Calamity Jayne Rides Again (16 page)

Dixie Daggett shook her head. "Give the 'Nancy Drew Does
Legally Blonde'
act a rest, Turner. You're embarrassing yourself." She frowned again. "And why are you wearing a DNR shirt? Townsend give
you the shirt off his back?" she asked with a sneer. "Or did you rip it off?"

"I'm working undercover as a groundsperson," I explained. "And I'm not kidding about Frankie, Dixie," I said. "This is serious.
He's taking the heat for someone else's mayhem, and this kind of thing could ruin his life. I'm really worried about him."

Big fat tears welled up in Dixie's eyes, shocking me. Her lower lip quivered. "Me, too!" she whimpered. "Me, too!" I felt
like I was witnessing a metamorphosis more startling than that
American Werewolf in London
transformation. Way scarier, too. I looked at her fat little fingers wiping fat little tears from her fat little cheeks,
and could only stare.

I'd always thought Dixie Daggett incapable of any deep emotion, our interactions often characterized by sarcasm, rabid animosity,
or blatant belligerence. But seeing this soft side exposed was, well, unsettling. And frankly, faintly nauseating.

"Dixie?" I asked, taking a step closer to make sure I wasn't mistaken. Or dreaming. Or hallucinating. "Are you
crying
?"

"Go to hell, Turner!" she said, and then she tore off on a mad dash down the concourse into the darkness.

"Tsk, tsk." I shook my head. "Back to blatant belligerence. And we were making such progress."

"Hold it right there!" a voice shouted.

I turned slowly. Two tall troopers, one old, one younger, had slipped up behind me from the brick rest-room down by Li's Asian
Express.

"Hello there, officers," I said, bending over and pretending to tidy up the area. Wouldn't you know I'd pick an area as pristine
as the White House lawn? I headed for the nearest waste receptacle and tossed in a cigarette butt I'd managed to find, and
made a big show of rearranging the garbage can. "Guess that's it," I said. "I've got this piece of ground looking mighty tidy,
if I do say so myself. Pity folks have to litter like they do, isn't it,

officers? Of course, if they didn't, I'd be out of a job. Right? Well, good night then." I turned to leave.

"Just a second, miss."

I paused. "Is there a problem, officers?"

"Well, miss, if you're planning to try and convince us you're fair maintenance when you just so happen to be wearin' a Department
of Natural Resources uniform, then yeah, I think it's safe to assume we've got ourselves a little problem," the older, obviously
veteran, trooper said.

I crossed my arms slowly. "What if I tried to convince you I was a DNR officer? Would we have a problem then?" I asked.

"It's against the law to impersonate a certified law enforcement officer, miss," the trooper responded.

I nodded. "Then I'm a refuse technician," I decided. "But I do aspire to greater things."

"You got any ID on you, Ms. Refuse Technician?" the brown shirt with arms as big around as my pre-fair thighs asked me.

I patted my pockets and made a big deal of looking through Gram's fanny pack. "I must've left it back at the campgrounds.
By the way, just so you know, this is not my fanny pack," I told the officers. They looked at each other.

"You stole a bright pink fanny pack?" the younger trooper asked.

I shook my head. "It belongs to my grandma. I only borrowed it so I could have my hands free in case I got in trouble."

"You
are
in trouble, miss," the big trooper said. "Let's go." He took my elbow.

"Shouldn't you read me my rights or something?" I asked the burly trooper with, I now noticed, sergeant's stripes. "I was
questioned by the police several times back in June during a murder investigation, so I do know something about the law."

Two pairs of trooper eyebrows disappeared underneath the brims of their Smokey Bear hats.

I bit my tongue and winced. Maybe there was an online support group for runaway blabbermouths. I'd check it out first thing
in the morning—if I wasn't in the pokey, that is. County lock-up probably didn't come with Internet access.

CHAPTER 13

The cop shop at the fairgrounds, a modest, old brick building located near the main gate, was not a hub of activity on this
night. Nor was it the most modern (or cleanest) example of professional law enforcement I'd ever seen. However, the give-me-a-cup-and-I'll-give-you-my-firstborn
aroma of freshly brewed coffee that hit me when I entered the establishment negated all criticisms of the stark and outdated
decor.

