An Unlikely Family. Cynthia Thomason

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СКАЧАТЬ store was crowded, but Evie ventured in anyway. She wouldn’t stay long, just say hi to Claire. A young woman signaled to her when she came inside. “Be right with you,” she said.

      “Hi, I’m Sue Ellen,” she said a few minutes later, unnecessarily. She wore a name tag on the lapel of her shabby chic jacket. “Can I help you?”

      “I stopped by to see Claire,” Evie explained.

      “Oh, she’s not here. She’s hardly ever here on a Saturday night.” She nodded toward another girl who had pinned her name tag to a wide band around her hair. “We handle things on weekend nights.”

      Evie thanked her and left the shop. Imagine not being present for what must be the biggest sales night of the week. Claire must have a lot of confidence in her employees or, more likely, she wasn’t as concerned about the income as many of the island’s shopkeepers appeared to be.

      Evie walked the three blocks to the Green Door, dodging couples holding hands or families with strollers. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wait long for a table since it was nearly eight o’clock. The restaurant was busy, but Evie managed to grab a small table by the window. She asked the mature waitress if Pet Sweeney was working.

      “Oh, honey,” the woman said, “Pet only works in the daytime. She vowed when she got married she’d never volunteer for a Friday or Saturday night again.” The waitress flipped open her order pad and pulled a pencil from behind her ear. “A lot of the local employees avoid the Avenue on weekends, which is fine with me. It gives us Micopee gals a chance at the biggest tips.”

      Evie ordered a hamburger and a raspberry iced tea. So that’s it, she thought, when the waitress had walked away. The locals prefer Heron Point during the week when the tourists weren’t invading.

      Since Claire and Pet weren’t in town, and since Helen lived more than an hour’s drive away in Gainesville, Evie had exhausted her supply of new friends who could teach her the fine art of livin’ easy. She bit into a juicy burger and smiled to herself. Unless I count Officer Billy Muldoone, she thought. He must be around town tonight. And I suppose I could call him my friend. She swallowed a sweet gulp of tea. He did find my earring.

      She was still thinking about Billy after she left the Green Door and had resumed window-shopping. When she was opposite the largest building in town, the hotel where she’d had lunch yesterday, a commotion near the sidewalk café stopped her. In the middle of it was the tall, broad-shouldered Muldoone.

      He saw her at the same time and greeted her in that booming baritone that muted every other sound on the street. “Hey, there, Evie. Come on over.”

      She approached slowly since it was obvious Billy was on duty and, in fact, was performing one of his legal responsibilities at that very moment. She stopped a few feet from the entrance to the café. Billy propped his foot on a bench next to a man who was slouched forward with his hands behind his back. Billy rested his elbow on his bent knee. “What are you doing out tonight?” he asked Evie.

      She couldn’t resist staring at the man she assumed was Billy’s captive. He was a scruffy-looking character perhaps in his mid-thirties. Though his head was down, she could see a scowl on his face. She noticed, too, a strand of white plastic sticking out from behind his waist. The new type of restraining device used by police forces.

      “I’m, uh, just wandering.”

      Billy smiled. “Nice night for it.”

      She blinked a couple of times. This was the first apprehended criminal she’d seen that wasn’t on the eleven o’clock news. “So what are you doing?”

      “Had to grab this guy,” Billy said. “And a couple others earlier. Been a busy night.”

      The man looked up at Billy and barked an expletive.

      “Watch it,” Billy said. “We’ve got ladies all around us. Maybe if I tighten those restraints, it’ll encourage you to mind your manners.”

      The man stared at the sidewalk.

      The knee of Billy’s uniform was ripped through, showing bruised flesh beneath. And when she looked more closely at him, she realized that his elbow had been scraped raw, too. “What happened to you?” she asked.

      He shrugged one well-rounded shoulder. “It’s nothing. I had to use a Pensacola High School tackling move to get this fella to slow up.” He pointed down, and for the first time Evie noticed his criminal wore a pair of ragged socks on his feet and no shoes.

      “Look under there,” Billy said, and Evie bent to see under the bench. “He was wearing those Rollerblade skates, which meant he had a good head start on me.”

      “You caught him when he was on inline skates?” she asked, amazed that a man Billy’s size could churn up that much speed.

      “The crowd slowed him down some,” Billy admitted. “That’s the thing about these weekend pickpockets. They don’t take into account that there are disadvantages to stealing in a mob.” He grinned at her. “Or the fact that my mother had a willow tree in her backyard, and avoiding her switch taught me a good deal about hauling a—” he paused “—running fast.”

      He looked over her shoulder toward the street and nudged the man beside him. “Time to go, Eugene,” he said. “Our ride’s here.”

      The glossy-white porch railings around the café reflected the blue and red cruiser lights, and Evie stepped out of the way with the rest of the crowd. When the car stopped, a young female officer got out. She walked up and grabbed the pickpocket by the elbow while Billy tugged him off the bench.

      “Hey, Gail, say hello to Evie,” Billy said as he pushed the top of his captive’s head to lower the guy into the back seat. “She’s our new principal.”

      Gail, a cute yet officious-looking brunette about Evie’s height, stuck out her hand. “Heard about you. Welcome to town.”

      “Thanks.”

      Billy called to a civilian on the porch. “You mind tossing me those skates and that pocketbook?”

      The unsuccessful getaway wheels and a Louis Vuitton bag came sailing over to Billy. “Much obliged,” Billy said to the tourist. He handed the purse to Gail. “You’ll see that lady gets this back?”

      She nodded.

      “Tell her not to let this spoil her impression of Heron Point. The only reason this guy was able to grab her purse without somebody stopping him was because he was wearing those damn wheels. I’m going to suggest a new code at the next town council meeting. No skates after 8:00 p.m. on weekends.”

      “Good idea,” Gail said. “You sure you don’t want me to ride into Micopee with you? I can call Jack to come in and spell me.”

      “No. Don’t bother him. I’ll pick up Lou, and he can help me escort Eugene as well as those other two guys at city hall. We’ve just got one holding cell on the island,” he explained to Evie, “and that’s only because Jack insisted on having it built when he became chief of police. So when we’ve got more than one perp, we’ve got to take them to the county jail in Micopee.”

      Raised in an area where the jails were generally larger than high schools, Evie simply said, “Oh.”

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