Patience County War (Madeleine Toche Series) Read Online Free Page B

office. Rommel would have approved, Sam thought as he got out of the vehicle. There were places where the walls were three feet thick and rebar reinforced.
    Lisa Coleman, the receptionist, greeted Sam as he walked in the door.
    “What are people doing to each other today?” It was the same thing Sam asked her every day, always hoping for the same answer.
    “Nothing new today, but your mother called to remind you about Sunday dinner.”
    “Thanks Lisa, she always does.”
    The informal, Patience County Traveling Pot Luck, had been a tradition dating back to the civil war. Many of the same families still attended. Sam’s father showed up after he started dating Sam’s mother. At their third pot luck together, Sam’s parents snuck off together down to a nearby swimming hole. Skinny dipping remained one of his parent’s favorite activities together. Sam’s uncles hadn’t liked that very much and Sam’s father hadn’t bothered to put his clothes back on when he took Sam’s three uncles on. The young men fought to a standstill and an understanding. After that, Sam’s uncles kept all other suitors away. That skinny paratrooper was tough as hell and he was their brother now. The fight was still laughed and joked about.
    There were always lots of people and a huge feed moving from house to house among their friends and family. By the end of the week at least adozen people had reminded him of where it was. They were there when he left Patience and there when he came back.
    Sam rambled back through the neatly organized sheriff’s station, with its offices in the front and few jail cells in the back. There was little need to hold people at the station, as the courthouse had a separate detention facility for those offenders serving county jail time or waiting to appear in court. That arrangement allowed Sam and his deputies to attend to their duties and not have to take care of prisoners. He didn’t think most people needed to be held anyway. If they were violent and had to be held, the courthouse was best. If not, Sam could always provide them with many good reasons to leave his county, very few of which were in any handbook anywhere. Sam checked his messages and the duty roster. Satisfied, he headed back out the door.
    “I hereby declare the world safe for democracy,” Sam announced.
    “It is until you get back in that squad, sheriff,” Lisa joked.
    Sam jumped back into his car and drove a few blocks over to TJ’s Auto to gas up. TJ was a close friend of Sam’s father John and had been with him in Vietnam in a unit that saw more than its share of combat. After the war, TJ kind of drifted around and got into stupid trouble, drinking and fighting. He was a tough kid from East L.A., and had been born into one of the tougher gangs. He often joked he’d been in combat all his life. He did some jail time, dried up for a while and then repeated the pattern. John had heard about TJ’s troubles and went to find him. John knew that TJ just lacked a sense of purpose, having come from less than nothing before the war, some inner city slum. When the war was over he had nowhere to go and nothing to do. That was a perfect recipe to get any man in trouble. TJ was a natural mechanic and had learned about engines as a child in the shop of a decent man in his neighborhood who he still called his uncle. The man was long dead, but when TJ was temporarily stumped or couldn’t figure something out, he’d say “I bet ol’ Uncle Gary would have figured it out already.” Sam had driven all manner of vehicles in the military and in police life, from the most rugged military Humvees to luxury cars that cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but he liked his squad the best. It was a 1990 Ford Crown Victoria, one of the old interceptors. TJ had taken one purchased at an auction in another county and altered it some. It was capable of producing over 800 horsepower on a modified frame and could go at least 160 mph as long as you