Charlie Wexler was pretty sure he had a case against LeDroit, Coopshaw, and Effingham even before he got to the Jahnke residence, but he was darn sure of it when he left.

One of the major problems in these kinds of cases was intimidation of the victims and witnesses, and it looked to him like LeDroit had reduced that intimidation to a science. If LeDroit could be made to pay for even a small percentage of the stories that he’d heard in the last hour, he could be facing a long and most likely unhappy career as a guest of the state Department of Corrections.

But it hadn’t happened, and Charlie knew why. He seen intimidation before, but when he had been in school he had been guilty of it himself. He knew that young punk bullies got away with a lot because they could intimidate their victims into making them believe that worse things would happen to them if they went to the authorities, whether they be school officials, parents, or police. And the hell of it was that they were all too often right.

It was likely that among the stories that Alan had told about LeDroit from school and whatnot, that there were more offenses that could be charged against him, but the witnesses and victims had been intimidated into not coming forward. In fact, the only reason Alan had come forward is that his parents had done it against his will, although he’d been cooperative after he’d started talking. It would be handy if a few of those offenses could be laid against LeDroit, but Charlie wasn’t hopeful. Still, having at least some knowledge of them might be useful if and when time came for sentencing.

It was still going to be a problem to make these charges stick against LeDroit. It wasn’t as if there were no witnesses to the Friday night incident, because there were – but they consisted of LeDroit’s buddies. He most likely would be able to get a statement out of them, but having them stick to it in court with LeDroit watching might not be as easy. The best possible outcome was to have LeDroit go to his arraignment with the belief that the deck was so stacked against him that he’d be willing to cop a plea. If Charlie could manage that, then it would be a real coup, but to do it he would need some cooperation, especially from the prosecutor, and maybe from Judge Dieball.

Charlie checked his watch. He’d made an appointment with the judge to hear a request for a personal protection order for the Jahnkes. They were going to meet him there, and he didn’t want to be late. If LeDroit was bold enough or dumb enough to defy a PPO – and that seemed likely – then Charlie would be a long way toward his goal.

It took a few minutes for Jack and Vixen to get all the lawn-mowing stuff put away. Jack checked the gas tanks on the tractor and the trimmer, and sure enough, they were close to empty. From the weight in the can there was a gallon or so of gas left, so he dumped it into the tank of the Jeep. Let Howie buy his own gas for once, he thought.

That looked like about it, so he and Vixen headed toward the house. “Wow, that lake is going to feel good,” he muttered to her.

“No shit, Sherlock,” she replied, in a tired sort of way as she carried her little backpack from the Jeep. “I want something to drink.”

“Yeah, me too,” he agreed. “Can you believe that it’s not going to be long before we’re bitching about how cold it is?”

“Unfortunately, I can,” she sighed. “There’s too much of it here.”

They walked into the house, and immediately heard the beep-beep-beep-CRASH of the Nintendo. Jack didn’t mind a little of it, and sometimes it was even fun, but it seemed to him that Howie just about lived on the thing. He didn’t think about it much until he heard a girlish giggle from the living room and then Misty’s voice: “Wow, that was a good one.”

First things first. Jack grabbed some Diet Cokes from the refrigerator, handed one to Vixen, popped the top of his and took a deeper slug of it than he really should have, to be rewarded with a refreshing coolness and an eye-popping belch. With the can in hand, he headed to the living room, where he discovered Howie and Misty side by side on the couch, each with a controller in their hands. Misty was wearing a pair of denim shorts and a loose white spaghetti-strap camisole, each short enough that she barely was more covered than she’d been in her bikini yesterday. “Jeez, are you two at it again?” he said loudly enough to be heard over the game.

Howie paused the game and looked up at his brother. “We’re just hanging out,” he said apologetically. “Misty said she didn’t think it was a real good idea to go out and around today, since your Frenchy buddy still apparently has a hair up his butt.”