A long counter ran along one end of the room we entered, and behind it were two desks, outfitted with laptops, facing each
other. A blond trooper was seated at one, clicking the mouse. Solitaire, I thought. Or maybe Free Cell. His eyes bounced between
me and the monitor for a second, then his head snapped up. Apparently I now had his undivided attention. I reckoned that had
more to do with the DNR shirt I had on than any allure on my part, given my lack of sleep, no makeup, and with my hair sticking
out the back of my ball cap in a tangled mess.

He looked over at the sarge.

"Hey, Pete. What's up? Drunk and disorderly?"

"Drunk and disorderly? Who? Me?" I asked, not pleased to hear possible charges being bandied about.

The sergeant moved around the counter to stand directly across from me. "Naw. Criminal trespass maybe."

"Criminal trespass? Who? Me?" I sounded like those twenty-four-hour cable news networks where they repeat themselves so many
times you want to throw a Walter Cronkite book at the TV. That's why I get my news from more efficient outlets. Like my grammy.

"Well, what would you call wandering the fairgrounds at three-thirty in the morning, miss?" Sergeant Sanders asked. (I finally
read his nametag) "Wait, don't tell me: You're a refuse technician. You were... what, removing refuse from the fairgrounds?
While wearing a Department of Natural Resources uniform shirt?"

"I did pick up several pieces of trash," I defended. "People really are so environmentally lazy, aren't they? Like, they can't
walk an extra ten feet to the waste receptacle to toss their cotton candy sticks or taffy wrappers. It really is sad." I shook
my head forlornly.

"About your ID?" the officer asked, taking a clipboard and sticking an official-looking document underneath the shiny metal
clasp. He pulled out a pen.

"Are you really sure we need to go to all this trouble, Sergeant?" I asked, giving the two younger troopers my best come-hither
look. I wished I could take my hat off and let a curtain of silky blond hair fall to my shoulders like you see in the movies,
but the hair underneath my hat was probably plastered to my scalp like a hair net, and my ponytail would require my dogs'
wire brush and a gallon of No More Tangles hair potion to get the knots out.

He nodded. "It's procedure, miss," he answered.

I leaned across the table. "Do you always go by the book, Sergeant?" I asked. "A big, strong officer like you,

you probably have the authority to, shall we say, color outside the lines occasionally," I said.

"I leave that to my three-year-old grandson, miss," he said. "Name?"

I frowned and considered giving my sister Taylor's name, but knew there was definitely a law on the books about providing
false information to a police officer. Besides, I was trying to establish a bond of trust with my little sister. Having her
name penciled in on an arrest record probably wouldn't do much to promote that.

"My name is Turner. Tressa Jayne Turner," I supplied.

"Well, I'll be damned. It's Calamity!" the trooper on the computer exclaimed. I stared at him.

"You know me?" I asked, thinking he must've heard some of the hoopla that surrounded the criminal investigation back in Knox
County several months earlier. I raised my chin. I guess I needed to get used to being a celebrity.

"Sure, I know you. I've heard all about you. You're almost a legend."

I resisted the urge to ask if he wanted my autograph. Okay, so stardom is all very new to me. "I wouldn't actually consider
myself the stuff legends are made of, Officer," I said, wishing I'd had the chance to put on some of Gram's Passionate Pink
lip color before I met my public.

"Don't kid yourself, Calamity," he said, getting out of his chair and walking to the counter. "You're larger than life here
at the fair."

I tensed, recalling Dixie Daggett's thunder thighs comment, and then relaxed when I realized the trooper couldn't see my thighs
from behind the counter. "That's very kind of you—"

"Did you really shovel horse shit on the feet of one of our senators?" he asked.

"I just wanted it a matter of record. You wrote it down there, didn't you? Just write 'Tressa Turner says Frankie Barlowe
Junior is innocent of any charges and will be exonerated.' You got that?"

