Don't Call Me Hero (4 page)

I had to call Chief Hart this morning to receive further information about my future in Embarrass. But first I poured myself a cup of coffee, finished my yogurt and muffins, and enjoyed the near silence of my surroundings. That kind of peace was rare in a combat zone, and I’d learned not to take it for granted.

I found a kitchen attached to the dining room, and I rinsed my breakfast dishes and set them in the sink. The bed and breakfast proprietress had still not returned from church, so I went back to my room and packed up my things before calling the number I had for Chief Hart. I didn’t know if he’d be at morning mass with the rest of town, but I could leave a message if no one answered.

A woman picked up after a few rings. “Hello?”

I had been mentally prepared to hear Larry Hart’s gravelly voice, and for a moment I worried I’d dialed the wrong number. “Hi, uh, is Chief Hart around?”

“If this is police business,” she said sternly, “you should call City Hall.”

“No, uh, this is Cassidy Miller. He said I should call when I got into town.”

“Cassidy!” The woman’s tone immediately brightened. “I’m sorry, dear, I didn’t recognize your voice. This is Marilyn. It’s been so long.”

Marilyn was Chief Hart’s wife. Although I hadn’t seen her in years, I only had fond memories of the older woman.

“How are you?” she asked. “Did you just get into town?”

“Last night, but it was late. I didn’t want to bother you guys.”

“Oh, nonsense,” she chided. “You’re family; you can call whenever.”

“Uh, is the Chief available? Or should I call back later?”

“Oh right,” she laughed. “You’ve got official business to discuss and here I am talking your ear off. Let me go get Larry.”

I heard her call for her husband, and there was a brief rustling noise as the phone exchanged hands before I heard a man clear his throat. “Larry Hart here.”

“Hey Chief, it’s Cassidy Miller.”

“Cassidy!” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I was expecting your call last night. I was about to put an APB out when I didn’t hear from you.”

“I got in late last night,” I explained. “I didn’t want to bother you at home.”

“Don’t ever worry about that, Cassidy. You call whenever,” he echoed his wife’s earlier sentiments.

“I was hoping I could get the keys to my apartment today?” The question made me uncomfortable like I was putting him out even though housing was provided for in my new contract.

“Of course. My sergeant, David Addams, is on duty today. He should be hanging out at the police station and can give you the keys to the apartment. If no one’s there, call the non-emergency number and he’ll meet up with you at City Hall. I’d do it myself, but Marilyn has me roped into playing Bridge with her and some other couples later today. Stop by City Hall tomorrow morning and we’ll get you officially set up.”

“Sounds great,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

The police station was located in the basement of City Hall. The three-story, cream-city brick building stuck out among the more modest storefronts on Main Street. The primary entrance was locked because it was Sunday, but I found an alternate door that led directly to the police department in an alley between City Hall and the next-door dentist office. Only a small metal sign with an arrow and the word “Police” indicated I’d found the right place.

My first impression of the police department wasn’t flattering. The air felt heavy like rain had recently flooded the basement or ground water had worked its way up through a storm drain in the concrete floor. There was a peculiar scent to the place like burned coffee and motor oil. It reminded me of being at a car mechanic, not a police station.

If it weren’t for the small, rectangular windows that dotted the parameter of the walls near the ceiling, no natural light would have reached the sublevel department. Instead, overhead halogen panels ran seamlessly with the drop ceiling and illuminated the space with an unnatural yellow glow.

I knocked on a frosted glass cutout in an old wooden door, and it noisily swung open.

A man who looked no older than myself sat behind a reception desk. He wore a dark brown uniform shirt and pressed pants a shade lighter. He leaned back in his chair with his chunky black boots on top of the desk. His high and tight haircut suggested he’d been military once, but I wasn’t ready to swap war stories.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you David Addams?”

“Guilty.”

