Turkey Ranch Road Rage Read Online Free PDF

with three lenses, filters and flash, all the bells and whistles. Do my own digital work too.”
    What did he just say? Leroy Harper knew how to use a real camera? And he did say “digital work,” as in computer? Was that some kind of joke? “Really?”
    “Leroy may be a jackass, but he’s a fine photographer,” Lucille added, sounding like she really meant it—the fine photographer part, the jackass is a given. “You know, we could have him do one of his artsy portrait things, where the lighting and such gives the subject, that’d be me, a haunting quality.” She tipped her chin upward with a long nail and gazed at the ceiling, trying to look wistful, perhaps. “Why, if it was done right, it might not even need your story.”
    Oh, please. That tactic is lame and I quit falling for it when I was ten.
    “Miz Jackson, you’re gonna make me blush,” Leroy said before I could comment. He ducked his head and shuffled his feet. “I’m not all that good.”
    “Leroy’s got his faults, I’ll grant you,” she said, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. “But he takes awful good pictures.” She sucked in a dramatic breath. “Oh, I just know he could do wonderful things with this setting. And with me.” Unbridled glee bubbled up like a thirteen-year-old wannabe model. “You know he’s won all kinds of awards. Some of his pictures are even hanging in the Redwater Falls Art Gallery too. Now, wouldn’t that be something!”
    Leroy? An award-winning photographer? With his work in an art gallery? I waited for the punch line, but it never came, and they both just stared at me as if I should be ecstatic that Leroy was ready to save the day. I wasn’t, of course. Having the otherwise inept on-duty deputy sheriff take photographs of the supposedly incarcerated and imperiled grandmother, the prints of which might just be hanging in an art gallery someday, was about three miles past ridiculous. For this part of the country, however, it was darned near perfect.
    “Well, get moving, Leroy,” Lucille said, shooing her hands at him. “We have to strike while the iron’s hot.”
    Before I could throw out a more helpful cliché, like “stop or I’ll shoot,” Leroy’s beige-uniformed bulk was thundering for the door, his buggy eyes blinking with excitement. “Won’t take me over fifteen minutes. If the phone rings, just answer ‘Bowman County Sheriff’s Department’ and take a message.”
    He was looking at me. “Oh, no, I’m not answering the phone, Leroy, and there’s really no point to—“
    “Dispatch is down the hall and Larry’s on duty up front. It should be pretty quiet back here.” He paused and jammed his meaty fingers into his shirt pocket.” Just in case, here’s my card.” He jogged back and tossed it on the desk. “Call me on my mobile if it’s an emergency or something.”
    “Wait!”
    The door slammed and within seconds a siren howled to life. I just shook my head and sighed. Lucille, however, took the blaring squeal as a call to arms and began digging in her handbag. “I suppose I should try to make myself look a little bedraggled for the shoot, get the sympathy vote. Or maybe neat but forlorn would be better. Hmmm. Well-heeled but put upon? It’s very important we get the right tone. What do you think?”
    What did I think? My opinion was about as important to my mother as it was to Leroy’s vacated chair, and we both knew it. The chair, however, wasn’t going to force me to carry on a conversation with it. So, I got up and walked around behind the desk and settled myself into the spongy brown vinyl. Oh, sure, I could fight it. I could stomp and scream and rant and physically drag her from the jail. Maybe. Or, I could just take a little nap and let nature run its course. There were no good options, trust me. “You just do whatever makes you happy, Mother. That is indeed why we are all here.”
    Lucille ignored my sarcasm and set her mini-tackle box of make-up on the desk and