Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
“I need calories, that diner we passed got pie?” Patterson asked.
“If they have their Dutch apple, get two scoops of à la mode,” Rus suggested.
Patterson jerked up his chin and prowled out.
“I better go with him so he doesn’t arrest someone for looking at him funny,” Bakshi joked. “We’ll be back in an hour.”
Rus and Harry nodded. She took off.
Rus turned to the window, and Harry followed his gaze.
Heads close, Dern and his attorney were conferring.
Or, his attorney was talking fast and Dern was listening.
“If I had to guess, that attorney is telling him not to open his mouth and say another word, ride it out, don’t offer an opening, and he’ll get him home,” Rus guessed.
“Definitely,” Harry agreed. “And it isn’t enough, not near enough, but he’s in a hell right now that we don’t get, but it’s the worst thing for him. He spent the night in what he considers one of his own cells, and if he had any support, any respect, anyone thought he got a raw deal, with this, all that’s going to fade away. Everything he was, was tied up in being the elected sheriff of Fret County. Now he’s the bad cop. The lazy cop. The corrupt cop. The dirty cop. The man indirectly responsible for the deaths of two of his citizens. He’s got no authority. He’s nobody’s hero. If he had any delusions of a comeback, that dream is dead. He can’t twist it, even in his own head. He’s a stain on the history of this department. He knows it. He’s gotta live with it. And he’s gonna die knowing that’s his legacy.”
“Well, there I was, all ready to have a shitty day, and you just made my week,” Rus joked.
Harry smiled at him.
Rus looked back to the window. “If that’s all we got, I’ll take it.”
“That’s all we got,” Harry said to the window. “And along with me knowing he’ll burn in hell for all he did, especially how it ended for Sonny and Avery, I’ll take it too.”
THIRTY-ONE
Her Family Was Home
Harry
With Dern released and headed home, no word on anyone they were looking for, and a mild headache fomenting between his eyes from looking at Dern’s bank records to see if he could find something the Feds missed (they wouldn’t get Farrell’s or Abernathy’s until next week), Harry took off, maybe for the first time in his career, fifteen minutes before five.
Five minutes later, he walked through Lillian’s front door and stopped dead.
His dogs greeted him, but Harry was stuck on the tall, built, handsome Black man holding his woman close in his arms.
A beautiful, willowy Black woman was sitting at the table eating chicken tetrazzini, and everyone had clearly decided it was five o’clock somewhere, because the wine was out, and it looked like it’d been out for a while.
Ronetta rounded out the crew.
“Harry!” Lillian cried excitedly and broke from the Adonis’s hold to dash to him. She gave him a hug and a quick peck on the lips, then took his hand, dragged him in and said, “Come and meet Shane and Sherise.”
He only slightly relaxed at the confirmation of what he’d already guessed: this was who she thought of as her brother and sister.
The slightly part of that was, she’d also told him Shane was her first crush, not to mention, Shane was frowning at Harry in a way Harry wasn’t thrilled about.
And now that he saw them, he remembered them both. He went to school with them.
Harry played baseball, not football, like Shane did, so they didn’t run in the same circles.
But now, he for sure remembered Sherise, who was the most popular girl in her class, and Harry had graduated by then, but if he remembered correctly, she was homecoming queen.
It helped Shane’s mood when Sherise gave him a brilliant smile and a kiss on the cheek. Shane’s frown faded a little when he saw the familiar and affectionate manner in which Ronetta greeted him.
But the handshake he got from Shane might have fractured a few bones.
Maybe Lillian was Shane’s crush too.
“Harry, wine, beer, whisky?” Ronetta asked as if he’d walked into her house.
Then again, he suspected he did.
This was all family here, and that happened.
“Beer’s good,” Harry said.
“Want me to warm you up some tetrazzini?” Lillian offered.
He looked down at her. “Are you eating?”
“I was thinking of diving into the beef enchilada casserole,” Lillian said.
“Alfredo gnocchi,” Sherise put in her vote, even still stuffing her face with the tetrazzini.
“We’re freezing Lillian and Harry’s casseroles,” Ronetta decreed. “I already told you I’m making my fried fish and cornbread tonight.” She looked to Harry. “I made my banana pudding for you, Harry. Something healthy.”
Harry couldn’t stop his chuckle, because bananas were a power food, but not sandwiched between layers of pudding, whipped cream and Nilla Wafers.