“I’d rather get a ticket, if it meant I wasn’t going to become tomorrow’s coffee break hot topic. Staties are gossip hounds. They make Geraldine Bain seem like a hermit under a vow of silence.” The Millers Kill postmistress was better known for passing on the latest tidbits than she was for handing out the mail. He switched on his radio and unhooked the mic. “Dispatch, this is Van Alstyne, in own vehicle. I understand you’ve got some trouble?”
Harlene’s voice came on immediately. “Chief? What are you doing on the air? I thought you were picking up Reverend Fergusson?”
“I’ve got her right here. What’s up?”
“Brawling at the Dew Drop Inn. Hadley’s on her way, but I thought she should have some backup.”
“Good call.” Knox had graduated from Police Basic a year and a half ago, and she had come a long way, but he didn’t like the idea of a woman alone tackling the lowlifes that frequented the Dew Drop. “Who’ve you got?”
“Paul’s tied down with a three-car accident out past Lucher’s Corners. Tourists. Eric’s in the hospital with a drunk driver.”
“Lyle?”
“Off fishing somewheres. I left a message for Kevin. He was planning on getting back to town today. I asked him to call me if he can assist.”
“He doesn’t have to report for duty until tomorrow.”
“Tonight, tomorrow, what’s the difference?”
He sighed. “I’m on my way.”
“No!” Harlene sounded scandalized.
He looked at Clare. She nodded.
“I’m on my way. ETA thirty minutes. Let Hadley know.”
“What about Reverend Fergusson?”
He looked at Clare again.
“I guess I can be patient a little longer,” she said.
He keyed the mic. “Reverend Fergusson,” he said, and she smiled at him, as if there were a chance in hell she’d do as he asked, “will wait in the truck. Chief out.”
Love makes people do some pretty dumb-ass things, Officer Hadley Knox thought. In her case, it had convinced her a self-absorbed La-La Land user would make a good husband and father. She had paid big for her mistake; crawling back to her grandfather’s hometown for refuge, taking this pain-in-the-ass job to support her kids.
In the case of the shaved-head army guy in front of her, it had made taking on a small-town thug and his posse seem like a good idea. He had paid for it with a split lip and battered face.
When she arrived at the bar, he’d been getting the worst of it from a group of the Dew Drop’s finest: skinny-shanked guys with ropy muscles and nicotine-stained teeth. The big black guy in camo pants looked like he could have taken on two, maybe even three of them, but five tilted the odds way out of his favor.
Hadley had waded in, rapping elbows and knees with her extendable baton, giving it her best Russ Van Alstyne impression: hard voice, big presence, short commands. A pair of construction-worker types helped her take hold of Soldier Boy and drag him back into the jukebox corner; the locals retreated behind one of the pool tables.
Now, she noticed the soldier kept looking toward a trio of girls backed against the bar. Two of them had long acrylic nails and streaked hair scraped back in Tonya Harding ponytails, but the third was a blunt-fingered natural brunette with a Dutch Boy bob. Short. Practical. Like maybe it fit under a helmet. Tears had smeared the girl’s makeup, but she looked more angry than upset. “Tally, get your ass over here,” a good-looking guy in a Poison T-shirt and steel-capped boots yelled; in response, the girl flipped him the bird.
The soldier lurched forward. Hadley blocked his path. “Sir, you have got to stay here.” The man wiped his bloody nose on the back of his hand and stared over her shoulder. “Sir? Are you listening to me?” Hadley slapped her baton into her palm for emphasis.
The man shrugged off the hands holding him. Hadley nodded to the two guys behind him, letting them know it was okay, even though she was worried it wasn’t. The air in the Dew Drop sparked with the tension of a boxing ring between rounds. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Nichols,” he said. “Chief Warrant Officer Quentan Nichols.”
“What are you doing here, Chief Warrant Officer Nichols?”
Finally, he focused on her. “You ask that of everybody who visits this podunk town? Or just the black folks?”
She thumbed toward the pool table. In the light cast by the hanging lamp, she could see the good ol’ boys scowling and glaring at the CWO. Poison T-shirt was at the center, speaking fast and low to the guy next to him. “I want to know why that man and his buddies were trying to take you apart.”
“Maybe they’re down on the army.” His eyes darted back to the angry brunette. This guy was a worse liar than her eleven-year-old.
She pointed the baton toward the girl. “You know her?”
Nichols jerked his attention back to Hadley. “We were talking.”
“Uh-huh.” She slapped the baton into her palm one more time. “Stay here.”
She crossed the scarred wooden floor toward the bar, her boots sticking with every second step. She was maybe five feet away from the girl, close enough to read the IN MEMORIAM tattoo circling her arm, when she heard the thud of footsteps and the shouts and she whirled to see the locals charging Nichols. Shit! Dumb, sophomore mistake. She should’ve shut those assholes down once and for all before talking with anybody else.
Somebody bumped her from behind, sending her stumbling. She staggered upright, baton at the ready, but it hadn’t been aimed at her. The brunette had joined the melee, punching and kicking at the white boys like Xena, Warrior Princess, while her girlfriends screamed and wailed.
Hadley breathed in deep and bellowed, “Break it up!” One of the construction workers, a fresh-faced blond with pierced ears and impressive muscles, came in on Nichols’s side. Oh, great. Hadley advanced toward the nearest man, baton extended, and whacked him: back of the thigh, side of the arm. He staggered away, howling, but two more roughnecks came off their bar stools in defense of the home team, causing the construction worker’s buddy to wade in, airlifting another guy, who went flying into the jukebox. Shit! Property damage . Hadley advanced again, whacking away with her baton, trying to weigh her blows-pain, not injury, because injury could mean lawsuits-aware that she wasn’t going to be able to stop them unless she reached the ringleader, aware that getting into the middle of the fight would make her utterly vulnerable.
A crack, rifle-sharp, sliced through the meaty thuds and half-voiced curses, bringing every head up for a second, like a pack of coyotes spotting a much larger wolf. “Police!” a man bellowed from the door.
Now or never . Hadley thrust herself into the crowd, driving the butt end of her baton into stomachs. Men folded, retching, around her. She reached Poison T-shirt, grappling with Nichols, and swung the baton with all her might into the small of his back. He arched upward, screaming, and Nichols lunged toward him, knocking Hadley aside, and then there was a tall, lean man blocking the way; yellow letters on a black T-shirt, cropped red hair, and Officer Kevin Flynn was twisting Nichols’s arm around like a pretzel, bringing the soldier to his knees.
“Straps?” he asked, speaking loudly to be heard, and she tugged the plastic restraints off her belt and tossed them to him.
Poison T-shirt was pawing at his back. “You broke something!” She captured one wrist with her cuffs and locked the other one in place. “Didja hear me? Jesus Christ, you broke my friggin’ spine!”
She pushed his shoulder, nudging the back of his knee so he’d get the message. “We will provide transportation to the hospital if you’ve been injured.” He collapsed into a sitting position. “Sir,” she tacked on.