by Debra Dixon
Jess is a really bad poet and blind to the fact we don’t have much bonafide danger in Mossy Creek to threaten Sandy. And he’s completely off base about our love of haiku. We have none.
Gentle stream awaits
Hopeful spirit flying free
When next we shop there
Trust me. That’s at least as good as anything Jess has actually written. We’ve learned to run or keep mirrored sunglasses handy so Sandy can’t see us roll our eyes. We wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings when she’s so proud of him.
I froze as she opened the bag, but then she looked up, completely oblivious to the terror her lunch inspired. “Dwight’s got a bike race coming up. He’s supposed to have a decent chance, too. He’s been training for weeks now.”
“Training?”
“With weights and everything apparently. Katie Bell says several women of the town have been stunned to realize that the wiry but buff biker on the trails is our very own Dwight.”
Wiry but buff? I was stunned, too. And maybe just a bit nauseous at the thought of unnaturally pale Dwight riding shirtless. An unwanted image formed — all ears, elbows, reflective white skin, and three chest hairs. “He’s blowing off the council meeting to train for a bike race.”
“Right.” She reached into her bag and I realized I was suddenly rooting for a poem — to take my mind off buff Dwight. All she came up with was a peach. “Oh, yeah. Two more things, Chief. Tweedle’s out in your office and Jayne dropped by the sandwich you ordered.”
“What?” Poem and Dwight were both forgotten in a heartbeat. “You left a defenseless sandwich in my office with Attila-the-parakeet?”
What might have been a grin creased Sandy’s mouth as she sank teeth in her peach. I didn’t wait to be sure. I sprinted for my office, slowing down only long enough to ease the door open. I didn’t want a repeat of the day Tweedle exited my office for the wide-open spaces of Sandy’s domain. You do not know embarrassment until you find a sign in the window of your police station that says, “Come back tomorrow. The chief will have caught Tweedle by then.”
Sometimes I wished Sandy wasn’t so helpful.
I made my entrance into my office without incident and closed the door behind me. Tweedle walked back and forth on the edge of my desk as if debating his opening remarks. Not an apology, I was sure, despite the fact that the wrapping of my BLT was shredded, the bread chewed, bacon crumbled, and the lettuce meticulously extracted.
“That was not your sandwich.”
He gave me several annoyed chirps as if to say, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours. And where have you been all morning?” Then he flew to my shoulder and pecked at my earlobe. His previous owner was female. Tweedle remained convinced I was playing hide the earring and refused to give up the hunt. At least that was my story and I was sticking with it. Otherwise, I’d have to admit that my ’keet greeted me with little ear nibble-kisses.
I mean, I have my manly pride. Or I did.
My macho image took a blow over the whole “Dog Incident.” All I did was take care of a homeless dog and then, after I’d gotten attached, gave that same dog to a troubled boy I’d pulled out of a bad situation and who needed Dog more than me. Simple logic really. But not to the women in town.
Lord! Old women sighed indulgently and patted my arm when they saw me in the grocery store. Told me I was “a good man.” The teenage girls batted their eyes and that was worse.
I blamed Patty Campbell, surrogate sister and wife of my best friend. They’d taken in Clay — the troubled boy — as a foster child, and I’m sure she told everyone in town the story of Dog’s transfer. Clay and Dog live with Patty and Mac and their two Labradors now. The boy’s adoption is only a formality. I’ve become “Uncle Amos” and “a good man.”
As if I didn’t have enough trouble with women before.
And then I’d inherited the town’s most famous avian citizen. Everyone loved Tweedle, fabled hero of Laurie Grey’s story time at The Naked Bean. Everyone had loved Laurie,, too. She’d come to Mossy Creek to quietly fade away, but Mossy Creek wouldn’t have it. They couldn’t stop illness from finally claiming Laurie’s life, but they damned sure put a stop to the fading. Laurie and her bird became full-blown Creekite characters.
Tweedle nuzzled again. This time running his beak through my hair. “Stop that.”
