Juliette Rose Considers Her Options

“I can’t go in front of a judge and ask for an injunction on the basis of something Robert heard in the woods,” Roger was saying to an exasperated Juliette Rose. “We have to have something concrete, some kind of proof.”
“Like what?” DJ asked before Juliette could explode.
“Almost anything that would support what Robert says.  [...]

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An Informer

“It’s Don Nelson, I bet,” Juliette said. “He’s always been in favor of the road. Thinks it would be good for business, good for Wilbur’s tax base. And he gives a lot of money to those pricks.”
“If it is, he’s telling them right now that we know about the plant,” Roger said. [...]

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Working the Phone Tree

Meanwhile, news about the chemical plant was spreading across Wilbur like mosquitoes in May. Roger, Juliette Rose, and even Robert took turns on the phone calling everyone they knew, and those people called everyone they knew, and on it went until only a tiny fraction of Wilbur’s 700-odd residents were unaware of the sneaky [...]

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The Fecal Matter Assaults the Air Circulation Device

Once they got inside, Mave flattered Roger beyond the bounds of wishful thinking, passing into the realm of absurdity at the twenty minute mark.  For the most part DJ was amused but every once in a while her forehead crinkled and she frowned slightly in a way that Roger might have found sobering had he [...]

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The Dancing Vampire in Roger’s Cabin

Mave followed Roger and DJ home after the meeting finally broke up an hour later without any sort of resolution that would deserve the name. Her reactions to driving on her first-ever dirt road are lost to history but her dismay upon sighting the cabin was too pronounced to miss.
“You live here?”
“Exactly right. [...]

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Mave Meets the Gang

Mave was all smiles when she reached the table, on her best behavior and with her soft Southern accent flying on all six cylinders. (I will not attempt to reproduce it. Use your imagination. That’s what it’s for.)  “Roger, darling,” she said in a voice that would have melted uranium.  “Here you are.”
“Yes, here I [...]

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Juliette Rose Meets the Dancing Vampire

Juliette Rose had been prepared to face the latest of Roger’s conquests with equanimity.  There had been a raft of them the last couple of years and none had survived long enough to so much as move in a toothbrush.  Her first sight of DJ had confirmed her initial feeling that there was nothing for [...]

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A Few Words from the Chief of Police

“Goddamn it, Juliette Rose,” Roger was saying. “You didn’t tell me the whole damn town was going to be here.”
“Brother Armitage,” Juliette Rose said suspiciously as he approached her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m fine, Sister Julie,” Brother Armitage smiled, “and how are you?”
“A little busy at the moment.”
“So I see. Brother [...]

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DJ Counts Herself In

Roger had indeed returned home shortly before Juliette Rose kicked the postcard rack, and in what passed for him as being a foul mood. He was uncommunicative and wouldn’t look DJ in the eye. He had been the same way last night when he came home from the office. When she asked [...]

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DJ Meets Robert in the Kitchen

“Something wrong?” DJ asked Robert as Juliette Rose tore new ruts in the dirt road on her way out.
“No.  Nothing at all.  Everything’s…perfect.”
“She’s not angry?  She looked angry.”
“Oh, her?  She always looks like that.  She came to see Roger and Roger isn’t here.  She doesn’t like it when she can’t get what she wants as [...]

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