“K-9 unit.”

  Luna tipped her head back with a little slick of tongue to wet her lips. “That’s a wonderful job for you to have. What do you do when you’re not at work?”

  “Oh, I have a ritual for long runs out in the country where I can be alone. I have some property outside of town, it gives me a lot of privacy.”

  “It’s amazing you can have country property on an officer’s salary.” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Wow, that was rude. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s fine. That piece of property has been in my mother’s family for centuries. I live there, but it’s family land.”

  “Where is this?”

  “Do you know where Hunter’s Moon Hollow is?”

  “Near the blue barn?”

  “You know it? I’m just past that barn.”

  Luna flicked a finger toward Farrah. “Farrah runs her company, Chemistry, out of the old farmhouse on that property.”

  “Small world. I hope I run in to you again soon, Luna.” Tadger threw his backpack strap over his shoulder and focused on me. “It’s time for my shift. I’m going to change in your office if that’s okay?”

  “You always do,” I said and waved him toward the back.

  Tadger stopped to fix his gaze on Luna. “Are you going to be here for a while?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Good.”

  She offered up a secret smiled as he walked away.

  I pulled out my phone and did a quick search for “tadger, definition.” Oh look, tadger was Scottish for penis. Huh. I’ve known him all my life, and I didn’t have a clue about his name.

  Tadger’s paternal grandparents had immigrated from Scotland when Remus and Seamus were teens. But Tadger’s mom was from here in Virginia. I wondered if Tadger’s mom knew what the word meant when she was signing the birth certificate or if Tadger’s dad thought he’d pulled off the best dad joke ever.

  Just then Rex walked back in, holding white paper bags aloft. The sides were becoming translucent with grease. The whole bar filled with salty meat smells. Yum!

  “Luna.” Rex read the name off of the bag then set it in front of her. “Farrah. Kay. And BJ.” He put the last bag in front of a chair at the table with Farrah and sat down.

  I rounded the bar to sit with them. “You just missed seeing Tadger,” I told Rex. “He’s in my office getting ready for his shift,” I said. “Though, he might come out once he’s changed.”

  Luna sucked in a breath and got all round-eyed as she looked from one to the other of us. “You all talk about that freely? He doesn’t, you know, want to keep it secret?”

  “Uhm, yeah.” Kay slid off her stool and came over to join us at the table. “We’ve been friends with Tadger since kindergarten. He doesn’t keep many secrets from us.”

  I shot a look at Kay. From the tone of her voice, I knew she was up to something. I just wasn’t sure what. I’d ask when we were alone. Sticking my nose into my bag, I inhaled the aroma of french fries. Heaven. I ripped open the bag to use as a placemat and unwrapped my cardiac arrest burger. “You got three for yourself? Big appetite,” I said as Rex ripped open his bag the same way as I had.

  “Two for me. One for my buddy Twinkles. Least I could do. He helped save my life.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luna straining to listen to our conversation from her perch on the stool at the bar.

  Farrah was leaned over in her chair, doing a deep dive into something on her phone.

  The door to my office squeaked, and I bent backward over my chair to see down the hall. “Twinkles,” I shouted. “Rex is back. He brought you a burger.” Twinkles was supposed to be on a diet, but I decided he could take a break and enjoy the burger since Rex was leaving in the morning.

  Twinkles didn’t need to be called twice. Out he trotted, straight over to Rex, then he sat like a good boy and gave Rex a high five.

  “You call him Twinkles when he’s in this form? He’s a Rottweiler?” She slid down from her chair and crouched on the floor. “Twinkles,” she called in a seductive voice. She held out her hands visibly wet with hamburger juices.

  Twinkles went over and licked her clean.

  “You’re beautiful, aren’t you? Glorious!”

  I mean, Twinkles was cute and everything. Glorious… I wasn’t so sure about that.

  “You look so big and brave. I bet you’re a real hero.” She peeked up at Rex. “He saved your life?”

  Before Rex answered, Kay shot me a mischievous glance. “All of us. We have each been in dire straits, and Twinkles always comes to the rescue. BJ more than anyone, of course, but you know. He’s like Jamesburg’s Batman.”