I reached a hand up for a new perch. He hopped on. Bringing him to the office was good for his spirits since he had people around most of the day, but not so good for my work schedule. Birds were demanding little critters. I looked at him and made a deal. “I’ll put on that Celtic CD your momma made for you if you let me alone long enough to check the budget. Deal?”
Cht cht cht.
He flew onto the CD player. As soon as I hit play, he began gently poking at the speaker with his beak until the oddly soothing sounds of the Irish whistle spilled out in the office. I cleaned up the mess that was my sandwich, settled down to my budget and hardly noticed Tweedle again until an hour later when he began to play tug of war with my pen.
Have you ever tried staring down a ’keet practically hand-raised by a human and who has no fear? It doesn’t work. He’d firmly transferred his affection from Laurie to me. I was his person. He need have no fear. Except when it came to cleaning and lining his cage. Tweedle didn’t trust me one bit about that. Not anymore. I put the Sunday comics in once. The ones with the pretty pictures all in color.
While I was peeling a shrieking Tweedle off the roof of his cage, I realized that birds don’t like color comics. They don’t like anything on their newsprint except . . . news. And plenty of it. No two-color ads. Not even faint bits of red showing through from the other side.
Everything about Tweedle was trial and error. Laurie did not leave an owner’s manual. Probably on purpose. That girl had an odd sense of humor at times. Like teaching Tweedle to say, “Who’s a pretty cop?” before she died.
The intercom crackled. “Chief? Win Allen’s on the phone.”
Tweedle hated the intercom. He ruffled and did a cht cht cht scold at it for all he was worth. That bird can achieve some volume. To settle him, I gave Tweedle the pen and grabbed the receiver. “Hello, Win. What can I do for you?”
“I need a favor.”
“Shoot.”
Before he could answer, the most godawful racket roared through the connection. A couple of shouts, clattering, the sound of a flapping blanket. Then silence and then one more loud crash.
“Win! Win! You there? You all right? What’s happening?”
Someone scrambled for the phone and hollered. “Yeah! I think so. Geez, Amos. I think that Clifford the Idiot Clown just blew up a kiddie science experiment.”
“Clifford the Idiot Clown?”
“Look. I’ll explain later. If you can drop by the WMOS studio before you go home, I’d appreciate it. Right now I gotta go sort this out. If he put so much as a dent or a scorch in the Bubba Rice kitchen set I’m going to pull off his stupid red nose and feed it to Bert Lyman with some fava beans.”
Click.
I hung up the phone and told Tweedle, “Looks like trouble in River City. The budget’s about done anyway. I’d better make sure Win doesn’t do anything stupid to Clifford the Idiot Clown. Whoever Clifford is. And I’m sure that feeding your station manager a clown’s nose is bound to have unpleasant job-related consequences.” I deposited Tweedle back in his cage and headed for the door after asking Sandy to be sure Tweedle was settled for the night when she left.
* * * *
WMOS wasn’t impressive. Bert Lyman ran the station with his wife, Honey, and some jumbled-together equipment in a renovated barn. Nevertheless, Mossy Creek was proud to have its own radio and cable station. There was already talk of syndicating Win Allen’s alter-ego — Bubba Rice. His down-home-redneck-real-men-do-cook show was getting great reviews, and more importantly — steady advertisers.
I parked the Jeep along the edge of the gravel circle out front and wandered up to
a door set in an obviously new addition to the barn. Before opening the door, I read the warning sign and double-checked the red light hanging off the roof. If the light was on that meant visitors should stop and wait before coming in. The light was off, so I hauled open the door.
Honey must have seen me from her office door. She came out into a tiny reception area to greet me, wearing what could only be described as guerilla fashion. She was either so far ahead of the curve that mere mortals couldn’t understand her chic or so far behind the curve that she’d never catch up. Head to toe, she was encased in brown. Brown hair, brown eye makeup, brown earrings, sweater, pants, shoes, nail polish. She was a wall of brown.
“Amos! Oh! I guess I should call you Chief, seeing as how you’re in uniform.”
“Amos’ll do just fine, Honey. I’m here to see Win.”
She looked stricken. “Not with bad news I hope. He’s threatened to quit once today already. He and Clifford aren’t hitting it off.”
