While I uncapped the water, Susan focused on Jack. "Should I be concerned that your friend has to be told not to steal, swindle, scheme, or—what was it?"
"Stab," I said, after I swallowed a mouthful of water.
"Great," she groaned.
Just then, Deputy Andy Kelly came bursting in through the front door of the station, dressed in an oldEvil DeadT-shirt and a pair of truly raggedy, paint-splattered cargo shorts. He was maybe five six and slender, with bright red hair and freckles, so he looked like a high school student. In a fight, though, he was a great man to have on your side. Jack sometimes called him the wolverine, because he was small but mighty.
"I just heard," Andy said, skidding to a stop in front of Susan. "I was painting my mom's porch, and she couldn't decide between Shamrock Green and Irish Heather Blue, and my phone started ringing off the hook, and—"
"Which was it?" Jack's lips twitched as he studied Andy's predominantly green-splotched clothes. "I'm guessing the Shamrock."
Andy blew out a sigh. "Yeah, and it's just as awful on the porch as it is on my favorite shirt. At least it's on the back porch, so nobody has to call and report a public eyesore. Hi, Tess, Jack. Susan, is it true? The statue was back and then disappeared again?"
"Not exactly," came a voice from behind Andy, and the statue—Grandpa Jedediah—walked into the room.
"Whoa," Andy said.
"You're looking pretty good for a man who's been dead for almost three hundred years," Susan said dryly.
If nerves of steel plus calm in the face of chaos were the top requirements for police work, Susan was the best of the best. I couldn't decide whether to jump up and down with excitement or ask the man some of the five hundred questions on my mind.
This is why I own a pawnshop instead of working in law enforcement.
Still …
"Are you really Jedediah Shepherd?TheJedediah Shepherd who founded the town?"
"Call me Jed. And yes, that's me. Or what's left of me after being trapped in that statue for three centuries." He flashed a mischievous smile that was pure Jack, and I blinked.
"Wow. He reallyisyour relative," Andy said, looking between the two.
It was hard to miss. Jed was a strikingly handsome man. He looked to be in his sixties, notwithstanding the extra three hundred years, and he had a full head of thick bronze-mixed-with-white hair. His green eyes and that brilliant smile dominated a strong-boned face, and he was only a few inches shorter than Jack. Maybe six feet tall. His clothes were completely of his era—the ones that statue-him had been wearing—and they were amazing.
His navy blue coat flared out from the waist and stopped at his knees. It had deep cuffs and bronze buttons, and he wore it over a white shirt and fawn-colored vest. His breeches were black and cuffed just below the knee, where a pair of what looked like silk stockings, also fawn, met them. Black shoes with pewter buckles and the elegant tricornered hat he held in one hand completed the look.
"You look wonderful," I blurted out and then felt my cheeks get hot when everybody looked at me. "Your clothes, I mean. They're so authentic and gorgeous. Well, you're handsome too, but I was talking about the clothes, and oh, boy, I'm babbling. I blame the headache."
Jed grinned and, again, that grin was so much like Jack's that I felt off balance. It was like looking at future Jack.
"Thank you, lovely lady. And you are my grandson's wife?"
"No! I'm his friend. Tess. Tess Callahan," I said, blushing again.
Jed bowed instead of holding a hand out to shake, which was great since it saved me the onerous explanation of, "I don't shake hands because I will probably see how you're going to die if I touch you."
"If your head is paining you, we should go down to the creek and find some leeches," he said.
I suddenly felt both faint and nauseated.
"My mother and the village healer swore by them. Get the poisoned blood out of your head, and you'll be right as rain."
My stomach still twisted at the thought of leeches—on my head—but curiosity won out over nausea. "Right as rain? Was that expression around in your time?"
"Oh, and before, Lady Tess. But my speech has been vastly influenced by your talking air waves, as well."
"Just Tess, please. And talking air waves?" I felt like an echo, but everybody else was just standing around staring at him.
"I've been hearing them since the 1920s."
