Stef Ann Holm, Lucy Back [paper ebook reader .TXT] 📗

Spin spoke loudly. “Good.”

“You’re almost an icon in Idaho. The seventh woman to be admitted into the Idaho Bar. How have things changed since you practiced law in the early years? There used to be some dissension between you and a Judge—” the reporter referred to her notes “—Judge Harrison.”

Spin went into a bit of history of the Idaho judicial system, careful not to call Harrison an asshole, but she thought it just the same.

Big-ass asshole, male-chauvinist pig…asshole.

Asshole.

That last asshole thought made her brows pucker. She should have stopped while she was ahead.

The reporter asked, “Are you in good health?”

“As good as I can be for one hundred and three.”

“You look wonderful.”

“I feel so-so,” she quipped. “But I can die fulfilled now that Mr. Scott has recognized me on his weather segment.”

“The whole of Boise would like to recognize you, Ms. Goodey-Leonard.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because I’m having my ashes returned to Boise when I’m gone.”

This piece of bold news caused the woman to falter somewhat. She probably hadn’t dealt with death very much at her young age. “Oh, I’m sure that will be nice for you,” she managed to murmur.

“It’ll be more than nice. It’s my way of saying a final goodbye to Judge Harrison for all those years in the courtroom when he looked at me like a tomato rather than a lawyer.” Before the anchor could cut her short, Spin grabbed hold of the microphone and continued, “I’m having my ashes baked into bread, then fed to the courthouse pigeons.”

The anchor attempted to pull away the mike, but Spin held fast, her red lipstick grazing it as she looked directly into the camera. “Then when the pigeons shit on Harrison’s statue in the court gardens, it’ll be my way of saying goodbye to the asshole.”

Stunned but good-natured laughter erupted in the Mule Shoe as the camera crew cut the film.

Spin didn’t care if her segment aired or not.

She was one hundred and three tomorrow and she didn’t give a good damn what anyone thought. She’d been on NBC. Coast to coast. And with the checkered Smucker border setting off the lace collar of her blouse, she’d looked peachy on TV.

She hoped her great-nephew, Morris Leonard, wouldn’t give her too much crap about the interview. He was a prominent Boise attorney and a fine catch for the right woman.

By lunchtime, life in Red Duck had settled back to normal: the sheriff cited two speeders; Jacquie Santini from Realty Professionals sold a 4.6 million dollar home to an “unnamed” movie actor from Holly-weird; Sutter’s Gourmet Grocery put buffalo meat on sale; and a benefit to improve the Little League field was announced.

That night, Spin’s interview was edited and cut to suit prime-time television. No surprise there. But the residents didn’t seem to mind.

There was other news already brewing in Red Duck.

One

“That stretch of Timberline Highway by the golf course looks like a slaughterhouse floor.” The blue Idaho sky with its popcorn-shaped clouds reflected in the sheriff’s sunglasses. “I don’t recall such a massacre so close to town before.”

Lucy Carpenter grabbed her two sons by their shoulders and drew them in close. Her lanky sixteen-year-old, Jason, shrugged out of her protective embrace, while her twelve-year-old, Matt, stuck next to her as his mouth dropped open.

The deputy, a whipcord thin man wearing a cowboy hat and sporting a red Fu Manchu mustache, remarked, “It’ll be one hell of a job scraping off the pavement.”

The lump forming in Lucy’s throat ached, making it more difficult to swallow. Her skin grew clammy. The band of her bra seemed to constrict and cause a thin line of perspiration to roll between her breasts. With one hand, she flipped open the top two buttons on her wool jacket, welcoming the chill air through her knit shirt.

Suddenly, moving to Red Duck seemed like a horribly ill conceived idea. How could these two men talk so casually about a dead body on the road?

Jason’s voice regressed to a prepuberty squeak. “Mom, I told you Boise wasn’t that bad!”

“I never said it was a crime capital.” Lucy’s response was a little too abrupt, and perhaps on the defensive side, when she didn’t intend for it to be. “I simply said the city was a bad influence on you.”

“I only smoked some pot. They kill people up here!”

That last part, or rather that first part, had both law officials looking at her son as if he were a notorious drug dealer.

“We don’t tolerate any mary-wanna-go-to-jail in this town,” Sheriff Roger Lewis cautioned, his small eyes narrowing to slits. He had a dark tropical tan that George Hamilton would envy. Silver hair framed his long face, and his teeth were a blinding white. He sported a felt-brimmed cowboy hat in the same silver color that accessorized both law-enforcement uniforms. And each officer had a very large revolver in a holster.

Lucy’s eyes felt dry. She blinked and tried to focus.

The deputy ran his forefinger under his nose, scratched it, then shifted his weight to an exaggerated stance. “Back in the late nineties, a few bad apples from Boise brought some cocaine with them, and several fledgling businesses went up some noses.” He traded glances with the sheriff, the pair obviously recollecting the damage. “The Iron Mountain Paragliding School was one of them.”

“What Deputy Cooper’s saying—” the sheriff hitched his pants to high-water level while looking directly at her son “—is we won’t tolerate any big-city trouble.”

The crispness in the late May day seemed to evaporate, Lucy’s cheeks growing warm. Indignance threaded through her. She laid a hand on Jason’s shoulder, drew him close. This time he didn’t resist. “We don’t smoke marijuana and I wouldn’t dream of bringing any drugs into town.”

But as she spoke, she recalled her firsthand encounter with drugs and her son.

Jason had been caught with a marijuana cigarette in his hall locker. He’d been put on suspension, but it wasn’t his first violation in the nearly two years since her divorce. There had