“Constable, not sheriff. I’m a glorified meter reader, Nebraska.”
The young man laughed.
“How’s your new job?”
“Good…or at least the money’s pretty good. Job’s not so exciting. I don’t know why I ever got into wealth advising.”
Pilate grunted as he turned the final screw, which the door didn’t take so easily. “Well, financial advisors are necessary,” Pilate climbed up, dusted off his trousers, and reached for his level. “Shit, if I had any money, I’d hire you.”
“Yeah? Well, about that, I wondered why you’re sheriff now…er, I mean constable or whatever. I figured a bestselling book would have carried you to a place of financial freedom.”
“Ha! Even if the publisher hadn’t run off with my first round of royalties, I’d still need to have some other income, unless it had great paperback and maybe movie rights. It’s a misconception that writers are wealthy people who can sit around in their high-priced smoking jackets, collecting checks for every word they write. Living comfortably off one book, even a bestseller, is more rare than a Sasquatch sighting in New York City, barring Times Square.”
“Hmm. Well, if you don’t mind, what happened?” he asked, clearing his throat. “I mean, you said they ran off with your royalties.”
Pilate explained what Frechette did and elaborated on his plans to get the money back.
“Wow,” Riley said. “That sucks.”
“It does,” Pilate said, checking the level. “Almost perfect.” Pilate got under the door again, loosened the brackets on one side, and wedged a shim between the post and the door. After screwing the door back to the brackets, he checked the level again. “Damn it.” Pilate adjusted the shim for a few more minutes until it met his specifications.
“This is some door,” Riley said, standing back and admiring it.
“Bar. It’s a bar now,” Pilate said. “Well, almost. I need to apply some stain and urethane to the top. You twenty-one yet, Riley?”
“Just last month.”
“Well, I can’t consider it an official christening or anything, but I’ve got some Modelos in the fridge,” he said.
“I’d like that, Mr. Pilate,” he said.
“John. Call me ‘John,’ Nebraska.”
The young man smiled. “Or maybe…’Constable Pilate’?”
“Ass.” Pilate laughed.
“Now that I think about it, I guess I’ll have to pass on that beer for now. I gotta pick up Abbey.”
“Ooh. Hot date?”
“Uh…yeah, I suppose.” His face darkened. “Well, no, not really. It’s just…well…”
“What’s up?”
“Well, Mr…er, John,” he stuttered, “that’s hard to say.”
“’John’ is hard to say?”
“No. I mean, yes. Well, that and what I’m thinkin’.” Riley crossed and uncrossed his arms. “It’s Abbey.”
“I thought you said you guys are okay.” Pilate wiped his hands on an old shop cloth.
“Yeah, we are, I guess. It’s just that…well, I’ve been in Lincoln for a couple months now, and she’s here, and…” Riley looked out over the denuded cornfield, as if he were searching for the words among the stray, dead stalks.
“And you want to get to know other young ladies?”
Riley turned his downcast face away, then back to Pilate. “Yes. I mean, I love Abbey, but I’m just not sure I’m ready for more than dating right now.”
“In other words, Riley has discovered that screwing girls in Lincoln is more fun than screwing a curvy hometown school marm.” Simon snickered.
“Well, Riley,” Pilate said, leaning against the door-turned-bar and picking up his level, “you see this level?”
Riley nodded. “Yeah.”
“It requires a lot of effort to hold it perfectly straight, right? To keep that little bubble right there in the middle?”
“Yeah.”
“Not too much on this side,” he said, moving the level, “or this side.” He moved it the opposite way.
“Okay…”
“Relationships are like that. Both people have to feel equal, and everything has to balance out. See?”
Riley smirked. “Kinda corny, but I get what you’re saying.”
“Okay, let me lay it out for ya. You care about Abbey, but she’s content to be a small-town schoolteacher. You’re a big—well, sorta big—city finance dude. You see a world of possibilities, and you want to try those out.”
He nodded. “Is that bad?”
“Hell no!” Pilate said. “You’d be crazy if you weren’t tempted.”
