Rigged Read Online Free Page B

stare, and chose his comments well.
    Nikki bounced onto the stool next to Perez. “Hi, Boss. What’s the scuttlebutt?”
    Perez looked into the kitchen and wondered what could possibly be taking so long for them to grill his burger. He rubbed his hand against his jaw and felt a stray hair he’d missed shaving, it would irritate him all day thinking about it. “You’re an Army brat, aren‘t ya?”
    “Yeah. So?” she said, setting her sunglasses on the counter, her grey eyes always scanning what was around her.
    “Isn’t ‘scuttlebutt’ a Navy term?”
    Nikki drummed her fingers on the counter and asked for a coffee from the waitress. “Mom was Army, Dad was Air Force.”
    This was information Perez already knew, but he still liked to prod her whenever he got the chance. She was a good partner, and while he didn’t feel the particular need to inflate her ego, he was grateful for her father’s time served in the Air Force; had it not been for that, she wouldn’t have been relocated to the Midwest while he was off guarding missile silos.
    “Besides,” Nikki said, “I just like the way it sounds.”
    Finally, a hamburger and fries were half-dropped, half-set in front of Perez by the waitress, who always gave off the air that she was far too busy, even when the diner wasn’t full.
    “Not a whole lot to say. I heard there was some kind of scuffle out at Shirley’s Bar last night, but nothing was reported. Probably the Wheelers getting their panties in a wad about something. You know how those boys are after a few rounds of liquor. They’re just about the only ones dumb enough to start anything around Betty anyway.” Perez tucked his tie into his shirt before pouring ketchup onto his plate in a heap. He took a bite of his hamburger and realized that not one cook in town was capable of understanding “medium”; the thing tasted like beef jerky on a bun, and he had to add more ketchup and some Tabasco just so he wouldn’t choke on the sawdust-like monstrosity. Somehow, it was horribly dry and greasy all at once.
    “Wanna go check it out?” Nikki asked as she added four packets of sugar to her coffee.
    Perez, with a mouthful of alleged hamburger, simply shook his head. It took him a few extra chomps and some water to get the bite down, and he finally answered, “Probably a waste of time. If there’d been an actual fight or anything Marty or Betty and the sight of her sawed-off couldn’t handle, they would’ve called us.”
    “A waste of time, huh? Why? You got some other big plans for the day, Boss?” Hamill asked. “The way I see it, we’ve got nothing better to do. Court docket is clear until we have that hit-and-run deposition. Larson and Williams took over the investigation of the assault on that dealer over on Elm. Tox and autopsy on that dead girl we found last week were supposed to come in this morning, we could always go check on that.”
    Perez took another bite of burger. The thing about living in North Dakota was that they seldom ever had too much—or enough—on their docket. Sure, on a day-to-day basis, there were a few rowdy oil workers getting a little out of control, and there was an occasional drug bust or warrant, but besides that, they had little to do. Everything else could be handled by the patrol officers who walked the beat, dealing with misdemeanors and status offenses. 
    The bell on the front door of the diner jingled, and Perez looked over his shoulder to see a woman walking in the door; from the looks of her, she had to be a stripper. She had full makeup on, and her hair looked as if she’d taken time to style it, at least to some degree. She wasn’t exactly wearing anything as ostentatious as six-inch stilettos, but in Bluff Falls, she fit the stripper profile. The guy who was with her held the door for her as she walked in, and she smiled at his chivalry. Perez had to admit that it wasn’t the most common thing for a man to hold a door open for a lady anymore,