by JoAnn Ross
“I already have,” she insisted.
“I’m a professional,” he assured her. “I’ve been trained to locate missing objects.”
“He’s not a mere object. There’s a spirit inside him. A spirit that tends to have a temper if things don’t go exactly as they’re supposed to. Whoever did this is in for a terrible time.”
“All the more reason to find him,” Aiden said in his official Don’t worry, the police are on the job voice. “Now, please, go in before you catch pneumonia.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” she said as she nevertheless turned back toward the little house that didn’t have lights up yet. It was still early, not yet being Thanksgiving, but if she didn’t have them up in the next week or so, he’d stop by and put them up himself.
He walked the yard, row by row. At least she was Scandinavian tidy and had them all placed in straight lines like a gnome army waiting for inspection.
“This is a little creepy,” Bodhi said.
“She’s right,” Aiden said, after making his way up and down each row. “It’s not here... But...”
He headed over to the thick blue spruce that had grown considerably since the last time he’d been here back in middle school. While the Rocky Mountain tree wasn’t native to the peninsula, many people planted them for their Christmas tree shape and eye-catching grayish-blue year-round color. “Bingo.”
“How the hell did you find that?” Bodhi asked.
“Didn’t the afterlife give you super detective powers?”
“Apparently not.”
“It wasn’t detecting,” Aiden admitted. “But a good guess. I hid one of the smaller gnomes in the tree back when I was twelve.”
“Why?”
And wasn’t that the million-dollar question? “Because I was a shithead who hung out with other shitheads who thought it was cool to mess with people.” One of those people being Mrs. Gunderson. Which was one of the reasons he was going to put her lights up.
“Because your dad was mayor.”
“You were paying attention in those community policing seminars,” Aiden said mildly, replacing the gnome where she’d pointed it belonged. The lace curtains at the windows twitched, and a moment later the door opened.
“You found him!”
“I think he was sending out vibes,” Aiden said, hoping her memory didn’t go back that far to when he’d stuck a gnome in that same, much smaller tree. He hadn’t gotten caught for that bit of delinquency.
“I feel so much better. I made cocoa. You must come in and have a cup to warm up before you go back on patrol.”
“That isn’t—” He began to assure her that wasn’t necessary, then thought of her being alone during a time that was for families. She and Lars Gunderson had never had children, he remembered. But they’d always added skeletons and witches to the yard for Halloween and although they’d given out apples from their backyard trees instead of candy, he now realized that they’d been good people. The kind who had built Honeymoon Harbor and cared about their neighbors. Even ones like him, who hadn’t deserved it.
“I’d appreciate that, Mrs. Gunderson,” he said, resisting glancing at his watch. Time, after all, moved more slowly in Honeymoon Harbor.
Which was how he ended up drinking a mug of homemade cocoa, the real stuff, cooked on the stove with milk, and not out of a package and nuked with water, garnished with miniature marshmallows while he looked through a scrapbook of photos, each depicting some occasion when one of those gnomes had joined the family. So many Christmases, birthdays, anniversaries.
The former teacher might be old, but her memory, at least when it came to personal events that mattered to her, was still as sharp as a tack. She reminded him of his grandparents, who still bickered occasionally, but whom he’d caught sharing a kiss on the front porch, watching the sunset one night last week he’d gone out to the farm for dinner.
“This is Hallows, the gnome Lars bought me for Halloween one year.” She pointed toward a plastic gnome with a black hat, flaming orange beard and a hollowed-out stone mushroom for a basket. “That was the same year you and your friends papered our tree with toilet paper.”
Because of those damn apples. Which were only a step above a box of raisins in his asinine twelve-year-old mind. “I’m sorry about that.”
“So you said when your father brought you to the house to apologize. I’ll be honest, Aiden Mannion. I didn’t have a lot of hope for you. Especially since your behavior became even more delinquent in high school. But the Marines seemed to have made quite an impression. I read in the paper that you received a Purple Heart.”
“It wasn’t that big a deal. Just a flesh wound.” From flying rock when his team had come under fire.
“And some other medal. For heroism, I believe?”
“More for losing my temper,” he admitted. He’d run from behind the Humvee, blasting away like Audiey Murphy in one of those old black-and-white Westerns his grandpop liked to watch. “And it wasn’t that big a deal.”
“The older you get, the more you realize how precious life is,” she said. Damn. Here came those effing tears again. “That fact that you saved one was a very big deal. I’m sure your father was very proud.”
“Probably more relieved I’d gotten my act together,” he said, knowing otherwise. He handed her a handkerchief.
“My Lars always carried a handkerchief,” she said as she dabbed at her tears. “But his were always white. I’d iron stacks of them so he’d always have a fresh one. I don’t think I know any men who still stick to a gentlemanly tradition like that.
“We were never blessed with children, Lars and I, but I know I’d be proud if I were your mother. Truth be told, the entire town was proud of you, Aiden Mannion. And I know I’m not alone in being glad that you’re our chief of police.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Gunderson. That means a lot to me.” More than she could ever know. Finishing off the cocoa, he stood up. “And thank you for the cocoa and cookies.”
