Quincy shrugged. “You know. Traffic accidents. Break-ins. Attempted murders with a cheese grater.”
“So, the things we get paid to police?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“All hell breaks loose,” Anita said. “The world goes crazy. No one is safe.”
Sun studied the young woman as she spoke, fighting a grin. She didn’t want to give away the fact that she found her adorable. And she was the only person in the room shorter than the sheriff.
“The last time Ruby sent muffins,” she continued, “Mrs. Papadeaux tried to cut Doug’s penis off when he flashed her in the park.”
Sun leaned into Quincy. “It amazes me how that man is still the town flasher.”
“In an attempt to get away from her, Doug darted out into traffic.” Anita was very into the story by that point, acting out Doug, the town flasher, darting into traffic.
“Isn’t he, like, a hundred and twelve?” Sun asked him.
“And we had a bona fide pileup.”
Deputy Salazar whispered beside her, “He only looks a hundred and twelve.”
“He’s led a rough life,” Quincy said in explanation. “He’s only in his early sixties.”
“Sixties?” Sun asked, horrified. “Remind me to use sunscreen.”
“A pileup!” Anita said, waving her arms in the air.
Sun thought back. “I read about that. It was two cars and a tractor.”
Anita nodded. “Which, in Del Sol, is a bona fide pileup. And then, she sent muffins in December, and that very day, Mrs. Cisneros stabbed her husband in the knee.”
“Ouch.”
“Oh, there’s more. So much more. And today, she sent an entire basket of them.” Anita pointed to the basket in case someone got confused. “Muffins.”
“Okay,” Sun said, grasping the problem at last, “so as long as we don’t eat the muffins, nothing will happen?”
The deputies shifted their weight and cast sideways glances at one another.
She rolled her eyes as realization dawned. “Are you kidding me? It doesn’t matter if we eat them or not? All hell is breaking loose either way?”
A couple of Del Sol’s finest shrugged and nodded.
“Well, then.” Sun dove in for a muffin and unwrapped it as she walked to the front of the building. She’d seen a suspected thief walk by and decided to do a little recon while enjoying her cursed breakfast.
The others gave in and grabbed one as well. Including Quincy, who walked up behind her, munching on his own blueberry-filled disaster waiting to happen.
They watched Mr. Madrid walk past. The former railroad worker, who was in his early sixties, had a bandage wrapped around his neck and scratches covering both hands.
“You know, Mrs. Sorenson came in again yesterday,” Quincy said between bites.
“About?”
He scoffed. “You know what about.”
And she did. She’d read all the case files over the break, even cold cases decades old, but she’d known Mr. Madrid, the suspected thief, since she was two.
“That prize chicken of hers,” Quince said, filling her in, anyway.
“Rooster.”
“She’s wondering when you’re going to arrest Mr. Madrid for chicken-napping.”
“Rooster-napping.”
Everyone in town knew about the never-ending feud between Mrs. Sorenson and Mr. Madrid. Every few months, the two neighbors came up with some new argument. Some new reason to bicker and squabble and caterwaul until the sheriff’s office had no choice but to threaten them both with jail time.
The Hatfields and McCoys had nothing on the Sorenson and Madrid.
This go-around, Mrs. Sorenson’s prize rooster had gone missing. Since Mr. Madrid had been complaining about the bird’s early-morning cacophony for months, he was pretty much their prime—and only—suspect.
But Sun wanted the man to get comfortable. To let down his guard. To come to regret his decision to abduct the most decorated show rooster the town had ever seen.
Who knew a rooster could even be decorated? Where does one even pin a medal onto a rooster?
“You planning on looking into that?” Quincy asked.
Sun lifted a shoulder half-heartedly. “I suppose.”
“Before he kills him?”
“I’m pretty sure Puff Daddy can hold his own against the likes of Mr. Madrid.”
“That’s what I mean.” He pointed a finger from behind his muffin. “That chicken is going to kill that poor guy.”
“Rooster.”
“And then we’ll never hear the end of it. It’ll go national. All because we let a chicken kill one of our citizens.”
“Rooster.”
“We’ll be the laughingstock of the nation.”
“You’re that certain we’re not already?”
Quincy took a breath to voice his next argument, but he had nothing. He shook his head and took another bite.
“Sometimes these things need to unfold organically.” She swallowed and peeled the wrapping lower. “And we can’t say those wounds are all from Puff Daddy. Mr. Madrid could’ve cut himself shaving.”
Quince snorted. “Shaving what? A honey badger?”
Sun looked back at her deputies and smiled.
“You glad to be back?” he asked.
“I am. But I thought the gang was all here. Where is my other deputy?”
“Price just got back.”
“Yeah, but we’re missing Bo.”
“Who?” Quincy asked, still studying Mr. Madrid as he limped across Main through a soft layer of snow that was already melting. Freaking New Mexico sun.
“Bo.” When he only shrugged, she continued, “Bo Britton? Your lieutenant? The only one to skip out on my one-on-ones last week?”
“Oh, Bo!” He nodded in recognition, then glanced around the station. “Yeah, he must be out on patrol.”
“Okay. Can you call him in?”
“Who?”
Seriously? “Lieutenant Bobby Britton? Also goes by Bo?”
“Right. He does.”
“He does what?”
“Goes by Bo.”
“Okay, great. Now that we’ve established his identity, I’d like to address the troops. Can you call him in?”
“Who?”
Sun slammed her lids shut and drew in a deep breath. “Lieutenant Britton.”
“Oh, right. We usually just call him Bo. Or L-T.”
She welded her teeth together and spoke through them. “Can you get him on the radio? I have yet to meet him.”
“Who?”
She went completely still. Del Sol was a peculiar place. Sun knew that. She’d known it when she’d accepted the position. She’d known she would have to deal with its own special kind of crazy, but not from Quincy. Not from one of her own.
Realizing there was more to this particular picture than met the eye, she unclamped her jaw and turned to walk away, but Zee came to stand by Quincy, enjoying the last remnants of her own muffin.
Zee was a tall, willowy black woman and the only deputy Sun had wined and dined herself. For good reason.
She had been a sniper for the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, and it took a lot of schmoozing, much of it not strictly ethical, to get her to agree to come to the small town of Del Sol.