Chapter 5

After breakfast we repacked the picnic basket – with the pots and pans wrapped in plenty of paper towels – and put the basket in the car. I thought briefly about having dirty pans and such in the trunk, and then left it alone; Cecelia knew what she was doing. We walked around the park, and after a while out into the town. As with all periods when there's no plan, and you're just doing whatever you feel like doing at the time, the morning went far faster than we realized, and before we knew it we were hungry again.

We went to the Dairy Queen for lunch. As we were eating I looked at Darlia. "You know, Weightlifter," I said, "according to the constitution of Texas, a town can't incorporate unless it's got a Dairy Queen in the city limits."

She looked at me steadily for a moment, chewing vigorously. Then she switched her gaze to Cecelia. "Mommy, is that true?"

I glanced at Cecelia. Her face was straight, but I got the impression it was only by a great exercise of will. "I've never lived in Texas, honey, but your father has."

Darlia's face got an accusatory look. "Mommy, you're ignoring my question!" When she switched her gaze back to me, she was a picture of offended dignity. "Daddy, I don't believe you!"

I looked over at my wife. She was openly smiling now, and she shrugged, her hands palm up and shoulder high. "I tried, Darvin."

"Yeah – if you'd tried much harder you'd have been sleeping." My voice had a fake sourness to it. I turned back to Darlia. "Okay, 'Lia, you win. But remember that one to tell your friends." I took a bite out of my burger. "Now here's something that's really true – you can check it on a map sometime. There's a town in Texas called Muleshoe, and it's about 30 miles from Earth."

Now Cecelia looked at me in frank disbelief. "Darvin, that surely is a fiction."

"Nope – look it up. They're in the Panhandle." And I took another bite.

After lunch we walked back to the car, which was still in the shade, though by barely, and drove downtown. The police station was actually closer to the park than the Dairy Queen was, and closer to the Dairy Queen than to the park, but I knew that by the time we were done there we'd likely be ready to ride for a while. I automatically went around to the back and parked in one of the officers' slots – and when I realized what I'd done I broke out laughing. And when I explained it to my family, they laughed too. I left the car there, and then we walked around to the front, since I hadn't had a key to the back door in nearly 20 years. Inside, the receptionist – there wasn't the stereotypical desk sergeant, and as far as I knew never had been – was expecting us, and even though I'd never seen her in my life she recognized us. I guess there aren't too many salt-and-pepper couples coming in each day to see the chief – and if there had been it would have surprised me. I hadn't lived in Red Hawk for a long time, but the place couldn't have changed that much.

Harry Thomas came out of his office, and got a uniformed officer to take Cecelia and Darlia around. I knew that while he did sincerely want them to see the station and how the department operated, he also wanted to be sure they were elsewhere. I didn't mind; privacy is a good thing, and anything I thought my family needed to know, I would tell them afterward.

As he got settled behind his desk, and I sat in front of it in the functional chair that looked like every other chair in front of every other desk in every other government office in the nation, I asked, "So, what's the chief doing out on patrol early in the morning?"

"Mostly it's because I want to think I'm still a cop and not just an administrator. Two or three times a month they put me on the patrol schedule – and I had to fight for that – and I go out and sit in speed traps, or cruise around looking for things, or bust drunks, or whatever else I might need to do. Sometimes I'll grab a case from the investigators, if it doesn't seem too difficult; you remember I never was very good at that. I just want to remember that in spite of the stars on my collar, I'm still a cop."

"Be hard to forget that," I said. "You were a cop when I was a kid."

"Just how old are you now, Darvin?"

"Forty-one ... though I don't feel like I'm that old. I feel like I'm still 30."

"And how long have you been married?"

"We just had our eleventh anniversary."

"So your mental age froze when you got married." And he grinned at me.

"Yeah, I guess it did. Cecelia's keeping me young, I suppose."

"Thirty was once pretty late to get married," Harry said, "but I guess these days it's more and more common."

"Yeah. Neither of us planned it that way, though, the way people do these days – we just never met each other till then."

