Dire

by Jeff Carson

  They sat in silence for a few seconds and sipped their drinks.

  “You’re wondering, Why the demotion?”

  She pointed at him. “Yes. Why the demotion?”

  He shrugged. “There’s less ass-kissing involved now, more the job I want to be doing.”

  She lifted her chin and squinted, as if peering into his psyche. “So, you have a problem with authority, yet you gave up your position of authority. Interesting.”

  “Not necessarily. I’m just not interested in playing games … Ms. Freud.”

  She smiled. “You don’t like politics.”

  He shook his head.

  “They suck.”

  He nodded.

  “Speaking of, they’re talking about this new guy a lot lately. Adam Jackson? The Aspen Wonder. Who comes up with this crap?”

  He shrugged. “The people who want him elected in two years. Or he did himself. I’m not sure.”

  “Okay, the self-imposed demotion is making sense to me now.”

  He smiled, liking her exponentially now.

  She looked at him with a serious expression. “I did check you out. And I read about what happened to your wife.”

  He nodded. “We don’t need to talk about it. It was a long time ago.”

  “Not that long.” She gave him an unreadable look and took another slug of her Scotch.

  They rode out an uncomfortable silence for a while and he asked, “So why Rocky Points?”

  “My mother started the company Luanne’s Sweets and Treats.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “What? You didn’t Google your date before the date?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Have you heard of it?”

  “Luanne’s Sweets and Treats? I think my brother and I lived off nothing but Pudding Pods through elementary and middle school.”

  She laughed, and then she upturned her hands and looked out the window. “There you go.” Her expression darkened a shade, as if an unpleasant memory had surfaced.

  “So you went from making Pudding Pods with your mother to nursing in Rocky Points.” He shook his head. “I’m not connecting the dots.”

  She smiled toothlessly. “My mother died. And then my father died. And I helped with the company for a bit, but I was tired of doing what other people wanted me to do. So I did what I had to do, then I did what I wanted to do.”

  He kept his face impassive as he let the onslaught of information settle in. “You want to help people.”

  She nodded. “I want to make a difference in people’s lives each day, you know? Not sit around and exchange emails and sales reports, my happiness tied to the ups and downs of a stock price, and all that crap. I enjoy nursing. I’m glad I got into it.”

  “Good. And I prodded John a bit when I was getting the X-rays. You have a daughter, right?”

  She nodded and a fire ignited behind her eyes. “I have a daughter. She’s five.”

  “Five. So life is all about princesses at the moment?”

  “Oh yes. It’s all princesses. And your son? He’s in high school?”

  “Yes. A senior.”

  “Wow. You don’t look like you have a son who’s a senior in high school.”

  “Thank you?”

  “I mean, there’s a little gray here”—she reached across the table and ran the tips of her fingers over his closely cropped hair—“and here.” She touched the stubble on his chin and his body shuddered. “But otherwise you look like a pretty young man.”

  “You don’t look old either.”

  She slapped down her drink and pulled her sweater off, revealing a tight gray T-shirt that had a Grateful Dead Steal Your Face logo on it. “It’s hot in here.”

  He stared at the logo on her chest, then couldn’t help but appraise her perfect, smallish breasts.

  “Get a good look?” She gave him that facetious smile again.

  He shut his eyes. “Sorry, I just heard a Dead song today. On the way to the hospital.”

  “Really? Must be … never mind.”

  “Must be what?”

  She hesitated. “I was going to say fate. But I didn’t want to creep out the whole situation here. But … too late, I guess. And, besides, I don’t believe in that sappy crap. I think you have to fight for what you want and take it.”

  He thought about the terrible way his Friday morning had started—the icy water, the twisted ankle—and how it had led him here. “I’m not so sure.”

  She stared at him a beat. Another unreadable look, like she was staring five feet past him. More memories?

  They sat in silence for a while as the music switched to a down-tempo mandolin song.

