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subdued. “Darla honey, just get whatever cut looks good. You get the coals going, and I’ll take care of the cooking in an hour or so. I gotta go. I gotta some thing , er, I mean, someone in the office.”
    The sheriff pushed the end button on the phone and put the unit back into the receiver. Then his steel gray eyes, which exactly matched his hair, observed Brownie. Brownie was well used to that sort of look. His father, mother, principal, Boy Scout troop leader, pastor, and teacher all practiced that precise look upon Brownie on a daily basis. Depending on the individual, it might be an hourly basis. Some of them were even good at it. Brownie supposed the sheriff was up there, but he got to frequently practice the look on common, and some uncommon, criminals.
    “Brownie Snoddy,” Sheriff John said, “what brings you into my lair?”
    “On approximately— ” Brownie checked his notebook and abruptly remembered that he hadn’t asked Miz Adelia when the spatula was nicked from the Snoddy mansion, “— last week, a MWF Spatula from Williams-Sonoma was stolen from Miz Adelia Cedarbloom. It was a special spatula, see, sweetheart.”
    Sheriff John’s eyebrows arched at the word “sweetheart.”
    “It was also stainless steel, slotted, and dishwasher safe,” Brownie went on.
    “Why didn’t Miz Adelia file a report?” Sheriff John enquired.
    “She hired me to find the item in question.” Brownie arched his eyebrows, but he didn’t think he could get them as high as Sheriff John’s. There was also the niggling question of whether Miz Adelia had actually agreed for Brownie to do the investigation, because he couldn’t quite recall if she had. “And she don’t trust no flatfoots.”
    “Flatfoots,” Sheriff John repeated. He swallowed, then waved at Brownie, “Oh, go on.”
    “Of course, John C. Law knows all about the local thugs and such, so I came to make a deal with you,” Brownie said. “Ifin you tell me what you know, then when I collar the palooka, I’ll drop a dime on him, I’ll hand him over to you buttons. I’ll make sure the coppers get the byline on the press.”
    “By some horrid twist of fate, you don’t— ,” Sheriff John paused to look at the ceiling, “— have your stun gun, do you, Brownie?”
    “No,” Brownie mumbled. “Auntie D. took that away about a minute after I stepped in the door.”
    “I see,” Sheriff John said. “And ifin I tell you what I know, you’ll catch the perpetrator.”
    “The bindle stiffs,” Brownie elaborated, “punks, Johnson brothers, hoods. They’ll be crying for their mamas to call them a lip.”
    “A lip,” Sheriff John said.
    “A lawyer,” Brownie said.
    “And you’ll credit the police for the collar?”
    “That’s the deal, shmoe, take it or leave it,” Brownie said as he squared his shoulders.
    Sheriff John’s lips began to tremble. Brownie thought it looked very bizarre, as if the much older man was about to cry.
    “There have been some funny things going on about the town,” Sheriff John admitted slowly.
    “I knew it,” Brownie said. “Ain’t no one steal a spatula just for the fun of it. Something perplexing going on. It’s a Chinese angle, that’s what it is. Something really strange.”

 
    Chapter 4
    Brownie and the Shady Suspect
     
    Tuesday, April 3 rd
    Before Sheriff John could drop the low-down, put Brownie wise, or spill, Tee Gearheart came rumbling through and reacquired his wayward charge. Tee didn’t actually lock Brownie or Janie in the cells, but he kept a vigilant eye on them so that Brownie had no further opportunities for mayhem. Later that day, Miz Demetrice came back to collect Brownie and Janie and took them back to the Snoddy Mansion where they ate dinner. (Fried chicken and it wasn’t the kind from the Colonel’s and Brownie didn’t mean Colonel Nathanial Snoddy who had perpetrated the whole Civil War gold incident in spades. No, it was Miz Adelia’s grandmother’s secret fried chicken