The Shining Badge (16 page)

“Finer than silk, Sheriff.”

Jimmy Duo had become a fixture at the jail. He was the leading contender for the office of town drunk, and the jail had become almost a home to him. He came over now and stood up and, being no taller than Jenny, looked her directly in the eyes. “It’s gonna be a fine day.”

Jenny stared at Duo, wondering how anyone in his situation could consider any day fine. Duo’s eyes were red rimmed, his cheeks were sunk in, and his hands were shaking. He would be released at noon after the meal, and she knew he would immediately go searching for whiskey. “Jimmy, don’t you ever get tired of the way you live?”

“I’m tired of it all the time, Sheriff.” Duo grinned broadly. He was a cheerful fellow, at least outwardly, but there was a look in his eyes that belied his cheerful demeanor.

“There’s a better way to live than this. Why don’t you give the Lord a chance to do something with you?”

“The Lord gave up on me a long time ago, I reckon. I ain’t given Him no encouragement, don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t see. The Lord God is always ready. When you get out of here, let’s have a talk, just you and me.”

“Well, you can talk to me all you want to, Sheriff Winslow. I’ve been talked to a lot, but somehow I always come out on the short end of it. I always wanted to be a Christian man, but when I start thataway, I wind up drunk in an alley.”

Jenny’s heart went out to the small man. He was no more than thirty, but he looked fifty. She had heard his story from Moon, how he had been a fine young fellow, a shining example of a scholar in his early days in school. But he had fallen prey to alcohol and had been in the gutter ever since. “We’ll talk about it, Jimmy,” she said. Then she turned, for she heard the steel door opening at the end of the hall. “Must be lunchtime.”

“We’ll probably have T-bones and baked potatoes today.” Jimmy winked at her, and those listening mocked him with groans.

Jenny stood watching as Legs and Mattie Porter brought in the food. She had tried for a week to make them eat their own cooking, and apparently nothing was too bad for them to gag down. She stared in dismay at this day’s offering, which consisted of a runny stew of limp vegetables that reeked of hot sauce, evidently to cover up the real smell. Both Legs and Mattie stared at her, daring her to say something. She knew they felt secure with Judge Hightower’s backing, and for a moment she was tempted to fire them on the spot. Instead, she simply turned and left, but anger was stirring in her. She went out the front door, calling out, “I’m going down to the café. Can I bring you something back, Ruby?”

“No, not this time.”

As she strode down the street, Jenny was aware of the scrutiny of those she passed. The sight of a woman in the
sheriff’s uniform had not sunk in yet, and she had become, more or less, accustomed to the curious stares. She had grown flustered once when a young boy no more than four had said loudly to his mother, “Mama, why’s that policeman wearing a skirt?”

As she walked down Main Street, she was suddenly struck with how the small town of Summerdale had more or less become the center of her world. After living in New York City most of her life, the thought occurred to her,
Why, you could put this whole town in one little section of New York, and it would be hard to find!
Still, something about the town had become part of her. She passed by Henry’s Pool Hall and noted that the usual supply of acne-ridden young men were there, some of them standing on the front porch, watching her as she went by. She nodded, and one of them mumbled, “Hello, Sheriff.” Across the street was the garage and blacksmith shop, and she waved at Jude Tanner, who was working on a car outside the building. He waved at her and called out, “Hi, Sheriff!”

“Hello, Jude!”

“You comin’ to the box supper?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, I’ll make a bid on your box. Put somethin’ good in it.”

She liked Jude a great deal. He was a giant in form but had the gentleness of a child, which she found very attractive. She passed Taylor’s Barbershop, where the endless checker game went on out in front on a wooden table surrounded by loafers. Then she turned into the Elite Café.

“Over here, Sheriff. Just in time to buy my lunch.”

Jenny walked over to where Luke Dixon was seated. He got up as she came to the table and pulled out her chair, and the two sat down.

“My treat today, Sheriff.”

“Why, thank you, Luke.” The two sat down and at once
the owner of the Elite, Maisy Hayes, came over to take their order. “Afternoon, Sheriff.”

“Hello, Maisy. What’s good today?”

“We got fried chicken or salmon croquettes—and we got okra, tomatoes, and corn.”