His smile was disarming, and when he brought his arms up to cradle the back of his head so he could lean back even farther in the office chair, I noticed he wore no wedding band. A lot of guys left the jewelry at home when they were on duty, but I sensed that this man was probably Embarrass, Minnesota’s most-eligible bachelor.

“I’m Cassidy Miller.” It struck me how many times I’d had to say my name already just that morning. But this was only the beginning. I was in a new town full of unfamiliar faces. I’d have to introduce myself a hundred times over.

He dropped his feet off of the desk, and his boots hit the floor with a solid rubber noise. “
You’re
Cassidy Miller?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Last time I checked, why?” His reaction had me feeling self-conscious. I smoothed down the front of my wrinkled T-shirt beneath my leather jacket.

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “When Chief Hart said he’d hired a female police officer to take night shift, I wasn’t expecting you’d…” he trailed off.

“Look like a girl?” I finished for him.

He flashed me another boyishly charming smile. “That’s pretty horrible of me, right?”

I returned his even smile. “Don’t worry; I won’t hold it against you.” I tended to baulk at stereotypes, but even I’d observed that femininity was a rare commodity in the armed forces and the police academy. 

David stood up. “So are you stopping by to check the place out?”

“Kind of.” I gave the department another cursory sweep. “Chief Hart said I could get the keys to my apartment?”

“Oh, right.” He opened a desk drawer and rummaged around before producing two house keys on a metal ring. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” I palmed the gold-colored keys and shoved them into the pocket of my leather jacket. “Think you could point me in the right direction? I have no idea where anything is in this town.”

David slapped his hand to his forehead. “Sorry. You must think I’m really thick. Go back the way you came,” he said, pointing at the exit, “and take a right out the door. The apartment is in the brick building across the street. You’ll see the signs. Can’t miss it.”

I bobbed my head in thanks. I turned to leave and heard his parting words just before I reached the stairs.

“Welcome to Embarrass, Cassidy Miller.”

+ + +

My new studio apartment was located above the town’s Laundromat. The brick building was two stories with three apartments—A, B, and C—occupying the second floor. A short stairwell instead of an elevator led up to the apartments from a private alley entrance. There was another entrance through the Laundromat, but the landlady who owned the building and lived in apartment A kept that door locked to keep her customers from wandering upstairs.

The door to apartment C was swollen, requiring a little finesse to unlock the deadbolt to gain entrance. Only a few feet from the door were my packing boxes, piled in tidy stacks like adult-sized building blocks. Since I’d enlisted upon graduating high school, and between multiple tours in Afghanistan and bouncing from one military base to the next, I hadn’t accumulated much more than what could fit into the saddlebags of my Harley. My civilian wardrobe was similarly basic, having spent the majority of my adult life in a uniform.

The apartment came fully furnished, but the provided furniture was spartan. The layout was open with one of those folding screens to partition off the bedroom area from the rest of the apartment. The wood floors were scuffed and in need of a fresh sanding and layer of varnish. The windows were similarly old; white paint peeled up from the sills and the single panes of glass shuddered with every brisk gust of wind. It would probably feel like a greenhouse in the summer with the sun beating in through the southern exposure windows, and there was no air conditioner in sight. Three brick walls would make it nearly impossible to hang anything up—not that I had anything to hang.

The only drywall was in the kitchen area, which consisted of a single sink, refrigerator, oven, minimal counter space, and a small kitchen island with two stools that doubled as the dining room table. In the front foyer there was one narrow closet that would have to serve as storage for both my wardrobe and my belongings. I found the bathroom to be small, but functional: toilet, sink, and stand-up shower. There would be no more baths for me.

The living room was an easy chair and an old tube television propped on a milk crate. I dropped my duffle bag on the dark red chair. There was probably room for a grander living room or a proper dining room, but I had no talent for furniture arrangement or interior design.

I pulled out my phone and frowned at the “E” in the top left-hand corner—no internet—my apartment was a dead zone. Unless I foot the bill for my own hook-up, I’d have to go to the public library or the office to check my e-mail and search for porn.

