Finding Susan (2 page)

“What are you doing here?” Blake asked, sounding more perturbed than he’d intended.
 

“Why, Mr. Spanner, that’s the nicest greeting I’ve ever received,” she said, her voice dripping with irony.
 

She hadn’t changed a bit.
 
He dropped her hand and grunted out a, “Sorry,” that sounded just as sincere as her statement had.
 

“So what are you doing here?
 
Slumming?
 
Or did San Francisco get a little dull?”
 

“Kate was worried about her sister Susan.
 
You remember Susan, don’t you?”

“Yeah, she was quite a little…” Blake stopped, faked a cough, and then glanced at Kate.
 
She was giving him a wise look.
 
Probably knew exactly what he’d been going to say.
 

The Sheriff continued.
 
“She’s gone missing.
 
Or, I mean, Kate here doesn’t know where she is and she expects that she came round here some time recent.
 
So she wants us to do a little canvassing, to figure if anyone saw her.
 
I volunteered you for the duty.”

Blake’s bad day was getting worse.
 
He turned to Kate.

“Would you excuse us for a moment?” he asked, his voice sounding just a little higher than normal.
 

She nodded and stepped outside the office, shutting the door behind her.
 
She looked on the verge of laughing.
 

“Sheriff, what are you…?”

The man held up a hand.
 
“I don’t want to hear it, Blake.
 
I know it’s busy work, I know it’s getting in the way, and you know what else? I don’t care.
 
Kate Becker’s a sweet girl, and God knows we don’t have any mass-murderers running about.
 
Worst thing I’m pulling you away from is patrolling Shoutin’ Pete.”
 

Shoutin’ Pete was what the locals called the single traffic light that stood sentinel over the cross street of Main and Bodega.
 
It had a companion just two blocks away at Main and Crescent, but the city council had paid only enough money to get that one installed, not to operate it.
 
It was called Snorin’ Pete.
 

Suppressed anger roiled in Blake’s gut.
 
Being assigned to baby-sit Kate Becker was guaranteed to keep it roiling. The sheriff thought she was a “sweet girl”.
 
That showed how much he knew.
 

“I’m warning you right now, I can’t be held responsible for what I might do left alone with that woman.”
 

The Sheriff’s shoulders sagged with exasperation.
 
“I need you to do this.
 
Consider it a favor.”

Blake swore softly. He knew when he was beat. “What the hell is she doing here, anyway?”

The Sheriff told him about the inheritance and he swore again.
   

“It would be just our luck to get stuck with both those women again,” he said, shoving his thumbs under his wide leather belt.
 
“And here we were goin’ good.”

“Were we?”

“Well…”

Blake didn’t have anything but work to keep his mind busy, and he threw himself into that with abandon.
 
It was the regularity he craved – and being a small town cop afforded him few challenges, and that meant few chances to screw up.
 
When a cop screwed up, people got hurt.
 
That was something he knew from experience.
 

Kate was an X-factor.
 
He remembered her as impetuous and bratty.
 
He could see it in her face just a moment ago, laughing because she thought he didn’t want to spend time with her.
 
As he remembered, she liked it better when she was disliked – it gave her an excuse for bad behavior.
 
And her sister Susan was almost the opposite.
 
So crazy to be accepted that she’d give away pieces of herself, day in and day out.
 

“I was going to ask what’s bothering you, Blake.
 
But I did a little soul searching, right here and now, and I realized I could not care less.
 
Why don’t you go out there and do your job, okay, son?”

Whenever Sheriff Duffy called Blake “son”, he knew what it meant.
 
He wasn’t just playing rank and seniority, he was trying to impress Blake on a personal level.
 
It never worked, but Blake wasn’t going to go and hurt the Sheriff’s feelings by rebuking him now.
 
He just nodded and left the office without saying another word.
 

Kate was sitting at his desk, having turned off the two fans that he’d turned on not five minutes ago.
 

“Why’d you bother with the fans? It’s so cool in here anyway,” she said.

“Because I like to have them on,” Blake said sharply.
 

Yup.
 
She hadn’t changed a bit.
 
The strawberry blonde hair was the same, only now she let it grow long enough so that she actually looked like a girl.
 
The tomboy still lurked in the shadows of her eyes, but there was very little about her that did not shout out “girl”.
 
Or, more accurately, woman.
 

But still, she was the same – she had that challenging smirk on her face, like she not only thought she was smarter, stronger, and better than you, but was dying for an opportunity to prove it, again and again.
 
It was that attitude she had in school that kept getting her into trouble, and that mouth that talked her out of it.
 
But that was a long time ago.
 
It was surely time to get over it.
 
That didn’t mean he relished an afternoon of reminders from the past, however.
 

“So, Blake, it has been a real long time.”

“Yep.”

“Still as wordy as ever I see.”

“Shall we get going?”

“Do we have a plan, Mr. Blake?”

“Officer Spanner, please.”
 
He threw her a hard look.
 
“Go around the houses near your place, talk to folks ‘round there, see if anyone has anything to say.
 
Got a better idea?”

She smiled, and it gave him a little twinge – not the good kind.
 
Blake could see the wheels turning, the witty retorts being filed for later use.
 
But she apparently was trying to stay on good behavior, because she just shook her head and stood up.
 

“You’ll be taking the squad car, I presume?”

“Only black and white in ten miles, not counting CHP,” Blake said with a nod.
 
He walked past her to the door leading from the station, and opened it up.
 
The heat from the outside hit right away, clinging to Blake like a mist.
 