“That all sounds good to me,” Luke said cheerfully. “Bring us a big plateful of everything and some tea for the sheriff.”

“What have you got for dessert?” Jenny asked.

“Cherry cobbler.”

“Good, I’ll have some of that when we’re finished.”

Maisy nodded and left. She called in the order through a window, then brought another glass of iced tea for Jenny. She refilled Dixon’s glass and said, “Enjoy your dinner.”

Dixon watched as Jenny thirstily drained her glass of tea, then asked, “You know how I know this is a good café?”

“No. How?”

“Look there. Maisy’s got four calendars over there. You can always tell how good a café is by how many calendars it has on its walls. If it doesn’t have any, forget it. One, it’s not too good. Two, better than average. Three is real good. But a
four-
calendar café, now that means something.”

Jenny always enjoyed Dixon’s rather wild thinking. She found him an attractive man, and now as he sat there entertaining her with his light patter, she was glad she had someone like him to trust.

“I’ve got a problem with Legs and Mattie, the jailer and his wife.” She went on to explain how pitiful their work was. “I’d fire them in a minute. There’s bound to be somebody who could do the work better than they do it, but Ruby and Billy have both warned me that they are some distant kin to Judge Hightower. They said Sheriff Beauchamp tried to fire them, and Hightower somehow put pressure on him. Isn’t there something I can do, Luke?”

“Well, a dirty jail and bad meals might be less of a problem than locking horns with Hightower.” Luke’s green eyes grew
thoughtful, and he sipped the tea, thinking hard. “Maybe you’d better hold off for a while.”

“But they feed the inmates nothing but swill, and the place is filthy.”

Luke listened as Jenny spoke passionately and finally said, “I knew you’d be running into things like this, but it’s a little soon to take action on the Porters. Let me feel out the situation. Maybe there’s a way I can help.”

“Will you, Luke? That’s sweet of you.”

With a swift move, Jenny slapped at a fly that had lit on her cheek. To her surprise she hit it, and she uttered a disgusted, “Ugh!” then grabbed her napkin and began scrubbing at her cheek. “I’ve got to go wash my hands,” she said. She went to the rest room, washed thoroughly, and then came back and sat down. “I wish I could kill every fly in this county, Luke.”

“Why, the Lord made all those flies for some purpose, don’t you suppose?”

“What purpose would a fly have, or a mosquito?”

“No idea,” Luke said. At that moment the food came, and when Maisy left, Luke said, “Why don’t you bless this food.” The two bowed their heads, and Jenny asked a quick blessing, and when Jenny bit into the fried chicken, she said, “This is delicious!”

Luke had attacked one of the salmon croquettes first, and his eyes opened with surprise. “And this salmon croquette, why, it’s the best I ever had! And look how fresh the vegetables look.”

“I wonder who the cook is.”

“A woman named Sadie, but she’s outdone herself this time. You know,” he went on, “that fly you killed. I’ve been thinking about it.”

Jenny stared at him and then laughed. “Your mind’s like a butterfly jumping around! What about that fly?”

“Did you know there’s a religion in India called Jainism that practices what they call
ahimsa.
The whole religion is based on the idea that killing any living thing is wrong.”

“You mean they can’t kill a cow and eat it?”

“Certainly not! Why, they can’t even burn candles or lights if there’s danger a moth might fly into them. And they cover their mouth and nose with cloth masks so they won’t inhale any gnats.”

“You’re making it all up.”

“I am not! I read it in a book. It said the Jainists won’t plow fields for fear of cutting up worms. They won’t work as a carpenter because it might kill something.”

“Must be a pretty hard life. I’d hate to do without fried chicken.”

“Me either, but there’s all kinds of peculiar things in the world. That’s in a country where ten thousand humans die every year from snake bites, but they won’t kill a snake.”

“You know more useless stuff than any man I ever met,” Jenny said. She went on listening to Luke as he regaled her, and then finally, when they had finished the cherry cobbler, which was excellent, they both rose. Jenny waited while Luke paid Maisy, and she said, “I’d like to give my compliments to the chef.”

“Sure.”

“All right if I step back and tell Sadie how good the food was?”

“Sadie’s been off for a week now. Got a substitute. Go on back if you want to.”

The two went through the swinging door, and as Jenny entered, she saw a huge man wearing tan trousers and a white shirt. When he turned, she exclaimed, “Why, Noah, it’s you!”

