My heart skipped a beat and my head got fuzzy. Joe had planted the gun on Thursday night. He set me up all along. I was too angry to be hurt. I could be hurt later. “Where exactly do you want to search?”

“Your shed.”

I knew I should call Deanna, but I didn’t have time to waste. It was already five o’clock and I had to be at The Trading Post at ten. It could take Deanna an hour to get here. Besides, I knew the gun wasn’t there. “Sure.”

Joe stood on his front porch, gawking like all the other neighbors. The look on his face when he heard me give approval was priceless. I gave him a cold hard stare.

Muffy whimpered in the doorway.

“It’s okay, girl,” I said. She was unconvinced and paced back and forth at my feet. I addressed the closest officer. “Can I put my hands down now? You’re making my dog nervous.”

He turned me around and patted me down. “Yeah.”

Several police officers had already opened the shed and were removing items, tossing them into the yard.

Muffy came out of the house and stood by me, whining. I leaned down and petted her head.

“May I ask why you think I did this?”

“An anonymous tip.”

“Yeah, I bet it was anonymous,” I muttered under my breath. “I have an alibi for that night. I stayed the night at my sister’s.”

“Are you making a statement?” the officer asked, surprised.

“Take it for what you will.”

The crowd on the sidewalk grew quickly. You would have thought it was the second coming of Jesus from the rapt attention the people were giving my shed. By that point, the shed was at least halfway empty, the lawn mower one of the items in the yard. I looked over at Joe to see his reaction. The disbelief and confusion on his face gave me momentary satisfaction. I gave him a smile so sweet it would have killed a diabetic.

“I think I’d like to call my lawyer now,” I said. The policeman went inside with me to watch me use my phone. Muffy tagged along.

Deanna was furious with me for allowing the police access to the shed and said she’d be right over. The only reason I called her was because I saw the kind of damage they were doing to my yard, and I doubted they would restore it to its previous state.

I went outside to wait for Deanna. Muffy kept whining and followed close behind.

The contents of the almost empty shed lay tossed in the yard. Even the metal shelves lay on their side. It looked like a redneck yard sale.

A car tried to drive down the street, a difficult task considering all the people crowded on the pavement. It was an older muscle car owned by the high school boy who lived on the corner. Any other person would have driven around the block, but curiosity got the better of him and pushed his way through the crowd.

When the car reached Joe’s house, it backfired twice in rapid succession, sending the crowd into screams and bedlam that rivaled Armageddon.

The officers in the shed began to shout, “Get down! Take cover!” To my amazement, the stout policeman standing at my side dove on top of me, throwing us both to the ground. The crowd panicked even more, running into each other and diving under bushes and cars.

Muffy lost it.

She began to howl and run in circles, nudging me with her nose and whimpering. The policeman swatted at her. She took off running down the street past Joe’s house and into the screaming mob.

“Muffy!” I yelled with what little breath I could get into my lungs, while trying to push the officer off my back.

It took some effort to move the policeman, especially considering his girth. I supposed I should have thanked him for putting himself on the line to protect a rolling-pin-wielding, gun-hiding murder suspect but I was more worried about my dog.

“Muffy!” I screamed again, starting to run after her when I finally broke free.

One of the officers grabbed my arm and dragged me back, pulling out a pair of handcuffs and cinching my hands behind my back.

“What are you doing?” I cried out in disbelief.

“You were fleeing the scene of a crime investigation.”

“I was running after my dog!” I screamed and turned to the street. “MUFFY!” And then I began to cry. I’d been fine up to that point, but I was afraid I’d never see Muffy again and I broke out into wails of anguish. Just when I thought I’d seen it all, Joe ran off his front porch in the direction Muffy had gone.

The crowd reassembled. It wasn't every day they saw someone handcuffed. I sat down on the grass by my driveway, not an easy task when you can’t use your hands to help yourself down. People took out cell phones and snapped pictures. I was big news for Henryetta, especially with tears and snot dripping down my face that I couldn’t wipe away, seeing how my hands were preoccupied.

The police got the crowd settled down and they confirmed the noise to be backfire. Everything back under control, the officers returned to the task at hand, cleaning out my shed.

Deanna showed up, furious when she discovered me sitting in the grass wearing handcuffs. She asked for a search warrant, just in time for the police to announce they had emptied everything out of the shed and found nothing. The anonymous tip said the gun would be wrapped in a yellow towel under the lawn mower, but all they found was a wrench wrapped in the towel. Deanna told them my sister and aunt would confirm my whereabouts Wednesday night.

One of the officers lifted me none too gently off the ground and uncuffed my numb hands. They began to clear out the crowd and returned to their police cars.