“So what do I do?”
“Do you have another girl?”
“Not exactly.” He looked down at his sneakers.
“Okay.” Pilate lowered his voice. “So you screwed somebody in Lincoln, and you feel terrible about it?”
“What if I screwed somebody in Lincoln and don’t feel terrible about it? Does that make me crazy…or bad?”
Pilate whistled, long and low. “Well, no, but it does give you your answer. Just do Abbey the courtesy of letting her get on with her life. It isn’t fair to string her along. Don’t tell her you were doing the bed sheet boogie with somebody else, but you must be honest and let her know you’ve had a change of heart. She deserves her dignity, as everyone does.”
“I don’t wanna hurt her. I never did,” Riley said, his eyes meeting Pilate’s.
“Most guys don’t mean to,” he said, looking up at Kate as she exited the back door with a cardboard box full of tiki lights. “It’s just the way we are sometimes, the nature of the beast. Nothing’s always black or white. As much as we wish everything was cut and dry, we live our lives mostly in shades of gray. Women can be the same, believe it or not.”
“Wait. I thought we were talking balance, not colors. You make no sense, John,” Simon said.
“You won’t tell anybody, right?”
“‘Course not, Nebraska,” Pilate said, offering his hand to seal his word.
Riley’s firm, strong grip undoubtedly went a long way toward putting his financial advisement clients at ease, Pilate surmised as he shook his hand.
“Just work on keeping it all level.” Pilate clapped his young helper on the back. “And don’t beat yourself up about it.”
“What’s this?” Pilate asked, holding up a box from UPS. “Taters here already?”
“Ha. I dunno. Came today,” Kate said, playing peek-a-boo with Peter.
Pilate opened it and spotted a pair of scuffed brown, square-toed Ariat boots. “Oh my God.”
“Whoa, cowboy.” Kate laughed. “You ordered boots?”
“Hell no! They’re from Mom and Dad. I left them there when I moved up here. I told Dad to give ‘em to Goodwill.”
“Oh, so that’s what he meant!” Kate said.
“Huh?”
“When he called the other day, I told your dad about your new lawman gig, and he said you’d need proper attire.”
Pilate sighed.
“Put ‘em on,” Kate said. “I’ve never seen you in boots.”
“I swore when I left Oklahoma that I was done with all that shit,” Pilate said, shoving the atrocities roughly back in the box.
“I don’t know,” she said, her eyes regarding him warmly. “I’ve always loved men in boots.”
“Am I inferring correctly? If I don these Western fiascos, I might just get…stampeded?”
She grinned. “Ya never know. Maybe I’ll make my home, home on your range,” she teased.
Pilate smiled back and quickly shoved his feet into the country footwear.
Pilate looked at the old boots as he urinated, shaking his head. Surprisingly, they did make him feel taller.
“You can take the boy out of Oklahoma, but you can’t take the redneck outta the boy,” Simon insulted.
Finished, he buttoned his pants and turned on the tap to wash his hands. The restroom at the constable’s office was tiny, with just enough room for a man
to do his business, turn around to wash up, then step back to open the door to exit. A cracked mirror hung crookedly above the chipped porcelain sink.
Pilate glanced at his reflection, surprised. In his khaki shirt with a Cross Township patch on the left sleeve, his brass constable badge hanging almost as crookedly on his shirt as the mirror on the wall, he didn’t look as ridiculous as he felt. He took in the reflection of his face. Lines had formed around his eyes and mouth, and flecks of silver had taken root at his temples, taunting his fleeting youth.
“Scary, isn’t it?” Simon said, his face looking over Pilate’s shoulder.
Pilate hadn’t seen his doppelganger’s face in months, though he’d been privy to his mocking voice far more times than he wanted to count. What’s scary? Pilate’s thoughts inquired.
“Responsibility…maturity,” Simon said without mirth. “Look at you. You have kids, a wife, a badge.”
Yeah.
“What happened to you, John? You used to be a lot more fun. Now look at you, a dogcatcher—”
“Constable,” Pilate corrected aloud. He turned off the tap and shook his hands to dry them, since the room was sans paper towels and there was no room for an electric dryer.
