Festive Fonts and Fowl Murder (The Lettering Detective Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) by Lisa Pevey

Author:Lisa Pevey [Pevey, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

9

There was nowhere to run or hide. I held my breath and listened. The two of us crouched, still and silent, until one of the voices outside began to address us directly.

“Whoever is in there, you best come on out. We’ve got three long guns pointed at you. It would be four, but Earl’s dumbass let his get eaten by a gator. Long story short, you’ll be gator-bait too if you don’t cooperate and come out acting friendly with your hands in the air.”

Cherie and I shared a look, silently agreeing with one another that we didn’t have much of a choice about what to do next. The man could have been bluffing about the rifles. But, I’d heard multiple male voices. At the very least, we were outnumbered and trapped.

Cherie nodded, and we stood up. Fresh out of options, we did as we were told and walked outside with our hands in the air.

Cherie kept her chin raised. On my part, I managed to look directly into the eyes of the men that had us surrounded. It was dark, even with the monstrous beam pointing straight upwards in the corner of the pad. So, it took their faces a moment to come into focus in the dim light. There were about a half a dozen of them, gray-bearded, long-limbed and pot-bellied. It occurred to me that they did not look like the type of men who worked in oil and gas. Their clothing was wrong, for starters. Each of them wore camouflage from head to toe, big bucket hats and rubber waders. Though I did see the barrels of a few rifles, none of them were pointed at us. Not yet, anyway. A few of the weapons were even tucked under arms so that their owners had a free hand with which to cup a domestic beer can. It was some sort of a militia, but not one that seemed to take its militia-ing very seriously.

The man who had spoken, who was perhaps the most broad-shouldered and bearded of them all, stepped forward. He had a raccoon on his shoulder. The man made a little polite bow, while the raccoon ran rings around his neck in excitement. The bow, even more than his furry friend, caught me completely off guard. This same man had threatened to make me gator-bait not sixty seconds before, and now he was adopting the courteous greeting of a gentleman?

“You’re Rusty Lafitte, aren’t you?” I said, as suddenly as it occurred to me.

“I see my reputation precedes me,” Rusty replied. The raccoon let out a light chittering and moved to his right shoulder where it sat on its haunches regarding me with curiosity. “And this here is Rocky,” he said, gesturing at the bandit riding piggyback.

I tried to ignore the creature and gave the man a serious study.

Though his skin did have that carved look that rough old men sometimes get, there was a gentleness in his eyes. Maybe even an intelligence. He had a

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