  “You know about my ex-wife. Your daughter … is that an ex-husband or …”

  She gripped her drink and held her breath. “Maybe some other time.” She dug next to her, pulled out her cell phone, and looked at it. “I’m not going to start looking at this thing, I swear. I just want to check the time and I don’t wear a watch.”

  He cursed himself for ruining the moment. That had to be a rule in every dating handbook ever written—don’t bring up the ex!

  “I understand. You have to get back to your daughter,” he said.

  She put her phone down and looked at him. Leaning forward on her elbows, she said, “It is my daughter, and I do have to get back to her.”

  She sat motionless, her eyes darting up and down, back and forth across his face.

  He froze, as if she was conducting a medical test that required he hold still. He stared back, locked on the green-blue sprockets mounted around her pupils.

  When their eyes finally met, a warm sensation lapped up and down his spine.

  “I have to work a shift on Sunday night,” she said. “I don’t know what kind of schedule you have, or if it’s even possible for you to do, but would you like to come to my house for lunch on Monday? It would be like my evening meal, so you’d actually be coming over for dinner.”

  He raised his eyebrows and pulled down the corners of his mouth, delaying his reaction, trying to see whether he could get her to squirm for once. “Hmm.” He clucked his cheek.

  Her face dropped and went bright red. “Oh, I see.” She grabbed her sweater and purse and scooted to the edge of the bench.

  He watched in confusion for a second, then launched forward and caught her arm just in time, toppling his beer in the process.

  The mug smacked on its side and beer spread over the table.

  “Wait.” He ignored the cold liquid as it cascaded onto his outstretched thigh. It pooled underneath his leg and crept up toward his crotch. “I was just … yeah, I would love to.” The beer reached his groin and he winced. “This is really wet.”

  She put her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God. Just a second.”

  She vanished into the crowd of people.

  Wolf hovered above his seat, ignoring staring patrons as the beer dripped from his jeans onto the bench.

  A few seconds later she came back with a roll of paper towels. Already armed with a wad in her hand, she carefully held up his splinted ankle and wiped underneath his leg.

  “There. I think you can sit.”

  He lowered his foot underneath the table and sat with a cold squish, then grabbed a handful of towels himself and pushed back the lake of brown beer on the table.

  “You’re soaked.” She sat down next to him. Then she grabbed another wad of paper towels, pressing them against his leg, his inner knee, and then his inner thigh as if it were a clinical thing.

  She smelled of coconut and flowers, and the Scotch on her breath, and despite deep breathing, Wolf failed to slow his arousal, something that had to be obvious to somebody spending as much time as she was down there. Then she put the paper towels on the table and leaned to her left, pressing the length of her leg against his. “What’s your phone number?”

  He told it to her.

  She produced her phone and dialed, and he flinched as his phone vibrated in his pocket.


  “There.” She pressed the call-end button and typed with her thumbs. “De-tec-tive-Da-vid.” She put the phone back in her purse and turned to meet his gaze.

  It was all he could do to resist kissing her then. Instead, he swallowed and said, “I’ll call you.”

  “If I don’t answer at first, I’m probably busy putting a catheter in an old man who’s pinching my butt or something.”

  “That’s specific.”

  She put her hand on his leg again and a shudder ran through his entire body. Then she pushed off and stood.

  “Walk me out? Oh, wait. Here. I’ll pay for my drink.”

  “I’ll buy,” he said, looking up at her from his seat. “I have a tab with Jerry.”

  “Thank you.”

  A waitress showed up with a couple of rags and began cleaning the mess. Wolf dropped a few ones. “Thanks.”

  Lauren walked through the crowd, which had swollen considerably since they’d arrived, and Wolf followed her, nodding to Jerry to put the drinks on his tab as he peeled the wet fabric of his jeans from his skin.

  She turned and smiled at his wet crotch and the streak that ran down the length of his thigh. “It looks like you peed yourself.”

  “Yes, thank you. It does.”

  Staring at her butt as they moved, he looked forward to the relative secluded silence of the parking lot outside. The memory of her breath, the handful of paper towels on his thigh, the warmth of her leg pressed up against his, all of it had his pulse racing.

