quiet as he’d hoped.
“Both, I think,” Curt said, holding up his bottle. “To Agents Gorman and Korey, may they find the truth of the conspiracy before it consumes us all!”
“I’ll drink to that,” Dante agreed.
“And Andrea and I are now on seltzer water. This is so not fair.” Leah sniffed.
“You’re both pregnant,” Dante scolded.
“I know Doctor McHottyPants,” Leah said, then leaned over and put her head on his shoulder.
“I’ll drink for the both of you,” Anna called from across the table.
“Maybe you should slow down,” Steven said, then winced as Goldie whacked the table again with the spoon.
“Never tell a woman how much she can—”
“Roscoe, fetch stick,” Anna shouted.
The big dog jumped up and snatched the spoon right from Goldie’s hands as she was gesturing. The mutt took off at a dead run, surprisingly fast for his size, and was out of earshot before Goldie’s sputtering and Anna’s cackles tapered off. Crunching sounds came from the direction of the dog as he chewed up the cooking implement.
“You guys do this all the time?” Gorman asked, trying to change the subject because he could tell the older woman was furious.
“We eat together all the time, but we don’t break out the beer and ‘shine unless we’ve got guests or are celebrating something. We figured we could win you over after you saw us unscripted working with the community around here and what we’re really like. What do you think; were we wrong?” Luis asked them both.
“We usually don’t take sides,” Korey said, looking at Gorman who nodded at him, “but the orders you gave us a copy of, and how our superiors are acting, have us more than a little concerned. This Doctor Khamenei and his group… I’d love to talk to them. If they work for the government and aren’t some sort of contracted black ops group, they are operating in the USA illegally. If they were abroad, the rules are different, but here…”
“We don’t like taking sides,” Gorman picked up where Korey left off, “but sometimes there’s only two sides. Right and wrong. We both come from a long line of police and law enforcement. We’ve always liked to believe that we’re working on the side of the light.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Maybe you can send up a prayer for Anna though,” Goldie said.
“Why?” Anna asked her, puzzled, as the older woman got up.
“I’m going to get the big spoon.”
“Oh shit, she has one bigger?” Dante asked Curt.
“Fuck if I know, I thought that was the big one.”
“Babe, you better run,” Steven told his wife, deadpan.
“I’ll come with,” Angelica said, popping up out of her seat.
“Where she goes, I go,” Bailey said, then she grabbed two fresh beers in one big hand and her plate of food in the other.
The group watched and snickered as the three ladies fled to the cabin where Steven and Anna lived. Rob just shook his head, grinning, as the front door to the big house slammed closed. They could all hear Goldie murmuring curses and using Anna’s and Roscoe’s names.
“So, boys,” Leah leaned forward, “you’re on our side, right?”
“If you’ve been 100% transparent and forthcoming, I don’t see how we couldn’t be,” Korey said simply.
“See,” Andrea leaned forward as well, “I have a hard time believing authority figures, especially politically-driven law enforcement. I’m glad you say you’re on our side, but it’s going to take me a little bit to trust all y'all.”
“I completely understand, Doctor Mallory,” Gorman said. “What happened to you was fucked up. I hate to hear one officer ate his gun over it, but what they did was wrong. They should all be prosecuted.”
“Except that Winters lady is already dead,” Korey told them.
“But who was giving her the orders? The DA? Somebody else?” Dante asked.
Steven leaned forward, sensing the shift in the conversation.
“Who says she wasn’t doing this on her own, to save her own ass?” Curt asked, trying to play the devil’s advocate.
“She probably was,” Leah said. “But the sheriff was investigating the men in black and Winters’ death, and he wound up murdered. They even tried to make it look like one of us did it.”
“So, wait, you think ADA Winters had somebody talking in her ear and giving her suggestions or directions, and that she caused the massacre here, then later the firebombing and the death of the sheriff?”
“Why not? Doesn’t it all fit with the big conspiracy theory we’ve been handed?” Andrea asked.
“I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle,” Curt told her. “The sheriff was his own man, and wasn’t going to be pushed around by the feds, no offense,” he told the agents. “He was in the way. Agent Winters probably did a lot of this to cover her own ass. If she was the one who decided to press charges against Andrea, and then instructed the cops to lose the evidence, the blame is on her.”
“But what if there’s a common thread that ties all of it together?” Korey asked, curious now at the turn of the conversation.
“Or the story of the bones.
