“Which is why they made you chief, I imagine.”
“That and my detective talents.”
“Is that right? Good at sleuthing, too, are you?”
“Fucking A.” The cop placed his hand on the center of Becker’s hood. “This car has been driven recently, just for instance.”
“How can you tell?”
“He’s still sweating. I know something else.”
“Tell me everything you know. Tee. I’ve got five minutes.”
Thomas Terence Terhune, known to everyone as Tee, hitched at his belt again, pulling it up so that it fit tightly across his stomach. It would stay there until he inhaled again and then slip down to accommodate his paunch once more.
“I know that a young woman was in town looking for you a couple days ago. She was a seriously good- looking woman. Had a whole lot of body stuffed under her clothes.”
“Probably trying to hide it from your eagle eye.”
“She forgot my powers of detection. She had breasts and hips and other stuff.”
“Face?”
“Also a face, yes. What a softer guy would call a lovely face. But she was trying real hard not to let on that she was such a looker. Flashed a very heavy badge at me. But I wasn’t fooled.”
“Because you have a badge of your own.”
“I have a badge and a gun. I’ve got a car with lights on the roof. I have a radio on my belt.”
“You are the chief, after all.”
“Fucking A. So I wasn’t fooled by this girl’s badge. I still knew she was a very seriously attractive woman. Now why in hell would a good-looking woman be asking about the whereabouts of a guy like you? I wondered. Especially when she was looking square in the face of a guy like me.”
“Bad eyesight?”
“Or too good. I think she spotted the wedding ring right away.”
“You ought to remove it from your nose at times like that.”
“I’ll tell my wife you said that. Does Cindi know about this handsome babe who’s asking about you?”
“Cindi and I are divorced,” said Becker. “Just to remind you. You were my best man at the ceremony.”
Tee shrugged. “Nothing unusual there. I’m the best man wherever I go.”
“Because you’re the chief.”
“Fucking A… She still asks about you,” Tee said, his tone now more serious.
“Who?”
“Cindi. She asks how you’re doing, like that.”
“You see her?”
“In the course of my appointed rounds… She still cares about you, John.”
“I still care about her… Is she-uh-okay?”
“No, she’s not seeing anybody,” Tee said. “Although I can’t imagine why. I don’t know if you ever noticed it during your marriage, John, but Cindi is one very fine female.”
“I was aware… I was lucky to be with her. I didn’t deserve her.”
“This is true.”
“Unfortunately she finally realized it.”
“That’s not quite the way she tells it.”
“Even eyewitness accounts vary,” Becker said.
“You know why no one’s asking her out, don’t you?”
“They’ve all turned fashionably gay?”,
“I’m serious, John.”
“Why?”
“They don’t ask her out because they’re afraid of you.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true.”
“Nobody in Clamden has any reason to be afraid of me. I’ve never hurt a soul here.”
“They hear the stories.”
“How do they hear the stories? I don’t tell them. Cindi doesn’t tell them.”
Tee held up his hands in innocence.
“Don’t look at me. Your past is private history as far as I’m concerned.”
“So how do they hear ‘the stories’?”
“I don’t know. Word gets around. Rumors are hard to stop.”
“Does Cindi think I’m trying to scare people off?”
Tee shrugged. “Not intentionally.”
Becker studied his feet. “Jesus Christ, Tee, are people really scared of me?”
“Not those who know you, John.”
“But others. Those who just hear about me? They think I’m-what-dangerous enough? Demented enough? Bloodthirsty enough to hurt them for trying to date my ex-wife? I’ve never hurt a soul except as part of my job.”
“I know that, John. Most people know that.”
“I live here, god damn it! I can’t have people being afraid of me!”
“I’m probably exaggerating it. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Start another rumor…”
“I didn’t start this one.”
“Tell them I’m harmless. Tell them I’m a pussycat. Tell them I quit the FBI because I was afraid of the work… That’s the truth, anyway.”
“You weren’t afraid of the work in the sense of being afraid of it, John. Give people a little credit; they’re not going to believe that.”
“I don’t want to be a monster in my own home town. Tee. Jesus.”
They were quiet for a moment, both men studying a teenaged boy who was mowing a lawn as if he held real interest for them. The boy glanced at them curiously.
“Do you suppose that youth with the mower is viewing me right this minute as a model and guide to his future?” Tee asked after a time.
“I don’t want anybody to be afraid of me, Tee. Honest to God, that’s terrible.”
“I’ll do what I can, all right?… It’ll pass.”
Becker shook his head sadly. It always surprised Tee that his friend, whose career was a thing of courageous awe to every law enforcement officer who knew about it, was so vulnerable to the opinions of others. Particularly the opinions of people he did not know. The man would flail through a case, stepping on the toes of everyone who got in his way in the pursuit of his prey, but in civilian life he would worry about offending the sensibilities of the local grocer. Tee didn’t pretend to understand him-he just liked him.
“I told the FBI woman you were proving your virility by jerking off on the side of a mountain,” Tee said finally. “Did I do right?”
“You are a police officer, sworn to tell the truth.”
“You didn’t tell me not to tell anyone. You just said you wanted to be alone to jerk off for a while.”
“It’s okay, Tee.”
“I noticed in the course of my sleuthing that this FBI woman did not wear a wedding ring, by the way. Unlike myself. But very much like your good self.”
“A second ago you were pushing Cindi on me. Now you want me to mate with an agent?”
“Somebody ought to. And masturbation is an ugly thing to see in a man your age.”
“You might stop watching.”
“Hey, I’m the chief.”
“And rank has its privileges,” Becker said.
“I know something else you don’t know,” Tee offered. “I suspect I’m about to. What?”
