Sheriff Etherton liked the kids. They were pretty much always together so they kept each other out of trouble, and he never had any problems with either of them. Hell, he’d seen the two of them stop for stranded motorists, another part of his ‘serve and protect’ that he didn’t much enjoy and tended to avoid whenever possible. He’d seen them by the side of the road helping tourists in that beat up little pickup truck of theirs. If it was a side grift for the Desert Sands, they were good at it, and all he had to do was give them a wave as he drove on past. They were always polite but never paranoid and he could rely upon them both to obey the law out of general apathy. He knew them by their first names, and for all the right reasons.
“Bye Mr. Etherton, er, Sheriff.” Austin waved nervously, trailing the trotting pug behind him.
“See ya, Austin.” The sheriff waved.
Austin nodded, surreptitiously eyeing the sheriff as he hurried to the pickup. He climbed nervously back into the cab of his truck, talking to Jynx through the clenched teeth of an amateur ventriloquist.
They stopped by the coffee kiosk to pick up Ashley’s little pug, and although they didn’t do anything specific, they didn’t do anything unspecific either. It was just the way that Austin kept looking at him. Of course, the kid seemed to be doing anything he could to avoid looking at Ashley as well, so it was possible that the sheriff was just about anything that wasn’t his childhood friend in a bikini. Nevertheless, watching them scamper off with that little dander cloud of an old lapdog, Sheriff Etherton was amused to find himself considering their behavior suspicious.
“Those kids are up to something,” the sheriff said, mumbling under his breath as he sipped his Americano.
“Ya think?” Ashley grabbed a rag from the bucket and wiped at coffee grounds beside the machine. “That’s why we got out of the detective business.” She pulled the espresso sump from the machine, hitting it with a jerk, and knocking the spent coffee ground puck into the trash. “They suck at subterfuge.”
The sheriff nodded. “If they’ve started themselves a meth lab, I’m going to send Mr. Vickers a commendation for his chemistry classes.”
Ashley snorted, polishing the chrome on the old espresso machine. Imagining Austin or Jynx up to anything remotely criminal was laughable.
The sheriff finished the last of his Americano and set the mug on the counter for her to clean and hang back on the wall behind her. He caught a glimpse of her backside as she turned to toss the sanitizer towels into the hamper. She did have a cute little rump. He could understand how she made a few hundred dollars a day, peddling lattes to passing truckers. Regardless, she pulled the best espresso shot in town, and it was worth the slight tarnishing of his reputation to get himself a proper Americano a few times a week. “Anything I should be worried about?” He asked.
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“Nah.” Ashley scrubbed the coffee ring out of the mug and dipped it in the sanitizer water.
The sheriff nodded. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me anyway.”
Ashley shook her head and pleasant as pie with a coquettish little smile said: “You know very well that snitches get stitches.”
“Right,” the sheriff nodded. “You’d tell me if it was important.”
She gave him a wry side smile.
“Well,” he patted his shirt pocket for his sunglasses. “I best be getting along. People will start to talk.”
Ashley leaned over the counter again, crossing her wrists regally before her. “Oh please, Greg. You’re not my type.” Ashley patted his arm condescendingly. “Now, you get on outta here,” she said. “I’ve got an errand to run, and I can’t do it with you and your backup dancers hanging out all day.” She pulled the ball chain on the neon open sign and slid the service window closed just as one of the recent infestation of Escalades turned into the lot.
Etherton waved cordially at the black clad pair in their SUV, but they didn’t wave back. “Alright, then.” The sheriff made his way across the lot thinking about the kids. Whatever they were up to, it might be less than legal, although both of them were a little young to be getting into anything serious. Chances were good that they had a guilty conscience over jaywalking a week earlier, or Austin’s tabs were about to expire. Maybe they grifted a few bucks off the Girl Scout cookie sales or something. In any case, a hundred-thousand-mile tune-up on the cruiser seemed a decent excuse to stop by and see Jeremiah.
Easing the cruiser out onto the highway north, he planned to stop by the Desert Sands for a quick, casual chat with Jeremiah, just to sniff around and see if there was anything he should know about. He turned to cut down Second street, but no more than a mile north of the Spoon and the coffee kiosk, dispatch put a call through.
“Sorry to bother you, Sheriff.” Nutsy sounded unusually nervous.
“Look, if it’s about Terrence and Earl not eating again, let them know that I’ll pick something up on my way back in this afternoon.”
“Uh,” Nutsy stalled out, hesitating. “Well yeah, but there’s a situation down in Bakersfield that might need your attention.”
Etherton pulled over to the side of the road to hear the news. “Did Victor finally wake up?”
“Uh, no, sir.” Nutsy mumbled. “Victor Valasquez is gone.”
The sheriff’s heart sank. If Valasquez died in detox or surgery, there was no possible way that he would be getting Terrence out of prison time. He took a deep breath and shifted the cruiser into park. “Alright,” he sighed. “Well, see what you can do about a cause of death and a toxicology workup, and I’ll start looking into a decent public defender for the boys.”
Nutsy hesitated. “Uh, no, not gone like dead. I mean he’s just gone. He somehow slipped his cuffs and vanished completely.”
Last the sheriff heard, Victor was still unconscious. The hospital staff had him so completely sedated that he probably wouldn’t wake up until after the surgery on Monday. “Seriously?”
“They’re pulling footage from the cameras, but nothing is coming up, yet.”
Whatever Austin and Jynx were up to, it would have to wait. Etherton dropped the cruiser back into gear and hit his sirens as he pulled the car around. “I’ll be there in an hour.”