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His goal was to appear official yet approachable. According to the mayor, the former police chief had fallen out of touch with the populace. Burned out? Maybe. Probably. Christ. The man had been on the job thirty-five years. Shit happens.
Jack knew shit. He also knew people. He was an expert at reading personalities. An expert at blending. He could converse and connect with butchers, bakers and cold-blooded killers. His goal to bond with the citizens of Eden was both professional and personal.
“Guess you’re more comfortable in plainclothes seeing as you were a detective.”
Jack didn’t argue. He didn’t want to speak ill of Ben Curtis. He didn’t feel obliged to explain his clothes, though not official EPD attire, were in fact regulation. He took off his Oakleys, slid them into his inner jacket pocket. “Any activity I should know about?”
“Hooper got a call from dispatch at 2:31 a.m. Mrs. Carmichael reporting a possible break-in. Or vandalism. She swore someone was skulking around her house.”
The E911 Dispatch Center also dispatched calls to the Eden fire department, ambulance service, and to the animal control officer. Jack wondered how they kept up. Then again, this was Eden. They probably got four calls a day, total. “And?”
“Hooper drove out even though he knew he wouldn’t find any threat.”
Jack raised a brow.
“We get calls from the old woman at least once a week.”
“Regardless, Hooper investigated.”
“Bo Hooper’s a good man.”
“Didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
Ziffel pursed his lips, nodded.
Jack bypassed his office—a disorganized nightmare—and drifted toward a pot of freshly brewed coffee. Shy slinked along. “So what did Hooper find?”
Focused on a manila file, Ziffel grunted. “A tree branch scraping against her upstairs pane.”
“I remember Sally Carmichael,” Jack said as he filled a blue ceramic mug to the brim. “Sunday school teacher.”
“Retired now.”
“Married forever.”
“Until Harry died.”
“Now she’s widowed, alone. Skittish.”
“Starved for attention,” Ziffel added.
“Lonely.”
The man nodded. “That’s our take. Especially at night.”
“Anything else?”
“This town doesn’t see much action.” Ziffel cast a subtle line. “At least not the kind you’re used to.”
Jack didn’t take the bait. He sipped coffee.
Ziffel didn’t take the hint. He fished deeper. “Folks are speculating on why a gung-ho cop like you would ditch New York City—maybe the most exciting city in the whole U.S. of A.—for hum-drum Eden.”
In other words, he was the subject of town gossip. He wasn’t surprised. He did, however, want to douse speculation. “I burned out on big crime.”
“Oh.” Ziffel looked disappointed by the straightforward answer. No drama. No scandal. No dancing around the subject. “Burnout is common in high-stress, high-risk professions,” he said. “So instead of melting down, you transferred out of a toxic environment into a wholesome community. Smart.”
Jack saluted the man with his mug. “No place like home.”
Shy whimpered.
The deputy peered over his desk. He noted the mutt leaning against Jack’s leg, frowned. “You brought your dog to work?”
“She’s a stray. I’m her caretaker. Temporary.” Jack gestured from canine to deputy. “Shy, Ziffel. Ziffel, Shy.”
“You named her?”
“Had to call her something.”
Ziffel, a rail-thin man with a face only his mother—and wife—could love, drained his mug, then joined Jack for a refill. “Should’ve stuck with ‘Dog.’ Once you give an animal a name, you’ve made it personal.”
Jack didn’t comment. Ziffel was a pain-in-the-ass know-it-all, but he didn’t care that he hadn’t been promoted, and according to the town council, he was a conscientious lawman. Jack needed a reliable deputy, a man who knew Eden and its citizens like the back of his hand. A man the squad already respected. Ziffel fit the bill.
Jack refilled their mugs.
Shy sat and leaned into Jack’s leg.
“She thinks she’s your dog,” Ziffel said, stirring two packets of sugar into his coffee.
“She’s anxious.”
“You mean attached.”
Jack sipped. “Hazelnut?”
Ziffel nodded, then shifted. “Chief Curtis liked Maxwell House Dark Roast. Day in, day out. Don’t seem right, drinking his brew without him. Thought I’d try something different.”
“It’s good.”
“Dorothy won’t like it.”
Jack’s gaze flicked to the assistant’s vacant desk. “Speaking of Ms. Vine…”
“This ain’t typical,” Ziffel said in her defense. “Dorothy’s one of the most punctual people I know.”
“Should I be worried?”
“She’s seeing to Chief Curtis’s…worldly possessions. He was a widower,” Ziffel explained. “No children.”
“I get it, Deputy.” No wife. No kids. No one to see to his affairs after he’d keeled over unexpectedly from a heart attack. Jack was in a similar position. No wife. No kids. Just a sister who resented him and a niece who didn’t know him. “Ms. Vine gets here when she gets here.”
“Right-o, Chief Reynolds.”
“Jack’ll do.
Ziffel smiled and Jack got the feeling he’d just risen a notch in the man’s eyes. “Know what you need with that coffee, Jack? Kerri’s apple strudel. I bought a half dozen. Help yourself.”
