After they left, I took Tess's hand and pulled her a few paces away. "You should go home, too. I think I need to help Susan and Andy."
"I'm not going anywhere without you."
I sighed. Then I hugged her.
Then I sighed again and gestured to Susan to join us.
The sheriff was busy with a phone call, but then she walked over. "What's up?"
"I can't believe I'm asking this, but do you need any help?"
"Now that you mention it, I could use a hand," Susan told us. "I have to stay here and wait for the coroner to get the body and the crime scene unit to process the scene. While I'm waiting, I'll interview the witnesses who stuck around."
"Lizzie and Andy?" Tess asked.
"They need to go round up Bubba, Lola, and all the rest of the McKees, or at least the ones who were in that fight in your shop."
"So, that leaves me to track down Skeeter Hatfield," I said.
"Us. That leavesusto track down Skeeter Hatfield," Tess said. "And I have an idea about where he might be."
"The Swamp Rat?" Susan asked.
"The Swamp Rat."
It was a bar outside of Dead End that lurked at the edge of the swamp, on the other side of the water from the Airboat Commandos. It sometimes featured live music and often featured bar fights between the truly drunk or truly desperate.
Not Tess's favorite place, but before Molly got famous, her band played there sometimes, so I knew she was familiar with it.
"Skeeter?"
"He likes to hang out there and play pool and complain about his life," Tess said glumly. "Great. A dead body and a trip to the Rat. What could be better?"
Turned out, almost anything could be better.
Skeeter saw us coming and started swinging. He wasn't that big, but he was a fighter. And when the drunk buffoons at the Rat saw that, some genius yelled, "Bar fight!"
In seconds, furniture and fists started flying, and band members crouched in front of their equipment to protect it.
"They should get chicken wire like inRoadhouse," Tess said, ducking behind me when a bottle flew toward us.
"You should go back to the truck. Please."
"But—"
"This is crowded and rowdy. Do you really want to see a bunch of people's deaths just because they drunkenly crash into you?"
"Good point. I'll be in the truck."
I shielded her until we got back outside, and then I walked her across the empty parking lot to the truck.
"You didn't have to do that. Go get Skeeter."
I raised her hand and rubbed her wedding ring with my thumb. "This says I did have to do it. I'll be back in a minute or two."
"In one piece, please," she called after me before closing the truck door and hitting the door locks.
After Tess was safe, it was a piece of cake to wade into the fray, grab Skeeter by the back of his shirt, and carry him, still kicking and punching, out the door. Surprisingly, none of the other patrons seemed to be the least bit concerned with who I was, what I was doing, or why I was taking Skeeter.
