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Brownie admitted readily. “Otherwise you have to do everything adults say. Don’t you do that, too?”
    “Well, I wouldn’t admit it in a court of law,” Janie said. “Especially if a judge was around.”
    “The doors are stainless steel, and the entire frame is made of the same,” Tee was saying. “That’s in case someone gets the mind to go through the walls and disregards the door altogether, like that fella did back in 2001. He found the sheetrock and just crawled right through and then punched out the brick façade. But we caught him at the Red Door Inn the same day.”
    Brownie saluted Janie, and she rolled her eyes. Then he snuck away while Tee was saying, “I don’t think that fella was staying at the B&B, doncha know? But that’s neither here nor there, and well, I don’t think Miz Demetrice would care ifin I talked about it to you children.”
    Brownie was out the door before Tee finished rattling keys. He slipped into the sheriff’s department door and cast Mary Lou Treadwell a measured look. “The bathroom is broken over there, and Mr. Gearheart don’t want us using the cells,” he said.
    Mary Lou blinked and pointed to the door. Like most adults she wouldn’t dream about arguing with a child on the matter of using the bathroom. She pushed a button that opened the door. “First left, then two doors down,” she instructed.
    Brownie did not go to the bathroom. Instead he wandered around the building until he found Sheriff John Headrick’s office. It was listed boldly on the door. In fact, the letters on his door were larger than anyone else’s. Furthermore, the door was open, and the sheriff was in residence. He had his back to the door while he talked on the phone to someone. His booted feet were propped on a filing cabinet.
    Brownie knew that Sheriff John was the tallest man around if one disregarded the infamous Daniel Gollihugh, who was allegedly seven feet tall and who had once torn the Piggly Wiggly sign down right off of the store and stomped on it and who was presently incarcerated in the state prison. Sheriff John was taller than Bubba and his daddy.
    “Uh-huh?” Sheriff John said. “Really? Red? Dark red or orangey red, because I reckon I like the dark red one better. Well, shore, I hate to pick, but a man is right particular about these sorts of things.” He paused to listen and then he did something that Brownie never thought he’d ever hear. The sheriff giggled, and it didn’t sound proper coming from that particular man.
    Sidling forward, Brownie sat in the high-backed chair to one side of the sheriff’s desk. He looked around as the sheriff continued to speak. There were framed news clippings on the walls. One about the woman who’d tried to frame Bubba. There were some about the Christmas Killer. Brownie perked up. Then he leaned forward to see if his name was in those articles.
    “Tee-hee-hee,” Sheriff John said, “you know all about that don’t you, honey-sweetie-pie?”
    Brownie brought his notepad out. He dug in a pocket for his pencil and finally located it next to a half-eaten package of Smarties and a green button he’d found somewhere. He perched himself on the edge of the seat and waited. He wasn’t exactly impatient, but he had a mental vision of Tee Gearheart trolling through the sheriff’s department on the lookout for a missing ten-year-old would-be gumshoe. But hey, Janie probably told him some story. Dames are good for stories. She could con a copper in the caboose.
    “Really?” Sheriff John’s gravelly voice sounded amused. “No, you first. You know what I like? I like it really rare, with the liquid just drippin’ down the sides.”
    Staring at Sheriff John’s steel gray hair, Brownie wondered just what the heck the law enforcement official was discussing and with whom.
    “And maybe that porterhouse cut…” he turned the chair around just as he was finishing and jumped as he saw Brownie. “CRAP!” he said. “I mean carp,” he added