“You’re right,” Chet told him. This idea was sounding better by the minute. “And we could use my show as real time tip line. See something, say something. Anyone in town spots something not right, they can call in, and you guys would be out there ready to respond.”

“First responders!” Shaved Head pumped his fist in the air. “Hell yeah!”

Chet was thinking out loud. “We get the rest of my army in on it, too. Let them know how things are evolving. Maybe I don’t spell everything out on the show, where the sheriff and everyone can hear. But we set up a meeting, set some ground rules, make some plans.”

Duck Dynasty’s smile could be seen in the center of his beard. “Now you’re talkin’.”

“Maybe I will take that BJ,” Chet said. He was already half hard, and even though the old lady was gross and disgusting, he could close his eyes and pretend she was a babe. She’d have to do it in his Jeep, though. He wasn’t whipping it out in front of these guys.

He looked around for the woman, but she seemed to have disappeared.

“Hey, where’d that broad go?” one of the twins asked, swiveling around.

“Guess she left,” the other twin said.

“Shit.”

“Where did you guys find her?” Chet wondered.

The four men looked from one to the other. “I don’t know,” Shaved Head admitted.

“We were in the Wal-Mart parking lot, drinkin’ and listenin’ to your show, and she just kinda showed up,” Duck Dynasty recalled.

Both twins were grinning. “And said she’d blow us,” the one on the right said.

The bearded man was frowning. “In fact, I think she was the one who suggested we come and see you. Said your show was ending, and if we went to the station we could meet you.”

Chet nodded, not surprised. He remembered her now. She had been at the bank. She was the teller who’d made him a copy of the loan forms once they’d been signed.

Maybe the bank had sent her out.

It didn’t matter. A good idea was a good idea no matter where it came from.

“So,” he said. “What kind of firepower do you men have?”

Fourteen

FOURTEEN

1

Brad was in his office, eating a late lunch of Fritos and canned Coke, when Jasper Brooks walked up to the front desk and confessed to the murder of Jimmy Collins.