An Unlikely Family

Evie thanked her and left the shop. Imagine not being present for what must be the biggest sales night of the week. Claire must have a lot of confidence in her employees or, more likely, she wasn’t as concerned about the income as many of the island’s shopkeepers appeared to be.

Evie walked the three blocks to the Green Door, dodging couples holding hands or families with strollers. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wait long for a table since it was nearly eight o’clock. The restaurant was busy, but Evie managed to grab a small table by the window. She asked the mature waitress if Pet Sweeney was working.

“Oh, honey,” the woman said, “Pet only works in the daytime. She vowed when she got married she’d never volunteer for a Friday or Saturday night again.” The waitress flipped open her order pad and pulled a pencil from behind her ear. “A lot of the local employees avoid the Avenue on weekends, which is fine with me. It gives us Micopee gals a chance at the biggest tips.”

Evie ordered a hamburger and a raspberry iced tea. So that’s it, she thought, when the waitress had walked away. The locals prefer Heron Point during the week when the tourists weren’t invading.

Since Claire and Pet weren’t in town, and since Helen lived more than an hour’s drive away in Gainesville, Evie had exhausted her supply of new friends who could teach her the fine art of livin’ easy. She bit into a juicy burger and smiled to herself. Unless I count Officer Billy Muldoone, she thought. He must be around town tonight. And I suppose I could call him my friend. She swallowed a sweet gulp of tea. He did find my earring.

She was still thinking about Billy after she left the Green Door and had resumed window-shopping. When she was opposite the largest building in town, the hotel where she’d had lunch yesterday, a commotion near the sidewalk café stopped her. In the middle of it was the tall, broad-shouldered Muldoone.

He saw her at the same time and greeted her in that booming baritone that muted every other sound on the street. “Hey, there, Evie. Come on over.”

She approached slowly since it was obvious Billy was on duty and, in fact, was performing one of his legal responsibilities at that very moment. She stopped a few feet from the entrance to the café. Billy propped his foot on a bench next to a man who was slouched forward with his hands behind his back. Billy rested his elbow on his bent knee. “What are you doing out tonight?” he asked Evie.

She couldn’t resist staring at the man she assumed was Billy’s captive. He was a scruffy-looking character perhaps in his mid-thirties. Though his head was down, she could see a scowl on his face. She noticed, too, a strand of white plastic sticking out from behind his waist. The new type of restraining device used by police forces.

“I’m, uh, just wandering.”

Billy smiled. “Nice night for it.”

She blinked a couple of times. This was the first apprehended criminal she’d seen that wasn’t on the eleven o’clock news. “So what are you doing?”

“Had to grab this guy,” Billy said. “And a couple others earlier. Been a busy night.”

The man looked up at Billy and barked an expletive.

“Watch it,” Billy said. “We’ve got ladies all around us. Maybe if I tighten those restraints, it’ll encourage you to mind your manners.”

The man stared at the sidewalk.

The knee of Billy’s uniform was ripped through, showing bruised flesh beneath. And when she looked more closely at him, she realized that his elbow had been scraped raw, too. “What happened to you?” she asked.

He shrugged one well-rounded shoulder. “It’s nothing. I had to use a Pensacola High School tackling move to get this fella to slow up.” He pointed down, and for the first time Evie noticed his criminal wore a pair of ragged socks on his feet and no shoes.

“Look under there,” Billy said, and Evie bent to see under the bench. “He was wearing those Rollerblade skates, which meant he had a good head start on me.”

“You caught him when he was on inline skates?” she asked, amazed that a man Billy’s size could churn up that much speed.

“The crowd slowed him down some,” Billy admitted. “That’s the thing about these weekend pickpockets. They don’t take into account that there are disadvantages to stealing in a mob.” He grinned at her. “Or the fact that my mother had a willow tree in her backyard, and avoiding her switch taught me a good deal about hauling a—” he paused “—running fast.”

He looked over her shoulder toward the street and nudged the man beside him. “Time to go, Eugene,” he said. “Our ride’s here.”

The glossy-white porch railings around the café reflected the blue and red cruiser lights, and Evie stepped out of the way with the rest of the crowd. When the car stopped, a young female officer got out. She walked up and grabbed the pickpocket by the elbow while Billy tugged him off the bench.

“Hey, Gail, say hello to Evie,” Billy said as he pushed the top of his captive’s head to lower the guy into the back seat. “She’s our new principal.”

Gail, a cute yet officious-looking brunette about Evie’s height, stuck out her hand. “Heard about you. Welcome to town.”

“Thanks.”