He gave me a tired look. "You ought to be more concerned about what charges we might file on you," he said. He put down his
pencil and ran a hand through his short black and white hair. "I have a piece of advice for you, Ms. Turner," he said. "And
I hope you take it: Leave the policework to the professionals. Forget your little one-woman stakeouts and delusions of crime
fighting. The fairgrounds can be a dangerous place for a woman on her own late at night. Keep that in mind. Patrol officers
can't be everywhere."

"That's not what my dad says," I told him. "He says whenever he goes a little bit over the speed limit, one of you guys is
right there."

The sergeant smiled. "You must have an interesting family," he said.

I nodded. "You have no idea."

"For curiosity's sake, just what did you hope to accomplish playing private eye out there, Miss Turner?"

"Why, to catch the bad guy in the act, of course! And it worked!" I whipped my camera out of the fanny pack and plunked it
on the counter. "Voila! The unidentified subject—or UNSUB, as you law enforcers like to say—is no longer unidentified!"

The sergeant gave me another tired look.

"I've got pictures!" I told them. "Digitals! Of the person sneaking around my uncle's concession stand in the dead of night
with intent to wreak malicious damage on his property and irrevocably harm his business."

All three troopers were now leaning on the counter with various degrees of interest—or lethargy, depending on the peace officer.

"You have pictures," the sergeant echoed.

"Does Donald Trump need a hair makeover?" I asked. Turning the camera on, I pushed the review button with an index finger.
"These ought to break your case wide open," I told the skeptical officers. "This is eyewitness stuff. Very compelling. Very
indisputable. There!" I showed the first picture to the officers, who were now all behind the counter. "There's your proof!"

"What is that, anyway?" one of the policemen asked. "It looks like an eyebrow."

"Huh?" I turned the camera around and sure enough, I'd only caught the top right corner of Dixie Daggett's forehead and a
portion of her thick eyebrow. "Okay, so the first one didn't turn out. I have more," I said, hitting the review button to
look at the next.

"What's that? It looks like a belly button."

"What?"

"Yep, someone's navel for sure."

I checked out the picture, cursing under my breath as I caught a glimpse of a not very attractive belly button. How had I
totally muffed the pictures?

"Too bad the belly button didn't have a piercing, or we could have used that to get a positive ID match," the blond trooper
joked. "Might be kinda fun to have a belly button line-up."

"You'd like that sort of thing, wouldn't you, trooper?" I asked, sensing the direction in which our interaction was heading.
"Of course, you'd have to get off your duff and away from your computer solitaire and do a little bit of po-licework."

His smile disappeared quicker than tortilla chips and salsa on a Sunday afternoon during pro-football season.

"I tell you, that is Dixie Daggett's belly button! And this is her eyebrow!" I insisted. "How many girls have eyebrows that
look like long, woolly caterpillars?" I asked. "Her father, Luther Daggett, is out to beat my

Uncle Frank's sales this year by hook or by crook, and he's not above using his daughter to do it."

"Or maybe someone just wants us to believe that," the blond trooper suggested. "Someone who wants to shift the focus away
from a member of their own family maybe?"

It didn't take Mapquest to figure out where this guy was headed.

"Like I said before, Miss Turner, it's generally best to leave the law enforcement to the pros," the sergeant reminded me.

"Oh, but if I'd done that in Knox County, I wouldn't be here today to meet you fine officers," I said with a touch of sarcasm.
Okay, so it was more than a touch. More along the lines of the filled-to-overflowing manure hauler out back of the livestock
barns.

"We need to make a few phone calls, Miss Turner," the direct but polite sergeant said. "If you would be so kind as to have
a seat over there." He motioned toward a small bench beside a couple of what looked to be... porta cells. You know, like porta
potties, only for people in temporary custody. Holding cells. That's the term I'm looking for.

"Do I need to make a phone call of my own?" I asked.

"Just have a seat, Miss Turner, and I'll be back with you shortly," Sergeant Sanders said.

I grabbed my camera and stuck it in my fanny pack, then headed in the direction he'd indicated. As I approached the first
cell, I noticed the far one was occupied by a hulk of a man. He was standing at the front, his bear-sized paws gripping the
chain link. I intended to avert my eyes and walk slowly past the incarcerated giant without drawing undue attention, but I
had just walked past the figure in shadow when I heard, "Hey, Barbie doll—what you in for?"

