Free Patience County War (Madeleine Toche Series) by Soren Petrek Page A

hear him. Sam started to make some loud cawing noises and shouted, “Speeders in this county gotta adopt a crow!” He simultaneously flung the maggoty mess onto the guy’s lap and slammed on his brakes. To his credit, business boy speeder kept it on the road with just a few sickening swerves as he crossed the county line.
    Sam howled with laughter, knowing that in Patience all police complaints were directed to old Judge Holcomb, a dear friend of Sam and his dad. The judge just gave any complainers the statement, “no crime in Patience,” and then the old hard-of-hearing, “Who? Who?” Who?” response to every question as if he was deaf. He liked to call it the ‘owl’solution to alleged police misconduct. Sam thought that maybe the crow was a little much, and could have caused an accident, but if the guy had hit a kid in town, it wouldn’t have been nearly enough. No ticket writing, and no way that guy would drive through Patience again.
    After having been in Patience again for a few years after his big escape to the outside world, Sam had established his own informal contacts within the gossip community who he endearingly referred to as ‘wildfire’. Finding out who was up to what and getting the subtle word out onto the street was as easy as one-stop-shopping. Sam’s favorite contact was Jenny Turner, a local day care provider who, in addition to her talent for juggling toddlers, maintained what amounted to a central gossip clearing station. Someone was always dropping off or picking up and lingering to update or be updated. Sam eased the squad into traffic and headed over to Jenny’s to see what she knew.
    Sam really liked Jenny Turner, and shared a few misdeeds with her when they were growing up together all those years ago in town. She’d married a local boy, Steve Turner, who owned Shortie’s Road House, on the edge of town, which had the best burger and coffee, and was where the locals got their money’s worth when they ordered a mixed drink.
    Sam pulled into the driveway and opened the gate that ran all the way around the property. He stepped through the gate and around several toys on his way up the sidewalk. Sam stepped into the doorway of the clean little building and was greeted by a commotion of squeals as several small children went scurrying across the floor, obviously in pursuit of something.
    “Howdy, Sam. Be with you in a second, we’ve got a hamster escape,” Jenny said from her position looking under an old brown sofa.
    Sam carefully stepped over another low gate and into the play area, amused at the chaos, and scanned the floor. A little blond haired boy with a trickle of snot running down his nose looked up at him and pointed over into the corner, where a little golden hamster was chewing on the corner of a cardboard box.
    “Dah,” the child said, expecting Sam’s immediate response.
    As Sam looked at the kid he also caught a whiff of the kid’s latest achievement in addition to hamster tracking. He remembered this kid as one of Jenny’s handfuls. She must be feeding the kid spoonfuls of lead paint,he thought in a silly way. No way was he going to air that commentary; he just didn’t know where crazy crap like that came from when it popped into his head. Since Sam’s usual response to rodent issues was gunfire, he gestured to Jenny who swooped in and spirited the hamster back to his cage restoring order.
    “Hey Jenny, I see you’ve got a houseful today. This one needs a change,” Sam said waiving his hand in front of his face.
    “His diapers are over there in that blue bag,” Jenny said not entirely kidding. They’d known each other a long time. “What’s up there lawman?” Jenny said.
    “Virgil Ward’s missing”
    “I heard he’s been gone from home going on his third day. It’s pissing Martha off.”
    “Anybody see anything you know of?”
    “Not yet,” Jenny said deftly rangling the little blond boy down to change his diaper. “It seems a little weird,