Tumbling Blocks by Earlene Fowler

okay,” I conceded. “There might be untruths spoken, but it’s in the name of harmony.” That certainly didn’t justify it, but it was all I had.
    “Whatever,” Sam said. “Tell it to your priest. No judgment here.” He walked around to the passenger side and opened the door. Boo was awake now and ready for some new fun.
    “Meet me back at the truck in an hour. Here’s a leash and some plastic bags. Don’t forget to clean up after him.”
    “Got it, madrastra .” Sam stuffed the leash and bags in his pocket, then picked Boo up. “This’ll be sweet,” he called over his shoulder. “Women love puppies.”
    “An hour,” I called back. “Then you get your twenty bucks.”
    I watched him walk down Lopez and, sure enough, before he reached the end of the block, two college-age girls had stopped him and were cooing over Boo. I had a feeling after an hour, I’d have to search him out and pry that girl-attracting puppy out of his arms.
    Inside the gray concrete government buildings, I took the elevator up to the district attorney’s offices on the third floor. The cool, nondescript foyer was empty. Behind the bulletproof, Plexiglas window a clerk asked me if I had an appointment with Ms. Landry.
    “No,” I said.
    “I’ll see if she’s free.”
    I flipped through a three-month-old Time magazine, thinking that this bland office was a huge change from the one Amanda had leased above the Ross Department Store. Earlier in her law career she worked for the San Francisco district attorney’s office. When her father, a retired Alabama judge, died and left her a small fortune, she moved to San Celina and went into private practice. She was tired of dealing with sociopaths every day, she’d told me the first time we’d had lunch when she dropped by the museum and offered her pro bono services to the museum and co-op.
    “It feels like you’re a cat in a roomful of mice on speed,” she’d told me. “You might catch one or two, if you’re lucky, but, mostly, they just jump out of your clutches. I’m just plumb tuckered out.”
    So it surprised me when a month ago she called to tell me that she was closing her practice and accepting a job with the district attorney’s office.
    “I’ll keep y’all on, of course,” she’d said. “But I’m just flat-out bored out of my skull drawing up trusts and fighting fencing issues. I need to feel like I’m doing something useful. Besides . . .” I could imagine her wide, Carly Simon smile. “I kinda miss them ole bad guys. Always loved growling back at them in court when they thought they could intimidate me with their high-hat prison sneers.”
    Amanda, almost six feet tall, with a kudzu-thick head of auburn hair that she wore, more often than not, to her shoulders in full, shoulder-length curls, was both überfeminine and strikingly Amazon-like, which fascinated and scared most of the men she met.
    She was out in the lobby in minutes, pulling me up into a huge, warm Southern hug. “Benni Harper Ortiz, where have you been? I’ve missed you, girl. Come on in and see the hovel these people call an office. If I wasn’t having such a good ole time, I’d quit this place and buy myself one of your cousin’s smoked chicken franchises. I swear, it’s the best chicken I’ve ever eaten.”
    I followed her through the rabbit warren of cubicles and offices. She called out greetings as she passed by open offices filled with overflowing desks. You would have thought she’d worked here two years, not two months.
    “Wow, you’ve really settled in,” I said when we reached her tiny office. “You seem to know everyone.” One small window looked out over the parking lot where they loaded and unloaded prisoners.
    “Have a seat,” she said, pointing to the government-issue vinyl and metal visitor’s chair in front of her gray metal desk. “Don’t forget, I’ve been practicing law here in San Celina for a while. Ran across most of these folks at one point or