"That sounds like you. I remember you never planned any more than necessary – and most of the planning you did do you carried in your head. I suppose your daughter had about that much planning."

"Just about. We never thought about having kids, or not having kids; we never planned to have just one, or more than one. We just let nature take its course, and it looks like we're gonna just have Darlia. And while I'd have been thrilled with a house full of kids, I'm just as thrilled to have the one girl."

Harry shifted in his chair. "You know I never had any kids. We wanted kids, but it never happened..." His voice trailed off, then he straightened. "But I asked you to come see me for another reason than just passing the time. I want you to do something for me."

"Sure, Harry, what is it?"

"You were the best investigator this department had, when you were here."

"Shoot, Harry, there were only two of us."

"Yes, but you were so much better than the other guy, what was his name, Frank Something."

"Frank Genoa."

"Yeah, him. He was good – but you were a lot better."

"Maybe I was. What of it?" I couldn't help sounding a bit irritated; I hate that kind of talk.

"I suppose you're still good at it."

"I suppose so – I've been working as a PI since I quit the department."

"I know – I did some checking when I heard you'd come back to town."

I wasn't surprised; Harry was a cop, and would have been curious, with the means to satisfy his curiosity. "That's all fine and good, but there's a point here, and I don't get it yet."

Harry looked behind me. He'd shut the door behind us when we came in, but I guess he was making sure. "I suspect we've got some dirty cops, Darvin. And I want you to investigate it."

"Harry," I burst out somewhat heatedly, "get your own people to look into it. I'm not a cop anymore, and even if I was I'm not with this department. And besides, I'm on vacation."

He leaned back in his chair, and there was a small smile on his face. "I know you, Darvin – and you're doing exactly what I expected you to do. Let me tell you how it is.

"We do have an Internal Affairs Department now, sort of; we've grown enough that there is one investigator who deals with such things – part time. But we seldom have any need for that side of his work; mostly he handles regular cases just like our other investigators, all four of 'em. And if what I've come across is at all accurate, we've got a bigger problem than he can handle."

"You sound like half the department's dirty."

"It's not that bad – I think. But what I'm hearing makes me think that I've got officers who've gotten in deeper than they should." He rubbed his head; the gesture must have arisen as his hair fell out, for he'd never done it when I lived in Red Hawk. "I don't have any problem with officers eating on the arm—" he meant getting free or cheap meals "—or getting a 'police discount' at the grocery store, or whatever – we're like every other department on earth, and can't pay our people what we ought to. I don't mind if citizens help us out that way – and if the officer who's getting his smokes at half price goes by the 7-11 a bit more often than he might otherwise, that doesn't bother me either. I don't want those kids clerking up there at midnight getting hurt. But eating on the arm, and being on a pad, are two different things, and I'm afraid I've got officers on a pad." Between us – cop and ex-cop – he was using all sorts of police slang.

"And you want me to find out who they are." The thought wasn't pleasant. When police officers go on the pad – start taking bribes – it wrecks everything the badge stands for.

He leaned forward with a jerk. "I want you to find out if I've got officers on a pad, and if it's so, who they are. I want to think that my officers would never do such a thing, and I hope you prove my suspicions are wrong. The first question is 'if, ' and that's where I want you to start."

I shoved my palm at him. "Hang on, Harry – I ain't said I'd do anything yet, and you're already giving me instructions, and telling me how to run an investigation. I'm here on vacation, after all; I don't want to work while I'm here – and if I did, I've been an investigator for a long time, and know what I'm doing."

I could tell Harry was mad – but I knew it wasn't at me. It was just that I was the only one handy. He was mad at whoever had created the situation, and it spilled out on me. I could see him getting a grip on his temper. "Darvin," he said finally, "I was going crazy before you got here, trying to figure out how to handle this. I won't be able to sit on it much longer. And then I'll have to give it to George, the IAD guy, and hope he doesn't bungle it. He's fine for residential burglaries or someone driving off from the pump without paying, but I'm not sure he could handle this one. For one thing, he's got this exaggerated idea of the sanctity of the 'blue wall of silence.'"