I turned on the television and discovered it got all the local cable channels. I stopped flipping the channels when I found the Twins playing a double-header. At least I wouldn’t be totally isolated up here.

CHAPTER THREE

Since I hadn’t had time to go grocery shopping, and without reliable wireless service, I had to trust local word-of-mouth to find someplace for breakfast the next morning. The reed-thin, grey-haired man shuffling down Main Street walking his equally skinny dog assured me that everyone went to Stan’s 24-hour diner. It was one of those old-fashioned drive-in joints with only a few tables; most people sat around the dozen and a half stools that hugged a huge, curved countertop. A flattop grill dominated the center of the restaurant where a man, who I assumed was Stan, made your food while you watched.

I settled down on a vacant stool situated between two older men. The man to my right had his eyes closed, and if not for the way the coarse hairs of his mustache fluttered with each exhale, I would have worried he had died in the middle of breakfast. The man on my left peeled a hardboiled egg with impressive dexterity as if he’d done it every morning of his life.

I ordered French toast and coffee from a waitress who stared at me like she was trying to look under my skin. It was obvious that people in Embarrass knew each other. I was a stranger, and I could see the curiosity and distrust in people’s stares.

“You’re not from around here.”

I twisted on my stool to regard Mr. Hard-Boiled Egg. His light brown eyes squinted in contemplation.

“No, sir. I’m not.”

“I’m Franklyn Walker,” he said, grabbing my hand and giving it a hearty shake.

“Cassidy Miller,” I returned. I eased my hand out of his tight grip. “I just got hired on with the police department.”

“Police, eh?” He widened his toothy grin. “I used to be the Circuit Court judge, but now I’m one of those retirees. Last vestibule of royalty in society, I’ve always said. How many other people get called ‘Your Honor?’”

“That’s a good point, sir.”

Franklyn Walker was one of those people who told you his life story within the first few minutes of meeting him. “I’m too old to have secrets anymore,” he explained to me. He was small in build and easily excitable.

His wife, Deborah, perched beside him, was quiet and quick to roll her eyes. She seemed to balance out his over-exuberance. They’d been married for fifty years, and Franklyn wore that fact like a badge of honor.

When I asked if they had any kids, he said they did, but he claimed he didn’t know how many. “I mostly saw them in the rearview mirror on family road trips,” he told me. “That was back in the day before everyone flew everywhere. We had a station wagon with two back bench seats. I never could keep track of them all. Things have changed, but not always for the better,” he continued on. “Now you get frisked every time you wanna get on an airplane.”

“Frank,” his wife scolded. “Leave the poor girl alone. She came here for breakfast, not to have her ear talked off.”

“I like meeting new people,” Franklyn defended himself. “Everyone I know is either buried in the Catholic cemetery or they’ve moved to Florida.”

The bell above the diner door rang with the entrance of a new customer. I glanced briefly in the direction of the sound, and the French toast nearly fell out of my mouth.

It was her. The woman from the Minneapolis club.

“Coffee to go, please.”

God, that voice.

Franklyn had fallen silent with the woman’s entrance. He’d greeted everyone who walked in with a boisterous good morning and a comment about the weather or how good he thought the high school football team would be that season. But he said nothing to the raven-haired woman as she waited for her coffee.

I tried to stare as unobtrusively as possible. She was even more flawless in the light of day. Her grey trench coat was cinched at her small waist and obscured my view of most of her body. I let my gaze travel down the nylon stems of her legs to her black stilettos that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.

My attention swept back up her body to her face, and I nearly choked when I realized she’d caught me staring. My throat constricted. Did she recognize me? Or had she forgotten about the clumsy girl who’d dumped multiple drinks on her dress?

She tucked a sweep of jet black hair behind an ear to reveal a pearl earring. Her caramel-colored eyes narrowed just slightly as if she was trying to make sense of my face. It was a look that said I was familiar, but she didn’t know how. The club had been dark, and I was sure I looked different to her in daylight. She, however, looked just as beautiful, if not more so.

