“Mr. Cole—”
I was really on a tear now. “How does it feel, sitting in your comfortable cubicle, answering phones from across the country, knowing that the only thing you have to fear is tripping on a comfortable rug on the way to a coffee break, knowing you and your company are hurting people, every second, minute, and hour of the day?”
I took a breath and she dove right in. “Excuse me, Mr. Cole, excuse me,” she said. “I’ll tell you how it feels, sitting in this cubicle, day after day. It sucks. It really, really sucks. I shouldn’t be here. I have a master’s degree in education and I should be teaching, but our school district’s budget got cut and I got fired. I should be working with my husband on our wheat farm, but that’s about to go under for a variety of reasons you Easterners wouldn’t even know or care about, so our family needs a steady paycheck and health insurance. You all think your food pops up magically in supermarkets, and you don’t realize the hard work and sacrifice from a farmer class that doesn’t—”
By now she was sobbing, and I whispered, “Sorry,” and hung up the phone.
The rest of the day didn’t improve much after that. I had a lunch of Campbell’s finest and a defrosted frozen roll I had to drench with butter to make edible. The rain came in, a steady downpour that matched my mood, and I watched the water pelt my outside deck until I felt dopey and dozy and fell asleep on the couch.
My dinner date was Diane Woods, who brought over a meal she cooked at home, some sort of haddock dish baked over rice with a side of salad. She was very proud of it as she served it up. I took one bite and nearly choked, for it was as dry as dust, and tasted like lemon gone bad.
Her face was eager. “What do you think? C’mon, you can tell me.”
“I can’t believe you went to the trouble of making me dinner. That’s very thoughtful of you.”
She dug in and ate across from me at the kitchen counter. “Maybe it’s the maternal side of me coming out.”
“Really?”
Diane made a face. “Just because I don’t want to play with what you boys have to offer doesn’t mean I can’t be maternal.”
“Point noted,” I said. “And I thank you for it.”
She ate while I struggled for a few minutes. “I guess that’s why I’m applying for the deputy chief’s job,” she said.
“Your maternal side?”
“Yep.”
I chewed and chewed, hoping enough saliva would kick in so I could swallow. “Begging your forgiveness, mom, but I’m not seeing the correlation.”
“I knew you wouldn’t,” she said, but her voice was light. “What happens in two months?”
Now I had an idea. “Kara Miles makes an honest woman of you.”
“Attempts to make an honest woman,” she said. “But when we’re married I’m going to take it very seriously, including being her partner. For example, putting her under my health insurance.”
“Considering what I’ve been going through,” I said, “I hope the two of you have a better experience than I do. All right, Kara is under your insurance. And … hold on. You two are going to need extra income, right?”
She nodded. “Yep again. For a long time Kara held her own with her little software and web-development business. Hell, in one year, she actually took home more than I did. But, my friend, those days are gone.”
“Hard to compete against free website designs and cheap software engineers on the other side of the globe.”
She energetically took another bite and I wondered if her taste buds had gone dull. “That’s right. And I intend to support her, and if that means becoming deputy chief, well, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“How about Captain Nickerson? Isn’t she next in line for the deputy job?”
“She is, but I have a touch more experience and background. Not much, but maybe enough to tilt the scales in my favor.”
I tried another bite, and chewed and chewed again. “The other day you told me that the deputy’s job is to be the chief’s bitch. You sure didn’t pump it up when we last talked. In fact, if anything, you said you might apply just because you didn’t want to be seen as weak.”
“That’s right.”
“But now your maternal side is pushing you to go for the job, so you can take care of Kara.”
“Right again.”
“And if you get the job?”
She shrugged. “I’ll make it work. What else can I do? At least our chief here in Tyler is secure, and I get along with him. Plus, for the most part, it’s a Monday–Friday, eight A.M. to five P.M. kind of job. That sounds appealing. At least I’m not up in Porter. There’s a deranged mob after their chief, and it ain’t a pretty sight.”
“What does Kara think?”
“Not good. She feels, well, put upon and guilty. Like she’s failing me, failing the relationship. I told her that things could have easily been the reverse. Like when I got tuned up at the nuclear power plant demonstration last fall, I could have been permanently disabled. Then she’d have to take care of me. Fair is fair.”
I struggled with another piece of the dry fish. When I thought Diane wasn’t looking, I placed a paper napkin up to my mouth, slipped it out, and clenched the napkin in my fist, then lowered it and dropped it to the floor.
It didn’t look like she noticed.
“What’s going on with Maggie’s homicide?”
“Well, she’s still dead, so I guess that still might be news.” She took another bite. “All right, that was snarky, sorry. The state police and Assistant Attorney General Martin are still running the case, keeping us poor locals out
