Jim's cell phone rang and he pulled it out. He stopped walking just outside the diner on the way to Tom's car. They were going to head back to the police department before going down to the mall to talk to Glade.

"What's that?" Preston asked.

"My cell phone." Jim flipped it open.

"Wow… that's really small." He moved closer to get a better look while Jim answered.

"Dunbar."

"Jim," Karen said. "Where are you? The convention started hours ago."

"Tom and I are in Bakersfield. He was the only one I could get a hold of," Jim said.

"Why, what happened?" Karen asked, sounding concerned.

"Christie witnessed a murder."

"That's terrible! Are you guys okay?"

Jim laughed. "Karen, I don't think you can ask that question."

"Why not? What's going on?"

"You'll never believe a word of it."

"That's true," Tom said.

"Why not?" Wade asked.

"Do you want me to find Marty and drive down?"

"I don't think there's anything you guys could do. No, I definitely don't think you should come here."

"Jim, are you okay? Is Christie okay?"

Jim froze. "Oh, geez. I hope Christie's okay. We left her back at the police department."

"Of course she's okay," Wade said with a laugh.

If there was one thing Christie Dunbar usually had, it was her dignity. But as she looked back and forth between the two officers in front of her, she felt she was in grave danger of losing her dignity.

"Well?" Luke Ramirez asked.

"Yeah, well?" Denny Boyer seconded.

"I, uh…" Christie stammered. The boys had just performed an amazing feat, which they called interpretive art. They'd attempted it several times, but only managed to complete it once. Ramirez tossed a piece of toast into the air and Boyer shot a hole in it before it landed. Then Boyer had thrown up an egg and Ramirez had shot it.

"We call it "Breakfast,"" Boyer said.

"Should we add the scene from Shakespeare?" Ramirez asked.

Christie stared between the two of them. She didn't think Shakespeare was even the issue there.

"The winner of the talent show gets a years' supply of windshield washer fluid," Boyer said.

"And I think it's essential to have the Shakespeare in order to win," Ramirez said.

"You can't expect me to remember Shakespeare and shoot straight."

"We need the Shakespeare to distract them in case it takes more than one shot for you to hit the bread, Denny."

"I can hit the bread just fine."

"It took you four tries."

"I'll practice. It's a moving target."

"What do you think?" Ramirez asked Christie again.

Christie was still staring at the three holes in the drywall and the broken light swinging from the ceiling. She was still shaking from the ricochet. Her mouth was still open in horror, her ears ringing from the consecutively bad shots. "Is it safe?" she finally asked with as much dignity as she could muster.

Ramirez laughed. "What's dangerous about Shakespeare?"

Boyer rubbed at some egg on the wall. "Do you think we should use a hardboiled egg?"

"The splatter speaks to me, Denny. I won't do it with a cooked egg."

Wade closed his desk drawer and put his slinky back on top of his monitor. He checked to make sure his gun was loaded with the safety on, then stood up. He was ready to go. Paul was doing some last-minute paperwork at his desk, but the detectives from New York looked ready. Bored, but ready. They were standing in front of Wade's desk, waiting.

"You might want to borrow a bullet-proof vest," Wade said.

"Why?" Dunbar asked.

"Have you ever been to our mall?"

Tom took the vest Wade held out to him. "I dunno, Jim, but I think I'll do what they say."

Jim cocked his head to the side as he looked over at Tom. "Tom, seriously?"

"Any guy who goes out on his lunch break and dresses as a giant chicken, shoots someone, then goes back to work photographing children, he has to be unbalanced."

"True." Dunbar held a hand out and Wade handed him a vest, too.

"Why don't you boys come in here a moment," Phil Hampton suggested from the door of the captain's office. "The captain wants a briefing."

The four detectives filed in and Phil shut the door after them.

"Where is the captain?" Tom Selway asked.

"He won't be coming."

Selway laughed. "You're joking, right?"

"If you hang around Bakersfield long enough, you'll learn the captain doesn't like to know certain things. This being one of them." Phil caught Selway trying to exchange a disbelieving look with Dunbar. He cleared his throat. "How's the case going?"

