Red Rum: A Rosie Casket Mystery R.M. Wild (inspirational books .txt) 📖

We parked a few trailers down from Caesar’s tent and made sure we had a good line of sight in both directions.

I tried to put my seat back, but it wouldn’t budge. “How come I can’t adjust my seat?”

“We have to give the perps enough leg room,” he said.

“Seriously?”

“I kid you not. We’ve let the criminals run the justice system,” he said. He opened a can of tuna, placed a few pickle chips onto the pinkish fish, and dug in with his fork.

Nauseous, I turned away. “That’s disgusting.”

“You gotta feed the pythons. It’s not about taste, it’s about protein. You can’t get any growth by subsisting on tea and lobster claws all day long.”

“I don’t need any more growth,” I said.

“Cavemen never cared about taste. They cared about strength.”

“They also didn’t care about showers, shoes, or statesmanship.”

“Sounds like a liberal dream to me,” he said. “If I was a caveman, I would take whatever I wanted, no questions. I’d never worry about asking politely or offending somebody.”

“And that’s different how?”

“Hey, I’m sensitive to the plight of the little man,” he said.

“The little man?”

“Yup, anyone who can’t bench press their body weight doesn’t deserve a voice,” he said, his mouth full of industrial fish.

“Said the man whose voice is tinged with a pound of mercury.”

“Bah. More liberal hocus pocus.”

I steered us back toward more neutral waters. “What are you going to do when Caesar gets here?”

“I’m gonna ask him why he likes to play with fire.”

“Just like that?”

“Yup.”

All of Mettle’s hot air was fogging up the windshield. I used my sleeve to wipe off my window. “But we have no proof that Caesar was actually involved in Phyllis’s and Dimitri’s deaths. All we know is that he works at the prison.”

“Yes, but think about it. The warden sent us this particular footage. That means his internal investigation is pointed right at Roman Caesar. Mayweather wanted us to see who was behind that door.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it was a concession.”

“A what?”

“Maybe the warden just wanted you to back off the case. Maybe he gave us the video to show us that he’s not hiding anything. Maybe he wants us to leave him alone.”

Mettle was quiet. He finished his last chunk of tuna, sucked the fish juice out the bottom and tossed the empty can on the back seat. “No. I don’t think the warden would do that.”

“Why not?”

“Instinct.”

“That tuna can is going to stink up the car,” I said. “How long are we going to be sitting here?”

“As long as it takes.”

“I need to get back to my inn.”

“Relax. You have no customers.”

“My butt is numb.”

“So do a few laps around the car.”

“It’s cold and foggy.”

“I’ll put on the heat.”

“It’s already too steamy.”

“Will you stop complaining?” Mettle said. “This is downright cozy compared to some of the stakeouts I’ve done. I once sat in this seat for thirty-six hours straight. I was so intent on catching my guy, I didn’t even get up to pee. I just brought a little hose, stuck my business in there, and peed right out the window.”

“Charming,” I said. And an impressive defiance of gravity.

He laughed.

“What?”

“I was just thinking.”

“It’s never too late.”

He ignored my quip. “I just realized that I’ve been trying to go out on a date with you for months, but it never worked out until somebody else died.”

“That’s dark,” I said. “I wouldn’t call this a date.”

“No?”

“Absolutely not. The car smells like pickles.”

Mettle twisted to face me. “C’mon, you can almost see the harbor from here. We can turn this into our special make-out spot.”

“How about we eat some grass instead? You smell like fish.”

“I’ve got mints in the glove compartment.”

I looked at the glove compartment. My heart fluttered at the thought of making out with him. Maybe it wasn’t a bad way to pass the time. It was hardly romantic, but what was romance these days? Nobody went to dinner and a show anymore. We were all too broke. We might as well get it on in a steamy cop car.

I shifted uncomfortably. Then against everything my foster father ever taught me, I went to open the glove compartment, but stopped before my thumb found the latch.

Behind us, the gravel crunched. I glanced in my mirror.

A rusty pickup truck had stopped behind us, its headlights slicing horizontally through the gray morning.

“Is that Caesar?” I whispered.

“I can’t see out the back window,” Mettle said. “It’s too foggy. But whoever it is, he saw the cruiser. He’s reversing now.”

“We’re going to lose him.”

Mettle threw open the door and jumped out and ran after the truck. “Stop where you are!”

But the pickup didn’t obey. It made a hard U-turn, peeled out, and peppered Mettle’s face with gravel.

“Stop!”

The truck’s taillights disappeared into the fog. Mettle ran back, spat the grit from his mouth, and jumped into the driver’s seat.

“Was that him?”

“We’ll find out,” Mettle said. He turned the ignition, floored the gas, and made a violent U-turn. We chased the lingering vision of the red lights through the fog, bumping over the ruts and gravel, but there was no sign of the truck.

By the time we got to the connection between Rufous Road and the highway, it was too late. We might as well have been chasing a phantom.

“He’s vanished,” I said. “Like a ghost in the fog.”

Mettle pounded the steering wheel. “Devil bang it!”

“Maybe it wasn’t Caesar.”

“No, it was definitely Caesar,” Mettle said. “It’s not the first time he’s run away from me.”

28

Go figure. The moment I considered letting my guard down, we missed the opportunity to get a fresh lead in the case.

I blame the ghost of my virginity.

Mettle, of course, didn’t see it that way. He never blamed himself, nor his faulty judgment, only the circumstances.

“Lousy fog,” he kept saying the whole drive back to the inn. “There’s no way Caesar’s going to return to that tent if he thinks we’re watching him.”

“So send another officer to pick him up for questioning.”

“I can’t. I’m suspended, remember?”

By now, he had said