“Whatever,” Simon said. “You’re a bestselling author and were even an honest-to-God hero once. Now you keep little kids from crapping on old ladies’ lawns. You’re a dogcatcher, for Christ’s sake. There are Boy Scouts with more authority than you.”
Maybe.
“Don’t go dismissing me with that passive-aggressive agreement nonsense! What would your precious shrink say? Besides, that’s no fun.” Simon lit a cigarette.
No smoking.
“One of us has to, and you’re off running races and doing all that healthy living, though I see you like your drinkies more and more.”
A cocktail or glass of wine every week isn’t—
“Every week? Pssh. Don’t you mean every night? You drink every day, John.”
You would, too, if you were me.
“John, like it or not, I am you. You are me, and we are—”
“Constable? You back there?” interrupted a voice from the front office.
“Yeah. Just a minute,” Pilate said, wiping his hands on the butt of his Levi’s.
Simon waved with his fingers, clicked his tongue, and vanished from the mirror. His cigarette hung in the air for an extra second before disappearing after him.
Pilate turned, pulled the chain on the light, and walked past the jail cell/break room, into the outer area, where his desk was situated.
A youngish man with thinning hair, dressed in an ill-fitting gray suit and fancy burgundy cowboy boots, extended his hand. “Parker.”
“Mr. Parker? Nice to meet you.”
“Nemec,” the man said, making a no-you-don’t-understand gesture with his hand.
“I’m sorry?”
“Nemec, Parker Nemec. I’m the bank president,” he said, smiling and jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Next door.”
“Oh yes! Of course, Mr. Nemec.”
“Parker.”
“Parker, yes. Please have a seat. What can I do ya for?”
“Easy, there, Sheriff Taylor,” Simon snarked.
Nemec plopped down in the worn chair before the desk.
Pilate slid into Ollie Olafson’s comfortable old leather swivel behind the desk.
“Just a social call really,” Nemec said. “Just wanted to welcome ya. Nice to, uh…have a celebrity neighbor.”
Pilate smiled, wan and dismissive but not unpleasant. “Well, that’s kind of you to say, but I’m only warming the chair till they elect a real sheriff.”
“You’re not gonna run?”
“God no!” Pilate said, as if it was the most absurd notion anyone had ever had.
“Well, I just figured with all your unofficial law enforcement activities since you moved here that you might have a knack for it. When I heard that Jeremy Ryder tapped you for constable, I figured you’d found your true vocation.”
“Not even close,” Pilate said. “I just need to make a little extra money, and it’s a chance to help the community out.”
Nemec cracked his knuckles, an absentminded habit he was unaware he often performed. “Is there anything the bank can do for you?”
“Not unless you’ve got some free money lying around.”
“Ha! ‘Fraid not. I just meant if you need a place to put your book royalties or want to refinance your farm—”
“Thanks, Parker. That’s mighty nice of you. Kate handles most of that, but I’ll let her know you offered.”
Nemec looked suddenly deflated, as if he was stuck on a subway and fighting a bad case of the trots.
“Anything I can do for you folks at the bank?”
The banker shook his head. “No, no, we’re good. Haven’t been robbed in…well, ever. Ollie being next door sorta stifled that kind of thing.”
“I imagine so. Well, I hope my presence will be something of a deterrent too,” Pilate said, “though I’m not really here much.”
“And I see you don’t pack any heat,” Nemec said.
Pilate shook his head. “Guns get people hurt or worse. I’m not much more than a glorified meter maid anyway. No need.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t.” Pilate looked at the banker curiously, wondering why the nervous man, who knows full well of Pilate’s run-ins with the criminal element in Cross, would say something so clueless.
“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t,” Nemec said. He looked over Pilate’s shoulder. “Ollie used to have a big carving of an eagle hanging on the wall back there. Looked a little spooky, always seemed to be staring right through people.”
