Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,124

his, but he kept his Ted accent. His own accent was middle-of-America nowhere, as if he could have come from anywhere.

“Rico was still there when I left. I can ask him to check,” Deputy Frankie said from out in the offices.

Apparently, she’d been standing behind the sheriff the entire time. I was too short to see her there. Though since she’d just departed from the hallway in front of the cells because there wasn’t room for all of us, I should have known she hadn’t left completely. Once she’d realized that she had three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in front of her, she’d started to sort of quietly vibrate. I’d thought she’d been excited to meet a senior female officer, but apparently that hadn’t been it. I was one of the horsemen!

“That’d be mighty fine, little lady—I’m sorry, Deputy Frankie.” Edward even wasted a Ted smile on her, which meant he was tall enough to see her past Leduc.

“It’s okay, Marshal Forrester. You can call me little lady if I can call you Ted.”

“Ted it is, little lady.”

Was she flirting with him? Or was she sort of hero-worshipping and flirting with all of us? It could be weirdly hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Deputy Frankie laughed; it was damn near a giggle. It made me frown at Edward, but he either missed it or didn’t care, probably the latter.

She got Rico fast enough, but then the conversation began to go downhill. Rico couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the idea of looking for a deer in a tree. “Rico, stop overthinking it and just look for a deer in the damn tree,” she said. A few moments of silence followed as she listened to him, and then she said, “Because we’re trying to check the suspect’s version of things, that’s why. Now, just go do what I asked.” She lowered her voice a little, and said, “You’re making us look bad in front of the feds, Rico.”

Duke had moved out into the office—to make more coffee, I hoped. I was starting to need more. It meant we could see Frankie in the doorway. She hung up and sighed, shoulders slumping.

“It’s okay, Frankie,” Newman said. “We don’t blame you because Rico is an idiot.”

Edward and I both looked at him, but Edward remarked on Newman’s comment in his best Ted voice. “Now, there, pardner, not sure that was very politic.”

“I know Rico personally, Forrester. Trust me. I could have said worse, and it would still be true.”

“Win, I know you don’t like Rico, and I know why. He’s always tomcatting around after some woman, but he’s usually better on the job than this,” Frankie said.

A laugh came from the other cell, which we were all sort of ignoring. Deputy Troy Wagner laughed like he meant it. “God, Frankie, that was the politest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about Rico and women. He’s a man whore, and everyone in town knows it.”

“Well, at least Rico isn’t in a cell with attempted-murder charges hanging over his head,” she said.

The laughter died, and Troy leaned the top of his head against the bars of the cell. “Yeah, I guess you’re right on that.”

“I’m sorry, Troy. I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” Frankie said.

“Don’t be sorry when you’re right,” he said.

“I still shouldn’t have said it to you.”

“I don’t want Troy to go to jail,” Bobby said.

“He tried to kill you,” I said.

“I know, but if the only difference between it being legal and illegal to shoot me is having the right badge and the right name on a warrant, then it seems almost wrong to punish Troy.”

“That’s mighty decent of you there, Marchand,” Edward said.

“I don’t deserve any mercy from you, Bobby,” Wagner said.

“I don’t think mercy is something you deserve. I think it’s just something you’re supposed to give to people,” Bobby said.

“If you’d done your job like you were supposed to, Troy wouldn’t have gotten tempted to do something stupid,” Duke said.

“Regardless of what I did or didn’t do, what Troy did was against the law,” Newman said.

“I can’t make it up to you, Bobby. I can only say that I couldn’t do it. Even when I thought you had killed Roy, I couldn’t shoot you,” Wagner said.

“I know, Troy,” Bobby said, walking closer to the shared cell bars between them.

“He shot into your cell while you were chained to the bed, Bobby. I think he missed the first shot by accident,” I said.

“Are you saying you