The Sheriff

Smells of corn tortillas, spices and old grease hung in the air. A coating of dust covered everything from the faded paper piñatas hanging from the ceiling to the scarred wood floor. It was a far cry from the lovely two-story home with the pillars that she’d lived in when Brad was embezzling money from the savings-and-loan company where he was vice president.

She ached to sit down in one of those old chairs, lay her head on the table and bawl like a baby.

But she didn’t. She’d learned early on that crying didn’t help her situation. It only made her face blotchy and alarmed Katy.

She was sick of playing the victim role. It was time for her to take charge of her life. A dozen times a day she told herself that. But that wasn’t as simple as it sounded, and she often overreacted in one extreme or the other. She was new to this business of being independent; it wasn’t her nature. There had always been a strong man around to handle things and it had been easy to acquiesce. Her father had been authoritarian and overly protective, and Brad had been mega-domineering. Come to think of it, J.J. had been that type as well—not as bad as Brad perhaps, but inclined in that direction. He was definitely a take-charge kind of guy. Was he still?

In a way, she supposed, this whole experience with Brad’s arrest and the mess she found herself in might be a good thing. “Things happen for a reason,” her mother had always said. Maybe one day she’d look back on this time and think of it as character-building, but it was hard for her to be philosophical when she was tired and scared and broke. She was beginning to think that character-building was vastly overrated. Maybe being an independent woman was overrated, too. She felt like a tangle of contradictions: determined to stand on her own two feet on one hand while wanting to yell for someone to save her on the other.

Sometimes life was a bitch.

Mary Beth knew that she couldn’t depend on a white knight riding in to save her—although it had been tempting to simply melt into J.J.’s arms and never let go. When he’d hugged her at the bus station, it had seemed so right. He’d seemed like a knight in a cowboy hat, and Naconiche had seemed like Camelot.

“Things always work out for the best” had been another of her mother’s sayings. That had become Mary Beth’s mantra. Somehow, some way, things were going to work out. She was determined to believe that.

And, dammit, she was going to become an independent woman or die trying.

Mary Beth turned on the ceiling fans and opened a couple of windows to air out the place, then she made her way to the kitchen. First things first. She and Katy had to eat.

Luck was with her. The pantry yielded a treasure trove, including several restaurant-sized cans of tomatoes, salsa, jalapeño peppers and beans. And more chili powder, cumin and other spices than she could use in fifty years. There was even part of a bag of rice and a ten-pound sack of onions that looked okay. The former tenants must have been in a powerful hurry not to have taken all the food along with them.

She found several blocks of cheese in the walk-in refrigerator, along with a few items past their prime, such as smelly milk, some rusty-looking lettuce and a couple of mushy bags of food she couldn’t identify. A shame about the milk. But she did find a box of individual cream cups, the kind used for coffee, two cartons of butter pats and five eggs that seemed okay.

In the big freezer, she discovered several packages of tortillas, an unopened box of chicken breasts that would feed Katy and her for weeks and another big box of ground beef.

She heaved a huge sigh and sent a prayer heavenward. At least they wouldn’t starve.

Making a quick tour of the rest of the kitchen, she found that the grill and the large stainless-steel gas stove were reasonably clean and in working order. She was grateful for her volunteer stint in the Junior League kitchens, since the stove was similar to one she’d learned to operate there. The grease in the deep fryer needed to be tossed and the fryer could stand a good scrubbing—but not now. Several big pots hung from an overhead rack, and there were enough smaller ones to do for Katy and her. There were two huge dishwashers and a triple stainless-steel sink.

“Mommy!”

“I’m here, honey.” She hobbled from the kitchen.

“Penelope and I have to go to the bathroom.”

“It’s right there,” Mary Beth said, pointing to the Señoritas door.

Katy frowned and glanced from the door to Mary Beth. “Would you go with us? Penelope is kind of…” The girl glanced at the door again.

Mary Beth smiled. “Uncomfortable in a new place?”

“Yes. I told her it was okay, but she’s uncomfortable.”

“No problem, sweetie.” She took Katy and her dog to the bathroom. And while she was there, she scoured the sink and other fixtures with an industrial-style cleanser she found in a cabinet.

The whole place needed cleaning, but she was too tired to tackle it all. She gave Katy a dust rag and instructions to wipe down the tables and booths while she tackled the kitchen and came up with dinner.

Other than a surface layer of greasy dust, the kitchen wasn’t too bad—apart from some things that looked suspiciously like mouse droppings. Rodents of all shapes and sizes gave her the willies. She convinced herself that the evidence was very old and that any self-respecting mouse would be long gone in search of better provisions.

Using a little ingenuity, including her defrosting skills, she put together a rather tasty meal of grilled chicken breasts along with rice topped with onion and tomatoes. She even managed to fix Katy some chocolate milk by mixing half a dozen coffee creamers with water and some chocolate syrup she’d located in the pantry.

“Mmm,” Katy said. “This is good, Mommy.” She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin from the table dispenser. “My tummy’s full.” She rubbed her belly and yawned.

“Tired, sweetie?”

“Just a little. Does this place have a TV?”

“Sorry, no. But let’s have our baths and I’ll read a story to you.”

“Is there a bathtub?”

“Not a regular one, but there’s a deep sink in the kitchen that’s just about your size.”

Katy was a little wary about taking a bath in the kitchen sink, but she was a trouper and the two of them were soon giggling as Mary Beth helped her bathe and shampoo her hair. She wrapped Katy in a tablecloth from a stack of clean ones she’d located in a cupboard and nuzzled her daughter’s soft, sweet-scented neck. “All clean and smelling like honeysuckle.”

“All clean,” Katy echoed. “Are you going to take a bath in the sink?”

Mary Beth laughed. “I don’t think my cast and I would fit. I’ll make do with a basin bath in the Señoritas.”

“Mommy, what’s a señorita?”

“That’s the word written on one of the bathroom doors. It’s Spanish for young lady or for an unmarried woman.” She began brushing Katy’s fine blond hair.

“But you’re married.”

“Well, technically, I’m not. Daddy and I are divorced, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s in the pokey.”

“Where did you hear that word?”

“From Aunt Isabel. I heard you and her talking. Aunt Isabel said my daddy was a con and in the pokey.”

Isabel was Mary Beth’s best friend in Natchez. She had offered them her garage apartment to live in and the two of them had lived there comfortably, although Mary Beth had hated imposing on her friend. “Isabel shouldn’t have said that. That was very rude.”

“He isn’t in the pokey?”

“Pokey is a rude word. Daddy is in a correctional institution. He’s being punished for doing a bad thing.”

“Like when I get a time-out for spitting on Eric.”

“Yes, except that grown-up punishment is more serious. I think it might be best if we not mention where Daddy is to anybody. Okay?”

“Okay. What’s written on the other door?”

“Which door?”

“The other bathroom.”