"We're headed to the mall to talk to Winston Glade," Wade said.

"The guy from A Thousand Words?"

"Yeah, him."

"You all have your vests?" Sergeant Hampton asked. He looked around.

"I think we're set, Serg," Wade said.

"You have a plan?"

"Uh…"

Paul sized up Tom Selway. He looked like a good man, a decent cop. He looked a lot like Paul had felt his first week in Bakersfield: totally overwhelmed and confused.

"Hey," Paul said quietly, "when we split up, you want to come with me?" Tom blinked over at him. "I mean, we'd want to have someone who knows where they're going in each group, right? And, no offense, but I think your friend and Wade could work well together."

"Why?" Tom asked.

"You and me are normal. But you know, a blind cop? That sounds like something that would only happen in Bakersfield."

Tom laughed and looked over at Jim standing there with the dog and wearing a bullet-proof vest outside a mall in California. "I know what you mean."

"Wade," Paul called over, "you and Dunbar head up from the lingerie section. Tom and I will cover you from sporting goods."

Wade almost looked offended. "It's because I'm not black, isn't it?"

"What, you and Dunbar want to head in from sporting goods?"

"You don't carry a gun?" Wade stared at Dunbar in horror. What would he do without his gun? He had to pull it every day, at least. And he probably got a chance to shoot it once a week. If not at people, then at cars and snakes.

"I don't need one."

"But I thought, in New York, that you'd have to use it all the time."

"We almost never have to draw our weapons," Dunbar said.

Wade laughed. "Yeah, right."

Wade pushed a moveable rack of lingerie in front of them to hide their progression toward the photography department. He had his gun ready. "Could you duck, just a little? You stand out too much."

"Why don't we just walk right up and ask Mr. Glade a few questions?" Dunbar asked. He didn't oblige with a crouch, and he really did stand out, walking straight and tall while Wade tried to sneak.

"Never underestimate the element of surprise," Wade said. He stopped and peered out of the rack. "Paul and Tom are in place. Ready?"

Jim sighed. "Ready."

Wade pushed through the lingerie rack and jumped forward, weapon drawn and leveled at Glade, who was taking pictures of a four-year-old and a live bunny. Glade had a lobster hat on his head and was dancing around, trying to get the kid to smile. Dunbar followed less explosively, stepping around the rack. Without a gun, he looked unprepared. Wade moved in front of the blind guy. If anyone was going to get shot, Wade would take the bullet. "Freeze, Glade!"

Winston Glade stopped in mid-dance move, one arm crooked at the elbow, the other on his hip. The element of surprise had worked.

The kid was screaming. Wade held both hands up to his ears, even though he still had his gun in one hand.

"Can we talk to you, Mr. Glade?" Jim Dunbar was asking loudly.

"I'd almost gotten him to smile," Glade complained.

"I think he's scared of that thing on your head," Wade said, pointing.

"This? Kids love this hat!"

Jim waved toward the kid. "Is his mom here? We really need to talk to you."

Wade walked over and pulled the lobster off of Winston's head. The kid stopped crying for a second. "There, I told you so—" The kid started screaming again. "Never mind." He handed the hat back.

"I'm his mom. And his dad. It was a quiet day, so I thought it would be a good time to take his picture," Glade said. "And he loves this hat." Glade looked offended as he cradled the hat.

"You can't tell me you're his mom," Wade said. "I know better."

"She died—"

"So? You're still not his mom."

"Wade," Jim said.

"What? You're not helping here, Dunbar."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Cuff him."

"In front of his son?" Jim shook his head. "Let's just calmly talk this out."

"Is this a stick-up?" Glade asked, raising his hands tentatively.

"Uh, Mr. Glade," a young man said quietly, poking his head in the doorway. "I think they're here for your three o'clock family portrait."

Tom slunk through the employee break room with Paul Gigante. Jim and Preston were still out front, interviewing Glade and trying to calm down a screaming four-year-old.

"Feathers," Gigante said. He pointed at a small pile in the corner on the floor. A coat was hung on the wall over them.

