Page 18 of Finding Silence
“Pulling out of the parking lot as we speak.”
“I’m still at the office. Want to pop in here? There’s something I want to run by you.”
Odd, this is the first time since my surgery last year she’s asking me for input. Usually, I volunteer my opinion before she asks for one.
Makes me wonder what it is she’s looking for input on.
And why she can’t simply tell me over the phone.
I make the mistake of aiming my Bronco for the reserved parking spot I pulled into for decades, but my daughter’s department-issue SUV is parked there now. The slot beside her is empty, so I pull in there.
Deputy KC Kingma is sitting at the front desk when I walk in. He was the last deputy I hired. Only twenty-five, he’s already proven himself to be a good fit for the job. He was with me on my last call thirteen months ago, and was the one who performed life-saving CPR when I collapsed in the middle of a foot pursuit. He not only saved my ass that night, but ended up making the collar two days later when he tracked down the burglary suspect we’d been chasing.
“Caught a late shift, KC?”
He looks up from the computer and flashes me one of his shy smiles.
“Evening, sir. Actually, double shift. Hugo had to rush Emily to Spokane tonight so I stayed to cover his.”
I wince; Hugo Alexander’s wife, Emily, has been battling cancer for the past five years, and every time a light appears at the end of the tunnel, that insidiously evil disease has found a new purchase on her body.
It’s hell, watching someone you love fight so hard and still losing the battle. I should know. I’ve been in Hugo’s shoes, watching my Marie slowly and cruelly devastated by cancer. I should give him a call in the next few days.
“Damn,” I mutter. “They can’t catch a break.”
“I know,” KC agrees. “Were you here to see Savvy? I mean, the other Sheriff Colter?” he corrects himself. “She’s in her office.”
That’s one thing my daughter has changed in the office, the use of first names. I’m of a slightly different era when it was considered professional respect to address someone by their appropriate title. I’d even call Savvy “Deputy Colton” during work hours.
Initially I told her she was making a mistake—afraid she might be losing what little respect some of the department showed her—but she insisted allowing the use of first names in the privacy of the office would not have the impact I feared.
She turned out to be right; it’s been a year now since she was installed as my replacement, and some of the initial naysayers in the department seem to slowly be changing their tune.
The door to Savvy’s office is open, and she looks up from her laptop when I walk in.
“I actually was already considering talking to you before you called,” she explains when I sit down on what still feels the wrong side of the desk.
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Phyllis.”
“Why?” I ask, perhaps a little too sharply.
“It’s easier if I show you.”
She turns her laptop around and I squint my eyes at the small print. My reading glasses are at home. There are several articles open on the screen, all seem to be on the same subject.
“Are they talking about the band you used to…”
I don’t finish the sentence when my eye catches on a picture of the band, Listen Phyllis. In particular on the only woman in the group; her hair is dyed purple. I struggle with the stupid trackpad to zoom in on her face. I ignore the heavy makeup and focus on her features, which are very familiar.
I grind my teeth against building anger. I almost feel duped.
“Why does it say she’s dead? Is she pulling some kind of publicity stunt?”
“Not Phil, but one of her bandmates,” Savvy clarifies.
Then she lays out for me what Phil apparently shared with her yesterday at the coffee shop, and just like that my anger gets redirected to the vultures circling my neighbor.