“Coffee’s up.” Stan set a lidded cardboard cup on the countertop, breaking the woman’s silent effort to figure out who I was. She placed a five-dollar bill on the counter and gave Stan a tight-lipped smile in thanks. She glanced once more in my direction before leaving. The bell over the diner entrance jangled with her exit.

I took one more sip from my coffee and pulled a ten-dollar bill out of my wallet. I tossed the money on the countertop and left my breakfast half-eaten and forgotten. I might not have been able to confront her in the diner, but that didn’t mean I was going to let her walk away without a word. I didn’t believe in coincidences.

After a quick goodbye to Franklyn and Deborah Walker, I left Stan’s and paused on the concrete sidewalk out front. I looked left and then right. The city was starting to wake up; it was busier than when I’d shown up for breakfast, but I saw no sign of the dark-haired woman. I almost questioned if I’d imagined seeing her. Maybe my flashbacks had expanded beyond the desert war zone to include my most recent embarrassing moments.

My digital watch beeped with the new hour. I’d have to look for my mystery woman later; Chief Hart would be expecting me soon. I had her first name, but there was no way of knowing if the name she’d given me at the club was real. But it was a small town, and I was a good cop. I slipped on my aviators and smiled.

+ + +

I stood in front of City Hall and looked up. The early morning sun was already high in the sky, and it backlit the cream-city brick building. City Hall was the tallest building in town, but at three stories, it didn’t exactly dominate the skyline. My stomach was tight. Picking up the keys to my new apartment hadn’t made me anxious, but reporting to City Hall for my first official day of work was different. It was close to the anxiety I’d felt when I’d been dropped off in the middle of the night with my recruit class at Parris Island for boot camp. This was real. This was really happening. I was going to do this thing.

I climbed the five concrete steps that led up to a set of glass double doors. The main entrance opened up to a high-ceilinged rotunda. Three skylights allowed natural light into the atrium. I absently rubbed at my bare arms, instantly regretting not bringing my leather jacket. City Hall was aggressively air conditioned even though the late spring weather outside remained unseasonably mild.

The second and third floors were visible through the carved out center of the building, and a dark wooden banister ran along the perimeter of the higher levels. People milled around, but the volume level was subdued. They talked in low tones and their shoes squeaked on the same white spackled laminate I’d seen the day before in the police department.

I inspected a sign that provided directions to the various offices housed in the building. Only the police department was located in the basement; the higher the floor, the higher the title and pay grade. On the top floor was the office of the Mayor, William J. Desjardin, and the county courtroom.

I took the center staircase down to the basement and police station. A woman about my mom’s age sat at the desk where David Addams had been the previous day. Her desk phone rang just as I approached. She smiled at me and held up a finger for me to wait. “Good morning, Embarrass Police Department. This is Lori.”

I rocked back and forth on my heels while I waited for her to finish her phone call.

Just beyond the departmental assistant’s desk was a closed door with the word “Chief” stenciled onto its surface. As I stared, the door opened, and a large man rumbled out. I couldn’t see beyond him as his massive frame took up the entire doorway.

His blond hair was thinner than I remembered and there were deep-set wrinkles between a pair of icy blue eyes. He wore a police uniform—brown shirt with golden yellow accents and tan pants. His large belly fell over his duty belt, and he wore nondescript black shoes that probably left scuffs on the laminate floor much to the custodian’s chagrin. In the brown uniform he reminded me of a bear.

“Cassidy Miller!” Chief Laurence Hart had a booming voice—the kind that people in positions of authority always seemed to have. Two thick arms pulled me in for a back-cracking hug, and I found myself being lifted off my feet. The toes of my boots barely touched the ground.