Tom headed over. The pockets of the jacket were bulging with feathers. He grabbed it. "Let's go ask him." They went back into the photo studio with the jacket. "Is this yours, Mr. Glade?" Tom asked.

"That's my jacket, yes…" the man said, looking confused. "But I don't know what it's doing here. It's 90 degrees outside."

Tom glanced at Paul and shrugged. That was true. "You have no idea how it got here? Or why the pockets are filled with chicken feathers?"

"Feathers?" Now Glade looked really confused.

"Yeah, feathers," Wade piped up.

"Where have you been all day?" Jim asked.

"San Francisco," Glade said.

"Why?"

"I had a breakfast meeting."

"All the way in San Francisco?"

"Yeah. And I knew I wouldn't be back before lunch… I'm really sorry I wasn't here to take your family photograph, but that's no reason to come up here with guns. We can do it now, if you want." Glade was hugging the lobster hat to his chest. Tom surmised, from Glade's statement, that Jim hadn't gotten to the heart of the matter yet, not with Wade in tow. Jim normally didn't dilly-dally, but if Preston had started the questioning first, there was no telling what they'd been doing while Tom and Paul had been in the break room.

"Do you have any proof you were in San Francisco?"

"Do you want to talk to the lady I was with? I'm the only photographer who can get her son to smile. He's two, and you know how they are at that age…" Glade shrugged. "Or will the receipt from breakfast be enough? I stopped and got gas on the way back, too. You want the receipt from that, too?" He pulled out his wallet and produced two pieces of paper.

Tom looked them over. "They look legit," he told Jim.

"What would you say if I said we have someone saying you stole a chicken costume this morning?" Jim asked.

"The chicken costume? That thing would really help business. I've been trying to get Ernest to sell it to me for a couple years, but I wouldn't steal it," Winston said.

"You wouldn't kill Ernest because he wouldn't sell it?" Tom asked.

"What? No!"

"The alibi's pretty solid," Tom said and handed back the receipts. "But don't go anywhere."

"Do you know anyone who would kill Ernest for the costume?" Jim asked.

"That was more than just a costume, it was a way of life for Ernest. No one would separate him from it," Glade said. "That would just be wrong."

"Thanks for your time; we'll be in touch," Paul said.

The detectives headed out. "So much for the bullet-proof vests," Wade said sadly. "I was hoping it would be more like the last time I came to the mall."

They started back at the beginning. The police had taped off a section of the empty field where Christie had first noticed the chicken, and the detectives all headed there.

"They didn't find anything?" Jim asked. He could feel the emptiness of the area. Christie had told him it was mostly dirt, with a few plants and sagebrush, desolate mountains far away for background. Some small creature scampered by when Jim followed Hank into its territory. He heard some big bird screech overhead. Other than that it was hot and empty, not a breeze on the air. He couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary and would just have to rely on the other detectives to figure out if anything was there.

Hank sneezed when they stopped at the tape.

"Anything?" Jim asked Tom.

"Feathers."

Hank sneezed again.

Tom moved the tape aside and started scouring the area.

"Did they ever find the slug?" Jim asked.

"It was still in the body," Paul said.

"So we need to find the gun so we can match it."

"Everyone around here has a gun," Paul quietly told him. "Good luck going that route."

Jim jumped when a shot rang out. When his ears cleared he realized he was clutching Paul's arm and they were both on the ground. "What the hell?" Jim asked.

"There was a snake," Wade said.

"Did you get it?" Jim asked sarcastically. He sat up and dusted his suit off. A couple soft feathers had attached themselves to his lapel. Hank pressed against him and sneezed again.

"Look at this," Paul said, still lying in the dirt.

Jim leaned closer. "What?"

"Not you."

Tom and Wade came back to see what Paul had found.

"It's a coupon for Mr. Burger's special smoothie," Wade said in awe.

"But wouldn't Ernest have some coupons?"

"They wouldn't trust the chicken with something like this. He only got coupons for ice cream cones."

They were all crammed back in the Gremlin with the windows rolled up as Wade cautiously pulled up to the drive-through window of Mr. Burger. Wade inched the window down and put the car in park. The theme song from Jaws was playing on the 8-track.

