Page 7 of Backtrack

Cutter gave her a polite nod, eyeing the door like he might need to escape. Even in the heat of the day, he preferred outside to being cooped up indoors. The refrigerated air reminded him too much of a morgue.

“Gonna be a hot one,” Karlene said, as if she were reading his mind while she filled his coffee cup. “You a new hire?”

“No, ma’am.”

She stood there holding the coffeepot like a pistol, waiting for more.

Cutter took a sip of coffee, black, but said nothing. He wasn’t naturally blabby to begin with, and even less so this early in the morning.

“I do believe we are ready to order,” Teague said.

Karlene set the pot on the table and then snatched a pencil from the same apron pocket that held her cigarettes. Pencil to notepad, she raised a brow. “Shoot.” She grinned at her own joke. “I mean, not really.”

“You’re a real hoot,” Teague said, deadpan. “Three eggs over medium, hash browns, and a couple of those fresh biscuits.”

Karlene turned toward the deputy, but Teague touched her elbow. “Better add a side of gravy.”

She smiled. “You bet.” Back to Cutter. “And you, darlin’?”

“Toast,” Cutter said.

“Just coffee and toast,” she said, scribbling on her pad. “And maybe a good woman to put a smile on that grumpy face of yours …”

Teague opened his mouth to speak, but Cutter shook his head. The bell at the front entry chimed. Cutter, in the seat facing the door, groaned within himself.

Teague craned his neck around to have a look. He chuckled. “The ego has landed …”

At twenty-one years old, Deputy Lafayette Johnson—LJ to those who knew him—was barely old enough to buy his own bullets. Tall and fit, he was fresh off half a year of a regional law enforcement academy, followed by five months with a field training officer. On his own now, he was eager as a new puppy. He was also the sheriff’s nephew.

“I heard y’all check out for breakfast.” He took off his hat to reveal a curl of jet-black hair in the center of his forehead like a comic book Superman. His light brown uniform shirt was new enough that it still had the original creases. “Mind if I join you?”

Deputy Cutter scooted out of the booth and stood, offering Johnson the inside seat.

Karlene took the kid’s order—chicken fried steak and a Dr Pepper—and then squeaked away on her white shoes.

Teague folded his hands on the table and leaned forward to finish his story about the fatality accident.

LJ started talking before the trooper could even open his mouth.

“Y’all hear about my foot pursuit this side of Poolville Friday evening? I stopped a guy who was 10-99 on an assault warrant outta Jack County. Almost got into a hellacious fight over—”

Teague snorted. “You either fight or you don’t. No almost about it.”

“I hear that,” the kid said, missing the point. “But this guy was something else. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was gonna run on me—”

“Hang on,” Teague said. “Fight or run? My experience, someone who runs isn’t fighting. They might hurt you, or even shoot you, but that’s just because you’re standing in their way. A fight … that’s a whole ’nother animal.”

Johnson sat back in his seat and chewed on that a second, then said, “Well, he hoofed it, so I guess that’s what he had planned. Ran right through old man Fulton’s barn. My backup was half an hour away, so I had to go in myself. I remembered something one of my instructors taught us in the academy: Be a weasel.”

Cutter raised a brow. That was a new one.

“A weasel?” Teague said.

“Yeah,” the kid said. “Don’t go barging through the door or window but poke your head in and get a lay of the land first.”

“Sounds like a good way to get your head blown off,” Teague said.

The kid gave a sheepish grin. “Not if you do it right. You gotta be a weasel.”