Apparently, my blank look conveyed my confusion. Sandy barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She despaired of me at times, but there wasn't a quitter's bone in her body. She gamely jumped in to play our version of Name That Crime.

"Garden? Scarecrow? It was windy earlier today?"

"Ah. . .the edges of the sheets-black sheets-kept flipping up in the air. She thought the flapping sheets were crows."

"Exactly."

Sandy beamed. "Violet's about seven hundred and four years old. Her eyesight's been terrible for centuries. She thought the crows were swooping in to clean out her bird feeders again. I told Mutt to get her an air horn to scare off the crows."

I nodded, resigned. "Of course you did. In fact, anything less would have been disappointing."

"Thanks, Chief!"

"If Ida calls again, tell her I'm on my way." I paused for a second before pushing open the door. "And, Sandy. . .someone did let Bud know he's safe, right?"

The stricken look on her face a.s.sured me that I had one or two weeks left before Sandy could run the department single-handedly.

You have to respect a woman who cleans her own guns. Ida Hamilton Walker was that kind of woman. Today's gun happened to be a Mossberg shotgun-my own personal choice in a shotgun since it holds an extra round. You have to wonder about a woman who cleans her guns when she's expecting company. Ida was either trying to soften me up or intimidate me.

Gunsmithing paraphernalia was scattered over the top of her desk, although I was certain each item was exactly where Ida wanted it. Most things in her life were exactly where she wanted them to be. She was that kind of woman, too.

She didn't put the gun down to extend her hand, but she lifted her gaze. "Amos."

"Ida." We took a moment to size each other up. It was a habit we'd developed, although I wasn't sure whether the habit came from the need for a good defense or a quick offense. Ida never seemed personally in need of either. Nor did she seem to mind that I'd dropped the Miss in front of her name.

Arresting a person was the quickest way to break down social barriers. To my surprise, she hadn't held a grudge over the welcome-sign incident. There'd been no indication of revenge. . .so far. Unless today's events were her way of getting even. I feigned innocence. "What can I do for you?"

"Not for me." She gave a particularly stubborn spot on the barrel an extra pa.s.s with a chamois cloth. "For the town."

"Last time I checked, you were the town."

Her eyebrows shot up, and she smiled. "You're learning, but if you don't already know why you're here, you aren't the chief I was hoping for when I hired you."

"I'd have to have been deaf, dumb and blind to miss the clues people have been dropping about the pageant. But you still won't get what you were hoping for when you hired me. You were hoping for Battle. I'm not Battle. I thought you had that figured out by now."

Her genuine laughter filled the room. "I hope to shout! I knew that when you arrested me in March. I'm not sure Battle could have done it. Actually hauled me off to jail, I mean." For a minute, her eyes actually. . .twinkled. "It might have taken him a while to work it all out, but he would have figured a way around it."

"Or he would have let you talk him out of it." It wasn't a compliment.

"But not you." It wasn't a question.

Ida simply stated the fundamental difference between Battle Royden and "his boy" Amos. The cost of avoiding a speeding ticket wasn't a pot roast dinner. A bowl of homemade grape sherbet and a game of pinochle didn't make it okay to disturb the peace. A mayor who vandalized a road sign wouldn't escape the consequences simply because she was just about as s.e.xy at fifty-something as she had been twenty years earlier, when every teenage boy in town, including me, daydreamed about her.

"Like I said, I'm not Battle."

Ida smiled again. If she hadn't had a shotgun in her hands, I'd have called it a rea.s.suring smile. Instead she reminded me of one of those smart, flamboyant dinosaurs from Jura.s.sic Park. A predator practiced at distracting the victim while she eyed the jugular. Mesmerizing me as she shook her head.

"No, you're certainly not your daddy. He was two-hundred-plus pounds of good ol' boy with a soft spot for a pretty face and anyone in need. Maybe he didn't have your college degree, but Battle Royden knew how to run a town."

I clenched my teeth and ground back the flare of frustration. "Am I the only one who noticed that he'd broken every marriage vow by the time my mother died? Or that he ran his town by looking the other way and playing let's-make-a-deal every day of his life?"

