“Christeeeen!” Sheriff Wainright protested, pushing back from his desk like she’d dumped a live rattlesnake on it instead of the trap. He was a short man with a little round potbelly and a drooping mustache. “Look what you did! You got mud all over my important paperwork!” he stormed.
Christine snorted.
“You mean all the traffic tickets you’ve been writing for the out-of-towners you catch in your damn speed traps?”
Thanks to the Sheriff’s machinations, the speed limit dropped abruptly from fifty miles per hour to twenty-five in the space of a quarter mile on the outskirts of town in either direction. Also, the yellow light on Main Street was about two seconds long.
Locals knew about these sneaky changes and steered clear of them, but people passing through Stuarts Draft were likely to be in for a nasty surprise when either Sheriff Wainright or Deputy McCall pulled them over and wrote them a ticket for speeding or running a red light.
“Now, don’t you start with me, Missy!” the Sheriff blustered. “The money from those tickets pays for a lot of civic services!”
“Like the service of keeping one of your citizens safe on her own land?” Christine demanded. “What if I’d put my foot in this damn thing, Sheriff? It could have broken my ankle! They can’t be putting bear traps all over my land!”
“Now just calm down now, Christine—how do you know they put it there? The damn thing could have been there for years and you just never saw it before!” he protested.
“It couldn’t have been there for years. It’s brand new—look, there’s not a speck of rust on it!” Christine pointed at the trap, which was shiny and silver where it wasn’t covered in mud.
“Looks like some blood, though—did you cut yourself on it? Is that why you’re so upset?” He pointed at Roarn’s blood, which was dried on some of the trap’s teeth.
“I’m upset because those assholes put a dangerous trap on my land without even asking,” Christine told him. “And no, I didn’t cut myself. It got a… a cat.”
Which wasn’t exactly a lie, though it certainly wasn’t the whole truth either.
Sheriff Wainright frowned and she could tell he was thinking up another way to weasel out of coming out to talk to the Fensters.
“Well, that’s too bad for the cat but I mean, anybody could have put that on your land. How do you know it was the Fensters who did it?” he said.
“And who else would put it on my land? There’s nobody else who even comes out there—I know you certainly don’t!” Christine narrowed her eyes at him.
Sheriff Wainright crossed his arms over his narrow chest and glared right back.
“I’m busy with my duties here—Deputy McCall and I can’t be running all the way up to your place every time one of your cats goes up a tree!”
Christine sighed.
“I made that call because one of their Pitbulls was loose and you know it.”
“So you said, but that situation resolved itself without my interference,” Wainright pointed out.
Christine leaned across his desk.
“Listen, Sheriff—when you call us up at Whiskers and Tails and tell us your little Tinkerbell isn’t feeling good, do we tell you to just ‘let the situation resolve itself?’ No—we have you bring her down so we can look her over and take care of her.” Tinkerbell was the Sheriff’s miniature Dachshund—a cute little long-haired weenie dog who was much nicer than her master, at least in Christine’s opinion.
But Wainright was clearly not moved by her analogy.
“What’s your point?” he demanded.
“My point is, I do my job and now I’m asking you do to yours,” Christine said, running out of patience. “Those Pitbulls are savage and the Fensters are abusing them and you’re not doing a thing about it!” She stabbed a finger at the bear trap. “But you’re damn well going to do something about this! Go up to the Fensters’ place and tell them they can’t be putting traps on my land! And while you’re at it, I’d appreciate it if you told them not to blast their music at three o’clock in the morning when I’m trying to sleep!”
“Fine. I’ll give them a call.” Sheriff Wainright made a face, as though Christine was some crazy lady he was just humoring.
“You’ll give them a call? Thanks a lot.” Christine glared at him. “Tell me something, Sheriff—do you have some kind of a deal with the Fensters or are you just scared of them?”
Wainright’s face grew red and his drooping mustache quivered with emotion.
“Why…how dare you ask me that? I would never make any kind of deal with the criminal element!”
“So you admit they’re probably doing something illegal in that rusty trailer of theirs!” Christine said triumphantly.
“No, I do not,” the Sheriff protested. “Look, just leave me alone and I’ll give them a call. And next time you have some kind of a problem, you don’t have to come all the way down here—just call us.”