Chief Hart and my dad had been best friends growing up together in St. Cloud. After high school, he had gotten his Associate’s Degree in criminal justice at St. Cloud State and my dad had gone to work for the city, eschewing college altogether. Despite their different post-high school career paths, they’d kept in touch over the years. Chief Hart and his wife, Marilyn, had been a fixture at holiday get-togethers, but I hadn’t seen the man since my high school graduation. I wondered what he made of me now.

He returned me to the floor and held me at arm’s length. “Let me get a good look at you. I hardly recognized you. You’re all grown up.”

I ducked my head. “Yeah, it happens.”

He smiled in a very paternal way. “I feel like the last time I saw you, you were running around your parents’ backyard, grass stains on your knees, hair a mess, with a permanent Kool-aid mustache.”

I ruffled my wild, blonde curls. “Well, the hair part hasn’t changed much,” I laughed.

“How’s your old man?”

“He’s good,” I confirmed. “Enjoying retirement and driving my mom crazy.”

“Hah!” The Chief let out a belly laugh. “Good for him.”

Lori, the departmental secretary, hung up the phone. “Larry, that was Mayor Desjardin. He wants to see you when you have a minute.”

Chief Hart bobbed his head. “Sure thing. Oh, Lori, this is Cassidy. She’s our new officer. Cassidy, this is Lori. It may say ‘chief’ on my office door, but she’s the one who runs the place.” He laughed again, loud and jolly.

Lori Stenson was a petite woman with short blonde curls tight against her scalp. She wore a white cardigan draped over her shoulders because of the highly refrigerated air. She looked a few years away from retirement, and had a warm, inviting smile like she’d just baked a homemade pie. I was sure her maternal presence had cooled down more than one hot-headed or disgruntled citizen—the police department’s first line of defense.

“You met David yesterday,” Chief Hart noted, “so that’s pretty much everyone who works down here in the dungeon. We can go upstairs and I’ll introduce you to a few more people you’ll see around and be working with.”

“Sounds good.” A nervous stirring rumbled in my stomach. More new people.

“Oh! But before that.” He pulled a set of keys from a corkboard on the wall. “Your keys and badge, Detective.”

I pocketed the heavy ring of keys, but I paused to stare at my new Embarrass Police Department badge. The golden disk was nestled in a square leather holder attached to a silver beaded neck chain. “Detective?”

“Technically you’re low woman on the totem pole beneath myself and Sergeant Addams, so I should be starting you out as an Officer. But the sad truth is we’ve got a miniscule budget. I was only able to convince the City Council that we needed a third officer if I promised them it wouldn’t cost any money to the city. I was able to get some federal funding for your salary, but it’s basically a living stipend so you can feed yourself. The Mayor’s office is chipping in to pay for the apartment.”

My mind spun with these new details. I hadn’t even thought to ask about salary or benefits when I’d accepted the job. I’d just needed to get out of Minneapolis. That was benefit enough.

Chief Hart shook his head. “I’m sorry, Cassidy. I don’t even have extra uniforms we could get refitted because you’re …” he gestured to my body, “and I’m …” He waved his hands in front of his generous belly.

“And Detectives aren’t uniformed police officers,” I said, putting the pieces together.

He nodded. “On the bright side, you’ll only have to share a squad car with one other person. You’ll get your gun when you’re officially on duty, and I’ll see about getting you a duty belt that’ll fit that tiny waist of yours,” he chuckled. “Everything we’ve got would be like a hula hoop on you. Didn’t they feed you in the military?”

I worried my lower lip. I could still remember the day I’d received my MARPAT digital camouflage. I had been nearly as excited as the day I’d earned my Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblem at boot camp graduation. Not having a uniform shouldn’t have bothered me. I’d spent enough of my life in uniform between the Marines and my time with the Minneapolis police. But
I was an outsider in Embarrass, and without a proper uniform, I knew I’d continue to feel like a fish out of water.

“You’ll be working third shift, 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.,” Chief Hart continued. “You’re really free to do what you want during those hours as long as you’re available if a call comes in. We can set it up so calls to the station are forwarded to your cell phone during your shift.”