I smiled. “I heard something about that. I was hoping to get here before any bodily damage was done.”
“Oh, in that case, you go right on out through that door. Knock some sense into Win. He’s convinced the clown’s out to get his time slot.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Paranoid, is he?”
“Well . . . no. The clown is out to get his time slot.”
That made me laugh harder. Honey grinned as well. “See? It’s a problem.” She waved me on and went back into her office, which looked more like a sound and control room now that I could see into the space.
I was still chuckling when I wandered into the taping area. Equipment was strung everywhere, connected by ropes of electrical cords. Various modular show sets were on rolling platforms and pushed against the walls. An obnoxiously bright green stage was front and center at the moment. Yellow and blue circles made random splashes against the backdrop. A table with a charred black hole in it sat off to one side. Beside the table a pink and purple clown practiced juggling apples while spinning a hoop on his foot. One sleeve had a telltale char mark.
Win wandered over to stand beside me. He caught my expression and then looked back to the stage. “I know. It’s a travesty. They’ll let anyone with a few cans of paint, a box of matches, and three apples be a clown these days. No standards whatsoever.”
I swiveled, amused at Win’s viewpoint. “As opposed to the standards for cooking show hosts? I hear all you need to get a cooking show is to have one of those funny hats.”
“Bubba Rice wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those hats.”
“I’ve seen your show. There isn’t much Bubba Rice wouldn’t do if it got a laugh and kept the advertisers happy.”
Win didn’t argue. “True. I’m a slave to my art form, which brings me to my favor.”
I stopped him with upraised hands and tried to appear serious. “Fair warning, Win. I can’t look the other way when you kill the clown. Celebrities don’t get special treatment in this town. I’ll have to take you in just like Ida.”
He huffed a laugh and pulled me further away from the practicing clown. “If you help me out now it won’t come to that. Listen, Bert is all bent out of shape about that new kiddie-entertainment park someone’s putting in over near Bailey Mill.”
“Entertainment park?” My eyebrows hit my hairline before they stopped rising. “Does everyone in town know everything before I do?”
“It’s been real hush-hush from what I heard. Land deal was supposed to close today. Katie Bell bird-dogged it out and gave the news to Bert.” Win kicked a cable out of his way and reset his feet. “That’s the only reason I know any of this. Bert’s acting like someone’s done this on purpose to ruin his plans to dominate children’s programming. If the kids are all over there racing go-carts and putt-putting, no one will be home to watch WMOS Super Saturdays. No viewers means no advertisers.”
“Bert sees all that advertising going over to Bigelow.”
“Yep.”
I never ceased to be amazed at the grandiose plans of some Creekites. “Bert actually thinks he can build programming that’ll beat Bigelow stations? Forget that. Doesn’t the man know that every major network devotes Saturday mornings to kids? Hasn’t he heard of the Cartoon Channel?”
Win shrugged. “What can I tell you? He’s not actually delusional, but he does see himself building an entertainment empire. This developer is well financed and raining on his parade. According to Katie, they’re set to level the biggest tree tomorrow and start prepping the site. In Bert’s mind, the park is the fly in the ointment. Not Bigelow or the networks. Bert’s reacting to the threat he sees.”
“Poor Bert.”
“Poor Bert nothin’! Save the pity for me. I’m the one who’s going to lose in all this mess. My Saturday ten a.m. time slot is prime time around here. Never mind that I’ve spent weeks building that time slot. Or that we have actual advertisers for the show. Bert wants me to jazz it up somehow or the clown gets the slot.”
I couldn’t resist. I’m an evil person. “Maybe you could cook in a clown suit? And I’ve seen you set things on fire.”
Win’s withering look spoke volumes about his appreciation of my joke. “No. And if you’re through having fun at my expense?” He waited; I dialed down the grin and nodded for him to continue. “Okay, then I’ve got an idea. That’s why I need the favor. I’m thinking if I get a celebrity to host with me that more kids may watch. I can even throw in a kids-in-the-kitchen recipe every now and then.” He looked at me speculatively. “The key is the celebrity.”
