A little buoyed by that knowledge, she waded in to what had to be done. Police work was always much slower than people thought it was; television had given the nation a false idea of how long it took to process a crime scene, to interview witnesses—in this case, a lot of witnesses, upward of fifty people who had actually seen something as opposed to the couple of hundred who only thought they’d seen something. Going home wasn’t on the books for several hours—the rest of the day, in fact.
Jesse took her statement, and Morgan’s, and that of everyone else who had seen anything. Of all the kids who had been on the float, Christa’s statement was the most coherent and thorough, but then she’d been the one kneeling with her arm around Tricks, staring at the pistol in Kyle’s hand.
No mention was made of Morgan banging Kyle’s head against the pavement, and if Kyle had made any such accusation, Bo hadn’t heard about it. Kyle wasn’t there; he’d been taken to the county lockup—again. But the police station was as crowded as it had been the day of the Melody/Miss Doris incident, with people coming and going. The parade had been aborted, of course, but the picnic in the park was happening. Once the snarled traffic had been straightened out, there was nothing the townsfolk wanted to do more than gather in the park where everyone could talk about what had happened or what they thought had happened.
Someone brought her some food from the picnic, and a cold beer. Bo really wanted the beer, but she was too tired and on edge to decide if she was on duty or not, so she settled for water. Morgan drank the beer and smirked at her while he did it. She didn’t care if he smirked. He’d saved Tricks, so as far as she was concerned, he could smirk at the world.
Daina came to take care of Tricks; Bo let her go even though every cell in her body protested letting the dog out of her sight. Tricks liked the crowd and people, but she was getting tired and needed a nap.
Finally the day wound down. Jeff Simmons was being kept hospitalized overnight for observation; the word came in that he had indeed been hit by the ricochet, but he’d be okay. Daina arrived back with a refreshed Tricks, who bounced from person to person to announce her presence, with repeated trips back to Bo to touch base with her center of security.
And enough was, finally, enough. “I’m going home,” she announced tiredly.
Mayor Buddy, unusually solemn, had been there through all the aftermath. He patted her shoulder. “You’ve had a hard day. I think you should take off a couple of days, get everything inside calm again. Unless all hell breaks loose at the park tonight, Jesse and the rest of the men can handle everything, and call you if all hell does break loose. I mean it. Stay home.”
Normally she’d have soldiered on, but this wasn’t normal. She gave a brief nod. “At least one day.” She’d take that one, then reevaluate. She was exhausted. She felt hollow, and frighteningly fragile, as if she might shatter without warning. She needed to just be home.
“I’ll go get the truck,” Morgan said, and only then did she remember that he’d parked at the other end of town, where the parade began.
“No need for that,” Mayor Buddy said, evidently realizing exactly where they had parked that morning. “My car is here, hop in and I’ll take you to it.”
“Thanks, but we have Tricks,” Bo pointed out. A lot of people didn’t want a dog in their car; she’d been one of them, until Tricks.
Mayor Buddy looked down at Tricks, who was lying with her muzzle resting on Bo’s foot, and a spasm crossed his face. The official word going around was that Kyle had been about to shoot Bo, but she knew differently, and evidently some other people did too. “She can ride in my car any time,” he said. “In the front seat, if she wants.”
Bo managed a smile. It was weak, but it was a smile. “Don’t give her any ideas.”
The ride to the park was a matter of a few minutes; the park was filled with people finishing the day the way they’d planned it, with picnics, food trucks, balloons, games, and fireworks to close out the festivities after dark. For most of them, the morning’s excitement had been a momentary distraction that hadn’t touched them at all other than giving them something to talk about while they ate their grilled burgers and hot dogs. No one paid any attention to them when Mayor Buddy stopped beside Morgan’s big black SUV.
“I’m riding in back with her,” Bo said when Morgan opened the back door for Tricks to leap into her seat. He gave a brief nod and opened the other door for her.
He started the engine so the air conditioning would run, then said, “I’ll be right back,” and strode across the green to one of the food trucks. When he returned, the brown paper sack he carried filled the Tahoe with the smell of grilled hamburgers and onions. With vague surprise, she looked at the clock on the dash and saw that it was well after their normal time for eating dinner. She’d eaten about half of what had been brought to her at lunch, too gut-punched to manage more, but now she was actually a little hungry. The funny thing was, if he hadn’t thought of it, she probably wouldn’t have eaten at all.
Tricks had great interest in the smells coming from that paper sack, but the seat harness prevented her from jumping into the front seat to check it out. Nevertheless, she leaned forward as far as she could go, her dark eyes focused on the sack. Bo put her hand on Tricks, sinking her fingers into the soft fur, needing to feel the warmth and life still there. She needed to touch her.
Morgan glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Gooding will probably plead guilty.”