The outside smelled musty, and the subtle sound of rainfall competed with the hum of the air conditioning, making a din of low, barely perceptible sounds.
 
Kate stepped past Blake.
 

“Why thank you sir.
 
I’d never have managed the door without you,” she said, smiling.
 

Blake had a deep desire to get into his squad car right then and run her over three… maybe four times.
 
Never in his life had he met somebody who it was harder to do something nice for.
 
His jaw locked into granite mode and he followed her to the outside, putting his hat on as he did.
 
He thought of grabbing an umbrella, but decided not to.
 
Let her brave the rain on her own – his hat would keep him dry.
 

“Blake, look who’s admiring your car!” she called, laughing.

He looked at the squad car, and almost laughed himself had he not remembered that he had to be serious – any evidence that he had a good time would be used against him by Kate as an opportunity to compel misery.
 
It was her way.
 
But having a trio of sheep standing on top of the hood of his car peering in looked funny.
 
He couldn’t deny that.
 

“Joe Bob,” he yelled.

“Yessir?”
 
But the vacant-looking man had spotted Kate. “Well, I’ll be.
 
Miss Becker.
 
I’ll be.”

“Joe Bob, how many times do I have to ask you to keep your sheep away from the station?” Blake called at him, though he wasn’t really angry.
 
He wasn’t allowed to be angry at Joe Bob, who was now looking at Blake, and then at the ground, kicking at the damp dirt.
 

“Aw, Mr. Blake, sir, I didn’t mean to go breaking rules.
 
But the sheep, they goes where they likes a lot of the times. Y’know?
 
I keep telling them and telling them, but they don’t listen.
 
Sometimes I think they’re dumber than me.” He gave a little smile, and then looked back down at his feet.
 

Blake heard Kate give out a little, “Awww,” and watched as she walked over to Joe Bob and gave him a hug.
 
She talked to him in babying tones, reassuring him about himself and patting him on the head, and Joe Bob ate it up.
 

Just like he was a baby
.
 
But he wasn’t a baby.
 
He was a man closing in on his fifties.
 
And something about it disturbed Blake.
 
Maybe it was the blithe cheerfulness that he didn’t like.
 

Or maybe he was just jealous of attention.
 
Either way, he wasn’t going to do anything about Joe Bob.
 
No need to upset anyone in town just because of Blake’s suspicious impulses.
 
But he also did not want these damned sheep around the station anymore, so Blake had to play bully.
 

“Look, Joe Bob, I’m not saying I’m going to give you a ticket or run you in or anything, but as a personal favor to me, do you think you can try and keep a tighter rein on your sheep?”
 

“Well, I sure am going to try and do as you ask, Mr. Blake, ‘cause I wanna be a good citi… cit…”

“Citizen,” Kate said for him.
 

He smiled like she’d just given him a thousand bucks.

“That’s right.
 
And can you do a favor for me, Mr. Blake, sir?”
 

“What’s that, Joe Bob?”

“Start calling me Mr. Mortimer? I got my own place now, nobody calls me Joe Bob no more,” he said.
 

Kate nodded along with him, and looked Blake dead on in the eyes.

“It’s only a sensible thing to do, Blake.
 
Officer Spanner,” she corrected herself.
 
“You don’t want to hurt Mr. Mortimer’s feelings.”
 

Joe Bob nodded, but didn’t look Blake in the eye.
 

Blake sighed.
 
One long damn day this was going to be.
 
“Sure wouldn’t.
 
Sorry, Mr. Mortimer.
 
Now, Ms. Becker and I are going away.
 
When I’m back, these sheep will be gone, isn’t that right?”

Joe Bob nodded like his head was on a spring, and started to pull the sheep off of the hood of the squad car.
 
Kate rushed over to the driver side door and opened it.
 
She stood there with her hands gripping the top metal bar of the door, blinking away raindrops as they fell to her eyes.
 
The humidity had already soaked Blake’s shirt through, making it grip him like it was afraid he was going to leave it behind.
 

“What are you doing?” he asked Kate with a surly frown.

“Turnabout’s fair play.
 
Get in the car so we can go,” she said.

Silently, he groaned.
 
One long damn day.

Chapter Two

Blake knew that sooner or later his disinterested grunts were going to play out and he was going to have to condescend to conversation.
 
Kate had asked him to take a pass through town so that she could take a look at the old burg for the first time in many years, and he didn’t think that he’d be able to win an argument against it.
 

Had he ever won an argument with Kate?
 
If so, the memory had faded. Right now they were underneath Shoutin’ Pete, stopped and waiting for the red to go green even though there was no traffic.
 
She was looking around as though she’d never really seen the place before.
 

“Wow, I can’t believe it.
 
Not one Starbucks in town.
 
In San Francisco, there’s more than 300.”
 

Blake grunted.
 

“Yeah, I don’t think they’re that great either.
 
More of a harbinger of civilization than quality coffee.
 
Hey, Blake?”
 

She turned to look at him but he kept his gaze straight ahead.
 
He wasn’t going to look into those dark, cloudy eyes.
 
He wasn’t going to look at her pretty face either.
 
He was going to get this done and dump her at her car and hopefully, never see her again.
 

The only problem was, she was sitting so close, he didn’t really have to look at her to see her.
 
There she was in his peripheral vision, big as life.
 
And even more than that, he could feel her, smell her, sense her in ways that bothered the hell out of him.
 

“Hey Blake?” she said again.

Persistent as a toothache
, he thought.
 
But he finally answered.
 
“Yeah?” he said in a gravely voice.