  She pushed open the door and hesitated for a moment, and he almost crashed into her back as they stepped outside.

  “There he is,” someone said.

  Wolf brought up his hands to shield his face from blinding spotlights. Instinctively grabbing for Lauren’s shoulder, he pulled her by her coat and stepped around the front of her.

  “Chief Detective Wolf, do you have a moment to talk about today’s rescue?”

  Three reporters stood with foam-covered microphones in front of men carrying blazing cameras.

  He froze and instinctively looked down at the glistening dark spot on his crotch, feeling like he was lined up against the wall, waiting for the firing squad to shoot.

  Lauren grabbed his shoulder and pulled herself up to his ear. “I’ll talk to you later.” She pecked his cheek, then let go and ducked away, disappearing into the dark parking lot beyond.

  “Do you have a minute?” a female reporter said, thrusting the microphone in his face. The cameraman angled round to the side, warming his cheek with the powerful light. “We’d like to discuss the rescue on the Chautauqua River yesterday. Would you speak with us?”

  He swallowed, “Uh … sure.”

  Chapter 7

  Sunday at the ranch house had been uneventful. A slow but determined walk in the woods with Jet had aggravated Wolf’s ankle, but overall the day off was exactly what he’d needed to recharge.

  He’d spoken to Lauren for ten minutes in the afternoon to confirm their lunch date for the following day. She’d been driving to work to start her night shift, her signal cutting in and out, making the conversation lack rhythm. But even if the cell service had been crappy, it was clear that the personal connection between them was still there.

  First, she’d given him flak for the television interviews, playfully ribbing him about a few of his stammering answers, but somehow ended up making him feel better about his on-camera performance at the same time. The way she’d said goodbye to him was still fresh in his ears. Her lilt, the playful tone in her voice—it had ramped up his anticipation higher than he liked to admit. Now that it was Monday morning, he was more excited than ever to see her.

  He looked over at the bouncing pink gift bag in his passenger seat, a transparent bribe for a five-year-old girl’s acceptance that seemed more pathetic every time he thought about what was inside—a princess doll.

  Of course, all the hand wringing was on hold for the moment, because he was an hour south and west of town, approaching Cold Lake to meet the Aspen Wonder.

  Adam Jackson’s meeting request had come promptly and predictably after Judy Fleming’s visit on Friday. Wolf had initially decided to blow the man off and not return his phone call, but something was telling him that this man really was going to be the next sheriff and it would be smart not to ignore him.

  Jackson had been in town for months now, but Wolf had only officially met him for the first time on Friday. It had been a passing conversation at the law-enforcement conference, a quick handshake and Jackson’s open-ended invitation to come up ice fishing with him sometime. But now, after the meeting with Judy Fleming, Adam Jackson had extended a formal invitation.

  So here Wolf was. Officially, he’d assigned himself to Cold Lake beat patrol, which gave him an excuse to be here, pulling into the marina parking lot. The dash clock said 9:55 a.m.—five minutes early.

  Shutting off the engine, he zipped his coat to his chin, put on his stocking cap and gloves, and stepped out.

  His boots dove into five inches of fresh snow. The showers had ceased for the time being, but there was an approaching white curtain at the other end of the frozen lake.

  Snakes of snow slithered on the wind across the gleaming ice, and even with his neck-to-foot long underwear underneath multiple layers, he still felt the cold needle its way into his skin.

  The windows of the Tackle Box Bar and Grill, the only watering hole for miles, were darkened and would remain that way until later tonight, but a single car was parked in front, suggesting that the owner, Maureen McKenzie, was inside.

  The snow was crusty on the lake’s edge and Wolf favored his right foot because the long drive had pooled the blood into his ankle.

  Eleven fishing huts littered the immediate vicinity. Four of them matched the description Wolf had been given—painted brown and on wooden sleds.

  Pulling off his glove and keeping his back to the wind, he took out his cell phone and unlocked the screen. Just then a fierce gust of wind hit and he fumbled it into the snow.

