against him and talk about the pain of losing her mother to breast cancer when Maggie was fifteen. Holding her, he thought of his father accusing him of burying himself here. There were, he reflected, far worse places to be buried.
16
Wednesday, their dead buried, the majority of Baumen began moving on. Halloween decorations disappeared from yards. Scott Dreiling resumed driving just short of violations and pushing his home curfew. The real flowers in the memorials on 282 wilted. Nat handed Garreth a memo from Danzig. The department was beginning to receive requests for the home security checks Garreth had volunteered to perform, so he needed to make appointments with the citizens whose names and addresses appeared on the bottom of the memo.
He groaned. Gaining access to Baumen homes seemed hardly worth the effort now, no longer than he was likely to be here, but…he better play his role to the end. With the sun setting about six-thirty now, late afternoon and early evening inspections should not be too uncomfortable.
Before going out on patrol, he called the citizens and made appointments for the next three days, then spent the rest of the week being invited into dwellings before going on duty, working his shift, riding herd on the now- normal Friday/Saturday cruises…and except for Saturday night, coming home to find Maggie waiting for him.
A Maggie who wanted to talk as much as have sex. Fine by him. Marti, too, had liked to talk. As then, he was content to listen, since it came without Judith’s implied
While the apartment and bed felt lacking without Maggie, solitude did let him force himself to sleep so he could drag out for Maggie and Martin’s waffle and sausage feed in the morning. Arriving in dark glasses and his cowboy hat to fend off the bright autumn day, he found a crowd in their back yard similar to get-togethers at his parents’, except with fewer cops…just Nat and his family, Bill Pfannenstiel, and Sue Ann. Once Maggie handed him a plate of waffles and sausage and introduced him to everyone — Martin’s VFW buddies, fellow members of St. Thomas More, a gaggle of aunts and uncles, plus Pfannenstiel’s wife and a soft-spoken hulk and a female toddler who turned out to be Sue Ann’s husband and daughter — he further resisted daylight by sitting on the ground under a big cottonwood tree. There he cut the waffle and sausage into small bites and pretended to eat, while surreptitiously sneaking the pieces to four dogs who came with other guests but gravitated to him.
Looking around, it did not surprise him how many of the faces looked familiar from seeing them around town, nor that he had met two of the aunts without knowing their relationship to Maggie. He ran security checks at their houses on Friday. It would not have surprised him, given the town’s interlinking kinships, to find Anna here, too. He sat feeding the dogs and brooding about her. If only she were here, since he had been unable to arrange an encounter this week…not seen her in her yard nor out shopping on Thursday. With the weather appearing to bear out her prediction of an early, cold winter — temperatures crisp by day, dipping near freezing at night — he needed to know how that was affecting her thoughts about Acapulco.
Familiar blood and skin scents announced Maggie’s approach. She grinned. “Are all of us so overwhelming that you’re driven to a retreat with dogs?”
“No, I’m fine, just savoring the sausage. My compliments to your Uncle Leo.” He held up his fork with one of the last bites on it.
“Since that’s the case…” She brought more sausage.
To the dogs’ delight.
Settled against the tree and earth, he started to doze, when a boy’s voice roused him. “Blue doesn’t usually take to strangers.” One of Nat’s sons, staring at the Blue Heeler with its head on Garreth’s knee and along with the other dogs, mournfully eyeing the empty plate.
Yes, what was it with dogs and him. The thought prompted a joke reply. “It’s a kinship thing. He senses my secret identity as a werewolf.”
“Is that how you’re going to the wedding? I always thought weddings were boring but Dad says this one will be cool. Mark and I get to go trick and treating first and then wear our costumes to the wedding. I’m a Jedi.”
“I can’t go; I’m on duty.”
“Too bad.”
An opinion everyone at the station seemed to share when he came in Monday for duty.
Nat urged him to at least drop by the reception. “That’s where I’m catching up with Charly and the boys after I go home and change.”
Doris, looking bonier than ever in a witch’s costume complete with pointed hat, said, “You could bring me back a piece of the cake, maybe a piece of a tower, and tell me all about what everything looks like.”
“Are you going?” Garreth asked Maggie.
She shook her head. “I’d feel awkward since I wasn’t invited, but your uniform will look like just another costume. I’m going home to help Dad with the trick and treaters.”
He had seen the small forms as he walked to the station…tramping along the dark sidewalks undeterred by the appropriately heavy mist- Jedis and witches, ghosts, fairy princesses, a Crayon box, a TV set — glow sticks and loot bags in hand, followed by parents with flashlights. With trick and treaters calling Anna to her door, this might be a good night to catch her.
If Halloween mischief did not keep him busy elsewhere.
“How much vandalism should I anticipate dealing with?”
Nat and Maggie exchanged considering looks. Nat said, “There’s not usually too much and it’s rarely serious. Decorations knocked over, pumpkins smashed…at least one yard hit with toilet paper, usually a high school teacher’s. Soap or shaving cream on car and store windows.”
“Last year someone we never identified used a caulking gun on windows downtown,” Maggie said.
“With three different colors of caulk.” Nat grinned. “They were actually kind of artistic designs.”
Maggie frowned. “The store owners didn’t appreciate them. One year when I was still dispatching we had tombstones tipped over and spray painted.”
“So keep your eyes open,” Nat said, “but use your judgement in dealing with the situations.”
Doris added, “Drive careful later. We’ve got a frost warning tonight.”
That could be a good thing, Garreth reflected, pulling on a jacket as he left the station. This mist freezing on mischief-inclined goblins might drive them indoors to warmth. The temperature was already dropping. Faint puffs of breath preceded him on his check-out walk around the patrol car.
Leaving the parking lot, he headed straight for Anna’s. If he wanted to catch her, he better try before parents took their chilly trick and treaters home. But to his disappointment, Anna appeared to be out. Only the light over the side door was on…not the front porch’s nor those in the front rooms. Lady Luck had frowned at him this week.
Cruising back down Pine, he passed the high school. Light shone inside the windows around the top of the gymnasium and streamed out through open double doors. A delivery van with
He rolled on to Kansas Avenue…cruised down to the Pizza Hut and then north to Sonic. They had a few cars yet in their parking lots, and more vehicles parked around the Brown Bottle and VFW revealed customers and members there. Otherwise, very little stirred downtown. He crossed the tracks and started back south, mist turning the streetlights and the stoplight ahead of him fuzzy.
No…something stirred. A roar of loud pipes and chorus of haunted house shrieks came at him from the far end of Kansas. The pipes he recognized: Scott Dreiling’s Trans Am.
As the car neared him, he saw Scott had attached an oval device to its grill with lights inside flashing in sequence, giving the impression of a single light sweeping side to side…making the Trans Am look like KITT from
