Chapter 7

I got up at seven the next morning – regretfully, for my vacation was over with the sounding of the alarm. I had the clock on the other side of the room, a habit I got into when I was young, for I then typically got just four or five hours of sleep a night for weeks on end, and would turn off the alarm without waking up if it were by the bed. Cecelia's learned to sleep through an alarm that she didn't set and wake up for one she did – don't ask me how her mind differentiates – but I still hopped up and killed the noise as soon as I could. I didn't want to disturb her if I could help it.

I shaved with the bathroom door shut, and trimmed my mustache. I'm half Indian, but it doesn't show much; my skin is naturally white, and my whiskers are as heavy as any full-blooded Anglo. The only visible sign of my Indian ancestry is my tan – I tan easily and well, and it doesn't fade quickly. My tan is, in fact, permanent – even during the winter my hands and forearms remain brown, though not as brown as they are during the height of summer. My brother Memphis, though, is almost as dark as a full-blood, and can barely grow any hair on his face; he got all the Indian genes and I got all the white ones, it seems.

Dressing is easy for me. I grabbed the nearest shirt, tucked it into my jeans, fastened my belt buckle, and put on my socks and boots. All that remained as I went out the door was to set my bullrider hat on my head; if I go outside hatless I feel as undressed as if I were without my pants.

Investigating the possibility of dirty cops presented any number of avenues of approach. I could start by talking to every cop I could find. I could investigate backgrounds, trying to see if anyone had had suspicions about him elsewhere – though that kind of investigation takes more people than I have at my disposal ... of course I've just got me at my disposal. I could follow officers around and see what they did, but that was an iffy proposition; I'm good at surveillance, but anyone who's been a cop more than a few months is always looking at everything around him, and it would take someone better than I am, and more of them, to successfully tail cops for long.

What I decided to do was talk to the various businessmen around town, particularly those who ran establishments which could either easily pay off cops or which could be susceptible to pressure from corrupt officers. I'm like Harry – if an officer eats on the arm, I have no problem with it. If I were running a restaurant, I'd give cops free or half-price meals myself; if I ran a store, I'd give an unofficial police discount. I appreciate the job the police do, and since cities never pay enough to really compensate for what cops endure, if a citizen wants to use his business to take up some of the slack that's fine with me.

But sometimes cops get greedy, and began pushing a meal on the arm or a bill of groceries at a discount to unconscionable lengths. Or a businessman, trying to get preferential treatment, will escalate a simple free meal or discounted product into de facto bribery. Unfortunately we don't have a test which will allow us to only hire perfect people to be cops, and so sometimes they succumb to temptation. They ought not – but equally preachers, janitors, bus drivers, mechanics, and grade school teachers ought not to give in to temptation, yet they do. We all do. If I were to recite the sins I've committed – whether sins according to the Bible or according to society – I'd have a lifetime occupation.

So I'd check with the various businesses. The next question was how much I wanted to push. On the one hand I wanted to get this over with and get back to vacation. On the other hand, though I had been a cop here and a lot of people clearly remembered me, not everyone would remember me with favor – Abbie at the restaurant had demonstrated that – and in any event I wasn't a cop anymore. Well, technically I was, and I'd use that tin whenever I had to, but I knew and Harry knew and anyone else who was in on the matter would know that I had the badge, and had taken the oath, just so I'd have official standing for the duration. It would be entirely possible, if I tried to go too fast, for someone to tell me where to get off at. Perhaps somewhere down the line I could stick that person with an obstruction charge, but it would be better if that never came up.

Harry had said I had a way of getting information, and it was true. I don't know myself exactly how I do it. I just ask questions, in my mild way, in whatever order they occur to me, and eventually I learn things. Some officers have a more forceful approach, some play stupid, some adopt a dry Joe Friday method – I just ask what comes to mind, and note what I hear. Somewhere in my manner, or my method, or my honest face, or my fascination with rattlesnakes, or my rundown boot heels, or somewhere, there must be something which persuades people to tell me things. I don't much care what the secret is, just so long as it's there, and works.

But first I needed a vehicle. I wasn't about to hijack Cecelia's car, and restrict her to whatever was in walking distance. And it was, in fact, her car; just like the house, the title was in her name alone, which was fine with me since she'd paid for it with her money, and my truck was still in my name only. So I needed a department car. I started walking toward downtown, where the police station was. Red Hawk's department had only been about 20 years old when I'd joined it in 1986, and back then the station was brand new. They were still using the same building, since it was only 20 years old now, though it was beginning to be somewhat cramped; whether it's paper or books or toys or a government agency, whatever you put in a building will expand to fill the space plus some indefinite percentage beyond that. I'm sure someone's formulated it in the same kind of way as the Peter principle, but I've not seen the book.

Early in the Oklahoma morning it was still cool, though the promise of heated humidity was in the air. There was a faint mist in the low places along the road; the motel was on the edge of town, and at first there weren't a lot of houses. My boots knocked on the blacktop, or crunched in the gravel when a car came by and I stepped onto the shoulder. At one point I passed an alfalfa field, and could smell the sweet odor of it even though it was too early yet for haying. Occasionally a field on one side of the road or the other would have a few cattle in it, and once there was a pasture with half a dozen horses; I managed to persuade one to come over and let me pet him – or her; it's been a long time since my year as a cowboy, and I couldn't tell offhand if it was a gelding or a mare – while we both took care not to snag ourselves on the barbed wire. I reflected as I walked on that in Oklahoma if you say "barbed wire" some people might not understand you; to them it's "bobwahr," all one word, with the emphasis on the first syllable. Oklahoma isn't the deep south, but it is the south – at least most of it is; perhaps up by the Kansas line you might get people who don't sound southern, but I've never lived up that way and while I've passed through on occasion, I've never spent much time in that part of the world. And being a southern state – Stand Watie, a Confederate general, was an Indian from Oklahoma – you get pronunciations like "far" for "fire," "cain't" for "can't," "awl" for "oil," and "whur" for "where."

You can think of a lot of things when you walk by yourself. This is, in fact, one of the reasons I like to walk. I can put my mind in "think" and let it run, while my body does what comes natural. For some reason thinking seems like harder work when I'm sitting still than it does when I'm walking. The only comparable situation is when I'm dropping off to sleep, and that's a time when the mind is turning loose of reality and the thoughts that come are as likely to be skewed as they are to be straight.

I didn't think about the case as I walked. I did think some about Cecelia. If I believed in luck, I'd consider myself the luckiest man in the world. Being married to Cecelia is the best thing that's ever happened to me. She's so intelligent, so wise, so clear on what she thinks and wants, so committed to using her mind. Some people categorize men as rational and women as emotional, but in my experience men aren't any more rational than women, who very frequently control their emotions better than men. Cecelia certainly has strong emotions, as strong as mine, but her mind is sharp and clear; she's smarter than I am, and wiser, and it's always a pleasure talking to her because she doesn't clutter up her conversation with a lot of emotional drivel. She certainly feels – but she doesn't emote.