told him exactly where to go.
He walked around the dark wood of the catalogue and stepped into the middle aisle. Sure enough, all of the volumes were gone, only an empty space where they should have been. He quickly scanned the adjoining shelves, on the off chance that the books had been put back incorrectly, then poked his head around the corner of the aisle. 'Do you have anything else on vampires?'
'There is general information in encyclopedias and reference books, and we do have a few overviews of the supernatural that would no doubt have information on the subject. Hold on a minute. Let me check. Maybe one of those books has been returned. I haven't looked in the bin this morning.'
He walked back around to the front desk, and Mrs.
Church emerged from the back room beaming, four books in her hand.
'Here we go. Because of the popularity of this subject right now, I've given these books a three day checkout time instead of the usual two weeks.'
Robert grinned. 'You expect me to bring these back in three days?'
'You'll be fined if you don't, Robert Carter.'
His grin withered under her stern gaze. 'Sorry,' he said meekly. 'I was just joking.'
She smiled. 'So was I. You havea two-day grace period.' She winked at him. 'You think I don't know you by now?'
Robert glanced at the titles of the books: The Vampire: His Kith and Kin by Montague Summers; The Vampire in Legend, Fact and Art by Basil Copper; The Book of Vampires by Dudley Wright; The Vampire: Monster and Metaphor by Eugenia de Sprague He handed Mrs. Church his library card. She stamped two date cards, placed them in the pockets of the books, and handed everything back to him. 'Is this sudden interest in vampires personal?' she asked.
'Or professional?'
Personal. I guess.'
'But it might be both?'
He nodded. 'It might be both.'
She smiled at him, but there was a hint of worry in her smile this time. 'I hope you find what you're looking for.'
'I hope so, too,' he said.
On his way back to the station, Robert stopped by the newspaper office.
Rich was in the paste up room, carefully placing black border tape around an ad at the bottom of one of the pages.
'Another big issue,' Robert said, glancing at the layout, of the front page on the nearest light table. 'Let's hope it's the last.' Rich cut the border tape with an X-acto knife. 'Anything new I should know about? We don't put the paper to bed until Wednesday. There's still time to rearrange the front page,'
'We'll see what tonight brings.' Robert sat down in the metal folding chair next to the waxer. 'Who's the babe?' Rich frowned. 'The babe?'
'The Oriental chick at Corrie's desk.' Robert leaned back until his head was against the wall and the chair was resting on two legs.
Rich shook his head. 'That's Sue Wing. I just hired her on as a production assistant and part-time reporter. Her family owns the Chinese restaurant.'
Robert grinned. 'Anything going on here that I should know about2'
'I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.' 'I just thought that since she'd taken over Corrie'sjob here at the paper, she might be taking over some of her other duties too.'
'Jesus, sometimes you can be a real asshole.'
Robert laughed, setting the front legs of his chair back on the ground.
'Hit a nerve, huh?'
'No. She's a nice girl, and I don't want you talking behind her back.
You're the police chief, for God's sake. Haven't you ever heard of sexual harassment?'
'Heard of it.' You'll hear more of it... Robert stood. Seriously.
Aren't you going to introduce
US?
Rich put down the X-acto knife. 'If you can behave yourself and pretend to be a human being.'
'I'll try.' He followed his brother out into the newsroom. Sue looked up as they approached. She was pretty, Robert thought. In their younger days, they both might're made a play for her.
'Sue?' Rich said. 'This is Robert, my brother, our esteemed chief of police.'
She smiled shyly. 'Hello.'
Hh Robert said.
'Sue, our reporter-slashphotographerslash-production assistant, was the lone student in my aborted journalism class.'
'Whatever happened with that?' Robert asked. 'Did Pueblo ever pay you? What's the deal?'
'We worked out an arrangement. The class was canceled, but technically Sue's still enrolled because she's earning credits for her work experience here. So, technically, I'm still her teacher.'
Robert chuckled. 'Fill out an application at Taco Bell,' he said to Sue. 'You'll make a heck of a lot more than you will as a reporter.'
She smiled at him. 'I'm in it for fame, not fortune.'
'You'll get more notice at Taco Bell too. And more respect.' 'He's just jealous,' Rich told her. 'Ignore him.' He turned to his brother, motioned toward his desk. 'Come on, let her get back to work, have a seat over here.'
'I have to get a move on myself.' Robert nodded at Sue. 'Nice meeting you.'
Rich followed his brother around the partition, past Carole's desk, through the front door. 'That's what you stopped by for?'
'Actually, I've been getting quite a few complaints the past couple days about Wheeler's church. People there on Arrow say they don't like all that hammering and racket going on all hours of the night.' 'That's understandable.'
'I talked to the man, gave him a friendly warning, but it was like talking to a wall. He had that damn phony smile plastered on his face, and he kept nodding and agreeing with me, but he didn't listen to a single thing I said.'
'What do you want me to do, write an article about it? I'll tell you right now, I'm not taking on a church.'
'No, that's not it.'
'You want my advice? Get him on noise violations. Throw his butt in jail.' .
'Rio Verde has no municipal codes coveting noise, hard as that may be to believe. When there's a loud party or something, we usually just issue a warning and things quiet down. If the situation gets too rowdy, we can usually crack down and cite other violations. But Wheeler knows his laws. I suspect he's skirted enough of them in his time to know where the borders lie. He can build all night if he wants to, hammer from dusk to dawn, and he knows it.'
'So?' '
'So, to tell you the truth, I thought maybe you could get Corrie to talk to him.,'
'You can forget about that right now.'
'He won't listen to her?'
'She won't listen to me.'
Robert sighed. 'I thought I'd give it a shot. With everything else collapsing around my damn ears, I thought maybe I could take the easy way out and solve the problem with a minimum of hassle. I don't want all those fanatics picketing the station because Jesus told them to build their church, and I told them to keep it quiet after dark.'
'Well, I could try to talk to Corrie'
He shook his head. 'Thanks anyway, but don't bother.
I'll just try to bully the jerk. Maybe he'll cave.'
'I doubt it.'
'I doubt it, too.'
