One Day in a Small-Town Desert, chapter 9, page 8

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Pí‘oro Kılímo took two steps toward the kitchen, intending to lock those doors, too, when he heard little Séara call out.

“This is Lawperson Séara Nulıpésha. Please open up!”

He couldn’t help but smile at her “please,” but he couldn’t let her charm influence him. She was there on business, not a social call. He had to keep the police out.

“Mr. Kılímo?” called Séara, knocking on the door.

Pí‘oro started for the kitchen again, painfully aware of his silly mincing courtesy of Vata’s small slippers. Nonetheless, he wasn’t about to remove them and leave dirty footprints across the carpet for his wife to discover. She’d have a fit just knowing that the Enforcer had run through the front room with his shoes still on.

Little Séara kept pounding on the door, trying to be the tough lawman she thought she was supposed to be.

Ahead of him, Pí‘oro could hear the Enforcers in the back yard. They yelled back and forth, coordinating their search for the murderous punk. Hopefully the animals wouldn’t get too spooked. Maybe one of the goats would bite or headbutt an Enforcer. Pí‘oro smiled. It would serve him right for messing up their home.

Pí‘oro entered the kitchen and hurried across the linoleum to the ajar back door. He wanted to kick off the slippers, but he needed some protection from the shards and splinters littering the floor.

Three of the eight chairs were overturned. A cupboard door was hanging askew, broken glasses visible behind it. The refrigerator had a puckered hole in the middle of the door. The window over the sink, strangely enough, was completely open, yet undamaged. Perhaps that was how Zhíno broke into the house.

Beside the back door, Vata’s framed needlepoint declaring “home sweet home” lay on the linoleum, a spiderweb of cracks radiating from the upper left corner.

Pí‘oro frowned and shook his head slightly as he reached the door. He slammed it shut and turned the deadbolt.

Zhíanoso and His ice-goddess mother, Vítí, would shake hands before Pí‘oro ever let the bungling Enforcers in his house again.

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