Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland 3)

“How do you know?”

“I can tell by the width and the tread. They’re brand-new, too. Want to start checking the dealerships?”

“You can identify a Michelin tire just by looking at the tread marks?”

“I only mounted about five hunnerd of them.”

Hackberry glanced at Pam. She brushed at her nose with her wrist, her eyes smiling.

“What are y’all laughing at?” R.C. asked.

“Nothing,” Hackberry said.

“I say something wrong?” R.C. asked.

“No, not at all,” Hackberry said.

“I was just making an observation,” R.C. said, his cheeks reddening.

“We were laughing because you were two jumps ahead of us, R.C.,” Hackberry said. “Don’t tell the voters I said that, or they might take my star away.”

“No, sir, they’re not going to do that,” R.C. said. “They think you’re one of them bleeding-heart liberals, but they trust you to do the right thing more than they trust themselves. How’s that for smarts?”

“On the subject of smarts, what’s with shit-for-brains over there on the steps?” Pam asked, glancing in Cody Daniels’s direction. The sun had broken through the clouds, and her bare arms looked brown and big in the sunlight as she unrolled and tightened the crime-scene tape, her dark mahogany hair that was either sunburned or white on the tips curled against her cheeks, her breasts as firm-looking as softballs against her khaki shirt.

“He says he wants to talk with you about something,” Hackberry replied.

“I think I can forgo the pleasure,” Pam replied.

“Anton Ling says he saved her life.”

“If he did, it was by accident.”

Pam went back to work, stringing the tape behind the barn and around the back of the stucco cottage and the bunkhouse. She secured it to a fence post on the far side of the main house and returned to the windmill, her hair moving in the wind, strands touching her mouth. In moments like these, when she was totally unguarded and unmindful of herself, Hackberry knew in a private place in the back of his mind that Pam Tibbs belonged in that category of exceptional women whose beauty radiated outward through their skin and had little to do with the physical attributes of their birth. In these moments he felt an undefined longing in his heart that he refused to recognize.

“Mind if I see what he wants?” Pam asked.

“Suit yourself,” Hackberry replied.

“Come with me.”

“What for?”

“This is the same guy who claimed I assaulted him. I don’t want him telling lies about anything I say to him now.”

“Then I’d leave him alone.”

“Jesus Christ, Hack, first you tell me the guy wants to talk to me, then you tell me not to talk with

him. In between, you tell me he saved someone’s life.”

“What are you laughing at, R.C.?” Hackberry said.

“Not a thing, Sheriff. I was just enjoying the breeze and the freshness of the morning. This cool wind is special. Lordy, what a fine day,” R.C. said, folding his arms over his chest, gazing at the sunlit greenness and clarity of the hills, puffing out his cheeks, sucking his teeth.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Hackberry said.

“Yes, sir,” R.C. said.