CHAPTER 3
Dylan
“Ma, I’m headed out for the day, you got Danny?” I called out.
“Yes, dear.” My mother, a staunch Midwesterner who wore exclusively floral button-ups and practical jeans, walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. On her hip, she balanced my little boy, who was looking up at me with perfect sky-blue eyes.
“Dada?” he gurgled. Right now that was the only word in his vocabulary, but we were working on it. When I got home from my job, which was usually just minutes before his bedtime, we practiced making animal sounds and naming colors. I was pretty sure he was ready to say ‘blue’ and ‘moo.’
“Good kid,” I said, patting his fine blond hair. “Yeah, it’s Dada. And Dada has to go to work now, so be good to your Gran, okay?”
He lolled his head back and stared up at the ceiling. Fourteen months was too young understand the concept of capitalism and etiquette, I guess.
“What have you got planned for the day?” I asked my mom.
“You know, the usual,” she replied with the wave of her hand. “Clean the house, take Danny to sing-along group, watch my soap.”
“You don’t have to clean the house.” It pained me to imagine her scrubbing my floors with rubber gloves. She was well into retirement age, at which point I figure you should never have to scrub another floor in your life. Besides, a man was meant to provide for his mother in her golden years, to make sure she got the same wonderful treatment she’d given him as a boy. It twisted my heart that I couldn’t give her such comfort.
“I know that, kiddo,” she replied. “But you’re pulling extra shifts for this ball of joy.” She jostled Danny, craning her head in his direction. “And that’s an honorable cause if I’ve ever heard one. So, I’ll manage. You do what you have to do. Get home safe.”
I thought fleetingly of putting up a fight, and gave in. She was a tough old broad, and when she set her mind to something, it was as good as done.
“Thanks for everything, Ma. You’re my rock. It hasn’t been easy since, well, y’know.”
“I know.”
“So… thank you. For looking after Danny and everything else. Love you.”
She reached in and gave me a big kiss on the cheek, leaving a mark in her signature bubblegum pink, a branding I used to rub off every day before school.
“Love you too,” she replied.
An insistent honk sounded, the tell-tale sign that Thomas had pulled up all of ten seconds ago and was already impatient.
“Gotta jam,” I told her, and ducked in for one more peck on my kid’s head. “Be good, Danny, make your dada proud.”
I grabbed my jacket, hat and holster, and was out the door, pacing across the front lawn to the squad car. As always, Thomas or Tom, Tommy, T-Dog, dealer’s choice was in the front seat, drinking cheap take-out coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Two sugars, no milk.
I walked to the passenger side and slid in.
“Hey old man,” I said with a grin as I buckled my seatbelt.
Tom looked at me with a half-kidding scowl that slid the ends up of his enormous, bristly mustache flush up to his nose. “Who you calling old?”
He was one of those guys who looks like he was born fifty years old with a stick of gum in his maw and a smoker’s voice. Incidentally, he was only forty-three, hated gum and had never smoked a cigarette in his life.
When I joined the force about three years back, one of the younger guys had warned me about Tom, said he was an angry son of a bitch and to watch out. I was assigned to be his partner. We didn’t speak for the entire first week until I at last summoned up the courage to ask him if I could put on some music. He gave no response, so I took it as a ‘yes’ on and turned the channel to sixties rock. Tom nodded his approval, and we’d been friends ever since.
“Anything good on the scanner?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Nope. This lil’ ol’ town is as tame as it was the day before. Quiet, sleepy, crime free.”
I groaned, knowing what this meant but hoping I was wrong. “Highway patrol?”
“Affirmative.”
Highway patrol was the worst. We were required to pull over a certain number of drivers to make the state quota. Since there were only ten cops total in Fallow Springs, each cop had to pull over a shit ton of drivers to hit said quota. It was a pointless task, and one that made me the bad guy, even though I’d gone into the career to be the good guy.
Though that being said, I knew firsthand just how important highway patrol was to saving lives. Or at least, trying to save them.
“How’s Paula?” he asked, referring to my mom and blessedly interrupting my dark train of thought. We’d grown close enough that our whole families were on a first-name basis.