My feet got tangled and I stumbled. I knew that voice. I'd first heard it back in June when, in the midst of trying to prove
myself equal to Xena, the warrior princess, I'd posted bail for the massive biker who looked like The Rock's younger but much
larger brother in return for a helpful tip.

I turned. "Manny?"

"Yo, Barbie. Whazz up?"

I moved to the door of the temporary cell, looking at the structure and wondering if it could possibly hold this incredible
hulk if he decided to turn big and green.

"What are you doing here, Manny?" I said. "And what have you done with your hair?" The last time I'd seen Manny, he'd been
bald as some of my favorite country-western male vocalists under their cowboy hats. Now, he had a short growth of very dark
and very attractive hair.

He smiled, and his teeth were really white against the dark interior of the cell and his black biker's shirt and pants. "Contempt
of cop," he said, giving a grin as if his words explained everything. "You, Barbie doll?"

I grimaced. "Operating mouth with both feet fully inserted," I answered.

Manny laughed. "Same ole Barbie doll," he said.

"Same old Manny," I replied, and proceeded to hit the high points of the fair fiascos so far. "... And a belly button doesn't
constitute positive ID, I guess," I summed up. "Although I have heard of certain celebrities who can be identified by certain
unusual physical characteristics—"

"Turner!"

I jumped.

"You have a visitor."

"Who is it?" I whispered to Manny, my hands clenched around the wires that separated us.

"Rick the dick," Manny said, not exactly a member of the Rick Townsend Fan Club. The feeling was, for Townsend, mutual.

I made a my-gooseberry-pie-needs-more-sugar face.

"Does he look angry?" I asked.

Manny shrugged. "Hard to tell."

"Does his face look like he just had multiple Botox injections and they paralyzed him?"

Manny nodded. "Sounds about right."

I let out a long, loud sigh. "I'm in for it now," I said. I turned to face my accuser.

"Uh, by the way, Barbie, if someone should ask, the name's Manny DeMarco," Manny said.

"Huh?"

"DeMarco not Dishman, Barbie. Got it?"

"Not really," I told him, "but nice meeting you, Mr. DeMarco," I added, for the benefit of the assembled representatives of
the law enforcement community. I had to wonder what the devil Manny was up to now.

I hurried over toward Townsend before he spotted Manny.

"I can explain everything, Rick," I said. "Once I get done, everything will make perfect sense," I assured him.

"You're free to go, Miss Turner," the sergeant told me. "Officer Townsend here has decided not to file theft charges."

"Theft! Are you for real?" I asked Townsend. "I intended to return the shirt when I was done with it. I was even planning
to have it dry cleaned."

"Let's go, Tressa," Rick said, and he took hold of my hand. "It's late. I'm tired. I'm pissed. Let's just go."

I let him drag me off, taking a second to look back and wave at Manny. He, flashed me the peace sign as Townsend pulled me
out of the tiny cop shop.

I struggled to keep up with Townsend's long strides. He didn't say a word, but I could tell from the way his heels hit the
pavement that everything wasn't kosher. We were approaching the Emporium on the way back to the campgrounds, and he still
hadn't uttered a word to me.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" I asked, about as comfortable with the silent treatment as I am wearing bridesmaid's dresses
and old lady underwear. "Aren't you going to rip into me? Chew me a new one? Lecture me?"

Rick stopped in midstep, looked at me, put his hands out in front of him, palms open, as if searching for the right words,
then dropped them back to his sides and started walking again. I trotted to catch up.

"Okay, okay, so what do you want me to say? That I'm sorry I borrowed your shirt? All right: I'm sorry. Okay? I shouldn't
have taken it. I apologize," I huffed.

Townsend stopped again suddenly. "Don't you get it? It's not about the damned shirt, Tressa," he said, running a hand through
his hair, leaving it tousled yet sexy. I've often wished I could run my fingers through my hair, but they always get stuck
in the tangles. I've lost combs in my hair before and, believe me, it's not a pretty extrication process.