“Take a cookie with you,” she said. “For later.”
She walked him to the door, and as he climbed back into the SUV, he saw her patting Nisse’s red hat who was back to standing sentry.
“You really were a shithead,” Bodhi said.
“I told you I was.”
“I didn’t know about the medal.”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Yeah. So you said. What was it?”
“So, there’s not some big permanent record of my life you can look it up in?” Aiden asked.
“If there were, I wouldn’t tell you because you’re not supposed to know.”
“Why not?”
“Because, duh, you’re still alive. It’s all a mystery. Even to me sometimes, but I figure that’ll change eventually... Or maybe not. Anyway, why don’t you tell me so I don’t have to waste time grilling you.”
“It was a Silver Star. A sniper shot a couple of my teammates. Since I was the closest, I ran out from behind cover—”
“Under fire.”
“Like I told Mrs. Gunderson, I was mad. So, yeah. I dragged them back. One made it. The other didn’t.” But fortunately, he hadn’t been physically haunted by the young Marine who’d been killed on his third day of deployment. He only showed up in dreams reliving the event. Often in slow motion. “Then I got a shot off that got the shooter. But not before getting a bunch of gravel stuck in my leg after the grenade he’d been holding blew the area around us to hell. And earned an automatic Purple Heart. End of story.”
“Now you’ve got me wondering if there are other times you lied to me,” Bodhi said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re obviously lying now. I seriously doubt a day like that ever really ends. I lucked out and never had to kill anyone. But I’d bet I’d sure as hell never forget if I had.”
Aiden was saved
from answering when a black Porsche Cayenne SUV roared past in the opposite direction. Although he hadn’t done traffic duty in California, he’d gotten good at estimating speed and this guy had to be going seventy. On a road with a thirty-mile-per-hour limit that was beginning to dangerously ice up.
He pulled a U-turn, floored the gas, turned on his flasher and caught up with the SUV when his speedometer passed seventy-five. Fortunately, traffic was light, and only four cars had needed to pull over. Unfortunately, the driver of the car either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the flashing red, white and blue lights he must have seen in his rearview mirror.
“You’re going to have to use the siren.”
“Yeah.” His call to Donna, to find out if there’d been any black Cayennes stolen, had come up with zilch. Which made sense. Although they weren’t uncommon in LA where a lot of soccer moms bought them because they were flashier than the former top-runner kid-hauler Mercedes, and you might see one up here on the peninsula during summer tourist season, it wasn’t a vehicle many locals could afford to drive. Since the guy didn’t rabbit, just kept driving the same too-fast speed, he probably wasn’t fleeing a crime scene. Which, again, meant he wasn’t paying attention, that could be as dangerous as the speeding. Or he was simply an asshole.
He went with a short yelp of the siren. Nothing. Another. Still nothing.
“Hell.” He had three options, another shorter yelp, a longer wail, that he doubted the driver would pay any attention to, or a hi-lo sound. In the city, he also had a PA system he could use to blast out kids grooving to their gazillion-watt sound systems. Because studies showed drivers don’t hear sirens after a short time, he knew a few patrol officers who had up to twenty-five sounds to choose from.
As they approached a hill, he flipped back and forth between the wail and the hi-lo, that would hopefully get the attention of any approaching vehicle that couldn’t see the Porsche and him coming.
Next to him, Bodhi started singing the opening “Bad Boys” theme song from Cops.
“Not funny.”
Finally. The guy pulled over. Without signaling, but at this point, Aiden was just relieved to get him off the road. He ran the license plate and recognized the name immediately.
Thane Covington IV was the son of a Realtor whose father had bought out the blocks of bungalows that had been company housing before the closure of the mill. The same ones Mrs. Gunderson, and Aiden, lived in. Covington III had done as little as possible to bring them up to code, but was now making a big profit as the market for Craftsmen-style homes had gotten hot thanks in part, Seth had told him, to all those TV reno shows.
Back when Aiden had been in high school, Thane’s father bought a waterfront Folk Victorian just outside the historic district, tore it down to the shock of everyone in town and replaced it with a three-story, five-thousand-foot McMansion that blocked the water views of the houses behind it. Since he’d seen some Covington real estate signs scattered around town, Aiden figured Thane Covington IV had taken over the family’s firm. Or, at least, joined it.
Aiden reached the driver’s side door that boasted an extra dark gangbanger-style window tint that wasn’t only impractical in this land where sun was welcome, but also illegal under state law. Although too dark tinting was a primary offense that could get you pulled over all by itself, Aiden wasn’t in the mood to get into explanations with a guy who’d been on the debating team with his older brother Quinn. He also recalled how Quinn, the most easygoing of the four brothers, had been furious when the entire team had been disqualified after Thane Covington IV had falsified evidence in the Lincoln-Douglas division of the state finals.
He made the motion for the guy to roll down his window, instructing him to stop when it was halfway down. It took longer than necessary for compliance, but then again, he didn’t have to worry about getting shot. Of course he’d made that mistake once before.