Smoke was pouring out the drive-through window and loud banging noises were coming from inside, but Wade couldn't see through the smoke well enough to see what Hamish was up to. He honked.

"Hamish!" Wade yelled out the crack in the window. "Are you all right in there?"

A crash answered, louder than before.

"I'm coming in!" Wade opened the door. "You guys get ready to drive away if anything happens." He turned back momentarily, a little worried. "Someone other than Jim drive, okay?"

Jim opened his own door and started to step out. "We'll come with."

"No! Close the door!" Wade slammed his door, but it was too late. Dunbar was already out of the car. "Stay here," Wade ordered. He inched up to the side of the drive-through window. "Hamish! Is anyone in there with you?" He pushed the window open fully and prepared to hoist himself up, using the tire of the Gremlin for leverage.

Wade coughed as his head went in the window and pulled back out.

The dog sneezed. Wade dropped to the ground, his gun pulled and leveled. He knew what it meant when the dog sneezed.

"Wade," Sherry laughed, "it's just me."

"Put your hands in the air, Sherry."

"But Wade—"

Wade kept his gun trained on Sherry as he walked around the car. She appeared to be unarmed, but Wade knew better than to trust a woman. "I said, put your hands up."

"Why?" She giggled like the blonde she wasn't.

"You're under arrest for impersonating a chicken, stealing Ernest's costume, and for murdering the real chicken in cold blood."

"What makes you think I would do something like that?" She blinked up at Wade and smiled a little.

Wade pulled the coupon out of his pocket. "This coupon—they only come from the drive-through. You were always jealous of Ernest. Hamish was going to fire you. The dog's allergic to feathers and only sneezes when you're around. And—only a woman would shoot a man like that."

"I'm not armed, Wade," she whispered. "Come and get me."

Jim was standing only two feet away. He pulled out his handcuffs and cuffed her before she could move.

"Hey! I told Wade to do it; not you," she protested. She sighed. "But I guess you're pretty cute, too." She stood up on tiptoe and kissed Jim on the cheek. "Be gentle," she whispered.

Jim sat on the edge of Wade's desk. Christie was sitting in Wade's chair and Tom and Paul were at Paul's desk. Jim was playing with a bank that had been sitting on Wade's desk, a little safe with a hole in the top for coins. Jim twiddled the dial while he waited.

"I'll be glad to get back to the hotel and relax," Christie said.

"Hon, what do these guys look like?" Jim asked.

"Why?"

"I dunno. I just feel like I need to know." He heard Christie take a deep breath to explain.

"Boy!" Wade said, coming up. "This was sure fun, wasn't it?"

Christie settled back into the chair and Jim went back to fiddling with the safe.

"Congratulations!" Sergeant Hampton said, coming up. "If I could find the captain, I'm sure he would extend his gratitude."

"Is that all you need from us?" Tom asked.

"If you ever need to escape the big city, we'll keep a place open on our force."

"Thanks…"

Jim smiled over at Tom and the chagrined tone of his voice.

"Serg!" one of the traffic officers complained. "Tell Boyer he can't open the holding cell."

"She smiled at me, Sergeant," Boyer said. "My one weakness."

"Don't let it happen again," Hampton replied.

"Oh, hey, Mrs. Dunbar," Boyer greeted Christie, sounding like he was blushing and awkward. "You're not leaving already, are you?"

"Yes," Christie said quickly.

"We could really use your help," Ramirez told her.

Jim grimaced. Under his fingers, he felt the dial of the safe catch and the door spring open as he accidentally hit the right combination. Coins dribbled out onto the floor and Jim slammed the door shut before everything fell out. Jim felt Christie move to pick up a couple errant coins.

"Hey!" Wade exclaimed.

"Let me get those for you," Boyer told Christie.

"Sorry," Jim said and quickly set down the safe.

Christie stood up, taking Jim's hand. "I'm so glad you're clumsy," she whispered.

Wade picked the bank back up. "It's locked."

"Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to open it," Jim said.