"That he did. But you and I know his real sin was he never gave his kid the leniency he gave his town. G.o.d knows I wish I hadn't been so hard on my own son after my husband Jeb died. Robert's much too serious and intense because of me. Because of what I wanted for him."

She dropped the chamois and placed the shotgun carefully across the desk before delivering the gut kick. "Of course, that's all most parents ever really want for their kids...for them to be better than us. It's certainly what Battle wanted-for you to be better than him. He loved you and your mother. He was just lousy at expressing it."

Ida Walker had an uncanny ability to get at the truth, to identify the needs of her townsfolk. I wasn't certain whether she was a sly witch or just a shrewd mayor. Probably six of one, half a dozen of the other. One of those women, I admired. d.a.m.ned if I knew which. Or maybe I admired both. It was easy to see why people were drawn to her.

At Battle's funeral, Preacher Hickham hadn't closed his Bible good before she'd offered me the job as chief. "It's what Battle would have wanted," she'd said. That simple sentence will always be one of the great ironies of my life. I hadn't cared what Battle wanted in more years than I could count. Until then.

Everyone hates the completely useless epiphanies that come as you're putting a coffin in the ground. What earthly good did it do me to finally understand why Battle pushed me so hard as kid? As a man? I really hadn't wanted that little bit of enlightenment. But I got it anyway. Courtesy of Ida Walker, who'd never met a truth she didn't feel compelled to quietly share when the occasion warranted.

She stood up, lightly dusting her hands together as if finished with that portion of the interview. I wondered whether she realized she always lifted her left eyebrow the tiniest bit as she shrugged into her mayor persona. I also wondered exactly when I'd begun separating the "woman" from the "mayor." She was twenty years older and my boss. I wasn't supposed to notice that she was a woman. Especially since it gave her a subtle advantage I wasn't at all certain I liked.

Only a fool would spot Ida Hamilton Walker points in the game of life or politics. I was still pretty certain my daddy hadn't raised a fool. I let the silence spill out. Let her struggle with how best to get to the issue that had brought me there today.

I'd known what Ida wanted from the moment Sandy shuffled the messages. But politeness and strategy demanded I wait for the formal request before declining.

"Chief," she said, "I'll make this quick and easy. I'd like you to be one of the judges for the Miss Bigelow Pageant."

"No."

Her right eyebrow rose to join the left. "I think...yes. Consider it a civic duty."

"More like torture."

"Good." She rounded the desk and casually propped a blue-jean-clad hip against the edge. "Then you understand civic duty."

I struggled with the smile that tugged insistently at the edge of my mouth. "I understand how not to get my b.u.t.t in a sling. I've got a town to run. Maybe not the way Battle ran it, but that's what you hired me for, all the same."

"I did hire you, didn't I?" She managed to make the sentence echo with meaning without ever raising her voice.

This time I let the smile loose. "You won't fire me over refusing to be a judge."

"Of course not." She waited, completely unconcerned.

As the silence gathered, I realized my mistake. Realized one more thing I had forgotten about Mossy Creek, but it was too late now. Ida was about to nail my hide to the wall. She let her own smile loose. "Amos, I don't care which pageant you judge. Miss Bigelow...Mrs. Bigelow. Whatever. Your choice."

The only thing worse than the free-for-all of Miss Bigelow County was the backstabbing lunacy of Mrs. Bigelow County. The disappointed teens and twenty-somethings would actually go back to college eventually, but I'd have to wave to, talk to and purchase food from the unhappy Mrs. Bigelow County contestants forever.

Ida was very well aware of that fact. The choice was really no choice at all.

"Why me? You know I hate these things."

"If you want to be their cop, Amos, it's time to get in the game."

"Ida." It was as close to a warning tone as was wise to use with your boss, but my instincts were nudging me hard. Ida was reeling me in, using that d.a.m.nable insight of hers to get what she wanted. This wasn't about my finding my place in Mossy Creek. At least not completely. "What aren't you telling me?"

"The truth?" she asked, just as innocent as a five-year-old standing next to a shattered vase. When I nodded, she said, "There is a distinct shortage of Mossy Creek cleavage this year."

When I laughed, she glared. "I'd rather eat dirt than lose the crown four years in a row. I need a man Mossy Creek can count on because he won't be blinded by Bigelow b.o.o.bs!"