“Whoa, Win. Stop right there. I know I’m a pretty visible guy and popular with the kids, but I’m no celebrity. I don’t —”
“Not you, Amos. Geez! Tweedle. What do you think?”
“Tweedle!”
“Tweedle.”
I didn’t want to be a celebrity on a cooking show, but that was beside the point. Everyone likes to be asked. Win didn’t notice the fact that I was underwhelmed and recovering from being dumped in favor of a feathered nitwit. He patiently waited for me to tell him what I thought.
I thought I might wring my bird’s neck.
“Amos, it’s a natural. Kids have loved that bird since Laurie Grey’s story time at The Naked Bean. We tape several shows at once. It’s not like you’d have to drag him over here all the time. The beauty of this is that the bird won’t talk much, so I’d still have control of my show.” He beamed. “No worries about the co-host taking over.”
I snorted. “The bird can talk a blue streak when he wants — mostly inappropriate phrases or his name — and you have no idea how easily Tweedle can take over. He’s like Sherman’s march to the sea. But it’s your funeral. Let me think about it, and I’ll give you a call.”
Win rubbed his hands together, confident he had a bird in the hand and moving on to his next plan. That’s when I decided the clown had better watch his back.
* * * *
A mile down the road from the station, I pulled to the side of the road and slammed on my brakes. Then I slammed the flat of my hand against the steering wheel. A horrible suspicion had taken shape suddenly, nurtured by the day’s experiences.
“Oh, Ida. You are a first-class piece of work.”
I shook my head, trying to do the math and make it add up to anything but Ida Hamilton Walker thumbing her nose at injustice. I couldn’t. And I couldn’t ignore my suspicion either.
I keyed my radio. “Sandy, this is Amos. You still there? Over.”
“Amos, this is base. I’m here. Jess’s working late. Over.”
“I need a location for Wolfman Washington. And a cell number if he’s got one. Over.”
“Wolfman? What’d he do?”
“Nothing yet.”
But I was willing to bet money that if Ida had gotten her infamous Foo Club together for another job that Wolfman would be right in the thick of it. Wolfman was part of the crew who removed (stole) the Governor’s fancy new town welcome sign with its progressive, politically-co
rrect, campaign-appropriate slogan.
Governor Ham Bigelow had family connections in Mossy Creek — embarrassing connections to his way of thinking, so he thought the new sign would “spruce us up for company.” Ida’s nephew might be Governor and he might be eyeing a run for the White House, but she was not amused. Neither was the town.
We liked our town slogan just fine — Ain’t going nowhere and don’t want to. We liked the fact that it was painted on a silo. We didn’t want a new sign. When Ham wouldn’t back down, Ida dealt with the problem directly.
Unfortunately, she was too direct. She got a shotgun and calmly blew his sign to kingdom come. I arrested her. Court-ordered, anger-management class simply gave her the opportunity to band together with other like-minded individuals and pad her criminal resume. The Foo Club was born, and Colonel Del Jackson walked into Ida’s life.
Ham’s replacement sign didn’t fare well either. That was the stolen one.
The radio crackled. Sandy gave me Wolfman’s number. I dialed. To my surprise, Wolfman answered.
No, Ida hadn’t called him yesterday or today. No, he wasn’t planning anything with Ida. No, he wouldn’t tell me if he was.
I didn’t really expect him to. All I wanted was a chance to hear his voice. Most people don’t answer the phone if they’re skulking around, about to make trouble. Plus most people can’t fake bewildered with any degree of believability. Wolfman was out of the loop. He didn’t have the faintest idea what I was talking about, and he was ticked.
The Foo Club might be Ida’s, but Del Jackson and Wolfman were her lieutenants. Wolfman didn’t know. So far so good. Oh, Ida was still planning trouble, but maybe . . . just maybe, she was acting alone this time. So I risked one more call to Sandy.
“Sandy, this is Amos. Over.”
“Go, Chief. Over.”
“Is Del Jackson in town?”
Silence answered me for several seconds, until Sandy replied. “No, sir. Over.”
