Family Jewels - A Dix Dodd Mystery (Dix Dodd Mysteries) by N.L. Wilson

Author:N.L. Wilson [Wilson, N.L.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: mystery, funny, humor, Florida, private detective, older woman younger man, humorous mystery, private investigator, female sleuth, PI, comical
Publisher: Norah Wilson, writing as N.L. Wilson
Published: 2011-07-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

As long as I live, I will never forget the look on my mother’s face when I walked into the into the prisoner’s area of the Pinellas County Jail. She was sitting in a cell with a half dozen hookers, and a small assortment of other poor souls down on their luck. Katt Dodd was sitting in the middle of them, talking to a particularly young looking dark-haired lady who looked scared to death. With her big round eyes and her trembling bottom lip, the girl looked all of fifteen years old. She wasn’t of course. She had to be at least eighteen to be in here (or at least claiming to be eighteen). But right then, she also had to be mothered, and Katt Dodd was doing her damndest to fit that bill.

Why didn’t that surprise me?

But still, when Mother looked up to see me looking at her through the bars of the cell — a smug and satisfied Deputy NO FUCKING NUTS smirking beside me, I know that my mother’s tears were not that far away from falling themselves. Despite the stiff upper lip, she looked so helpless. She looked so fragile. Goddamn it, Katt Dodd looked old to me. And I didn’t like this one damn bit.

“Well, I bet this is one place you never thought you’d find your mother, huh, Dix?” her voice quavered.

“Certainly isn’t one I’ll find you in for long. Not if I have any say in the matter.”

And oh, fuck, you’d better believe I’d have my say in the matter.

Mother nodded, firmly. One blink of those dark lashes and the tears would be falling. Both hers and mine.

“Well, this is my new friend Bobbie-Sue.” Mother said quickly. She squeezed the hand of the girl on the bench beside her. “We’re going to keep each other company in here tonight.”

“What do you mean ‘tonight’?”

Deputy Almond was only too happy to answer that question for me.

There would be no bail hearing until the morning, he informed me. Mother had refused to talk to police tonight, wouldn’t until she’d spoken to me and spoken to a lawyer.

Smart woman. And I told her. I made her promise to stick to her guns on that, no matter what. She would.

Of course No Nuts had taken this as an indication of her guilt. He’d so much as told my mother so, but Dodd women don’t get intimidated. Nevertheless, it all added up to my mother having to spend the night in jail.

That sent fear up my spine, I’ll tell you. I could handle myself with the toughest of crowds. But my 71-year-old mother? I don’t know when the shift takes places, but somehow that protective mother-daughter instinct does a complete turnaround in the adult years.

I was half tempted to kick Deputy Almond right in the almonds (they had to be that small) right then and there. Surely a good foot to balls kick would earn me a night in jail and I could watch out for my mother. And it would be sooooo rewarding.

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