Zach’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, they look just about right?”
Beefy shoulders barely shifted in a lazy shrug. “One of the boys has a wild look behind his eyes. Just don’t look right. I don’t like it.”
His eyebrow lifted questioningly, Zach waited to see if Clark had any legitimate reason for his suspicions, other than he just didn’t like the way the kid looked.
“I got an intuition about people. Can size up troublemakers. Both them boys have trouble written all over their faces.”
Reminding himself that despite Dayton’s somewhat ridiculous hypotheses, he was known to be a competent deputy, Zach said patiently, “We’re not going to go harassing people without any solid evidence just because you don’t like the way they look.”
Clark’s beard barely concealed the sneer on his thick lips. “Your attitude of ‘let’s just wait and see what happens’ sure don’t seem to be working.”
Zach couldn’t argue. They had no suspects. This damaged building, like the others, had no security cameras, and other than the defacement itself, the evidence was minimal. A cigarette butt and tire tracks weren’t exactly road maps to the culprit. Last night had been a full moon; even without security lights, someone should have seen something. Hell, it was almost impossible to take a piss in this town without everyone knowing about it. How were these pricks getting away with it?
He turned his back to Clark and eyed the crime scene again. As graffiti went, it was distinctly unimaginative and colorless. Wouldn’t take more than a couple of coats of paint to cover it up, which seemed kind of odd. If the perps wanted to really cause some trouble, they could have done much worse. Burn the place down or even bust some windows. This kind of vandalism didn’t interrupt business. All it did was cause lots of talk and a hell of a lot of work for the police department. It also caused speculation on the competency of the new police chief. A light bulb went off in Zach’s head and he cursed himself for not realizing it before.
“So if you don’t want to consider the boys of that new family, you got any ideas at all?”
Zach did, but sure as hell wouldn’t be sharing them with this man. He shrugged. “I’ll think on it. In the meantime, why don’t you finish up the reports on that brush fire that got out of control on Saturday?”
Dayton’s mouth twisted, blatant resentment igniting in his eyes. The man hated taking orders from someone who’d once knocked the hell out of him. When Zach had taken the job, he’d met individually with every employee and offered each one an opportunity to leave. No one had taken the offer, including Clark. And though he hadn’t wanted the man as his deputy, Zach had no cause to fire him. Yet.
Zach held Clark’s gaze and waited for the deputy to mouth off. Apparently seeing the wisdom in keeping his thoughts to himself this time, he turned with a huff and stomped away.
Once he was gone, Zach walked around the property once more and let the idea solidify in his head. If the culprits were kids, wouldn’t they do more damage or at least perform some act that left more of a mark? The way it was now, the only harm done was to the insurance company that had to pay the claim, and to the police department’s reputation because they had no suspects.
Before Zach could pursue that line of thought any further, his radio squawked, “Chief, you there?”
“Yeah, go head.”
“We got some trouble going on at Gertie’s Wash and Wait.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Somebody set off fireworks in the dryers. Gertie says it sounds like a war zone. Minnie Dixon’s in hysterics.”
Zach dragged a weary hand down his face and jumped into his car. Hell yeah, it was definitely a full moon.
CHAPTER
NINE
Dusk was falling as Savannah entered downtown Midnight. It was summertime, which meant shopkeepers stayed open an hour later than during the winter months. Since it was going on eight o’clock, blinds were being drawn, door locks were clicking, and Open signs were being switched to Closed. Her timing couldn’t have been worse.
If she had wanted to avoid the attention her arrival would create, she shouldn’t have driven through town till at least an hour later, when it would be shut down with the exception of gas stations and restaurants. She could see glimpses of curious faces peeking through those