“What then?” Eleanor fussed with the collar of her robe and peered around the police officer as if he might be hiding something horrible behind his back.
“Someone vandalized your store. Some guy from one of the other businesses hit gave us your numbers, but you didn’t answer. I was in the area, so dispatch sent me over.”
Sweet relief stole over her. Blakely was safe. This was not about her daughter. But then realization hit her. Her store had been vandalized. What did that mean? Broken windows? Items stolen? Her heart skipped a beat. “I’ll head down there. Thanks.”
“Dispatch said other merchants are on-site, so you have time to, you know...” he stammered, nodding toward her. She looked down at where her robe gaped and jerked it closed.
“Thank you for coming by,” she said, as he backed down the front porch steps and turned toward the open door of his police car. She shut the door, twisted the lock and scrambled up the gleaming stairway.
Fifteen minutes later she pulled her Volvo to the curb in front of her store and hopped out, clad in an old sweatshirt of Skeeter’s and a pair of jeans. Her teeth chattered as she approached the glass glittering beneath the streetlights.
“Damn,” she breathed, surveying the damage. Whoever had vandalized the store had done a bang-up job. Like serious bang-up. How had no one seen him...or them?
“Got me, too,” said a voice over her shoulder. She turned to find Dez Batiste standing behind her. He wore a beat-up army surplus jacket and straight-legged jeans that fit him like sin. In the lamplight, his skin seemed darker, making him appear more dangerous, and it finally hit her who he resembled—that wrestler-turned-actor who’d done a movie in a tutu. She couldn’t recall his name, but she and Blakely had gone to the movie a few years back.
She peered across the street to the spidered glass in Dez’s window. “How did this happen? And why didn’t my store alarm go off?”
“Don’t know,” Dez said, his gray eyes probing the depths of her store. “You sure you set yours?”
“Always,” she said automatically, even as her thoughts tripped to the actual process of locking up. She always set the alarm before slipping out the back and slamming the dead bolt into place. But she’d been distracted by a last-minute customer who wanted a rush delivery...and by her failed attempt at stepping outside herself to flirt with a man she opposed enough to pen a letter to the city council, a man who now stood before her very much doing his part within the community she wanted to protect. She swallowed the guilt. “At least I usually do.”
Dez propped his fists on his hips, making his shoulders look even broader. The planes of his rugged face were exotic in the glow of the streetlight. “Wouldn’t have mattered. They think it was kids driving by and shooting pellet guns, so an alarm wouldn’t have changed the outcome. Mr. Hibbett has a street cam, so maybe the police can get the license plate off the tape or something.”
Maybe they would...or not. Didn’t really help the short-term situation. She needed lumber to cover the gaping holes and prevent the current open invitation to her stock. After Hurricane Katrina, and the looting that had followed, she was more cautious than probably necessary, which was why the whole not-setting-the-alarm thing didn’t make sense. She slid her phone from her back pocket and started dialing Pansy’s number. Her husband sometimes helped with big deliveries and lived close by. Eddie would have plywood ready for storms in his storage shed. He would let her use some until she could get the glass company to come out in the morning. “Better see if I can get some lumber to patch this up.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty left from the remodel,” Dez said, jerking his head toward his bar across the street.
She hung up before the call could connect, and nodded. “I’d appreciate it. It would keep me from troubling Pansy and Eddie. And since we’re already up...”
Mr. Hibbett approached carrying a toolbox. “Sons of bitches busted my stained-glass rooster. If I get my hands on those little bastards, I’ll plant them in Cemetery No. 1.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hibbett, but Eddie can probably fix it. Let’s see how many whole pieces we can salvage and we’ll call him tomorrow,” she said, giving Mr. Hibbett a pat on the shoulder. The older man had been on Magazine Street for over twenty