Making It Right (Most Likely To #3)

First was Glynis. Apparently the woman had forgotten that Jo was leaving within ten hours of her departure. Glynis stuttered a few times, then laughed at her memory before hanging up. Two of Cherie’s neighbors called repeatedly, and one called twice to say she was sorry for bothering her on her vacation. The machine cut her off after a few minutes, so she called back to make sure that Jo knew she wasn’t upset with her for taking time for herself.

There were several hang-ups, and two calls about the pothole Zoe had told her about. The last call was from Cherie herself, telling her that Deputy Emery wasn’t fit to wear a badge.

Jo looked at the time.

A quick shower and she’d manage to get to the station before five thirty, when Glynis left and the place all but closed up. Jo knew she’d have a night of work ahead of her. She didn’t remember if she’d had Emery working the day or if it was one of the relief help from Waterville. Either way, she’d need information on what was being handled and what was handled badly.

The rain had let up when she parked in front of the station.

Glynis had a country radio station playing, filling the silence of the station.

She jumped to her feet when Jo closed the door behind her.

“Jo!”

She caught the woman’s hug.

“I missed you. The whole town missed you. I can’t believe you were gone for a week. How was it?” Glynis stepped back, the questions kept flying. “Did you see the hole in front of Sam’s? I bet today’s rain made it worse. Fitzpatrick will be back here anytime. He can fill you in on all the crazy that always seems to happen when you’re not here.”

“I’m never not here.”

Glynis waved her off. “You were gone for Melanie and Wyatt’s party in Vegas, and there was that trip to Texas when Zoe was living there . . . now this.”

Jo refused to feel guilty about fifteen days off in eight years of service. “I have more vacation time available to me than anyone.”

“That’s because we encourage Emery to take his time.” She lowered her voice. “We like you better than him.”

Jo moved around her longtime employee and toward her office. “That may be, but I should be able to take some time off without River Bend falling apart.”

Glynis took her place in the chair on the other side of Jo’s desk while Jo picked up the mail stacked up with her name on it.

“We didn’t fall apart . . . we frayed a little at the edges.”

There were bills for the station. A notice from the company that provided the cruisers she and Emery used. She opened that first, saw a recall notice on both vehicles.

“What is being done about the road hazard in front of Sam’s?”

“Fitzpatrick spoke with an asphalt guy in Waterville.”

Jo looked up from her mail. “A couple bags of concrete won’t fix it?”

Glynis blinked a couple times. “You haven’t seen it.”

No, she’d not driven past Sam’s on her way in. “That bad?”

“Swallowed a massive wheel on one of Zoe’s production trailers.”

That gave Jo pause. “Did the trailer cause it?”

“Hard to say. It was there before the crew came to town.”

Something told her that was going to be trouble.

“Luke pulled them out, but it’s going to take more than a few bags of anything to fix properly.”

“ETA on that?”

Glynis shrugged, motioned toward the back window. “Rain has to let up longer than five minutes first.”

The bell from the front door of the station signaled company.

Glynis stood and peeked around the corner.

“Deputy Fitzpatrick, look who’s back.”

Jo moved around her desk, held out her hand. “Hey, Stan.” Stan Fitzpatrick had been a deputy in Waterville for longer than Jo could remember. He’d known her father personally. As it worked out, Stan would step in when her father took a long weekend up at the hunting cabin, or on the very rare occasion he left the area altogether. A few too many fast food burgers sat around Stan’s waist, and his receding hairline was peppered with gray.

He knew the people of River Bend, and they liked him. So whenever Jo needed to leave, she asked Stan to step in.

He always did.

“You look rested,” he told her.

“That’s going to be short-lived from the laundry list I’m being given,” she said, waving the mail in her hand.

“The perks of being the big cheese, Jo.”

“Yeah, yeah . . .” She moved back to her desk. “Anything happen I need to know about?”

Stan glanced at Glynis, then back to Jo. The look said he had something to say without an audience.

“Glynis, thanks for keeping things going while I was gone. We’ll catch up with everything in the morning.”

She took the hint and moved to her desk to retrieve her purse. “Great having you back, Jo.”

Once the door was closed behind her, Jo offered a chair to Stan. “You have something to say.”

Stan lifted his duty belt so he could sit without cramping his weapon. “I’m sure you heard about the whole dog ordeal.”

“Yeah. Zoe picked me up from the airport and filled me in.”

“It wasn’t handled right, Jo. I’ve pinch-hit here in River Bend since when your dad was alive. That kind of strong-arm stuff is needed in Waterville, but here it just makes enemies.”

“Neighbors on both sides left messages for me at home complaining about the noise. Didn’t Cherie take the dogs inside?”

“She did. Still Karl jumped in and said he heard excessive noise outside her house and thought he needed to step in for the safety of the animals.”

Jo shook her head. “Cherie is the crazy dog lady, but she loves her fur babies. Would neglect herself before she’d cause them any harm.”

“Yeah, well . . . now the ASPCA has their eye on her, and they’ll be back to make sure she has fewer animals, with the promise to return when those puppies are eight weeks old.”

Jo felt the headache travel from the back of her head to the front.

“Even the neighbors who complained thought the punishment didn’t fit the crime.”

“Making her get rid of four of her pets would be like me asking you to give away one of your kids.”

Stan laughed. “Well, my oldest is pissing me off these days. Damn teenagers.”

Jo smiled. “Anything else?”

Stan told her about a fallen tree that still needed to be removed from the side road past Miss Gina’s Bed-and-Breakfast. He did a well check on Mrs. Kate, ate some of her pot roast for the efforts. Said he made a point of driving by her house a few times, made sure none of the local teenagers thought it would be a good time to decorate the town with toilet paper.

She thanked him for that. Seemed picking toilet paper out of trees was becoming a thing. She could only guess teens were to blame.

Jo needed to catch them and introduce them to toothpaste and a toilet . . . and Lob Hill, where she would run their toilet papering asses until they wanted to puke. They’d be too tired to toilet paper her house and maybe stop others from thinking she found it amusing.

Truth was, she had given more than one admiring thought to the culprits of last year. In all her days of toilet papering houses, never once did she consider taking on the house of a cop. That was probably because that would have been hers. But even Emery’s house, which wasn’t far away, she didn’t consider. Now that he was pissing her off, she wished she had.