“I figure Ollie was spooky enough on his own,” Pilate said quietly. He felt odd talking so casually about the man he had killed in self-defense, especially since he was currently dusting the man’s chair with his own ass.
“There are worse things,” Nemec said quietly, keeping his eyes on the desk.
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothin’. Say, I don’t mean to step on any tender toes, but you, uh… You were friends with Derek Krall, right? I mean, before he—”
“Before he blackmailed half the town and tried to get me killed? Yeah.”
“Sorry. I just was thinking about him the other day,” Nemec said, his eyes darting to the side.
“Oh? Any reason why?”
“I was over at the college library, doing a little research, so of course he came to mind. We were friends, too, till his criminal enterprises came to light.”
“That’s understandable. Derek was an interesting and pretty likable guy, for a lying sack of crap. But you were doing research?” Pilate said.
“Oh,” the banker said, waving a dismissive hand, “I’m just something of an ol’ history buff. Derek did bad things, of course, but he was a great librarian and town historian, so when I’m looking for anything about county history, I start there. Google has nothing on him.”
“I see,” Pilate said. “Anything in particular?”
“Just some bits and pieces about downtown. I always get questions about the town history from tourists during OakFest, so I was readying up. Anyway…” He slapped his palms on his knees and stood. “I’ve already talked your ear off. I’d better be going, Constable. Just let me know if there’s anything I can ever do for you.”
Pilate shook Nemec’s clammy hand. “Certainly,” he said, then walked him out to the sidewalk.
“Pretty day. I like autumn,” Nemec said.
Pilate gestured across the wide main street. “Me too.”
“And OakFest is a-comin’ up,” Nemec said, nodding.
“Yeah, lotsa fun. I imagine I’ll have to restrain myself from writing too many parking tickets.”
Nemec chuckled and nodded again.
For a moment, both men fell silent.
Pilate searched for something to say. “Um, hey, is anybody ever gonna reopen M
ostek’s General Store?” he asked, gesturing across the street to the abandoned building. “We need a place to get groceries besides the c-store, and my wife’s tired of making the long haul to Goss City.”
Nemec nodded hurriedly. “Yeah, it could be a real gold mine for the right buyer. There are a couple interested parties.”
“Oh? Who?”
“Well, I’m not at liberty to say. Mrs. Mostek, in light of Perry’s disappearance and the shooting of Sheriff Welliver…well, the poor thing can’t bear to step foot back in there. She wants to sell soon as possible.”
“Well, I hope somebody buys it quickly,” Pilate said. “Great meeting you, Parker.”
Nemec flashed a quick grin and nodded, then traversed the ten feet to the bank door, nestled between two faux ionic pillars.
Pilate looked down the deserted street. The Cross College carillon echoed, announcing that it was five o’clock. The town tavern would soon fill with thirsty patrons, and Constable Pilate would likely have to roust a few drunks before the night was through.
Dogcatcher? Yup. That’s me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Professor Harley Cordwainer barked through the phone at Pilate, literally: “Bark, bark, bark! I can’t freaking stand it,” he said. “All night long, the incessant yapping of that four-legged mange magnet, that grotesque perversion of genetics. Have you even seen this animal? Part husky, part Chihuahua. His legs are so short that his scraggly dick drags in the dirt, like somebody strapped a flashlight-sized lipstick to a mutated rat.”
Pilate burst into laughter, which he quickly morphed into a cough. “Professor, what would you have me do?”
“Go over to Mrs. Drum’s house and shoot that escapee from the damn island of Dr. Moreau,” he said, his voice high-pitched and quickly running out of steam.
“Professor, please,” Pilate said. “Mrs. Drum already has issues with someone fouling her yard, and—”
“That’s not my concern. Listen up, Mr. New York Times Bestselling Dogcatcher, if you don’t do somethin’ to make that mutt stop yapping at all hours, I’ll see you in court.” With that, Cordwainer slammed his black phone down on its cradle.
Pilate winced, chuckled, and put down the receiver. Now he had the crankiest and most litigious professor at Cross College mad at him. “Just what I need,” he mumbled.
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