I finally sobered, spreading my hands to call a truce. "You're actually serious."

"As a heart attack. I'm playing to win this year, and Ham knows it."

"Then you've got the wrong man for the job. I'm not Battle. I don't look the other way. I don't make deals. If you insist on my judging, you'd better understand that my contest vote's not for sale to the highest bidder or to settle accounts. Or even for Mossy Creek pride. You can't count on my vote. The rest of Mossy Creek can't count on my vote."

"I'm not counting on your vote. I'm counting on you. Right after we voted down Ham's judge and the committee ratified your name, Ham said we're wrong if we think you can get past the cleavage issue."

I held up my hands. "So that's why Katie Bell wrote a column saying you've pulled a fast one on the governor. That's why you're looking like you've just swallowed a small songbird."

"Because I know the one thing that Ham Bigelow hasn't figured out yet." She folded her arms across her chest, quite pleased with herself for getting a step ahead of Ham. "You aren't Battle. Cleavage isn't enough any more. I think maybe cleavage will never be enough, for you."

Ida waited. She knew the moment I'd accepted my fate. Her smile was the kind of smile you hope to see in bed. . .after. "Welcome to the game, Amos."

Suddenly, more pairs of eyes than Ida's were focused intently in my direction. I'm talking more than the usual intensity reserved for eligible bachelors in a land of married men.

I won't deny that there is a certain amount of pleasure and irony in being dog meat at sixteen and catnip at thirty-five. Of course at sixteen, there were plenty of eligible males for the womenfolk of Mossy Creek to choose from. And plenty of jocks who could hit a softball out of the park for the glory of Mt. Gilead Methodist Church. A lot can happen in twenty years.

Women apparently like a man with a little edge. My body had finally caught up with my height, and my softball skills had improved with age. But more importantly, I was the guy who was about to hit one out of the park for the glory of Mossy Creek. Or so they believed.

Amos Royden, d.a.m.ned good catcher. . .complete hypocrite. That's one h.e.l.luva epitaph for a Mossy Creek headstone.

But true.

Consider the plight of contestant Josie McClure, from the isolated Bailey Mill community just outside town. The poor girl was so shy she had trouble facing herself in the mirror. Her chances of winning Miss Bigelow County were astronomically low. Especially when you factored in her talent-napkin folding, accompanied by a deadly accurate Martha Stewart impression. But her mother honestly believed Josie stood a chance of taking home that sparkling tiara. Of course, Mrs. McClure's belief might have something to do with the fact that she revered Martha Stewart and could bake chess pie that made grown men weep.

I was on my third one.

G.o.d help me, I'd even gone so far as to give Mrs. McClure a conspiratorial wink when she delivered number two. It didn't matter that I'd told Mrs. McClure that she shouldn't waste her time making pies for me. I winked. That's not something you can take back or pretend you haven't done. Not when Miss Bigelow County is on the line.

The road to h.e.l.l is surely paved with chess pie.

When my conscience pinched me awake at night, I ended up pacing the long dogtrot hallway in my house as penance for falsely raising a mother's hopes. The pacing always ended in the kitchen, at the table, with another slice of pie and the knowledge that I was no better than Battle after all. Maybe worse. At least if you gave Battle the third chess pie, you knew exactly what you were getting.

Mutt and crew were ecstatic over the constant buffet of food that appeared at the office, and more than a little awed by the bevy of beauties from around the county who stopped in to chat. Sandy eyed me with beady intensity, and every time I reminded her that I would be voting fair and square-food and celebrity be d.a.m.ned--she made the huh sound and continued to take note of the parade of beauties who came through our door.

Even willowy Sissy Truman, who was destined to follow her father, Chamber of Commerce president Dwight Truman, into Mossy Creek politics, developed a sudden and unaccountable interest in law enforcement as a career. Mutt actually tripped in his rush to welcome Sissy. Sandy didn't seem much impressed by Sissy's devotion to all things police, but she did reach for her much written-on and crossed-off list of contestant names that looked suspiciously like a racetrack handicapping sheet. I didn't ask for specifics. She didn't volunteer.

I a.s.sured myself that lots of people make lists and keep up with their favorite candidates when they watch beauty pageants. Logically, a woman who prioritized mail messages according to a mysterious system couldn't resist listing and shuffling the local beauty pageant entries as well. Right?

