Just Deserts (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 4) by Jinx Schwartz Read Free Book Online Page A

spiders?”
    “You’ve obviously rented here before.”
    I laughed. “No, but I’ve lived in other so-called historic abodes and had my share of shacks. I’d like something built during, say, this half of the century?”
    She grinned. “That could be a tall order. Heck, even the golf course is over the century mark. And this clubhouse? A 1936 WPA project. If you want new, you’ll probably have to head for Sierra Vista.”
    I shook my head. “Nope, I need something right here, and right now. I’ll be working in Cananea, driving down there a few days a week.”
    Her eyebrows shot up. “What? Why?”
    Pleased I could surprise a bartender, most of whom have heard it all, I sized her up.  My age or thereabouts, dark hair and eyes, pretty face with startling green eyes. Her slight southern drawl matched her nametag: Georgia Lou.
    “Georgia Lou, if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”
    That comment drew a snigger from a few eavesdropping bar dwellers. The cowboys had moseyed off, replaced by golfers. Georgia drew me another beer. “Sorry if I seem nosy. The reason I asked is—” She halted mid-sentence, looking past me. I followed her gaze. Two nattily dressed black men glided by. Young, maybe under thirty, sporting those nifty short haircuts I associate with Denzel Washington.
    Both men wore dark suits, brilliant white dress shirts adorned with blue bow ties, and very hip dark glasses. Something about them struck a familiar note with me, but one thing for sure, they stood out in this setting like proverbial turds in a punch bowl. Passing behind me, they headed for a table in the dining room.
    Georgia stared after them, then checked her watch. “Like clockwork,” she muttered.
    “What?”
    “Oh, nothing. Sorry, where was I?”
    “You mean before,” I jerked my head towards the dining room, “the men in blue?”
    She had the good grace to chuckle. “They’re new around here. Pulled in with a fancy RV, California plates, a week ago. I heard they’d reserved the space since last summer, paying all along, but just arrived. Not what you’d call real social, stick to themselves.” She shrugged, “I guess I wonder why they’re here. Don’t play golf, but rent a cart. Eat breakfast and lunch in our restaurant every day, take something to go for dinner.”
    “Jeez, you got ‘em under surveillance?” I asked, impressed with her nosiness, which rivaled my own. This was a very small town, so I wondered what the locals would think when they got wind of me .
    “Naw, they’re parked across from my RV, and after a week you’d at least expect a howdy. Just a little…strange.”
    “Don’t get a lot of black people down here, I guess?”
    “Oh, no, it’s not that. We’re a pretty diverse population, what with a military base in Sierra Vista and all the feds around.”
    “Think they’re G-men?” I whispered in my best James Cagney imitation.
    Georgia’s face lit with delight. “Ooh, I loved Cagney in "G-Men". They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Anyhow, anything and anyone is possible around here. Being right on the border, we have government types galore. See, hunks, three o’clock.”
    Sure enough, three uniformed border patrol agents, one black, one white, one Hispanic, all burly, strode through the door. They greeted Georgia by name, then noisily scraped back chairs at a table next to the black men. I watched all this in the bar-back mirror and drawled, “Makes me downright warm and fuzzy, just knowing there are armed men about.”
    Georgia nodded and winked. “Trust me, ninety percent of the people in here are packin’. Cochise County’s citizens take their guns right serious-like, and are some of the most heavily armed in the United States.”
    “I knew I was gonna like it here.” She gave me a high five and went to wait on the other end of the bar.
    I watched for any interaction between the BP guys and the men in blue, but they made no eye contact. One of the border agents gave