“Hey, Aiden,” IV said. “I heard your dad got you appointed chief of police. Congratulations. That’s quite a plum, given that the most crime you’re probably going to run into is mailbox-bashing and jaywalking.”
Aiden thought about wanting to get Amanda Barrow out of danger before her obviously sociopathic husband killed her, and how Jolene had been so emotionally and physically wounded by assholes like this guy, but didn’t bother debating the topic of big-city versus small-time crime.
“Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”
“No, but I’ll bet you’re going to tell me.”
“I clocked you at seventy-three. In a thirty-mile-per-hour zone. And that’s in good weather. Which this isn’t.”
“Wow. I hadn’t realized.” White teeth that would’ve fit right in with the Hollywood crowd flashed. “This Porsche has more horsepower than I sometimes realize. I promise to watch my speed more closely, Officer.” The last word was heavy with snark.
“That would be my suggestion. May I see your license and registration, please?”
“Come on, Mannion. I really don’t have time for this. I’m late to meet a client for a listing, you probably know the house. The Victorian old lady Lancaster left to her granddaughter.”
“Your identification?”
“Hell.” Impatience radiating from him, Thane reached into the center console, pulled out the registration and an alligator wallet with his initials stamped in it and held them out.
“Please take your license out of the wallet.”
“Hey, you don’t have to get all official on my ass, man.”
“This is an official stop. Therefore, I’m going to behave officially.” And dammit, not let the dick get under his skin. Aiden had dealt with a lot worse slime in vice and the gun racketeering team. But at least they’d fully acknowledge they were bad guys. It was the ones who pretended otherwise who chapped his hide.
Huffing out a breath, Thane yanked the license out the wallet and handed it over. Along with a well-worn cardboard card.
“A courtesy card?” Aiden read the bold dark blue print at the top of the card.
“I contribute to the Friends of Police fund,” Thane said with what appeared to be a sense of pride. Or more likely entitlement as the meaning of the card sunk in.
“Which happens to be headed up by you?”
“Nah. I just contribute. You know, it’s a way of supporting the police, while the police, in turn, support the citizens. One hand washes the other.”
“Do you see that SUV behind you? The one with the bar lights?”
“Of course.”
“That’s my rig. Along with the lights and siren, it also happens to have Protect and Serve written on both doors below the town seal. Nowhere on that vehicle does it specify which citizens get protected or served.”
“Well, sure, I mean, if someone gets their house broken into, of course you’re going to show up to dust for prints, or whatever other CSI stuff you do. But, maybe no one told you when they gave you this job, the courtesy card is more like a—”
“Get out of jail free, or in this case, get out of a ticket card.”
“Exactly.” Another flash of smile, as if to reward Aiden for having gotten the right answer. It also reminded him of another time two rich guys got out of jail free because their rich daddies got them out of town before the police could make the arrest.
“Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there’s a new police chief in town. And my department doesn’t run a protection racket.” He ripped the card in half, then tucked it in his jacket pocket.
“Hey! You can’t do that. It’s an official department card.”
“Not my department. Not in my town. But, you can try telling it to the judge.” Although he normally hated traffic stops, Aiden was beginning to enjoy this one. He pulled his light transmission meter out of his belt and held it up to the window. “I’m also ticketing you for the window.”
“What t
he fuck?”
“The legal limit is 24 percent tint for the front side windows of an SUV. You’re considerably over that.” He turned the meter so Thane could read it.
“I never heard of that. I’ll bet it’s a bullshit charge you just made up.”
“It happens to be the law. You might want to pick up a booklet at the license bureau. They hand them out free. However, since you managed not to kill anyone, I’m going to let you off without tacking on a reckless driving charge that could have gotten you a year suspension and added an extra five thousand dollars into the city’s budget. Not to mention jacking up your insurance costs.”
“You always were a son of a bitch, Mannion.”
“You’d think a debater would choose his words more carefully,” Aiden said as he wrote up the ticket. “I may have been a delinquent. But unlike some people who’ll go unmentioned, since this is an official stop and I don’t believe in insulting citizens, I was also known for my charm. Which helped me get out of my own share of trouble without having to carry around a fake courtesy card.”
It was his turn to smile as he tore off the ticket and handed it back through the window, along with IV’s license. “Have yourself a nice day. And drive carefully. You wouldn’t want to wrap this shiny black Porsche around a tree on the way to your listing.”
“You should’ve hit him with the reckless driving,” Bodhi said as Aiden turned the police SUV back around.
“Not worth it. His dad would’ve shown up at the next city council meeting and tried to get me fired, and my dad, too. Then he’d probably take on the school board to go after my mom. Besides, I’m handling the situation.” He radioed the office. “Donna, please contact everyone on the duty roster. We’re having a meeting tomorrow morning at zero seven hours sharp.”
“Even the volunteers?”
“Even them.”
“Wow.”
He knew she was dying to ask. He also knew that she was probably one of the few people in town who didn’t gossip, that was why he’d kept her on as 911 operator and office manager. Because people went through a lot of stuff they deserved to keep private. Like Amanda Barrow, who was going to stick in his craw until he figured out what to do about that situation.