Too bad, a quiet voice in my head-one that sounded like a suspiciously amused Ida Hamilton Walker-kept whispering, All the signposts on the road to h.e.l.l read "Denial."

I consoled myself with the fact that Josie McClure-one of our own local girls, since the Bailey Mill community is considered a suburb of Greater Mossy Creek-was still dead last on Sandy's list of likely winners. That made me feel marginally better about whether accepting the chess pies had raised hopes where I shouldn't have. All the same, I resolved that pie number four would be declined.

So, with a semi-clear conscience, I donned a tux and prepared to do moral battle at the Bigelow High School Auditorium. As I waited for the pageant to begin, I smiled and nodded and tried not to wince when the high school's concert band tuned up. I had honed the phrase, "ThankyouGladtobehere" into the perfect generic response to almost any comment.

"Great tux!"

"Good to see you!"

"We appreciate you stepping in!"

"We're so happy you came back to Mossy Creek!"

"Cheer up. It'll be over soon."

"ThankyouGladtobehere."

Worked like a charm until Dwight Truman shook my hand. "I won't forget how you helped my daughter out," the chamber bigwig said.

Since I hadn't helped Sissy Truman with career plans or anything else, I'm sure my stare was as blank as my mind. "Beg pardon?"

"Well, now, that disappoints me. Yes, it does. I thought you were a quick one. I didn't think I'd have to spell it out for you." He looked furtively over his shoulder to be sure he wouldn't be overheard. The man looked like a guilty Ross Perot. "Surely you were aware that Battle and I always came to an understanding about these things?"

I had better manners than to call him a liar, but liar he was. Battle would sooner have made a pact with the devil than Dwight Truman. Not because Dwight's grandmother was a Democrat turned Republican. Not even because Dwight sold insurance and sucked up to Ham Bigelow, Georgia's newest governor. Battle had a much stronger, if less concrete, reason than any of those.

I remember joining him inside the voting curtains as a kid. He hesitated over the lever with Dwight Truman's name for city council before finally flipping a different one. When I asked him why he changed his mind, he said, "Don't matter how much sense he makes. You can't vote for a man if you honestly think he's capable of drowning a bag of kittens."

Staring into Dwight's sunken-cheeked face, I decided Battle had a very good point. If I were a betting man, I'd guess Dwight had bullied small children for lunch money as a kid.

He was about to shake me down as well. Or try. This would be interesting.

Dwight sighed. "Look, Amos, I kept hoping the pageant would turn out as a landslide victory for Sissy, and that we wouldn't be having this conversation. But I'm nothing if not honest. Point of fact-this race is too close to call. That means you and I need to come to a little agreement, so we can make Mossy Creek and Sissy happy."

"Chances are that's not going to happen in this lifetime."

His eyes narrowed. "You don't get it, do you? I'm the budget chairman on the council. I don't mind tellin' you that we've got to make some cuts this year. That means that Sandy Crane's job may well be on the casualty list. You're going to be coming to me asking for a favor about that clerk of yours, boy. You'd best think about that."

"Oh, I'm thinking," I a.s.sured him. Being the chief of police didn't make me immune to violent impulses. Right now, I wanted to deck the weasel and haul him out of the auditorium by his ankle like the trash he was. But I had a contest to judge, so I clamped down on my temper and smiled at him. Must have been a miserable attempt, because he backed up a step as I answered.

"What I'm thinking is that you're going to find a seat and be very glad that I'm reluctant to embarra.s.s your daughter by arresting you for trying to blackmail a judge.

"When this pageant is over, I suggest you sharpen your budget pencil and find the money for my dispatcher. Otherwise, Sandy'll be working for the Bigelow County sheriff, and you'll be explaining to Miss Ida how that happened. Are we agreed?"

Truman never got to answer. Ida did that for him. "Oh, I think we understand each other."

I stiffened and wondered where the h.e.l.l she'd come from. Sly witch. Shrewd mayor.

"Now, run along, Tru. I need to speak to our chief."

We watched him go and carried on a conversation without looking at each other. "The answer is the same for you, Ida."

"Yes, but you have to admit that my technique is vastly superior."