Chapter 5

Things didn't clear up immediately, but knowing that my wife, my best friend, and my daughter were, at the very least, not in opposition to the idea tended to weaken my resistance. The information that Dunn had promised arrived, and I looked it over – the proposed pay and benefits package, an application for the job, a waiver of the usual civil service examination ... which I hadn't known Red Hawk had instituted, an assurance that if I wanted the job the votes were there on the city council to make it a sure thing. There was also a copy of a letter from Harry Thomas, who'd been the chief when we'd made our visit back in 2006. It was to the council, highly recommending me.

I frowned at that. He'd acknowledged when I was there that he was a better administrator than I could ever be, and here he was recommending me for the chief's job. That made me think either that he'd gone bat wacky, or that the job had gotten to be mostly sitting around doing nothing, or that he just didn't know anyone who could actually do the job. I didn't know which to believe, or which was the most or least complimentary to me or Harry.

I thought about calling him – I had his number – but like a lot of cops who retire after long service he was trying to stay as far away from police work as possible. He'd been a cop for 40 years, if I could remember rightly, and he hadn't wanted to go into security work the way some ex-cops do. In fact, he'd told me that when he turned in his badge and issue weapon, he'd sold the other two or three pistols that he'd accumulated over the years. It wasn't that he hated or feared guns – you can't have that sort of problem and be a cop – but that he'd worn one every day for most of his life and, like a retired carpenter, was ready to put the tools down.

I knew if I did call Harry he'd be the same friend he'd been when I'd known him in my 20s and he was a patrol officer, and again when I'd renewed our acquaintance three years before. But I also knew what he would say – it was right there in the letter that the city council had Xeroxed and sent me. There wouldn't be any point in it.

Eventually I'd gone through the whole package, and stuck it in the middle drawer of my desk. And there it stayed, for days on end. I told the other elders what I was dealing with, and they said they'd pray for me, but on this matter I asked them to refrain from advising me. None of them had been cops, and I had the sense – perhaps just a touch of cop paranoia and clannishness – that they didn't know enough about police work to be helpful.

That didn't make sense, though. Cecelia, though she's learning to be a PI and has been working in my office since May of 2008 – going on a year now – has never been a cop, and Darlia's just a kid and has been in a police station exactly once in her life. Yet I'd sought their advice. Whoever said human beings are intelligent must have been going on propaganda, without ever meeting a single human being. As Robert Heinlein said, we're not rational beings, we're rationalizing beings ... well, he said "animal," but I don't believe in evolution.

There came a day when I woke up, put on a pair of jeans so ratty that I only wear them around the house, slipped a Baltimore Ravens jersey over my head, and went out into the kitchen. The clock over the stove said that Cecelia was off taking Darlia to school, so I grabbed a Coke from the refrigerator and took it into the study. I stood at the wall of glass, where the garage door used to be, and looked out. It was sunny and warm for February – New Mexico's winters fluctuate up and down sometimes – and though it wasn't spring quite yet, it looked like it might be spring before the day was over.

I turned and went back to my desk, and took the manila envelope out of the drawer where it had been sitting. I pulled the stuff out of it, and got the application out of the stack. And suddenly I reached for the beer stein on the desk, pulled out of it what in Oklahoma they call an "ink pen," and began filling out the application. I skipped the references – I could have given some, but I thought I'd see just how committed the city council was – and the only educational information I put in was my high school graduation, back in 1982. I've never been to college, and if that bothered the people in Red Hawk, so be it. I had decided to put in for the job, but not so eagerly that they wouldn't have any choice about the matter.

When I was done with the application, I turned to my computer, booted it up, started Word, and wrote a letter. I said that I'd accept the job – but only on two conditions. First, they had to accept Cecelia as an officer, if she chose to apply for the job. And second, I would be the chief for a year, no more. When I'd proofread it to my satisfaction, I printed it, signed it, paperclipped it to the application, and carried the papers out to the living room. Cecelia's car wasn't in the driveway, so she wasn't home yet. I left the papers on the coffee table where she'd find them, went back to the bedroom, got dressed, and went out for a walk.