  Luna frowned a little and looked at Twinkles.

  “More like Jamesburg’s version of Jacob from Twilight,” she amended. “Only he’s Twinkles, because he’s a star.” She did jazz hands for emphasis.

  “Twinkles.” Luna sighed. “That’s magical.”

  3

  Tuesday Night

  “Alcohol!” Delight ran through the door. “High test. The highest test! I need alcohol!”

  For a Tuesday night, the bar was still filled with a good number of after-work drinkers. They all spun in their seats to behold Delight in full drag. I hadn’t expected to see her tonight since she was performing at someone’s retirement party.

  She held her long Rue Paul styled hair away from her face protectively as she staggered forward on purple sequined platform shoes.

  “Get the first aid kit. Call the ambulance,” Delight shrieked. “I’ve been licked.”

  “Licked?” My friend Dick, a fixture here at Hooch’s, jumped from his stool and was over to the front door in two steps. He yanked on the knob and shot his gaze up and down the sidewalk out front.

  Dick was a detective and probably had some clue what was going on here.

  I, on the other hand, had no idea. “Licked, like you were in a fight? Here? Near the bar?” I rounded to the hallway to grab the industrial first aid kit that was attached to the wall.

  Dick shut the door and headed our way.

  “No, not in a fight. With these here claws,” she held up her hands with their inch-long nails painted blue with purple sparkles, “do you think I would be in here yelling about being licked? No! I mean, I was lick-licked. Some chick just walked right up and swiped her tongue up my cheek.” She turned wide, frightened eyes toward Dick. “You think I got me a case of the cooties, now?” She pulled her hair away from her face. “Feels like I got the cooties.” She turned back to me. “I want to take a bath in some alcohol.”

  I had the first aid kit resting on the bar and had popped the top open. “She licked—stuck-her-tongue-out-dragged-it-up-your-cheek—licked you?” I still couldn’t imagine.

  Delight plunged her hand in the kit and came out with a dozen alcohol swabs. “That’s how it went.”

  “What did you do?” Dick asked. He’d obviously shifted from guy at the bar to full detective mode.

  “Well, I was a little stunned. I had to get some distance to see the face. I wasn’t for sure I didn’t know her and hadn’t been licked before. But nah. I’d never seen her before. At least not dressed the way she was with the makeup and all. I said, ‘Hey now!’ then she took off running, and I’m in these platform shoes with this here pencil skirt. I couldn’t go after her and ask for an explanation.”

  I noticed that Luna had ducked her head and was listening intently as if she were gathering details from our conversation.

  Justice walked in from the back, Nicodemus—her service rat—riding on her shoulder. They both looked from Delight to the first aid kit, to Dick, then to me.

  “Delight was licked,” Kay said, “and it’s still light outside.”

  “Cause people usually wait until the sun goes down to pull weird shit like that,” Delight said, clutching the alcohol. “In the summertime, there’s less time for this kind of thing to go down, if you see what I’m sayin’.”

  “Licked?” Justice asked. “With a tongue. Without an invitation?”

  “We’ve been getting reports,” Dick said, his tone serious and concerned. “What did the licker look like?”

  “Well, it was a she. I think. Could have been a she. That’s what I’m going to call her. She had big hair that was dyed with chunky highlights, kind of a brown, and gold, and then some orangey auburn. She was wearing something that was about the same colors. I’m not sure what she was wearing. She was licking and then she was running. And I was screaming. And I was startled, see? My brain kind of stuttered, because, when I rounded into the alley, where I thought she went…she wasn’t in there.”

  “Could she have gone in one of the doors?” Dick asked. “Could you tell?”

  “I didn’t see any doors. I just saw me a cat sitting on top of the boxes from the Chinese take-out place. A ginormous cat. Could have been a leopard. Gold and spotted. Never seen a cat like that outside of a nature show before.”

  Luna looked up, her face frozen in concentration then a slow smile slid into place. She practically glistened with excitement over Delight’s story.

