Gone(7)

“Could be a family in trouble,” he explained to her.

She got in the passenger side. Peter dropped into the driver’s seat. He rolled down the window and shouted at the group in the yard. “Work it out!”

Then he backed onto the main road. He dropped the transmission into drive and squawked the tires. The car shot forward, turning the fallen leaves into a cyclone in their wake.

*

“‘Work it out’?”

Peter didn’t answer as he stomped the gas and rode the edges of the turns.

“You’re gunning for a career change to mental health? With earth-shattering therapies like that, you could maybe even write a book. Fire a shot, tell them to work it out, problem solved.” Althea grabbed the radio and pressed the button. “Stock County, SCS-14.” She waited for a response.

Peter kept his eyes on the road. He was going to pay for firing his weapon. It was something you just didn’t do, even in the middle of nowhere, even when men were fighting, dispatch was paging you and someone called your partner a racial epithet.

He was coming up on an intersection — route 73 was dead ahead. Dispatch broke over the radio.

“SCS-14, Stock County.”

Althea held the transmitter to her mouth. “Ah, Stock County, please be advised of a domestic disturbance at 1071 Fox Farm Road . . . we, ah, we left that call in receipt of the welfare check. Over.”

“Copy that, SCS-14 . . .” The dispatcher sounded wary.

The deputies traded looks as Peter braked for the stop. Peter reached over and touched her on the leg. “I’m sorry. You okay?”

She offered an encouraging smile. “I’m fine.”

We had to leave, Peter thought. Or I would have hurt somebody. Besides, this took priority; this could be a missing family. It sounded like the mother had no-showed a couple of hospital shifts. If he was right, and knew the family, they had two young kids.

Route 73 was quiet. Peter made a right turn and accelerated. Within moments they were passing by a dirt parking area where the state troopers often set their speed traps. A trooper sat there now.

Althea thumbed the button on the transmitter.

“Thanks, Stock County, over and out.” She dropped the transmitter onto the hook.

They recognized the trooper sitting in the SUV, Trooper Ski. He was wagging his finger, admonishing them for leaving the domestic disturbance.

“Let’s ask him to take it,” she said as they blew past.

“No way he’s gonna do that.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, and Peter sighed. “Alright.” He slowed and made a three-point turn in the road.

Peter quickly pulled into the lot, coming up alongside the SUV. Althea hopped out and walked over before he could protest any further.

“Morning,” he heard her say. “How you doing?”

Ski mumbled a response. Some of the troopers liked to wear the proverbial white gloves, Peter thought, watching the conversation. They seemed to only respect the older deputies who worked with DEA and Border Patrol on drug busts and tended to look down on Patrol Division.

Unlike the troopers, deputies delivered civil process papers, transported inmates to court, hospitals, doctor appointments, whatever was called for. The job could get tedious. Patrol Division sometimes felt like a taxi service. But any department could field domestic calls. It was just that a lot of the troopers didn’t like to.

Althea apparently had a magic touch, though. She got back in the cruiser and flashed a smile. Ski tipped his wide-brim hat as he pulled away, churning up the dust.

Peter watched him go. “You’re amazing.”

Ski made the turn back towards Hayes’ property.

“Anyway, maybe Rafferty and Hayes took your advice,” she said. “Maybe they worked it out. Or, maybe they’ll all pile on top of Ski and call him a black bitch, too.”

He shook his head and tore up the dirt as they got back on the road. “If Rafferty and Hayes and his wife are still fighting, maybe Ski should just let them go at it.”

“So who is this family? You act like you know them.”

“I think maybe I do. I think their little girl, Maggie, goes to preschool with Benny.”

Benny was his nephew. The boy attended a private preschool, and Peter knew it was pricey. He knew because his own father footed the bill, paying for his grandson to get the best early education. It pricked Peter a little bit that his father, a district judge, hadn’t shown the same concern for his own kids. At least he was making up for it with his grandchildren. “This isn’t the usual welfare check situation, I don’t think.” He figured the Kemps had some money.

She turned her head. “Oh? And what is ‘the usual’?”

“Well, let’s just say we’re not going to find bags of poop in their bathroom because the plumbing doesn’t work.”

She wrinkled her nose. Sometimes the deputies found heinous things when they responded to welfare checks. It was an economically depressed county, and a lot of people went without certain amenities.

“And it probably smells like spiced coffee in their kitchen,” Peter continued, “not opioids.”

“Yeah.” She watched the road again, the trees blurred past.

He was joking around, maybe being a little crass, but something was eating at him. He’d been bothered since he’d heard the call come over the radio. “Which means, you know, if something is wrong . . .”