"What's the combination?" Wade sounded sincere.

Jim blinked over at the kid as Christie pressed against him, like she was worried to be in the presence of a couple of traffic cops.

The phone rang. "Detective Preston," Wade answered. "Uh huh, yeah… No, really? The family photograph? Let me ask."

Captain Stiles tiptoed into the morgue wearing all black. He'd enlisted the help of a young orderly, slipping him five dollars and a coupon for doughnuts. "Bring the gurney," he said. "I'll get the lights when you're in place."

"Ready," the orderly said a minute later and Stiles hit the lights and listened as the orderly grunted and heaved. "Done! Now what, sir?"

"Get rid of it, but make sure no one sees you," Stiles whispered in the dark.

"It's just a body."

"Don't argue. If there's no body, there was no crime. If there's no crime, we can stop investigating the murder, can't we?"

"Is that you, Captain Stiles? I was warned about you." The orderly started to push the gurney back into place to replace the body.

"My name is Pedro. I already paid you! Get to work!" Stiles waited until the man had pushed the gurney into the lit hallway before turning the lights back on and slinking nonchalantly out the door.

Jim felt almost overwhelmed by chatter and people pressing around him in a tight group. He faced straight ahead and tried to smile, tightly gripping Christie's hand.

"The body's still missing," Wade said.

"We can only charge Sherry with stealing the chicken suit if we don't find the body," Paul said.

"Can you get a little closer?" Winston Glade asked. "Wade, tilt your head to the right a little."

"I don't like the background," Selway said.

"This is artistic," Glade said. "I wouldn't expect a cop to understand."

"It's the inside of a jail cell; what's not to understand?"

"I really think we should get going to the convention," Jim put in.

"We all saw the dead body, right?" Christie asked. "Doesn't that count for something? I saw the man get shot."

"If there's any doubt that he actually died, we can't make the charges stick," Jim said. "They could argue the gun was filled with blanks and it was all a joke and Ernest is still alive somewhere. Then we just have a missing person's case."

"But who would be crazy enough to steal a dead body?" Christie asked.

"We have a long list," Wade said. "We'll start looking in as soon as we're done here."

"Paul, can't you get your kid to smile?" Glade asked.

"I don't like the lobster hat, Dad," Paulie said.

"Kids love this hat!"

"Dad!"

"We make a great family, Paul," Wade said.

"Say "cheese,"" Glade ordered.

"I don't think we should," Wade said. "There's too many cows around here."

"Jim, why's your dog yawning? Can you get him to stop? I'm never going to get a good picture at this rate," Glade said.

"Can I be in the picture?" Luke Ramirez asked.

"Luke! Where'd you come from?" Paul asked.

"Fine," Glade said. "Get in the picture."

"Can Denny come, too? I lost him in sporting goods, but I'm sure I can find him," Luke said.

"One big happy family, huh, Dunbar," Tom said.

"What are you guys all doing here?" Sergeant Hampton asked. "I thought we cleared Glade of the murder charges."

"Denny, get over here," Luke said.

Jim felt someone pressing closer as they all squeezed to be in the photo.

"Why don't you join us, Serg?" Paul asked.

"Look what we have here," the captain said. "Isn't this nice?"

"Hello, there, Captain," Denny Boyer said.

"Get in the picture," Glade grumbled.

Jim felt everyone pushing even closer.

"Honey," Christie whispered, "why can't you smile more often like Wade does?"

"Phil, why wasn't I invited?" Captain Stiles asked.

"Everyone say "Bakersfield," Glade ordered.

"Why are you wearing all black, Captain Stiles?" Ramirez asked.

On top of a hill just inside Bakersfield city limits, an orderly from a local hospital was pushing a gurney covered with a sheet. He heaved it to the top of the hill, then stopped to rest, breathing hard. "Of course," he grumbled, as the gurney shifted out from under his hand and rolled away. The orderly didn't give chase. He just stood there, watching. The gurney passed the city limits sign, and the extent of his jurisdiction, and the man headed back to town, feeling as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He smiled, his white coat billowing, and went back to work.