  I felt Kay’s eyes on me and turned to her.

  “Holy cow!” she mouthed. I’d ask her what that was about later. Delight getting licked didn’t warrant a holy cow, maybe just an ew.

  “Where was this?” Justice asked.

  “Up on Main,” Delight said then turned back to Dick. “She was about my height. And she had on some fabulous makeup. Yes, I remember that part. Lots of eyeliner with a perfect cat-eye. Maybe she was a drag queen like me. Doing up a cat eye takes special practice, not everyone can do a good cat-eye.”

  Dick pulled out his phone and was texting someone.

  “Is it against the law to lick people without their consent?” one of my regulars asked. “Seems like that should be a law. But why would someone think to write a law like that?”

  “It’s battery,” Dick said, his focus on his screen, “just like an unwanted kiss is. There’ve been reports all over Jamesburg for the last week of licking incidences. We’re not sure what’s going on. No one in our dept has ever heard of something like this before.”

  I checked out Luna and her secret smile. She looked like that cat who had just swallowed a canary. I might even have thought she had somehow been involved as the assault licker. But no, she’s been here with Farrah the whole time, and she has brown hair, so…

  “We need an app for that,” Kay said. “Maybe you could do that, Justice.”

  Nicodemus planted his paw on Justice’s head that she kept shaved to show off the multiple piercings that ran along the edge of her ear. The other side of her hair was long and black with purple streaks. Tonight, she wore a simple pair of jeans and a plain black T-shirt. But Nicodemus, using his long pink tail for ballast as he looked around at Kay, gave Justice the cyberpunk edge that she liked to project.

  “What kind of app would that be?” Justice asked, tying a “Hooch’s” apron around her waist.

  “I have that warning app for when there are nefarious clown sightings,” Kay said.

  “ClownsBNoJoke?” Delight asked. “I got me that one. I like it just fine. It kept me up to date this last year when we were having all them clown attacks.”

  “Clown attacks and now a predatory licker? Sounds like you have something wrong with your water supply here.” Farrah tilted her head. “Are pet rats allowed out in public?” She turned and focused on me. “You have a very interesting town.”

  “That’s not a rat,” Kay said.

  “No.” Delight ripped into the alcohol packet. “That there’s Nicodemus. He’s a service animal, protected by federal law and the ADA. Nicodemus can go anywhere the public can go. That way, he can do his work warning Justice and keeping her safe if Justice were going to have a seizure. And he’s got him a wicked sense of humor.” Delight held out a fist toward Nicodemus, and Nicodemus gave her a fist bump.

  “Delight, I have an officer coming over to take your statement,” Dick said, sliding his phone back in his pocket.

  “Oh, are you on the police force?” Farrah leaned in, placing her hands on her knees and straightening her elbows, making her boobs pop out of the top of her sundress.

  I saw the muscles under Dick’s eyes tense, straining to hold his eyeballs up on Farrah’s batting eyelashes and not down on her heaving bosoms.

  I held out my hand to make the introduction. “Dick meet Farrah.”

  “Feral?” bar stool guy asked, in full ogle. “I bet you’re wild.”

  She looked at the bar guy. “I’m not feral, Farrah.” She tucked her chin and sent Dick a coquettish eye. “With an ahhhh,” she sighed out.

  Dick was a deer in the headlights under her gaze. Frozen in place.

  Kay reached over and snapped her fingers in front of his nose.

  That fixed things.

  “Glad to know there are such dedicated officers on the force.” Farrah’s voice dropped to an intimate tone. “You’re not even on duty now, are you?”

  Dick picked up his beer, looked down at it, then set it unsipped back on the bar.

  “I was asking BJ in the car why she never joined the police force,” Rex said to Kay. “Seems like the right fit, chasing down public lickers and what all.”

  “She went on a ride-along,” Kay said with a shrug.

  Rex nodded. “That’s what she said.”

  “Oh?” Kay sent me a look of glee. “She told you about it?”

  I noticed the bar had gone quiet as everyone turned their attention to the unfolding story between Kay and Rex.