“Frenchy always has a hair up his butt,” Jack smiled. “I think he was born with it. I take it the two of you heard about this morning.”

“Yeah, I did,” Misty said. “Laurel said that it looked like him and Larry were all set to jump you, but Cody broke it up.”

“That’s pretty much what happened,” Jack admitted. “Vixen and I are going to go jump in the lake for a few minutes, come back and have lunch, and then spend the afternoon out of town. If we can avoid him for the next half hour we might be all right for the rest of the day, and he’ll probably have someone else in his sights tomorrow.”

“You hope,” Howie snorted. “I hate running around scared of that bastard all the time. I wish there was something someone could do about him.”

“No shit,” Jack replied. “So how are you and Misty getting along today?”

“She’s kicking my butt,” he snorted. “Her game, it’s not surprising.”

“Jeez, Misty, you’re Nintendo freak too?” Vixen asked.

“Yeah,” she giggled. “It was good to find out that Howie likes it. I haven’t had good competition all summer.”

“Well, don’t break your thumbs, you two. Take care of yourselves, unless you want to come down to the beach with us.”

Howie glanced at Misty, who shrugged, as if to signify that whatever he decided was all right with her. “I think we’ll take a pass on it this time,” Howie said after a moment. “I probably shouldn’t get this dressing wet, and I’m not all that anxious to run into Frenchy again, at least not today. Maybe another time.”

“Suit yourself,” Jack replied. “Maybe next time.” In truth, he was just as happy Howie had opted out. While he’d seen a lot of Vixen, including that brief nipple flash in the morning the day before, he hadn’t yet seen her in a bikini and was looking forward to enjoying it all by himself.

“Yeah,” Vixen added as she turned to follow Jack up the stairs. “You two have fun. Not too much fun, if you know what I mean, but fun.”

At the top of the stairs, Jack suggested, “You can use the bathroom, and I’ll use my room.”

“Well, if you really want to do it that way,” she giggled.

“Who said I wanted to do it that way?” he laughed back. “After all, we have some impressionable kids in the house and I wouldn’t want them to get the wrong idea. I mean, not that I mind, but I’d prefer that my parents didn’t find out just yet. And with Misty here, the rest of the town could know too. Apparently she uses her phone quite a bit.”

“Good point,” Vixen nodded soberly. “I should have thought of that.”

“Speaking of thoughts,” Jack said, “maybe before we leave you ought to call your mother and see if she was able to get that appointment set up.”

Vixen shook her head. “You know, I hadn’t even thought about that. You’re kind of anxious, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think any more anxious than you are,” he grinned. “But yeah, I don’t want to stretch it out any longer than we have to.”

Since it was getting along toward noon, Ashley Keilhorn had decided to get dressed. Of course, with her parents not home, “dressed” was a relative term. Her daytime attire today consisted of a brief tube top that did little to restrain her large breasts, and a thin miniskirt that pushed the limits of the term. It came about an inch from falling off her hips entirely; when she stood up it barely covered her crotch, which didn’t have the benefit of panties. Since she didn’t plan on sitting up any more than she had to, large areas were open to what little breeze could be found on the back porch.

The Spearfish Lake gossip circuits had been busy this morning, with a number of items from over the weekend to be talked about. Lots tended to happen over the weekend, and, with people out of town or doing their things, there was catching up to do. About the only real new item this morning was the confrontation between Jack Erikson and Frenchy down at the Fiesta, but since it hadn’t come to much it hadn’t been discussed a lot.

One thing that did get discussed, though, was the story Laurel Haeussler had told about seeing Jack and Vixen making out real heavy on Alan Jahnke’s living room couch, and she’d added that Summer and Alan had seemed to have been getting it on pretty well, too. While the news of Jack and Vixen getting together had made the rounds already, Summer and Alan getting together really was news. Alan was seen by many as something of a wuss, and maybe gay; no girl, including Ashley, had ever really considered him as date material. Summer was not a social butterfly type and had stayed away from dating, at least until Saturday night and her date with Rusty Frankovich, but to have Alan and her together and apparently liking it seemed slightly incredible. Apparently it had happened, though, unless they’d been putting Laurel on. That was not impossible; they might have seen it as something of a joke on one of Spearfish Lake’s better-known gossips.

