Kevin laughed. âSure, I had one teenager trying out the old âboys will be jackassesâ thing. He pulled a drive-by in our parking area with a paintball gun.â
âWhat did you do?â
âI invested in one of those gadgets for myself, and waited till the little turd showed up again. I covered his windshield, gave his pickup a new color scheme, and unloaded the rest of my magazine on the kidâs butt.â His grin had a little bit of the wolf in it. âThe velocity of a paintball is about a tenth of a rifle slug, but it still stings when it hits.â
Liza shook her head. âTypical. You sound like all those Chuck Norris jokes I keep hearing.â
Kevin laughed. âYou mean, âBefore the boogeyman goes to sleep, he checks that Chuck Norris isnât under the bedâ?â
âNope, the one I was thinking about was, âChuck Norris doesnât sleepâhe waits.â That sounds like you, lying in bed with a paintball gun, staying up for this jackass.â
âI prefer to think of it in terms of Chuckâs best movie quote.â Kevin deepened his voice. ââYou just messed with the wrong guy.ââ
Is that what happened with Chissel? Liza wondered. Did he mess with the wrong guy?
âWhat do you think about Deke Jannsky?â The words were out of her mouth before she really thought about them.
âFor what? Messing up Main Street or doing in Oliver Chissel?â
âEither.â Liza leaned farther through the window. âBoth.â
Kevin hesitated for a long moment before he replied, looking sharply at Liza to make sure she was serious. Finally, he shrugged. âDeke is certainly a major lowlife around town. A lot worse thanâ¦some people I could name.â
Liza nodded sadly, thinking of the neâer-do-well friend theyâd lost the last time major crime had touched Maidenâs Bay.
âThat saidâI dunno. Deke would have to have a pretty big mad on to start wrecking the shopping district. After all, he lives here, too.â
âThe last time I saw him, he was pretty mad,â Liza said. âHe got fired from his job as an extra on the film because he wouldnât follow the rules.â
She paused for a second, frowning. âIn fact, he was acting as if heâd put in a lot of work, and that doesnât happen with extras. Most of the time, theyâre just sitting around, waiting while the shot is set up.â
Her frown got deeper. âSuppose he had been working, screwing things up on the set so filming would be delayed and heâd get extra hours?â
âNow that would sound like Deke,â Kevin said. âHas there been a lot of sabotage?â
âChissel made it sound like there was,â Liza replied. âAll I saw was some impolite graffiti painted on a shed asking the film company, though not in so many words, to leave.â
âWhat color was it?â
She gave him a look. âGlitter pink.â
âToo bad,â Kevin said. âNot exactly Dekeâs style. Now, if it had been blueââ He broke off when he saw the look on Lizaâs face. âI guess you werenât around the time Deke decided to redo his kitchen table and chairs on the cheap and easy. He brought them outside, opened a can of spray paint, and began spritzing away.â
Kevin laughed. âMaybe he was hungover, or maybe he was just being Deke. Anyway, he didnât notice that there was a pretty stiff breeze blowing, and very little of the paint was getting on the furniture. By the time he finally got done, heâd barely touched his furniture, but heâd turned most of his lawn a beautiful shade of blue, except for the silhouette of a cheap dinette set in the middle. That lasted a few weeks last summer, and it almost became a tourist attraction.â
In spite of her efforts to be serious, Liza found herself chuckling at the mental image. âI guess