a couple of buttons.
âHowâs it going?â he asked whoever he was talking to. âGood. Can you send someone in here with a net to fish out this fake foot? No, thatâs fine. Itâs not as if the gators are likely to eat the evidence.â
He hung up and turned to me.
âAs it happens,â he said, âI had a few words with your brother earlier today on the subject of tasteless pranks. Given his somewhat exuberant sense of humor, I considered him a prime suspect when word of the first couple of fake body part findings reached me. I suppose I shall have to apologize to him.â
âI wouldnât go that far,â I said. âHe did equip all our guest bathrooms with those creepy soaps shaped like severed fingers. Heâs probably not responsible for all the tasteless pranks, but I doubt if heâs completely innocent.â
âPoint taken,â the chief said. âThough Rob did assure me that he had been far too busy with his Goblin Patrol work to celebrate the Halloween season with his usual enthusiasm. You know, I donât want to second-guess the county board, but I wonder if they really thought through the ramifications of this Halloween Festival thing. I know the annual Christmas in Caerphilly celebrations have been quite successful. Theyâre helping to get the town back on its feet financially.â
âBut the Christmas festival attracts a very different kind of visitor,â I said. âMore family oriented.â
âTraditional,â Michael put in. âSentimental.â
âPrecisely,â the chief said. âWith this Halloween thing, weâre trying to appeal to two very different audiences.â
âNot just different,â Michael said. âAntagonistic.â
âWe should have come down on one side or the other,â I said. âEither made it a completely wholesome, G-rated, family-friendly event or warned the parents to keep their kiddies away and gone full-bore with the zombies and vampires. The mad scramble twice a day to switch between the Day Side and the Night Side is insane.â
âI see Iâm preaching to the choir,â the chief said.
âAnd not saying anything that wasnât said in the town council and county board meetings before they approved Randallâs plans,â Michael added.
âWell, it doesnât matter now what we think of the festival, or whether we approve of having it next year,â the chief said. âWeâre stuck with it. We invited all these people here and we owe it to them to do our best to keep them safe while theyâre having whatever kind of good time theyâre looking for.â
âProvided their idea of a good time doesnât break the law or interfere with the other touristsâ good times,â I said.
The chief nodded.
Just then, my friend Aida Butler, who was one of the chiefâs deputies, strode in. She was carrying a net with a telescoping handle, just like the one we used to skim leaves out of our pool.
âThat was quick,â the chief said. âThank you.â
âI didnât have to go far,â Aida said. âThey keep a couple of these handy. Apparently the tourists are always dropping things into the ponds.â
We all watched as Aida extended the pole to about ten feet and then maneuvered the net under the floating foot. Several more sets of alligator eyes surfaced to observe the process, but the pondâs legitimate inhabitants kept their distance.
Aida carefully pulled in the net and held the fake foot out for the chief to inspect. He was rightâclose up it wasnât nearly as scary, and in proper lighting weâd probably find it ludicrously unrealistic. But so far, to my relief, the chief was respecting the swamp creaturesâ need for their normal dim night conditions. He probably wouldnât have if it had been a real severed foot, so perhaps we should be grateful to Justin for