The chief raised his eyebrows. 'What about them?'
'Well, if we think some of 'em might be moving pot, shouldn't we round 'em up and fingerprint 'em? Send the info back to Mexico and see if anything pops up? They got some sort of Mexican FBI, don't they?'
Hadley could see the chief trying not to roll his eyes. 'Yeah, they do. It's the Agencia Federal de Investigacion. However, we can't just go rounding up migrants because we've been tossing around theories in the bullpen.'
'Don't see why in th' hell not.' Urquhart crossed his arms.
'Because nonresident aliens in the United States are protected by the same constitutional criminal protections as the rest of us,' Hadley said. 'Oberlinski v. United States.'
The chief cracked a sideways smile. 'Glad to see you're paying attention at the Academy, Officer Knox.'
She felt her face heat up.
'On a happier note, I was checking the funds for the police basketball association, and there's still money left for this year.' The chief looked somewhere over Hadley's head, his face bland. 'Since the PBA was meant to give kids something constructive to do-'
'You mean, keep 'em from knocking over convenience stores,' MacAuley said.
'-I've decided to use the remaining money to fund some campers at the rec department's summer camp. I've already given the director enrollment info for two kids; if any of you know a family that could benefit from this, have ' em call Gail Jones at her office at the town hall.' He picked up his folders and his coffee cup and slid off the table. 'That's all, folks.'
Hadley sat, frozen, while chairs scraped and shoes slapped and belts jingled. Something bumped against her, and she looked up to see Eric McCrea. 'You feeling okay?' He squinted at her. 'You look kind of feverish.'
She nodded. 'Yeah,' she said. 'I mean, no.' She stood up, forcing Eric to scramble out of her way. 'Excuse me.'
She caught up with the chief right before he entered his office. 'Chief,' she said. 'About the summer camp thing-'
'Oh, yeah. That's right.' He glanced at the clock. 'The drop-off is at the middle school. If you hurry, you can get your kids there and be back in about forty-five minutes. You can work through lunch to make it up.'
'Sir.' Her voice sounded strangled. 'I can't accept-'
He looked down at her. 'Officer Knox. This department is spending a good chunk of change on your training. I count a few hundred bucks to safeguard that investment as money well spent.'
'I'm handling my home situation fine. I don't need charity.' Now she sounded like a bitch. It was his fault. She didn't ask to be put in this situation.
He stepped into his office. Beckoned her in. Nudged the door half shut. He dropped his voice. 'Look, Knox-Hadley. When Noble's mother started to wander away from her house at odd hours, we wired her doors with a security alarm and checked in on her four times a day. When Harlene's husband, Harold, got sick and had to go down to the Albany medical center twice a week, we drove him. This isn't an insurance office or a restaurant. We have to trust each other with our lives. And that means we take care of our own.'
There was a knock, and the deputy chief stuck his head in the door. 'Hey,' he said. 'You got a minute?'
The chief looked at MacAuley a long moment, an expression on his face Hadley couldn't make out. Then he nodded. 'Sure.' He turned back to Hadley. 'Go ahead. When you get back, you'll patrol with me.'
Hell. She'd look like an antisocial loner if she continued to protest. She tried to say thank you, but she couldn't get the words out. She settled for jerking her head up and down before fleeing the office. Out in the hall, she heard MacAuley ask, 'What was that all about?'
'Oh, just touching base,' the chief said. 'What was it you wanted?'
She took off before she could start to feel grateful.
VI
Driving back to the station, Russ thought he had never been so busy doing so little in his entire career. He had dropped into enough stores, galleries, roadside stands, and mom-and-pops to write a shoppers' guidebook. He checked in with anxious proprietors, listened to their worries, and assured them they and their customers would be safe and protected. In between, he and Knox responded to at least a dozen reports of possible intruders and suspicious persons, every one of which was either nonexistent or a befuddled innocent.
The last call of the day-surprise, surprise-was Mrs. Bain. He groaned when Harlene gave him the report. 'She says she's heard thumping and clattering noises out back of her barn, and she says there was a carload of real suspicious-looking Hispanic men driving slowly past her house, checking it out.'
He keyed the mic. 'Hispanic men. That's a new one. What about the prowler?'
'Ayeah, the prowler's back.'
'Okay, copy the last report, change the date, and add in the Hispanics. Oh, and call one of the Bains and see if someone can come over, will you?'
'You got it. Dispatch out.'
Knox was looking at him with a doubtful expression. 'Shirley Bain,' he explained, heeling the car around toward Cossayuharie. 'Her only son lives down in Westchester. He likes to forget he grew up with manure on his boots, which I could forgive, except he also forgets to spend any time with his mother. So every three-four months she sees a prowler. We come out, look the place over, and write up a report, which we send to the son. He comes home for a weekend to make her feel safe, and then a few months later we do it all over again.'
Mrs. Bain was sweet and apologetic and even more worried than usual as they walked around the barn, past clumps of day lilies and rhubarb gone to flower. Russ pointed out where some of her wood stack, drying in the late afternoon sun, had fallen.
'Oh,' she said. 'I'm sorry, Russell. I guess I'm just a silly old woman. But with all these terrible things happening to the Mexicans, I've been so frightened. I have half a mind to buy myself a gun.'
Russ spent the walk back to her house convincing her that would be a bad, bad idea. Mrs. Bain had, as always, baked before they arrived, and in the kitchen she bustled about serving chocolate chip cookies and iced tea. Russ silently drew Knox's attention to the stack of recent
When the elderly woman found out Knox had children, she was in ecstasy. She insisted on emptying the owl-in-spectacles cookie jar and giving the entire paper-bagged contents to the junior officer to take home.
Russ was beginning to worry they weren't going to escape before dinner, but then there was a knock at the door and Geraldine Bain yodeled, 'Shirley? Let me in.'
Mrs. Bain unlocked the door for her sister-in-law. At seventy, Geraldine was well past retirement age but kept her position in the Millers Kill Post Office through sheer determination not to miss a word of gossip circulating through the town.
'Hello, Russell,' she said. 'And who's this? Is this Glenn Hadley's granddaughter I've heard so much tell about?' She hugged her sister-in-law while keeping an avid eye on Knox. 'Don't you worry, dear,' she said. 'I've come to spend the night.' Russ spotted the small suitcase on the doorstep and sprang to pick it up. He toted it to the second-floor bedroom, abandoning Officer Knox to Geraldine's interrogation.
She had gotten to who-was-Hudson-and-Geneva's-father-and-why-wasn't-he-here-with- them by the time Russ got back downstairs. He snagged the bag of cookies from the table and thrust it at the
