A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1) - Darynda Jones Page 0,14
on Anita, her office manager and the one person Sun least expected to be afraid of muffins. But her eyes were just as wide as her deputies’.
“That’s it.” She wielded an index finger like a weapon. “Someone explain what is going on. Are they poisoned? Because if someone is trying to kill us, shouldn’t we be investigating?”
“They aren’t poisoned,” Deputy Salazar said. She was a curvy girl with big brown eyes and a smile that could light up a mental ward. “They were made by Ruby Moore.”
“Oh, my gosh.” Sun brightened and thought back. “I remember Mrs. Moore. She’s so cute, and she was always so nice. Why is she trying to kill us?”
Quincy finally broke the tension with a surrendering sigh. “She’s not trying to kill us, boss. It’s just every time she sends muffins, strange things happen.”
Deputy Price concurred with a nod. “And the bigger the basket, the stranger the events.”
Sun squinted in doubt. “What kind of strange things?”
Quincy shrugged. “You know. Traffic accidents. Break-ins. Attempted murders with a cheese grater.”
“So, the things we get paid to police?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“All hell breaks loose,” Anita said. “The world goes crazy. No one is safe.”
Sun studied the young woman as she spoke, fighting a grin. She didn’t want to give away the fact that she found her adorable. And she was the only person in the room shorter than the sheriff.
“The last time Ruby sent muffins,” she continued, “Mrs. Papadeaux tried to cut Doug’s penis off when he flashed her in the park.”
Sun leaned into Quincy. “It amazes me how that man is still the town flasher.”
“In an attempt to get away from her, Doug darted out into traffic.” Anita was very into the story by that point, acting out Doug, the town flasher, darting into traffic.
“Isn’t he, like, a hundred and twelve?” Sun asked him.
“And we had a bona fide pileup.”
Deputy Salazar whispered beside her, “He only looks a hundred and twelve.”
“He’s led a rough life,” Quincy said in explanation. “He’s only in his early sixties.”
“Sixties?” Sun asked, horrified. “Remind me to use sunscreen.”
“A pileup!” Anita said, waving her arms in the air.
Sun thought back. “I read about that. It was two cars and a tractor.”
Anita nodded. “Which, in Del Sol, is a bona fide pileup. And then, she sent muffins in December, and that very day, Mrs. Cisneros stabbed her husband in the knee.”
“Ouch.”
“Oh, there’s more. So much more. And today, she sent an entire basket of them.” Anita pointed to the basket in case someone got confused. “Muffins.”
“Okay,” Sun said, grasping the problem at last, “so as long as we don’t eat the muffins, nothing will happen?”
The deputies shifted their weight and cast sideways glances at one another.
She rolled her eyes as realization dawned. “Are you kidding me? It doesn’t matter if we eat them or not? All hell is breaking loose either way?”
A couple of Del Sol’s finest shrugged and nodded.
“Well, then.” Sun dove in for a muffin and unwrapped it as she walked to the front of the building. She’d seen a suspected thief walk by and decided to do a little recon while enjoying her cursed breakfast.
The others gave in and grabbed one as well. Including Quincy, who walked up behind her, munching on his own blueberry-filled disaster waiting to happen.
They watched Mr. Madrid walk past. The former railroad worker, who was in his early sixties, had a bandage wrapped around his neck and scratches covering both hands.
“You know, Mrs. Sorenson came in again yesterday,” Quincy said between bites.
“About?”
He scoffed. “You know what about.”
And she did. She’d read all the case files over the break, even cold cases decades old, but she’d known Mr. Madrid, the suspected thief, since she was two.
“That prize chicken of hers,” Quince said, filling her in, anyway.
“Rooster.”
“She’s wondering when you’re going to arrest Mr. Madrid for chicken-napping.”
“Rooster-napping.”
Everyone in town knew about the never-ending feud between Mrs. Sorenson and Mr. Madrid. Every few months, the two neighbors came up with some new argument. Some new reason to bicker and squabble and caterwaul until the sheriff’s office had no choice but to threaten them both with jail time.
The Hatfields and McCoys had nothing on the Sorenson and Madrid.
This go-around, Mrs. Sorenson’s prize rooster had gone missing. Since Mr. Madrid had been complaining about the bird’s early-morning cacophony for months, he was pretty much their prime—and only—suspect.
But Sun wanted the man to get comfortable. To let down his guard. To come to regret his decision to abduct the most decorated show rooster