Brownie and the Dame by C. L. Bevill Read Free Book Online Page A

had a bad knock. Since Brownie didn’t know much about automobiles, he disregarded that fact as irrelevant. (If a truck had a bad knock, did that mean that it couldn’t get someone to open the door?)
    “My turn this time,” Janie said to Brownie as he hit his fist against the door.
    “Rock, paper, scissors?” Brownie offered.
    “You cheat.”
    “I don’t cheat. I improvise. Isn’t that what a good detective should do?”
    Janie stared at Brownie suspiciously. “There might be something in the books about improvisation, but I had to look that word up in the dictionary, and I still don’t get it.”
    “Ad-lib, sweetheart.” Brownie slanted an eyebrow at her. “Make stuff up on the spot. Lie very well. You should practice that.”
    “ I lie,” Janie said. Her eyes flicked downward. “Your fly’s undone.”
    Brownie looked down and blushed. “It is not!”
    “See, I lie. You believed me. Totally.”
    The door pulled open, and a man stared down at the pair of them. He was in his sixties and white haired. His eyes were as brown as a newborn fawn. His face was as wrinkled as the Sunday wash after it had been left in the basket all day. Janie tried to step backward but Brownie nudged her.
    “I’m Janie and this is Brownie,” she said firmly. Brownie nodded.
    “You’re Bubba’s nephew,” the man said, looking at Brownie. “Nice suit and hat.”
    “Second cousin. My daddy is Bubba’s cousin,” Brownie said. “Or is that cousins, once removed. I cain’t never recall.”
    “You’re Mr. McGee?” Janie insisted. Brownie surely enjoyed watching Janie get all assertive. She reminded him of her aunt, Willodean. Firm, assertive, ready to take action. Sure there was a grumpy man who answered the door, but Janie wasn’t going to take no for an answer. If Brownie had a mind to like a girl (Eww! Girl germs!) then Janie would definitely be one of the highest tomatoes on the list. Right next to Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, who are cutie-potooties, even if they are girls.
    “And you’re the sheriff’s deputy’s niece,” Bryan McGee said to Janie. “Heard about you, too.”
    “How’s that Ford truck running?” Brownie asked.
    “It sucks,” Bryan said. “Sucks like a giant Hoover and everything else around here. Did you know it sat at Bufford’s Gas & Grocery for nigh on two months before that swizzle stick, Melvin Wetmore, told me all it had wrong was a batch of bad gasoline? Ifin your cousin had still been working there, he would have fixed it good. Now, ifin I drive it down the block, it clunks like hailstones hitting a tin roof in April. Cain’t sell it neither.”
    “Sorry to hear that, sir,” Brownie said gravely. “A man’s truck is holy.”
    “What do you kids want? Selling cookies or mulch? Heck, I’ll take some of whatever it is. Give me something to do.” Bryan looked over his shoulder to see if anyone else was about. “The good Lord knows I’ve got to escape outta this house whenever I get a chance. Last year about the time my truck was broken, my wife had her gallbladder out, and her sister, Henrietta, came up from Lake Charles. You know that woman ain’t left in all this time? Says she likes the weather here, and it ain’t all that different from Louisiana. Plus they’re going out on Thursday nights to the Pegramville Women’s Club, and you kids got to know that it ain’t no women’s club.”
    “Tell us about the club, Mr. McGee,” Janie said decisively. Brownie noticed that her green eyes resolutely bored into Bryan’s.
    “The club,” Brownie echoed inflexibly. “ Just the facts, ma’am .”
    Bryan blinked. “Of course, your great-auntie is the orchestrator of the whole caboodle. She’s the master criminal of all that tomfoolery. She’s got all the women in this county riled up and ready to go on Thursday nights. It’s like they was going to the opera. Sparkly dresses and big hats with feathers on them. Big purses, high heels, red lipstick. And do you know what