Die Like an Eagle by Donna Andrews Page A

parked there, and four of them were police cruisers.
    â€œMy car, your dad’s car, Vern’s truck, and Biff’s truck,” he said, pointing to the four civilian vehicles as he named them.
    â€œBiff’s still here?” I said.
    â€œApparently.” He didn’t look thrilled at the notion. He strode off. I was about to follow, when I was distracted by a shout from somewhere near the first-base dugout.
    â€œWhat the hell are those doing here?”

 
    Chapter 7
    I turned to see who was bellowing. Biff, of course—and he was pointing at something behind me. I turned to look.
    â€œPorta-potties!” I exclaimed. “Sweet!”
    A truck had arrived bearing not one but three porta-potties. And they were the extra-large-sized ones, which meant not only were they handicapped-accessible, they were also a lot less unpleasant to use for women, who more than men tended to be weighed down with purses, totes, diaper bags, and other baggage that made negotiating a coffin-sized standard porta-potty challenging. Best of all, instead of muddy brown they were painted bright blue with a Shiffley Construction Company logo on them. In a decade of attending outdoor events in Caerphilly, I’d come to appreciate the superior maintenance that Randall’s company gave to their porta-potties. Biff’s porta-potties started out nastier than Randall’s porta-potties ever got.
    â€œI thought you’d be pleased,” Randall said, jumping down from the cab of the truck. “Now let’s find the chief and ask him—”
    â€œI’ve got the contract to supply porta-potties to the ball field,” Biff said. “What kind of a scam is this, Shiffley?”
    â€œScam!” Randall exclaimed. Normally he was pretty easy-going, but apparently Biff knew how to push his buttons. “Scam! If you think you—”
    â€œOf course we know that you have the contract,” I said to Biff in my most soothing tones, before Randall could say something that would be satisfyingly insulting but probably unproductive. “But Randall didn’t think it was right to bother you in your time of sorrow just to take care of a problem with porta-potties.”
    â€œThat’s right.” Randall appeared to have recovered his temper thanks to my interruption. “You need to be spending this time with your family. And let us take care of this. After all, it’s not your fault the police have to rope off your porta-potty as a crime scene, and you shouldn’t have to suffer for it. So I arranged temporary replacements at the town’s expense.”
    Not so temporary if I had anything to do with it.
    â€œWe only need one,” Biff said. “League can’t afford to pay for three. Especially not three of those luxury numbers. This is a ball field, not the Taj Mahal.”
    I was opening my mouth to give Biff a piece of my mind on the subject of porta-potties but this time Randall saved me from being undiplomatic.
    â€œI know you only had the one,” Randall said. “But as long as my truck was making the trip, I thought I’d try a little experiment. We get a lot of complaints about the ball field porta-potties down at the Town Hall.”
    â€œSome people—” Biff began.
    â€œAre just not satisfied unless you give them a marble bathroom with rose-scented toilet paper,” Randall said. “We both know that. Some of the citizens are always going to complain as long as there’s porta-potties. But I bet if we give them the fancy kind, and more than one of them so there won’t ever be much of a line, we can keep the complaining down to a minimum. And when you consider the amount of time my staff spends listening to people complain, it might be a savings in the long run. So let’s keep the three porta-potties for now, at no cost to the league, and see how it goes. If it works out, when we renegotiate the contract between the town