“Hello, Sheriff.” Noah Valentine grinned. “Good to see you.”

“I didn’t know you were a cook, Noah.”

“I always done most of the cookin’ for Mama for the kids, so when the job came up here I took it.”

“Well, you did a fine job, Noah. I never had better fried chicken in my life, and that cobbler. Did you make that from scratch?”

“I even picked the cherries. Glad you liked it, Sheriff Winslow.”

The two congratulated Noah warmly, and as they left the café, an idea began fermenting. “Why couldn’t Noah be the jailer, Luke? Did you see that kitchen? It was clean as a pin. Why, you could eat off the floor.”

“You’d have some problems there. Not just with the judge.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Noah’s got two strikes against him. He’s black, and he’s been in trouble with the law. You’ve got those two deputies, Arp and Pender, who hate him, and they’d all be under the same roof.”

Jenny walked slowly down the sidewalk thinking on what Luke had said, and finally when they reached his office, she turned and said, “Thanks for the lunch.”

He stared at her seriously. “I know what you’re thinking, and my advice is, don’t do it.”

“I’m not thinking anything.”

“Yes you are. You’re thinking of firing that pair of incompetents and hiring Noah Valentine as jailer and cook.”

“I didn’t know you were a mind reader.”

“You’re not all that hard to read, Jenny. You’ve got that kind of face. I’m not saying it’s not a good idea. As a matter of fact, it might be a great idea.” He paused for a moment and said, “If you can face up to the judge on the small things, that might be better than getting hit with a big problem. If you decide to try it, I’ll be with you. We might even get Raymond Dent to do a story on it. Human-interest stuff. How good it is to help men who have been in trouble to do honest work.”

Jenny’s eyes brightened, and she said, “I’ve got to start someplace. Sooner or later I’m going to lock horns with the judge, so I might as well get started. Thanks, Luke.”

Luke Dixon watched Jennifer Winslow as she walked with determined strides toward the office. “I hope I told her the right thing,” he said. “But that woman’s got a streak
of stubbornness in her that I didn’t dream possible in any female that pretty.”

****

Jenny took no action about replacing Legs and his wife. The one rule she had formulated before going into this office was to pray about everything. For two days she kept a close watch on the Porters and knew that nothing she could say would make them improve. She did not plan to talk to the judge, but she did talk to Maisy Hayes about her regular cook and discovered that Sadie would be back on the job at the beginning of the next week. “I’ve got that long to think about it. I may be making a bad mistake, but I’ve got to do something.”

That was on Thursday. Jenny had spent almost all her time inside going over the books with Ruby and trying to learn the procedures, but she spoke to Billy that afternoon and said, “I want to get out some, Billy. I’ll go with you on your run today.”

“Fine, Sheriff! It’s a good day for it. Nice and hot.”

Indeed, the early July weather had been blisteringly hot. The Fourth, two days earlier, had been thoroughly celebrated, and as Billy drove her down the county roads, he said, “Not much happening. It seems like a holiday always takes the meanness out of people.”

“Well, there were enough drunks in jail after the Fourth. Plenty of fines coming in. Maybe we can afford a raise for the deputies soon.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. The county commission has to approve all those things, and Judge Hightower’s pretty tight with the nickel, at least as far as the sheriff’s office is concerned.”

“Tell me all about the politics of the county. Who do I need to be hard on? Who do I need to be careful of?” Jenny asked. Then she sat back, and as the two cruised slowly down the roads, stopping a speeder now and then and giving them a ticket, Luke went over the history and the personnel of the
county. He knew everybody and everything as far as Jenny could tell, and she soaked it up, knowing she would need it. Finally he said, “The judge doesn’t like to be challenged. He’s got big ideas. Sooner or later you’ll butt heads with him. Don’t back down. He’ll respect you if you stand up to him, but he’ll give you a hard time.”

They called back in periodically, and then at four o’clock, they got a report. Billy called and came back to the car, saying, “There’s a fight at the Black Diamond.” He got in the car and left with a screeching of tires.

“What’s the Black Diamond?”

“It’s a tavern, a saloon—whatever. It’s against the law to sell liquor, but it’s there all the time. Pretty bad fight from what Ruby said.”