Charly was surprised. It was all about what he could do for her. She told him that Minnie had already given her the key to the file cabinet, but she did ask him lots of questions. For her, it turned out to be a very productive couple hours. Not so much for him, however. But that was his choice.
But as she drove slowly back to the office, along the long stretch of backroads that small towns always seemed to have, and Hemingway was no exception, she also couldn’t stop thinking about another man at that police station.
Robert Boone Ryan.
The chief of police.
The sergeant who took her in back to see Amos Yerkson said he’d never seen anything like it. When she asked him anything like what, he said the chief never allowed anybody from the outside to see his prisoners. Attorneys only, he’d said. But the chief not only allowed Charly to see Amos, but he allowed her to spend two hours with him!
And when her two hours were up, it was the chief himself, not his sergeant, who walked her back up front and, also, to her car.
Not that it meant anything profound. She knew it didn’t. But it just made her feel . . . special? Different? She couldn’t really describe it. But she did appreciate it. Despite the fact that Amos had warned her off of Chief Ryan the first day they met, and despite the fact that she already could tell he was a hardcore womanizer from way back, she appreciated his kind gesture toward her. He didn’t have to allow her two minutes with Amos, let along two hours.
“What is his problem?” Charly found herself asking as she looked through her rearview mirror and saw a car tailgating her. There was another lane right beside them. A completely empty lane, and he could easily go around her. But he chose to ride her bumper.
She decided to speed up a little. But that didn’t help. He sped up too and continued to ride her bumper.
She decided to slow down. Maybe he’d go around then.
But that didn’t help either. He slowed down too.
And when she decided to move over into the fast lane, and allow him to drive on, she became worried when he moved over into the same lane she had moved into, and continued to ride her bumper.
They were the only two cars on that particular stretch of backroad. And just like that, the man she had been thinking about, Chief Ryan, came to mind. He believed he was the kind of man who would straighten that character out, or at least send a squad car to do so. She immediately grabbed her cell phone.
But just as she was about to dial 911, the car behind her suddenly moved back over into the right-hand lane and sped up.
But as he sped up, he swerved toward her, causing her to swerve away from him with the reckless swerve of a person surprised. Her car ran off of the road in a fast dash and sped onto the gravel as she tried with all she had to correct her overcorrection and avoid losing total control of the wheel. It was an epic battle as she had to rise out of her seat to maintain control. But it was a battle she was losing badly.
Her car kept veering further along the graveled path as it lifted and leaned onto two wheels. But then, just as she thought she was steering it back toward the street and back onto all fours, her Sentra slammed broadside into what felt like a steel pole to Charly, but was actually a sweetgum tree.
The red sedan that had caused the kerfuffle to begin with waited until it was all over, and then drove away at an unrushed speed, as if nothing had ever happened.
Back at the station, Dontay was answering a call and Boone was interrogating his sergeant, who, once again, approved yet another sick leave.
“And what did you say?” Boone asked his second-in-command, as he stood beside Sarge’s desk.
“I told him I hope he feels better,” Sarge said.
“You hope he feels better?” Boone responded angrily. “Are you out of your mind? You tell him to get his skinny ass in here and get in here now! We’re already undermanned. Having a stomach ache is no excuse for not bringing your ass to work.”
“People get sick, Chief.”
“So what? Looking at the lot of you make me sick every day.” His men laughed. “But I come to work. I do my job. You call him back and tell him either he get his ass into this station or don’t bother to show his face around here ever again!”
Dontay hung up the phone at his desk, grabbed the manifest writeup and hurried to Sarge’s desk.
“I can’t tell him that, Chief,” Sarge said.
Boone looked at him as if he was nuts defying him.
“What I mean is,” Sarge said, realizing he might have overstepped his bounds, “we don’t wanna lose him. He’s a good cop.”
“He’s an average cop still on probation. Call him,” Boone ordered.
Dontay handed Sarge the manifest. “What’s the call?” Sarge asked him.
“Car wreck,” Dontay responded. “One car accident from the reports I’m getting. That new dean was the driver.”
Boone was about to continue his argument with Sarge, when he heard what Dontay said. He looked at Dontay. “The new dean?”
Dontay nodded. “Yes, sir. They say she was the driver.”
Boone’s heart began to squeeze. “Is she alright?”
It was an odd question to Dontay. He didn’t even ask the uniforms on scene. “I don’t know, sir. I didn’t think to--”
“Where did it happen?”
“On Bassett Road, over by the Granger Farm. I’m heading over there right now.”
“I’ll take it,” Boone said, moving away from Sarge’s desk. “You get back to work.” And then Boone began walking hurriedly, and then he began running, out of the squad room.
Dontay, shocked, looked at Sarge. The chief had never taken a car wreck call before.
Sarge shook his head. “Don’t look at me. I ain’t never seen nothing like it,” he said, “and I been working for that man a very long time.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She was sitting in the back of an ambulance when Boone’s Ferrari sped onto the scene. The uniformed officers already there, and the paramedics too, were surprised to see the chief show up. But Boone didn’t care about any of that. He parked his car behind the ambulance, got out, and made his way toward Charly without taking his eyes off of her.
Charly was still dazed, but okay, as she allowed the paramedics to check her vitals and ask her numerous questions. She didn’t know the town’s protocol or common ways, so she wasn’t as surprised as the others to see Boone arrive. She was glad to see him.
“Hey,” she said when he walked up. The paramedics spoke to the chief, too, and moved aside for him.
“How is she?” he asked, not her, but the paramedics.
“All her vitals checked out,” said the older medic. “And she says she’s fine.”
“I didn’t ask you what she said,” Boone said. “What do you say?”
Charly looked at the medic. He didn’t seem embarrassed at all. He, like most people in this town, was apparently used to their chief’s gruffness. “She’s okay,” the older medic said. “We didn’t find any issues.”
“I want her transported to the hospital so they can run tests, just to be safe.”
“Oh, no, Chief,” Charly interjected. “That absolutely won’t be necessary.”