Despite lingering uneasiness on several people's parts, they gathered around her.

I was in the back room of the PD, trying to decide how vile day-old coffee could be, when I heard the door open. The clickety-click of high heels gave me an idea who the visitor was, and I took malicious satisfaction in calling, "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Is this a café or a police department?"

"Beats me," I said under my breath, then went to the doorway to regard Mrs. Jim Bob, who was not only the mayor's wife, but also the president of the Missionary Society, the self-proclaimed Miss Manners of Maggody, and a royal pain in the neck (and other locales farther south). Physically speaking, she was not altogether unattractive, but her perpetual expression of grim, selfrighteous disapproval was enough to put even the most generous of us in a fractious mood. She and I were not the best of friends, possibly because I had been known to be less than deferential on occasion. Any old occasion suited me just fine.

"I wish to file a complaint," she began ominously.

"Anything in particular, or shall I arrest everybody in town and sort it out later?"

"I'm not in the mood for what you mistakenly find so amusing, Miss Chief of Police. There is a serious problem in Maggody, and your lackadaisical attitude toward law enforcement is at least partially responsible."

"Are you trying to flatter me?" I asked as I sat down behind my desk and settled my feet on my favorite corner. "It won't work. You'll have to take a number like everybody else."

I could almost hear her grinding her teeth, but after a dark look, she said, "Last night Brother Verber discovered three teenaged boys in the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. They were drunk. One of them was standing at the pulpit, less than properly clothed, engaged in blasphemy and disrespect for the good Christians of the community."

"Oh, my gawd," I murmured.

"What do you intend to do about this outrage?" Mrs. Jim Bob continued with the relentlessness of a torrential rainstorm.

"Shoot 'em?"

"The point is that they obtained the liquor illegally. You may waste your time reading magazines at the edge of town while pretending to monitor the speed limit, but I cannot sit by idly while the youth of Maggody sink into a moral quagmire of indecency and disrespect for their elders."

"Then you're going to shoot 'em for me? I can loan you my gun, but I've only got three bullets so you'll have to aim real carefully."

"The liquor," she said, sounding a bit strained, "came from Raz Buchanon's still. Everyone in town, from the youngest child to poor Adele Wockerman out at the county rest home, knows that he's running his still up on Cotter's Ridge. I'm surprised that the chief of police has seen fit to allow him to do it right under her nose, and without any discouragement or suggestion that he cease."

"The chief of police knows about this?" I said incredulously. "I can't believe it, Mrs. Jim Bob."

"Now listen here, Arly Hanks, I've had quite enough sass from you! As the wife of the mayor, who does pay your salary, I demand that you arrest Raz Buchanon and destroy the still before it destroys the moral fiber of Maggody!"

I put aside my urge to continue needling her (for fun, if not for profit). "I'm aware that Raz is back in business, but it's a tad more complicated to stop him than you're implying. I've tried four times in the last month to find the still. I can show you bruises and scratches, although the tick bites are more private. He may not be the smartest person in town, but he's cunning enough to move his operation any time he catches wind of my imminent appearance, and not just to another spot on the ridge. In case you haven't noticed, we're surrounded by wilderness, all of it crisscrossed with logging roads. If it were a matter of watching Raz until he rented a U-Haul, I might be able to track him down. As it is, he ought to work for the Pentagon."

I leaned back in my chair and watched her beady eyes dart as she considered her response. She rarely deigned to speak to me, much less to come into the PD and attempt to bully me into action. But here she was, fuming and ready to fight, dressed for battle in a navy dress, a prim hat, white gloves, and a girdle no doubt partially responsible for her pink face (I'd like to take a little credit myself). It finally came to me-she'd been ignored recently, what with the wedding of the decade and Ruby Bee's well-publicized culinary triumph. Mrs. Jim Bob was feeling like a neglected middle sibling, and she was here to put herself smack-dab back in the limelight. That she intended to do so at my expense was hard to overlook.

This flash of intuitive brilliance required action. Before she could attack, I said, "It is a serious problem. I hate as much as you to see the kids drinking. If we could encourage some of the leaders of the community to become involved, we might be able to prevent the problem from escalating."

This caught her off guard. She swallowed several words and forced a tight smile. "Then you agree with me that this should be taken as a serious threat to our youth?" I nodded to confuse her more. "Well, then, I suppose I could be prevailed upon to organize a committee of concerned citizens, and I shall accept the burden of leadership, no matter how trying it will prove. Brother Verber certainly will wish to be included, as will Lottie Estes and perhaps Elsie McMay. It's just as well Ruby Bee is out of town; in that she owns and operates a saloon, she might find it awkward to join the battle against demon whiskey."

"Just as well," I said mildly. "I'm sure you'll select your committee with as much regard for their upright moral standing as for their dedication to the cause of temperance. Keep in touch, and let me know if I can help down the line."

"Tomorrow at seven, I should think," Mrs. Jim Bob said as she stood up and smoothed away the wrinkles in her skirt. "Please have coffee made, and perhaps a nice platter of cookies. Store-bought will do. Don't forget the napkins."

I was still gaping as she swept out of the PD, and I have to admit I wasn't feeling as damn clever as I had minutes earlier. There have been times when I've been known to underestimate the enemy. This appeared to be one of 'em.

"Some honeymoon," Dahlia grumbled as she spread extra-chunky peanut butter on a cracker and glared at Kevin's shoes. She would have glared at Kevin proper, but all that she could see of him were the shoes and a few inches of ankle, the rest of him being under the car. "If I'd wanted to watch folks crawl under cars, I would have gone down to Ira Pickerel's body shop and watched Ira hisself do the crawlin'. I sure wouldn't have chosen to stand on this dusty old cowpath watching someone who doesn't know a tire from a hole in his head."

Some of this was lost on Kevin, partly because he was engrossed in the oil pan and partly because she had popped the cracker in her mouth in the middle of her comments. "I'm working as fast as I can, my beloved," he called back, hoping to appease her.

"What's more," she said, not at all appeased, "I was the one who said we needed to ask directions. I told you this wasn't the right road, but you were too smart to listen to me. So where are we now? Nowhere, that's where we are-and it's all your fault, Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon. I swear, if I'd realized how bullheaded you were, I would have married Ira. At least he's got the sense to come out of the rain."

"Why don't you take a can of soda pop and go sit in the shade?" he called to her. "I seem to recollect there's a nice patch of grass under that ol' oak tree."