That really wasn’t the big news of the day, though, at least among the high school gossips. That place was reserved for the news that Shelly Battle had broken up with Eddie Awkerman after catching him in bed with Vanessa Robideaux at a bootleg party at Alison DuQuion’s house Saturday evening. Everyone involved had been pretty drunk, or so the story went, and Shelly hadn’t been exactly being as pure as the driven snow that evening herself, since rumor also said Scotty Parsons had his hand up her skirt much of the evening. She didn’t seem to mind, and supposedly seemed to like it there. There were at least a few stories that Eddie and Vanessa had gotten it on after he’d seen how much Shelly had been making out with Scotty. There was no telling where that could come out but it looked to Ashley that Shelly and Eddie were history.

It would have been nice to have been at a party like that, Ashley thought, but she didn’t get invited to such parties. It didn’t take much imagination to dream about what it would have been like to have Scotty’s hand up her skirt – which wouldn’t have been as short as she was wearing at the moment, but probably not a whole lot longer either. God, that had to have been exciting! Scotty could do that for her anytime he wanted, she thought, except that she doubted that he’d ever want to. He wasn’t the type to hang out with fat losers like her, no matter how horny she was. It seemed likely to Ashley that Scotty must have been the one to get things going with Shelly. Whatever had really happened, it seemed like it was going to be a main topic for the next several days.

However nice it was to dream about Scotty getting his hand up under her skirt, Ashley knew it wasn’t likely to happen. If it ever did, it was more likely to be with someone like Lyle Angarrack. Lyle was sort of like her, big, heavy, and not popular. He was a nice enough guy, not a bad student, but tended to get pushed around by the football player types like Frenchy, the same way that people like Mary Lou pushed her around. More than once she’d given some thought to calling Lyle up and shooting the breeze with him, hinting that a date would be possible; it would have been a first for him, she was pretty sure, and close to a first for her. But doing that would be the same as admitting that she was never going to be as popular as some of the cheerleader types, no matter how horny she was. Still, it was worth thinking about sometime.

As it happened, she was lying on the familiar lawn chair on the back porch, thinking about how much less thrilling it would be to have Lyle’s hand up her skirt than Scotty’s, with the phone uncharacteristically laying in her lap when it rang. Probably more details about how much Shelly was enjoying herself, she thought grumpily as she picked it up. “Hi, it’s Ashley,” she said cheerfully, belying her actual mood.

“Ashley,” an adult voice said, “it’s Chief Wexler. How are you doing today?”

“Oh, about the same,” she responded neutrally, wondering what the chief might be calling her about. It wasn’t the first time he’d called her on something, for he knew that she kept her ear pretty close to the ground about what happened among the high school students. Usually she didn’t mind passing along what she’d heard, since his questions usually seemed to involve kids she wasn’t all that thrilled with anyway. Besides, he often left her with some little piece of news to pass along. “What can I do for you today?”

“Have you been hearing much about Frenchy LeDroit recently?” he asked.

“Quite a bit,” she replied. “He’s been busy this weekend. Anything you’re particularly interested in?”

“Friday night, for starters,” Chief Wexler said.

“Oh yeah,” she smiled. “Well, let’s see. He was involved in a squabble down at the Frostee Freeze right after dark. It seems that Mary Lou Kempa attacked Vixen Hvalchek, and Vixen decked her and broke her up a little. Frenchy kind of has the hots for Mary Lou, so he went to attack Vixen, but Jack Erikson, his dog, and Mr. Clark, you know, the one out at Clark Construction, got in his way.”