  “Shit.”

  He picked it up and swept it off, and in that instant watched the two bars of reception go to nothing, replaced by the words No Service. He pocketed the phone and shoved his frozen fingers back inside his glove. He knew there was no getting the hand warm again.

  The bastard better have a heater.

  Wolf stepped out onto the ice, staying on packed snow where he could for traction, walked for a minute, and stopped in the center of the huts.

  “Adam Jackson!”

  Jackson poked his head out of a hut on the perimeter of the cluster. “Here!”

  Wolf should have guessed. The structure was made of corrugated metal, painted matte brown with a red roof. A chimney pipe snaked up the side and on one exterior wall hung a satellite dish. A cooler was perched on an external shelf. Next to the get-up was a top-of-the-line snowmobile.

  Tucking his chin into his coat, Wolf leaned into the wind and made his way over.

  “How are ya?” Jackson asked with a beaming grin, his teeth stark white against his neatly trimmed black beard. “Come in, come in.”

  Wolf nodded and stepped inside. He took off a glove and shook Jackson’s hand; the man’s skin was hot and sweaty, matching the air billowing out of the hut.

  The interior shelves, cabinets, and benches were built from pine, the craftsmanship worthy of a Margaret Hitchens listing. The wood’s fragrance mixed with the rich aromas of a gurgling coffee maker. Wolf followed the electrical cord from the small appliance to a socket in the wall, then noticed a muted television mounted on a corner cabinet behind him.

  “Solar power,” Jackson said. “Running on battery power today, of course, with so many clouds. Got a small generator, too. Take a seat.” Jackson gestured to one of two cushioned, lounger-style chairs also made of pine. “This one here.”

  Wolf sat. “Not bad. Microwave, satellite.”

  Jackson stood with his arms out in the middle of the room. There were six circular holes cut
through the floor, each with a still pool of lake water beneath its lip.

  Pictures adorned the walls. The most prominent depicted Jackson arm-in-arm with the president of the United States. They were both dressed in tuxedos, both smiling wide as if they’d just finished laughing.

  Today the Aspen Wonder wore Levi’s and a black turtleneck, the sleeves rolled up on hairy forearms. Affixed to his belt was a silver buckle and a bloody Leatherman multitool. On his wrist and fingers gleamed more gold than most banks had on hand in their vaults.

  To finish off his wealthy-outdoorsman look, he wore a clean mesh trucker hat that sent wings of graying hair sweeping out above his ears.

  “I like it in here. I had to kick out four guys a few minutes ago. Most days I got a line ten-men deep at the door, wanting to get into the Jackson Fish Hut.”

  Wolf took off his hat and gloves and unzipped his jacket. A bead of sweat ran from his armpit down his torso.

  Jackson walked to the coffee maker, poured a mug, and handed it over.

  “Thanks,” Wolf said, wishing it were an iced tea.

  “Cream and sugar’s over there. That’s my favorite hazelnut blend. I hope you don’t mind the sweetness.”

  Wolf sat, set down the mug, and stared expectantly.

  “Right. David Wolf, the man of few words. I like that. The people of Sluice–Byron County like that. They respect you, and I respect you. Of course you deserve it, pulling off stuff like what you did on Friday.”

  Wolf sipped his coffee, scalding the tip of his tongue.

  “Which is really why I’ve asked you here today.”

  “I’m not following.” Of course, Wolf was following, now expecting a rehash of Judy Fleming’s proposal.

  “Friday,” Jackson said. “I hear there’s some dispute as to what exactly happened.”

  Wolf frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Jackson waved a dismissive hand and poured himself a cup of coffee, leaving Wolf contemplating what the man had just said.

  “I’m fifty-six years old. I know I don’t look it.” Jackson sipped his coffee and winked over his cup. “And I plan on retiring when I’m sixty-five. That calculates out to two four-year terms in Rocky Points as SBCSD sheriff. That means I’m going to have to do a good job in office, which means I’m going to have to surround myself with good people.”