Billy called to a civilian on the porch. “You mind tossing me those skates and that pocketbook?”

The unsuccessful getaway wheels and a Louis Vuitton bag came sailing over to Billy. “Much obliged,” Billy said to the tourist. He handed the purse to Gail. “You’ll see that lady gets this back?”

She nodded.

“Tell her not to let this spoil her impression of Heron Point. The only reason this guy was able to grab her purse without somebody stopping him was because he was wearing those damn wheels. I’m going to suggest a new code at the next town council meeting. No skates after 8:00 p.m. on weekends.”

“Good idea,” Gail said. “You sure you don’t want me to ride into Micopee with you? I can call Jack to come in and spell me.”

“No. Don’t bother him. I’ll pick up Lou, and he can help me escort Eugene as well as those other two guys at city hall. We’ve just got one holding cell on the island,” he explained to Evie, “and that’s only because Jack insisted on having it built when he became chief of police. So when we’ve got more than one perp, we’ve got to take them to the county jail in Micopee.”

Raised in an area where the jails were generally larger than high schools, Evie simply said, “Oh.”

Billy winked at her. “I’d ask you to ride along, but the front seat next to me will be occupied.”

She smiled uncertainly back at him. “That’s quite all right. I understand completely.”

He slid into the driver’s seat of the cruiser. “I hear you’re staying out at the Pink Ladies.”

“That’s right.”

“Maybe I’ll give you a call sometime, see how you’re doing. I’ve lived in Heron Point a good long while, and I can tell you about the area.”

From the backseat, a nasal voice mimicked, “Maybe I’ll give you a call sometime.” Billy glared over his shoulder through a protective screen. “You watch yourself back there. It’s a dark, lonely ride to Micopee. One more missing person along that stretch of roadway wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow around here.” He nodded to Gail. “You see Evie gets back to her car okay, will you? We’ve got some smart mouths in town tonight.”

“You got it, Billy.”

The two women watched him drive away, and Evie realized she hadn’t responded to his offer. Maybe it was just as well. She heard Gail sigh beside her and turned to look at her. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Isn’t he wonderful?”

Evie didn’t quite know how to answer that. She hadn’t decided if Billy Muldoone was any part of wonderful, though she now knew that at least one woman in town thought he was all that and more. “He seems to be an excellent police officer,” she said, confident that the man she’d just seen in action would have no trouble with the criminals he was hauling off to jail.

AT FIVE O’CLOCK Sunday afternoon Billy drove down Island Avenue in the squad car and convinced himself that it was quiet enough to go home. Most of the tourists had left, and the shopkeepers had pulled their merchandise in from the sidewalks. It had been a busy couple of days, even for an August weekend. The weather had been balmy with no rain, no doubt attracting last-minute visitors.

He rolled down the window and rested his arm on the car door, enjoying the warm refreshing air that flowed through the cruiser and erased the sour smell of cheap alcohol from the inebriated petty thieves he’d picked up. He didn’t know exactly when he’d become the unofficial second-in-command on the police force, but he was proud that Jack trusted him so much.

Thankfully they had a good crew. Gail was a competent cop even if she was sweet on him. Billy admired Gail, but he would never date anyone on the force. Personal relations didn’t mix with official responsibilities, especially for cops. Ricky, the transplant from the Orlando P.D. Jack had hired when he took over, was working out great. Lou was a willing and satisfactory service aide, and among the five permanent members of the Heron Point department and the couple of extras they hired on particularly busy weekends, the town was enjoying low crime and dependable service.

But now, as he was most times at the end of the tourist rush, Billy was tired and ready to settle back into his recliner and sniff whatever his ma was preparing for dinner. Mulligan stew probably, since it was Sunday and she never let her family forget they were Irish.

Beginning to sweat, Billy jacked the A/C another notch, taking advantage of the salty air outside and the cool, recycled air coming from the vents. He took off his hat and tossed it next to him on the bench seat. He could practically smell the roast beef simmering now. He may have some complaints about living with his mother after so many years of independence, but no one would ever catch him bad-mouthing her cooking.

As he approached the turn to Gulfview Road he considered detouring away from the middle of town, where he lived in a hundred-year-old clapboard house on what his mother called one of the prettiest little streets she’d ever seen. Billy would have much preferred the unobstructed view of the water from a property on Gulfview Road. Heck, with the price of real estate escalating in Heron Point, he doubted he’d ever own a piece of the Gulf shore now.

But Claire and Jack did. And so did Hester, whose fancy Pink Ladies cut a flowery trail all the way to the water. Where Evie Gaynor was renting.