Ghost Road Blues (Pine Deep 1)

The silence positively oozed out of the phone. Finally, Val muttered, “So, you agreed to go gunslinging for Gus Bernhardt. Isn’t that special?”

“Well, not for Gus. Terry asked me, but it’s not like I’m actually going back on the department. Terry wouldn’t ask me to do anything like that. He just wants me to go close down the hayride for the night. ”

“Carrying a gun. ”

“Would you rather I went out there without a gun?”

“I’d rather you didn’t go out there at all. ”

“Someone has to. ”

“You know, there’s this marvelous new invention, maybe you’ve heard of it? Called a telephone?”

“We already tried calling Coop. No answer. He must be out with the kids, or walking the grounds, or maybe he really is too stupid to use a phone…and anyway I don’t want to leave that kind of a message on his answering machine. Can you imagine Coop trying to organize things all by himself?”

Val had to concede that point. George Cooper was pretty good at running the Haunted Hayride, but when it came time for any real decisive action, he was as useful as a freshly beheaded chicken. Terry had once said that Coop was the only guy who could cause a panic in an empty room. “Okay, so maybe someone does have to go. Why you, though?”

“I’m the only guy around. All the local blues are busy being actual cops for a change. Terry needed a gofer who didn’t have his head up his ass. ”

“Again I ask, why you?”

“Oh, we’re just a laugh riot, aren’t we, Miss Guthrie?”

There was another silence, briefer, less bitter. “Okay, okay,” Val said softly, “but please be careful for a change?”

“Me? Careful? Hey, careful is my middle name. ”

“I’m serious, Crow. ”

He sobered. “Okay, okay, baby, I promise. No screwing around, and no heroics. And why? ’Cause there won’t be any need for heroics. Just there and back, lickety-?split. ”

“Good. ”

“Okay. ”

“Then you’ll come over here?”

“For leftovers?”

“No one has ever called me ‘leftovers,’ pal. ”

“I was thinking of my belly, woman. ”

“I was thinking of something just south of there. ”

“Ah,” he said. “I see. Well then, I guess I had better get my ass in gear. Sooner I get those kids out of there—”

“…The sooner you get to come over here and taste my goodies. ”

“Gad, woman, you are in a bold and licentious mood this evening!”

“Call it an incentive program to make sure you get here as safe and as soon as possible. ”

“Whoosh. If you count to three and turn around I’ll probably be already there. ”

She called him a nitwit and hung up on him. He looked at the phone for a moment, leaned over and lightly banged his head on the wall a couple of times, then slowly set the receiver down.

“Yes, well,” he said aloud as if to counter a return of his desire to stall rather than do what Terry wanted, “let us get a move on, then. ”