“Same old, same old. Tougher than a cockroach during nuclear fallout.”
“And Danny?” he continued with a small smile. Tom had a special, unexpectedly soft place for my son, whom he occasionally brought bags of candy and stuffed animals. The dirty secret about Tom is that he’s really just a teddy bear.
“Gets bigger every day. He’ll be taller than his pops by the time he’s twelve, I’d reckon.”
Tom eyed me up and down. “You think he’s gonna top six-foot-three before he’s even a teenager?”
“Doctor say his growth rates are off the charts.”
“Good. That’s what I like to hear.” Tom gave a satisfied nod and sipped at his convenient-store coffee. “I’ll pass it on to Gladys.”
Gladys, Tom’s wife, had become equally involved with Danny, and had recently knit him a soft baby onesie.
“Aw shit,” Tom said, smacking his forehead. “I knew I’d forgot something.”
“What?”
“Our anniversary, it’s this weekend, and I gotta get her a gift, maybe some roses, and—” he veered off from his sentence abruptly, and I felt my fingers begin to tremble. “Never mind.”
“It’s okay, really, I’m fine.”
He shook his head, and let a meaty hand drop on my shoulder. “I know fine, kid, and you ain’t fine.”
He was probably right, but a cop car was hardly the place to talk about it. I gently loosened myself from his hand and put on our radio station. Led Zeppelin’s dissonant chords filled the car. Which was good — I’d about had my fill of talk.
“Where we posting up?” I asked at last, once enough time spent in silent rumination had passed. Sometimes our four-door reminded me of a monastery, except with two country boys for monks.
“The usual.” With that, he took a sharp left at the intersection, and drove a few more minutes before eventually pulling over on the side of I-94, right near a snow-capped pine tree. The tree offered just enough protection so that we wouldn’t be too visible to oncoming drivers. Tom grabbed the radar gun from the back seat and powered it up.
“I’ll hold it today,” he offered.
Those were the last words we said for the next few hours. Neither of us was big on chitchat, and we’d blown through our polite small-talk reservoirs years ago. Now, we were generally happy to just sit in peaceful silence and appreciate the nature around us.
The sun rose higher and higher above the trees until at last it was ten. Snow twinkled beneath the rays. A stray squirrel, who hadn’t had the presence of mind to get his ass cozied up in a tree, darted across the lanes. Poor little fellow. Sometimes, on days like this, I’d bring a bag of nuts to feed the hungry ones with, the squirrels that hadn’t prepped for the severity of Wisconsin winter.
A few cars drove by, but none speeding or even boasting outdated license plates. I settled deeper and deeper into my seat, anticipating a painstakingly long day. The car was getting hot, so I undid my jacket. Life as a cop could be thrilling — I’d been in my fair share of on-foot chases — but more often than not, it looked like discounted meals at the local IHOP. I was philosophically prepared to have one of the more boring afternoons a cop can have. The mundane stuff was just as important as any blockbuster tackles.
That is, until I watched an old Chevy go past. It didn’t click up on the meter, but it did have —
“A broken brake light,” I said urgently, smacking at Thomas’ fleshy forearm. “I saw a broken brake light.”
“Yeah?” he asked sleepily. “Where?”
“Red Chevy, just drove past.”
“‘Spose we oughta get it?”
“Think so.”
He revved up the engine, hit the sirens — this was his favorite part, even after decades on the force — and shot after the Chevy. With no other cars in sight, the driver knew to pull over pretty quickly. We slowed to a stop.
“You want this one, or should I?” Tom questioned.
“I got it.” I needed to stretch my legs.
Jacket open and hat firmly on, I swung open the door, and walked the twenty feet to the ancient Chevy. Frankly, I wouldn’t generally pull someone over for a broken tail light — I try to be a decent guy — but at this time of year, nights got dark and stormy, and a light being out had real consequences.
“Hey there, officer,” a delicate voice spoke.
I began to speak, and ground to a halt, realization dawning on me.
I was face-to-face with the most beautiful woman to ever waltz through Fallow Springs.