Page 11 of A Dead End Fourth of July (Tiger’s Eye Mysteries #14)

Tess

Tuesday morning at the shop was blissfully normal. Nobody tried to sell me magical items or mutant vegetables or even evil-spirit-possessed mirrors.

It was awesome.

I was fairly busy, though. Lots of pre-holiday traffic.

With the Fourth coming up Friday, out-of-town friends and family were in Dead End for the fireworks festival.

I'd already turned down three invitations from people who wanted me to help staff food stands or booths where they planned to sell their baked goods, canned goods, or crafts.

Eleanor called and offered to work that afternoon, and her voice carried more than a hint of desperation, so I gladly accepted. I also promised we'd do the pool party thing that evening.

I was itching to do some deep cleaning, since I hadn't been there for a couple of weeks. Eleanor was great, but she was my sales assistant, and I never expected her to do more than basic dusting and sweeping. But since she'd be here, she could concentrate on the customers while I got to work.

Plus, I liked to clean. At home, I used to play music loudly and sing along while I mopped and scrubbed, until I got involved with a man who had Superior Tiger Hearing (capital letters his) and had once raced into my house ready to fight whoever was making me "scream with pain."

Stupid tigers.

At Dead End Pawn, I saved the nitty-gritty cleaning for after hours, but it was a rare day that didn't find me with a dust cloth, window wipe, or broom in my hands. A clean shop was just good business.

At eleven, there was a brief lull, and I pulled out some of the never-ending paperwork to tackle at the counter.

When the chimes over the door rang, I was deep in estimated taxes—yes, even in Dead End, part of Black Cypress County's sovereign territory, excluded from almost all federal U.S.

laws, we had to pay taxes—and didn't look up until I heard a familiar voice call my name.

"Uncle Mike! What are you doing here? It's great to see you." I put my pen down and rushed over to hug my uncle, raising my eyebrows at the big red toolbox he carried.

"I thought I'd drop by and fix anything that needed fixing." He set the box down on the floor and stretched. "That keeps getting heavier as I get older."

I kissed his cheek. "You'll never get old. Want coffee?"

"Nope. Had plenty of that at breakfast. You'll be happy to know I remembered to take breakfast out to the barn for Robin and Thistle, so they left the poor goats alone."

"Are the goats okay?" I had to laugh. I mean, it wasn't funny, but it was a little funny. (The goats were completely unharmed.)

"Oh, they're fine. Can't keep goats down for long." He looked around the shop, eyes wide. "What did you do to this place?"

I sighed. "That was Eleanor. She had some free time on her hands when I was gone. I don't mind, though. The ferrets are funny, and I sold half of them this morning. And the Halloween display is fun, if a little early in the year."

He grunted. "Can't say I'm a fan of stuffing and dressing up rodents, but it's your place."

"Ferrets aren't rodents, Uncle Mike. They're members of the weasel family."

"Like some of those boys who came around the house for you," he muttered. "Also, how do you always know this kind of thing?"

"I know lots of random trivia. Try to find a pawnshop owner who doesn't."

"Fair enough. Well, Eleanor is why I'm here. When she was setting up your spooky corner with the Halloween stuff, she said that one shelving unit was unbalanced and not properly fastened to the wall. I'm going to fix it."

"Thanks! I think the hinges on the potions case are a little wonky, too, after a kid tried to yank it open this morning despite the padlock."

"I'll have a look. Get back to your paperwork, honey.

And if you have time, I thought I'd take you to Beau's for lunch.

Just the two of us. We haven't done that in a while.

" He patted my arm, picked up his toolbox, and got to work, leaving me with a smile and a warm feeling inside.

Uncle Mike and I had always been close, but it was true our uncle/niece days had gone mostly by the wayside when I took over the shop.

A few more customers came in, mostly browsing, but nothing too busy, so I turned the sign on the door to Closed at noon, locked up, and hopped in Uncle Mike's truck with him to go to Beau's.

Lorraine greeted us at the door with raised eyebrows and a grin. "Nice to see you two out and about again. There's a table open up front."

Beau's Diner had been a fixture in Dead End for longer than I'd been alive, and Lorraine Packard had been its head waitress and, pretty much, boss for fifty years.

She was maybe a hair over five feet tall in her neon pink orthopedic shoes and starched uniform.

Her short, silver-white hair shone in the sunlight coming in from the sparkling windows.

Uncle Mike and I took a seat, and Lorraine followed us over to tell us the specials. There wasn't much use in looking at a menu at Beau's, because she usually gave customers what she felt they needed, no matter what they thought they wanted.

"The special is fish and chips with fresh slaw, corn on the cob, and apple cobbler. Tess?"

"Sounds perfect to me. With lemonade, please."

"Same for me," Uncle Mike said, all but rubbing his hands with glee. Aunt Ruby had put him on a low-fat diet a few months back, and he was chafing at the restrictions.

"How's the cholesterol?" Lorraine demanded.

Uncle Mike leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, right over the Cleveland Tractor Company logo on his T-shirt. "I guess a man can order food in this town without having to talk about his personal health information."

A thin-faced, long-haired man I didn't recognize, sitting at the table next to us, leaned over to point at Lorraine. "He's right. That hippo law says you can't even ask, although I'm not sure what business a diner waitress has asking a customer about his personal business."

I sucked in a breath. Oh, no, he didn't.

Lorraine was going to eviscerate him.