“Yeah, I know who you’re talking about,” Chief Wexler said with a grin that she could hear over the phone. “I’ll bet that Frenchy wasn’t too pleased about that.”

“No he wasn’t,” Ashley said. “I was working the window and saw the whole thing. Jack, Vixen, and his dog got out of there quick, and after Mr. Clark left Frenchy was looking for someone to hit. The story I heard is that they were driving around and found Alan Jahnke walking home. Since Alan had apparently laughed at Frenchy getting knocked on his ass, the story is that Larry Coopshaw and Matt Effingham held on to Alan while Frenchy taught him a little respect. Then they took him out and dumped him on the railroad grade out south of the lake.”

“Who did you hear that from?” he asked.

“Oh, half a dozen people,” she replied. “But it’s not rumor, exactly. Brianna Melbourne told Heather Callihan that she’d been there, and Vanessa Robideaux told Laurel Haeussler that she’d been there with Brianna, Frenchy, and the other two. They were like all kinds of giggles about how Frenchy beat up Alan, so I guess they spread it all over town. Vanessa was still all giggles about it at a party the next night.”

“Interesting,” he replied. “That fits. What else have you heard about Frenchy this weekend?”

“Not much from Saturday, except that he and Larry Coopshaw and Matt Effingham were riding around, knocking the beer back pretty good. I guess they didn’t get invited to the party at Alison DuQuoin’s Saturday night, or at least they didn’t hear about it or they would have crashed it. But then Sunday morning, Frenchy got up and found out his tires got slashed, and he went into a rage. He and Matt were down at the Fiesta trying to put air in his tire or something, and he was all f-word, f-word, f-word, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ve heard it,” he said, “but I have to admit that him getting his tires slashed is news to me.”

“You must not have heard very much,” Ashley smiled. “That was all over town.”

“I was out of town all weekend, so my wife could help get her sister ready for her wedding. I guess I missed that one. So what happened?”

Ashley went on to tell the chief about the confrontation between Frenchy and Howie Erikson at the beach yesterday afternoon, and then the confrontation with Howie’s older brother that morning. “If you want my opinion,” she added, “he’s looking to hurt someone on general principles, just because he can. It doesn’t matter who, or why. Like, I haven’t heard why he’s pissed with Rusty Frankovich, but just the fact that Misty is his sister was enough to set off the thing at the beach yesterday. That’s a little strange. Rusty has been hanging around Frenchy a lot, but he’s not really inner circle like Larry and Matt, if you know what I mean.”

“I get the picture,” the chief replied. “I hear that Frenchy gets away with a lot over at the school.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she snorted. “Hell, football players get away with everything. Of course, when he does get into something, it’s never his fault, it’s always some little kid attacked him and his friends, and they only defended themselves, at least that’s how it comes out of the principal’s office. Hell, I could give you a dozen names.”

“What are some of those names, Ashley?”

“Chief,” she smiled. “If you’ve got all morning, I’ll be glad to give them to you.”

“There’s not a lot of morning left,” Chief Wexler told her, “but I’ve got as much time as I need.”

“Well, I guess those are the tires he was talking about,” Larry said to Frenchy down in the junkyard near Moffat. “Now all we’ve got to do is to get them off the car.”

“Yeah,” Frenchy said. “Shit, they’ve still got air in them, they must be at least a little good. How about if you hike back up to the truck and get your jack and tire iron? I don’t want to have to walk up there and back out here again, the way my fucking knee’s hurting. Fuck that goddamn Erickson kid, anyway. I can’t wait till he gets his.”

“I could, I suppose,” Larry said, ignoring the rant about the Erikson kid. It was just background noise; he’d been hearing it all morning. “But you know how jacks are these days, it might not work on this car.”

“Then what do you suggest we do, smart ass?”

