The News in Small Towns (Small Town Series, Book 1) (33 page)

Better to concentrate on my article than on some of the things Clete had been saying—things that hit a little too close to home.  I had reached the third paragraph when I braked heavily for Sawdust Street and turned the corner.  It wasn’t hard to figure out which was Clete’s house.  On my left, in the middle of an ordinary residential block, two JCSD cruisers were lined up like spokes toward a hub, their headlights glued to the front door.  Two officers crouched behind.  One of them—I recognized him by his build and his bullhorn—was Sgt. Joey Bickley, Dilly’s superior officer.  The other was Dilly himself.

Up and down the block porch lights were on and the eyes of curious neighbors peeped through the blinds.  I pulled to a stop next to one of the squad cars and glanced at the besieged house.  I caught a brief flash of movement behind one of the living room windows.  The bullhorn shouted “Stop!”  Almost immediately, I both heard and felt a cold metallic thwack against the car door, then cried out from a sharp pain in my side.  My first thought was that I’d been hit by a stray bullet, but when I brought my hand to the pain, I realized that I’d been hit by some type of a shaft.  An arrow?  I’d been shot by some fucking asshole with a bow and arrow?  Whatever it was had pierced the car door and entered my side between a couple of ribs.  What now? I didn’t dare move because the bulk of the arrow was still embedded in the door.  Also, I didn’t know how badly I was hurt.  Cautiously, I reached down and felt my way along the shaft until I felt—ouch!—the pointed back tip of a broadhead blade.  It was a three-bladed hunting arrow, and sharp.  I felt along its edge; only the very tip—maybe half an inch—of the broadhead had penetrated into my side.  I’d been lucky; if the whole point had gone into me it would have taken surgery to get it out.  As it was, I gingerly scooched sideways until I was free, then scrambled out the passenger door and crouched low on the pavement.  Almost at once, a dark form materialized beside me: Billy Dollar, gun drawn, riot helmet fitted snugly to his head.  “Sue-Ann, what are you—”

“Billy, I said, breathing as hard as if I had run from my house rather than driven.  “Is he still in there?  Damn it, I didn’t know he had a bow.”

“Crossbow, yeah.  He didn’t start shooting until you drove up.  What were you—Jeez, Sue-Ann, look at your blouse.  Did he hit you?”

I looked at my side.  In the light of the full moon I saw a red stain spreading out on my blouse like an out-of-control Rorschach blot.  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I told him.  “What’s been happening?”

Billy looked at me carefully, then began, “He’s just been doing a lot of yelling about how he’s going to burn down the neighborhood.  He mentioned your name a couple of times—he figured out that you tipped us off somehow and he’s really pissed.”

“Yeah, well.  What about his mother?”  I asked.

“Funny thing about that,” Billy said.  “One of the neighbors told us that his mother’s been dead for years.”

“He’s just loony, then,” I said.

“Yeah, I think so too.  But what are we going to do?  We just can’t just rush in there and shoot him; hell, you and me and Joey, we all went to school with him.  It’s kind of like he’s one of ours, you know.”

I did know.  However much or little it might have been, we had all gone through it together.  “Let me talk to him.”

“You look like you need to go to the hospital.”

“Damn it, Billy.  Let me alone.  Come on; I’m the one he called.  He trusts me, or at least he did.”  I started making my way over to where Joey Bickley was standing, being careful to keep down—I wasn’t anxious to feel another Muzzy rip into me.

Joey looked down at me—he’s about six foot six and his riot helmet made him seem even taller—and nodded.  “You’re bleeding,” he said, almost admiringly.

The blot was spreading.  I could feel blood oozing down my side and into my jeans.  “It’s not serious,” I told him.

“Yeah, but you’re bleeding a lot,” he said.

As Dilly said earlier, Joey had gone to the same high school we had, although he was a couple of years older.  He had been a basketball player, but only because of his height.  His bulk made him too slow and he had never learned how to move.  But if the coach needed someone to go in and foul someone, Joey was his guy. 

“I need to talk to Cletus,” I told him.  “I think I can convince him to—”  But before I could finish my sentence, the front door of Clete’s house flew open.

Joey stiffened and stood up.  “Looks like it’s too late for that,” he said. 

As we watched, a figure right out of a comic book rushed out the door toward the police vehicles.  The man—I would never have recognized him as Cletus Donnelly—had a Mohawk haircut and had black stripes painted down both cheeks.  He was wearing baggy camouflage trousers and high combat boots; his upper body was bare and covered with tattoos.  As he rushed toward us he held a samurai sword over his head and screeched at the top of his lungs.

“Yiiiiiiiiiiii!”

While Dilly and I ducked behind Joey’s cruiser, Joey stepped out to meet him.  He dropped his bullhorn and stood his ground.  Clete stopped yelling and screamed, “Shoot me, you bastard.  Shoot me!” but Joey didn’t budge.  Still running at full speed, Clete brought his sword down toward Joey’s head.  I heard Dilly gasp, but instead of being cleft to the breastbone, Joey managed to duck out of the way and Clete’s sword came down on the hood of the car, snapping the blade like a pencil.  Evidently, Officer Training School had replaced some of Joey’s dead weight with muscle and quickened his reflexes.  I was impressed.

Clete looked uncomprehendingly at the foot or so of blade he had left in his hands.  Then he reversed the hilt and tried to commit hara-kiri with the stub, but there was no longer a point and it wouldn’t penetrate his chest.  Cursing, Clete brought the blade up toward his own jugular, but before he could dispatch himself that way, Joey touched him on the side with a stun gun, and Clete, without a single word or sound, dropped like a brick onto the lawn.

I rushed out from behind the car, but I was suddenly lightheaded, as if some part of the stunning operation had affected me as well.  I felt myself falling, felt the cool, damp grass on my skin, felt a pain in my side and a soft squelch of blood.  I groaned and looked up at the sky, where the full moon was shining onto my face like a headlight. 

Then I passed out.

About the Author

Iza Moreau was born and raised in New Mexico, where she was introduced to Arabian horses and to the art of riding them. After a stint in journalism school, she roamed the country for a couple of years before settling down in one of the Southern states, where she has a small farm with a couple of horses. She counts Sarah Waters, Maggie Estep, and the Bronte sisters—Acton, Currer, and Ellis—among her literary influences.

You can reach Iza at
[email protected]
. Or check out her blog, “
Blogging in Small Towns
.”

About the Small Town Series

The News in Small Towns
was a finalist in the 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in two categories: Regional Fiction and Mystery. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review at the place where you downloaded it and on Goodreads—they help an incredible amount.

The two sequels,
Madness in Small Towns
and
Secrets in Small Towns
are available at the site where you purchased this one. There are also a number of Small Town short stories that will eventually be collected and uploaded to this site as a volume in itself. At present, some of these stories can be found
here.

Trade paperback copies of
The News in Small Towns
,
Madness in Small Towns,
and
Secrets in Small Towns
can be purchased at

http://www.blackbayfarm.com/books/Iza.htm
.

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03-25-2014