“And why did you?”
“There’s the million-dollar question. I’m sure there’s some psychological baggage involved. . father-daughter stuff. . but my guess is neither one of us wants to go there. Mostly I think it’s fairly uncomplicated. I just like the job. I like helping people. I like solving things. I know it’s not really glamorous, but if feels glamorous to me. I like saying I’m a police officer. I enjoy the respect it brings, especially these days.”
“Next question: Why here?”
“Why did I leave Madison? Or why did I come to East End Harbor?”
“Both. This is not exactly a teeming hotbed of crime.” Well, not usually, he thought. But he decided to keep his thought to himself.
“Lifestyle,” she said. “My father died a few months ago. .”
“I’m sorry. In the line of duty?”
“No. Heart attack. On his way to the grocery store. Fifty-eight years old.” She hesitated a moment, it was still an emotional subject for her. She quickly got her voice under control and went on. “He left me a little bit of money, so I decided it was time to get out of the Midwest. And I thought I wasn’t quite ready for New York City. A friend from the Milwaukee force knew someone on the NYPD who knew Leona, yada yada yada, so I checked out the town and fell in love with it and. .”
“And here we are.”
“And here we are,” she echoed, flashing one more tilted smile. “And my guess is you’re not the kind of person who likes to be pressured, so you’re figuring this meeting is just a courtesy. But I should tell you, I’m a really good cop and I know what I’m doing and I wish you’d at least check my references because they’re going to be glowing. I don’t think you could find anyone better than me.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. As long as you’re feeling pressure, I found a perfect little house and it’s for rent and I told them I’d let them know in a day or two. So I don’t just want you to hire me, I want you to hire me soon.”
She smiled, an acknowledgment of her brazenness, he relaxed enough to smile back, they both had a second drink-neither switched to alcohol-and they talked about some of the cases she’d worked on. Both police forces were reasonably small, so she’d covered a variety of crimes. She’d worked two homicides-not the lead detective on either murder. One remained unsolved, the other-a fairly simple family squabble; a jealous husband stabbed his wife, tossed her body in a Dumpster seven miles from his house, and tried to claim she’d gone missing-resulted in a conviction. She’d done a lot of domestic intervention, had no aversion to paperwork, and even liked the idea of walking the East End beat. She was clearly good at her interpersonal relationships-he realized she was pretty much wrapping him around her little finger.
“You’ve got more and better experience than anyone on my force,” he said after the conversation hit the hour mark. “I’d have to hire you as my second in command.”
“If your question is, will that intimidate me, the answer’s no. I’m ready for that kind of position.”
“Not lacking confidence, huh?”
“No, sir. I have quite a few flaws, but that’s not one of them.”
“Care to tell what some of them are?”
“My flaws?” When he nodded, she thought for a moment, chewing on her lower lip. Then she shrugged. “I bite my nails and I spend too much money on clothes, particularly shoes, and I’m not always the most patient person in the world. I don’t like bullshit, which I personally don’t think of as a flaw, but it tends to get me in trouble sometimes, so maybe it is. I think I get that from my dad.”
Justin stared at her, just for a moment-she didn’t back down from his gaze-then he polished off his second club soda. “Glowing, huh?”
“What?”
“Your references are gonna be glowing.” He checked the resume in his hand. “From Captain Frank Quarry of the Milwaukee PD and Captain Harvey Rizzo in Madison.”
“I think they will be, yes.”
He wasn’t wearing a sport coat and his leather jacket was hanging over the back of a chair, so he held on to the resume rather than jam it into his pants pocket. He folded it one extra time so it disappeared into his palm. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can,” he said. And then: “Where’s the house?”
“Excuse me?”
“The one you fell in love with. That’s putting all this unbearable pressure on me. Where is it?”
“On Division Street. Just a few blocks out of town, still in the historical village, though. I could get it for a year. And for a very reasonable price.”
“Little Victorian job, yellow paint job, lots of charm?”
“You know it?”
“Yup,” Justin said. “And I hope you’re the friendly type, Regina. ’Cause if you get the job, we’re gonna be neighbors.”
“Everybody calls me Reggie,” she said. And this time the smile was not quite so lopsided.
At ten minutes before six o’clock that evening, Justin called Chuck Billings’s cell phone and got voice mail. After the tone, he left a message that he’d wait as long as he could before taking off and told Chuck to call him if he was lost and couldn’t find the small airport. He left his own cell phone number and then hung up. Justin waited a few moments, then dialed the number for the Fisherman Motel. The desk clerk told him that Mr. Billings had checked out earlier that afternoon, around one-thirty or two. Justin left his cell phone number with the clerk just in case Chuck returned there. Then he went to Ray Lockhardt’s office. The airport manager flinched when he saw Justin but relaxed when he realized all he wanted him to do this time was keep an eye out for Billings, in case he arrived after Justin’s chartered plane took off.
At six-fifteen, Justin boarded the plane. He convinced the pilot to wait on the ground another fifteen minutes. At six-thirty, when Billings was a full half hour late and still had not called, Justin gave the okay and the small plane left for Providence.
The flight was a quick one, about forty-five minutes. Justin didn’t give too much thought to Chuck Billings. He figured the bomb expert had gotten caught up in some sort of FBI bullshit. He also figured he’d hear about it tomorrow or maybe even tonight from Wanda Chinkle. He hadn’t pegged Chuck as the single most reliable guy he’d ever met. So instead, he thought about Reggie Bokkenheuser. Other than the name, he had to admit she was pretty close to perfect. He’d checked with both of her references and, if anything, “glowing” was an understatement when describing their responses. They said she was smart, friendly, a terrific cop, had great growth potential, showed the potential for strong management skills, had an excellent investigative instinct, could get people to warm up to her, and, bottom line, he’d be crazy not to hire her.
He knew it would make Leona Krill very happy if Reggie was brought aboard. He suspected the rest of the guys at the station would not be thrilled, especially if she were brought in at the sergeant level and as their superior. He decided they’d get over it, though. If she were as good as he believed she might be.
Justin decided to sneak in a fifteen-minute nap on the plane. As his eyes closed, he realized there was something bothering him about Reggie. He couldn’t decide what it was, though. Maybe it was that he found her attractive. Maybe it was that she’d be living two houses away from him. Maybe it was simply that he’d never hired anyone before and she was the first and only person he’d talked to, and it all seemed too easy and perfect. Maybe he was being lazy, he should look around, talk to a few more candidates. But as he fell asleep, he knew that Reggie Bokkenheuser was going to become the newest sergeant on the East End police force.