Shocking everybody in the room who knew her, she turned to the man and gave him a sweet smile, showing lots of teeth. "The hippo law? And what exactly would a hippo law be, Boris Volkov? Are we talking about endangered species?"

Oh, this was Mr. Volkov's nephew. Mr. Volkov drove the elementary school bus and raised and showed very fancy champion Borzoi dogs.

I suddenly had to stifle a giggle. The old saying about how a person grows to look like their dog might actually be true.

Both Mr. Volkov and Boris had long hair and Borzoi faces, even to the long noses.

Uncle Mike gave me a curious look, but I shook my head. I'd tell him later. Aunt Ruby would have scolded me for such an unkind observation, but my uncle would think it was pretty funny.

Of course, Uncle Mike was also the same man who'd once told me he didn't want to brag, but he'd put a puzzle together in less than an hour that said two-to-four years right there on the box.

I'm ashamed to admit it took me a minute before I got it and cracked up.

"No! Not hippos. Heppos." Boris rolled his eyes. "Like the privacy laws about your health information, not like the big animals."

"Big animals like moose?" Lorraine asked sweetly. "Boris, do you ever want to … get the moose?"

Uncle Mike barked out a laugh, but I had no idea why. Boris also looked confused, so I helped the poor man out.

"I think he means HIPAA laws, Lorraine. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, meant to protect patient privacy," I said.

All three of them looked at me.

"I'm sorry. I read stuff, and I remember things," I muttered. "Find me a pawnshop owner who isn't a trivia star. I dare you."

"Yes, I'll have the special," Uncle Mike said, rescuing all of us. "My cholesterol is much better, leaving all hippos and moose out of it."

He chuckled. "Get moose."

When I tilted my head, he read the question in my eyes and shook his head. "I'll tell you later."

It was going to be an interesting car ride back to the shop.

We ate our fish and chips, poked at the slaw, and slathered butter and salt on the corn before devouring that, too.

I was too full for cobbler, so Uncle Mike ate mine and his both.

I tried not to think of what Aunt Ruby would have to say, but he was a grown man, and there were hippo laws, after all, so I stayed silent on the subject.

We talked about all sorts of things, from my impressions of Atlantis to how the shop was doing to the upcoming fireworks. It was lovely to relax back into the warm relationship we'd always had, especially since I hadn't realized how much I'd missed him in the chaos of the past year and a half.

"My treat," I said, when Lorraine dropped the check at the table, but Uncle Mike snatched the ticket before I could and gave me a warning glance.

"Don't make me ground you," he said, wagging a finger at me.

"I'm all grown up now," I told him for the hundredth time. "I can pay for our lunch."

"Not in this lifetime. You may be grown up, but you'll always be my little girl, Tess." His smile was warm and a little wistful, and I suddenly had to swallow past a lump in my throat.

"Speaking of little girls, where is Shelley?"

"She's at Zane's. Ruby wanted to ground her for the events of yesterday, but I talked her out of it. Better to get the girl the teaching she needs than to punish her just for being herself. Ruby's afraid Shelley will hurt herself before she can control the magic."

"I think—"

But the sounds of shouting and the front door slamming open cut off whatever I'd been about to say, and we whipped around to see that Cletus McKee and Skeeter Hatfield were face-to-red face, yelling at each other.

The two men were a study in contrasts: Cletus in his college-preppy dark jeans and polo shirt and Skeeter in a threadbare flannel shirt and overalls. But the fury on their faces was identical.

"I ought to kick your McKee butt for you!" Skeeter shouted.

"Just try it!" Cletus returned, leaning even closer to the other man.

Uncle Mike sighed and pushed back his chair, as did several other people, including me, and we went to break it up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lorraine going for the baseball bat she kept behind the counter.

"I ran the fireworks in Dead End for forty years, you snake! You had no right to horn in on my business!" Skeeter shouted.

"I got that contract fair and square!" Cletus yelled. "You should talk to the mayor if you have a problem with it."

"Your whole dang family has a problem with you," Skeeter sneered, poking Cletus in the chest with a finger that had a large silver ring on it. "It's not just me."

"How dare you talk about my family?"

"Everybody knows they can't stand you!"

Cletus gaped, so outraged he couldn't speak. He hauled off and plowed Skeeter in the face with a fairly impressive right hook. And then, before any bystanders could jump in and stop him, Cletus drove a fist into Skeeter's gut, bending him over.

"That's ENOUGH!" Uncle Mike shouted, pushing past a few people to get to the two of them. "Stop it RIGHT NOW and SIT DOWN!"

Uncle Mike's angry voice was scary enough that I'd immediately stopped making any trouble on the few occasions he'd used it on me in my childhood. Even now, several people automatically sat down when he snapped out the command.

But not Skeeter. He straightened and smashed his fist right into Cletus's face so hard that Cletus flew back and hit the floor, his head bouncing off the tile loudly enough to make me wince.

Then Skeeter swung around and pointed at Uncle Mike. "And you! Tell that wife of yours that we all know she's dirty. She must have taken kickbacks or a bribe to give that contract to this scumbag."

Uncle Mike's face turned to stone, and his voice to ice. "You will never, ever speak of my wife like that again."

And then my sweet, kind, law-and-order uncle knocked Skeeter Hatfield completely out with one punch.

The utter shock of seeing that was the only reason I completely missed it when the other man on the floor rolled over and reached out a hand to grasp my arm to help him pull himself up.

And that's why I spent the end of my lunch hour watching Cletus McKee die.