According to Ziffel, Kerri’s Confections was famous countywide. The proprietor, Kerri Waldo, a fairly recent addition to Eden, had a gift for creating heavenly desserts. Her recipes were spiked with secret ingredients and the daily special was usually a one-time affair. The freshly baked scents wafting from the box on Ziffel’s desk promised a decadent delight.
Jack wasn’t hungry, but this was a chance to bond with his new right-hand man. If it meant sampling strudel, so be it. He moved to Ziffel’s desk and dipped into the box. Two seconds later, nirvana. “Wow.”
“I’ve asked her to marry me three times,” said Ziffel.
“Aren’t you already married?”
“In this case my wife would consider bigamy a blessing. She’s addicted to Kerri’s sweets.”
Jack cracked a smile, sampled more strudel. Shy licked his fingers. He couldn’t blame the dog. Hard to resist heaven.
“Just so you know,” Ziffel said, narrowing his eyes on Shy. “Dorothy is a neat freak.”
“Really.” Jack’s gaze flicked to his office.
“Chief Curtis’s office was off limits. Said he had his own system. Knew where everything was. If Dorothy shifted so much as a pencil, he had a conniption fit.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know Curtis’s system. Ms. Vine can shift all the pencils she wants, and while she’s at it, I could use help organizing files.”
“That she’ll like. That,” he said, pointing to Shy, “she won’t.”
Jack had only met Dorothy Vine briefly, but long enough to know she’d view Shy as a hairy, four-legged disruption. He looked down and met the mutt’s baleful brown eyes. Could she be any more needy? “Ms. Vine will have to deal. Shy’s destructive when I leave her home alone.” He refreshed his coffee and moved into the disaster zone.
Ziffel followed. “Separation anxiety. Saw a special about it on Animal Planet. Stems from fear of abandonment. Especially prevalent in rescued strays.”
Jack sat at his desk and opened that day’s edition of the Eden Tribune—the rural voice of Miami County. Although the paper included state news, it typically focused on feel-good articles, local sports and community events. Far and away from the bleak and stark reports of the New York Times, Daily News and the New York Post. There was something to be said for Americana newspapers, especially by someone suffering big-city burnout. This week the paper brimmed with stories and advertisements for Eden’s upcoming Apple Festival.
Jack skimmed the classifieds while Ziffel spouted the advantages of hiring a dog trainer. “I don’t need a trainer. I’m not keeping her.” No mention of a missing dog in the lost-and-found section. “Figured I’d walk her around town. See if anyone recognizes her.”
“Without a collar and leash?”
Jack glanced up. “We have a leash law I don’t know about?”
Ziffel sniffed. “No law. But what if she attacks someone?”
“Shy’s afraid of her own shadow.”
“Doesn’t mean she won’t attack if provoked. Just because she’s meek… Where is she, anyway?” Ziffel turned, stiffened.
Jack saw what he saw—Shy with her nose in the red-and-white signature box marked Kerri’s Confections. Shit. “Don’t—”
“Hey, you thieving mutt!”
“—yell.” Jack was on his deputy’s heels. The sight of Shy crouched and trembling with apple goo and flaky crumbs on her snout made him smile.
Ziffel was not amused. “You…scrounge. You…menace!”
He gripped the man’s bony shoulder. “You can’t blame the dog for wanting to sample something that smells so good.”
“She not only ate all the strudel,” he complained, “she peed on the floor.”
“That’s because you yelled. Relax. I’ll clean it up.” Jack patted Shy’s bowed head, then swiped several tissues from Dorothy’s desk.
“The strudel—”
“I’ll buy more.”
“Probably sold out already.” He swiped up the damaged box. “Dang nabbit!”
Dang nabbit? What the hell? Cops cursed. Most of them crudely and often. At least in Jack’s experience. Then again, this was Eden—paradise in the heartland. An old-fashioned town with old-fashioned values.
While Ziffel cleaned up the pastry disaster, Jack made a mental note to clean up his language—when in Rome—although he refused to substitute dang for damn or fudge for fuck. Although, damn, fuck should probably go. This should be interesting. Amused, he flushed the soiled tissue, then washed his hands.
The roar of an engine drew them both to the station’s front window.
Jack noted the rider with a raised brow. Was that…Holy shit. It was. On the heels of surprise came a jolt of lust. Typically he wasn’t attracted to biker chicks, but this one was sexy as hell in her short skirt, denim jacket and…Christ…were those combat boots?
“Spenser would have a fit if he saw Kylie on that motorcycle,” Ziffel said.
Jack wrestled with his own misgivings. “Because it’s not a Harley? Or because it’s dangerous?”
“Both.”
He was right. Spenser wouldn’t approve. Mostly because of the safety issue. Motorcyclists were twenty times as likely to die in a crash than someone riding in a car.
Great.
Now Jack felt compelled to lecture Kylie on the perils of the road as well as home security.
At least she was wearing a helmet.
He watched as she parked the sleek silver motorcycle in front of Hank’s Hardware. Given her obsession with Asia, he wasn’t surprised she’d chosen Kawasaki. “That her regular mode of transportation?”
“Her car’s in the shop. Usually she drives a Honda Civic.”
“She has a sudden aversion to the usual.”
“A sudden aversion to modesty, too,” Ziffel noted. “Who rides a bike in a skirt? What was she thinking?”
About shaking things up.
