Red Rum: A Rosie Casket Mystery by R.M. Wild (top 100 novels of all time .TXT) 📕

me the tips once. They were practically melted.”

“Did she ever talk about expecting visitors?” the warden asked.

“I dunno,” Pots said. “I didn’t memorize everything she said.”

“Do you think she took her own life?” I said.

Pots glared at me. “Nope.”

“How can you be so sure? It sounds like you abused the woman.”

Pots’s eyes caught fire. “You don’t know the first thing about prison life, Dear.”

I turned to the warden. “That’s what Phyllis used to call me. She was listening.”

Mayweather planted both palms on the desk. “Calm down, both of you.”

“I don’t like being accused of nothin,” Pots said.

“That’s rich,” I muttered.

Mayweather gritted his teeth. “I’m warning you both. Calm down, or one of you is going to spend the next month in the hole.”

Pots couldn’t move her arms, so she had to fire both her pointer fingers from the hip as if she were a gunslinger who had gotten her threads caught and had to shoot through her holster.

“This woman here is in cahoots with the devil. She’s one of his dirty minions. She’s runnin around this county, settin innocent people on fire! Meanwhile the devil’s returned to Maine and he wants to burn this whole state to ashes.”

Mayweather stood and punched at the air like a referee ejecting a player. “Get this raving lunatic out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard in the corner said and dragged Pots out of the office.

“You know what happens when you bargain with the devil, Dear!” Pots said over her shoulder as the guard dragged her down the hallway. “The same as hot soup, you get your tongue burned!”

Pots’s protests continued down the hallway, the echo off the cinderblocks trailing her like a pair of wet footprints before fading and finally getting cut off by the slowly closing door.

For a brief moment, I could have sworn Phyllis was back, inhabiting another inmate’s body.

When she was completely out of earshot, Mayweather went to the door and opened it again.

“You two are dismissed for the time being. But if I were you, I wouldn’t cross state lines, not until we’ve got this mess figured out, you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Mettle and I said in unison.

22

Before we left, the warden pulled Mettle aside. I didn’t know what he wanted to talk to him about, but the guards wouldn’t let me hang around long enough to eavesdrop on their conversation, so I went outside to the parking lot and waited beside the cruiser.

The sky was bluer than I had remembered it, a stark contrast to the flashes of orange that kept haunting my vision. When Mettle finally emerged from the exit, he headed straight for the cruiser. His stride was hesitant, as if he was finally paying the price for the morning’s workout.

“What was that all about?”

Mettle kept his eyes on the asphalt. “Nothing important. A lousy job offer. Let’s go.”

On the ride back to Dark Haven, we sat quietly and listened to the sound of the tires rushing over the pavement beneath us.

I reached to turn on the radio.

“Don’t touch that,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s broken.”

“No it’s not.”

“Fine, but I don’t want you frying the circuits. Sometimes that radio is my only saving grace on long nights at work.”

“Give me a break. I’m not going to fry the circuit board,” I said and reached for the dial again.

“Stop it. I will pull this car over.”

I sat back and crossed my arms and pouted. Now I knew how lepers felt. For a while, the rhythm of the road was almost comforting, almost enough to help us forget everything that had happened this afternoon, the rushing pavement somewhere between listening to the recording of water running over rocks in a babbling brook and going crazy by listening to white noise—but suddenly a van in front of us braked hard and Mettle swerved onto the shoulder to avoid rear-ending him. The thudding from the wake-up grooves jarred us back to reality.

“Watch it, you moron!” I shouted at the van.

“It’s fine,” Mettle said. “He didn’t mean it.”

He pulled back onto the road, but didn’t speed up.

“What kind of idiot doesn’t pay attention to the cop in his rearview?”

Mettle shifted his weight toward the far window, trying to put as much distance between us as he could. Ahead of us, the van sped up and darted in and out of traffic.

“What are you doing? Pull him over. He must be drunk.”

“I can’t. I’m suspended. Remember?”

“Then make a citizen’s arrest.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” he said.

“You can’t just let him go. That van is a danger to everyone on this road.”

“If you’re so keen on punishing him, why don’t you throw a fireball at his tailpipe?”

I turned so red I practically was on fire. “Okay, enough, Matt. You don’t really think I’m a witch, do you?”

“I don’t know what to think, Casket. That was some freaky ish back there.”

Fuming, I turned and looked out the window.

We were quiet again. As we passed the Trading Post, I twisted to see if I could get a glimpse of Eldritch in his upstairs window. The curtains were pulled, no shapes behind them, just a reflection of the clouds in the sky. But still, I considered jumping out the cruiser and trying to hang out with him for the night. Anything was better than the awkward tension in this vehicle.

I turned back to Mettle and watched the screwdriver jiggle itself loose from the ignition.

“So what happens when it falls out?”

“What?”

“The screwdriver.”

Mettle glanced at it, barely caring. “I don’t know. I’m not a criminal.”

“I’m not tucking, you know.”

A snicker escaped his lips. “Thank God for that. I’d have to arrest you for not having a concealed carry permit.”

I smiled. Mettle’s reset button was easier to find than I had anticipated. All I had to do was tell an inappropriate joke and he was back to normal.

“You remember that warning I told you about?” I said.

“Which one?”

“Double, double toil, and trouble?”

“Yeah, the Olsen twins movie.”

“No, Shakespeare.”

“Same difference.”

“What if the prophecy is coming true?”

“What prophecy?”

“In Macbeth, the witches