“I suppose we could see if we could get the guy out here with his fork lift or something, but he’d probably charge us extra for that,” Larry observed. “What do you say if we see if the jack for this thing is still in the trunk.”

“Shit, that means we’d fucking have to break into the trunk,” Frenchy snorted. “I ain’t got anything against that, but we’d need to find something to do it with.”

“Well, there are a lot of trunks sitting open here and there,” Larry observed. “We ought to be able to find a tire iron in one or another of them. Some of these things store their jacks and tire irons under the hood, so we ought to look there when we find a hood that’s off.”

“That sounds way the hell better than walking all the fucking way up to the truck and back,” Frenchy said with a hint of a smile on his face. “Let’s get looking.”

They didn’t have to look very far; two vehicles up was an older minivan, with the jack cunningly mounted in the front tire well. It wasn’t a huge job to get the tire iron off. They took it to the back of the LeBaron, but quite a bit of prying and cussing wasn’t enough to pop the lock. The fact that the car had been hit in the rear quarter panel probably had a lot to do with the trunk being jammed.

“Well, fuck,” Frenchy said finally. “I don’t think that bright idea is going to work. How about if we try that jack off the minivan? They’re both MoPars, they might be close enough.”

“Worth a try,” Larry agreed, sweating a lot; he’d been doing most of the work. “After all, it’s not like we’re trying to keep the car from getting fucked up any more than it already is.”

It did work, after a fashion. The scissors jack wasn’t quite the right one, but it was close enough to work. The only problem was that it was even more rusted up, if that were possible, than the one in Frenchy’s car. Once they got it to working, they discovered that the ground was soft enough under the jack that it wouldn’t raise the car quite high enough to get the wheel off. There was more sweating and more cussing before Larry found a chunk of unidentifiable metal that they could set under the jack to keep it from sinking in quite as badly. After a few more minutes of cussing and sweating, they had the left front of the car off the ground enough to get the tire off.

“I don’t think we want to set the hub all the way on the ground,” Larry observed as he rolled the tire off to one side. “We might not be able to get the jack out if we did. Let’s find something to set under the hub.”

A few minutes looking brought them to a “roller skate” spare tire in one of the cars – a Chevy, so it probably wouldn’t fit the hub, but at least could help hold it up if laid on the ground. There was just enough room to get the jack out when Larry set the car back down. “Why don’t you go see if you can find another couple of those while I get started on the other side?” he suggested. “The goddamn useless things can’t be that hard to find.”

Since they had the benefit of experience, the right front went a lot easier; it only took minutes to have the tire and wheel off, and the hub sitting on another spare wheel. The left rear went fairly easy as well, but then they had to fight with the right rear, which had a lot of crushed metal around it. “If it weren’t for the fact that the tire is still holding air I’d be tempted to say fuck it,” Frenchy said. “But maybe if we get it up high enough we can sort of slide the tire out underneath.”

It turned out to be more trouble than the other three combined, partly because the car wasn’t very stable on the jack. In the end, Larry had to go hunting for a jack from another car to wedge into place and use to bend the crushed fender away so there would be room enough to get the tire out. “Fuck it,” Larry said after the tire was free. “We don’t have to set that one back down.”

“Shit yes,” Frenchy agreed. “Let’s just let the fucker sit on the jack.”

The four tires and wheels were big and heavy, and it was a real bitch to carry and roll them back up to the junkyard office where the truck waited. It was even harder for Frenchy, since his knee was making the trip even worse, and Larry noticed it. “I don’t know how the fuck you plan to play football on that,” he commented. “Maybe you ought to see someone when you get back.”

“Aw, fuck, I don’t need to see someone,” Frenchy snorted. “It’ll be all right in a few days. I shouldn’t have any problem once practice starts. I think when I get back, though, I’m gonna wrap the fucker in an Ace bandage, have some aspirin, and take it easy for a while.”

“Probably not a bad idea,” Larry said. “All this walking around on it ain’t gotta help it any.”

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