  “Officer Sprat,” Rex said, “squeaking shoes, a three-second high-speed chase. Being off balance.”

  Kay caught my eye as she said, “Did she tell you how she puked all over the good officer’s car as she went into a seizure?”

  “Uhm, no.” Rex turned to grin my way. “That part of the story didn’t come up.”

  “But her dinner did,” Kay said.

  “You can stop.” I sent her a raised eyebrow, “you know?”

  “No, I don’t think I can. I have that Blarney Stone kissing problem, remember?” Kay said. “A story pops into my head, and I have to share. Besides, I think folks will be glad to learn that I’m not the only one with disaster stories in my back pocket.”

  Dick stalled, standing beside Farrah, his hand resting on the back of the bar stool. “Wait. BJ vomited in a cop’s car? Why haven’t I heard about this?”

  “It didn’t happen here in Jamesburg.” I sent Kay a look that told her unequivocally that she’d better zip it, because I had my own vomit stories about her I could tell.

  Kay ignored my warning. “There was Bobbi Jax, sitting beside her ride along officer, a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be doing any riding along on their breaks.”

  Dick tipped his head with a dash of disbelief.

  “He was married,” I said. “I don’t poach. You know that.”

  “He was also wiry,” Rex added.

  Dick nodded. “Not her type.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned my back on them, busying myself with an order.

  Delight had spread the alcohol wipe and was patting it delicately on her cheek, presumably enough to disinfect the licker cooties, but not with enough vigor that would muss her makeup.

  “Why did BJ get sick?” Rex focused on Kay. “She said the high-speed chase was only three seconds long.”

  “Well, there was a problem,” Kay told him. “A real problem.”

  “A woman was suicidal,” I called over my shoulder. “Yeah, it was a problem.”

  “Another dead body?” Dick asked.

  “Not this time,” Kay said. “The way I heard the story was that a man was out of town and getting strange texts from his wife. The wife was at home with their two little kids. The wife had been experiencing depression, and the texts between the couple and between the woman and her brother sounded like she might be suicidal.”

  “Texts like what?” Justice asked.

  “She texted her brother to please come to the house at six-thirty the next morning, so he’d be there when the kids woke up.” I slipped a lime wedge over the rim of the glass walked the drink to the four top that had signaled for another.

  “How old were the kids?” Delight asked.

  Kay turned toward me. “Bobbi Jax?”

  “Two and four.” I pulled my pad and pen from my apron pocket. “Anything else for you folks? Snacks?”

  “No thanks, we want to hear why you puked in the cop’s car before we order anything to eat.” The guy spun toward Kay. “Could you talk a little louder?”

  “Sure.” She raised her voice for the entire bar to hear clearly. “Yeah, so there were these two little kids and a suicidal mom,” Kay continued. “The husband is heading back into town, but he’s hours away. He called the cops. Sprat got the radio call and put his foot down.”

  She was miming the events like A.) she was there and knew what had happened, which was not the truth, and B.) like she was telling one of her prize-winning stories on stage for an audience.

  She was full of Blarney.

  She didn’t just kiss the rock on her family’s trip to Ireland, she bit off a chunk and swallowed it whole.

  “It was three in the morning, so there was no other traffic on the road.” Kay lowered her voice to sound spooky. “Sprat went in silent, no lights or sirens to tip anyone off. He parked in the only place he could, which meant he had to get his car off the road. One tire clung to the asphalt, the other rested at the bottom of the ditch.” She used the flat of her hand as if driving the car up the road then tipped it sideways to show how it had been parked. “Bobbi Jax lay there, her shoulder pressed to the car door, her head against the cold glass window.”

  “That’s uncomfortable.” Rex sent me a look that was hard to interpret. It wasn’t exactly full-on alpha-hero, but it certainly said that he would have liked to have pulled me from the predicament. “I can see how that would make you claustrophobic. You wouldn’t be able to open the passenger side doors, and you probably couldn’t open the driver’s side either, angled up that way. Is that when you developed your claustrophobia?”