“For dinner. You and Officer Bond.”
“Lamb chops.”
“Wow. What else?”
“Asparagus.”
“Mmmmm. Just the two of you?”
“Just us two.”
“So, are you—”
“No.”
“You’re just good—”
“Not even.”
“Because you sounded like you were having a good time. You were both laughing and all.”
Raymer was glad to have Miller confirm that things had been going well until they went badly, but the comment begged a couple fairly obvious questions. “Miller?”
“Yeah, Chief?”
“Do you have a crush on Officer Bond?”
Miller looked away, guilty. Even with only the dome on, Raymer could see that he was glowing red with embarrassment. “Me?”
“If you heard us laughing out on the porch, then you were there, which means you already knew where she lived when you asked me just now. Also, it was only a minute or two between when I climbed down from that porch and you showed up. Which means you were already in the neighborhood when the call came in.”
Miller stared at the still-streaming windshield. “God, I hate myself,” he said miserably. “Sometimes I drive by. Just to make sure she’s okay, you know?”
“Does she know about this?”
He shook his head. “Please don’t tell her?”
“Why don’t you just ask her out sometime?”
“Scared, I guess.”
“Well, she is pretty terrifying,” Raymer agreed.
“Plus I don’t think she likes me.”
“Don’t you want to find out?”
“Only if she does,” he said. “And there’s the…other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“It’s not that I’m prejudiced. It’s just that…”
“She’s a Negro-type individual?”
Miller closed the car door, probably so the dome light would go out and Raymer wouldn’t see the tears spill over, which he did anyway. “Seeing the two of you together, laughing and having such a great time, it made me realize I didn’t care. That could’ve been me up there eating lamb chops if I wasn’t such a…”
He was so clearly in distress that Raymer couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. “Miller,” he began.
“So it doesn’t bother you? Her not being…like us?”
“Do you mean her being a woman or being black?”
“Yeah,” he said. Both. “But aren’t you afraid people will make jokes?”
“People make jokes about me already. I’m used to it.”
Miller nodded soberly.
“Anyway, it’s not like that between Officer Bond and me, so there’s nothing to make jokes about. Okay? Everything clear now?”
“Except the part about why you climbed down off her porch,” he said. “Was that some kind of…wager?”
“Yes,” Raymer told him, “it was.”
Miller looked uneasy about this explanation, though he himself had advanced it. “And why do you look like a Negro? Was that a wager, too?”
“No, this was an accident involving a Weber grill.” He started to explain further but decided against it. “And now I think you’ve investigated the incident fully. Good work.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.” The rain was finally letting up. “Can we go to the cemetery now?”
Miller put the car in gear, made a three-point turn and headed back up the street. In the distance, there were fire sirens. When they passed Charice’s, Raymer said, “Hold on a second.”
Miller stopped.
“Point your spotlight up there.”
Miller did as he was told, and Raymer couldn’t believe his eyes. In addition to the impressive damage he himself had caused, the porch was now scorched black and smoldering.
“Must be where that lightning hit,” Miller said. When his boss didn’t respond, he regarded him strangely. “Chief? You don’t look so good.”
In truth, he didn’t feel so good, either. His sense that Becka had visited him on that porch was still strong. He could still feel her fingers on his scalp, her whispering there was something she needed to tell him. If he hadn’t awakened when he did? And if he hadn’t climbed down from up there? He might be a toast-type individual.
—
BY THE TIME they arrived at Hilldale the rain had stopped, but there was more heat lightning to the south, and once again the rumble of distant thunder, another storm tracking in their direction. In the summer they sometimes bore down like this, relentless, one after the other, all night long.
The cemetery’s lot was a muddy lake, in the middle of which sat Raymer’s Jetta. When Miller pulled up next to it, he thanked him for the lift and instructed him to use the rest of his shift to stake out the Morrison Arms on the off chance that William Smith might return, though Raymer would’ve bet his life they’d seen the last of him.
“Chief?” Miller said, when he started to get out of the cruiser. “You gonna be all right?”
Raymer was touched by his concern. “I’ll be fine after I get some sleep.”
“Okay, it’s just…”
“Just what?”
“You look kind of…”
While he searched for the right word, Raymer considered the possibilities: Dispirited? Rode hard and put up wet? Chewed up and spit out? Or did Miller just mean to reiterate that, covered in ash as he was, he still resembled a Negro-type individual?
“Sad,” Miller finally said.
“Sad as in pathetic, or sad as in sorrowful?”
“Sad as in unhappy.”
“Oh.”
“Are you? Sad?”
Raymer wasn’t sure how to respond. There was a dim-witted earnestness about Miller that he found both endearing and infuriating, kind of like coming across an old photo of yourself, smiling ear to ear, happy as a pig in shit. The possibility that such happiness won’t and can’t last, that its source is genetic foolishness, hasn’t occurred to you yet, but it will.
“Because you shouldn’t be,” Miller said, an out-of-character confidence creeping into his voice.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re the chief.”
For the moment that was true, though Raymer felt certain the question that had been dogging him of late — whether to resign — would soon be moot. When it became widely known that someone trafficking in lethal reptiles, handguns and drugs (yes, Justin had been right; weed, methamphetamine and prescription painkillers had indeed been found in 107’s bathroom) had been living for months in the Morrison Arms, where the chief of police also lived, that would be that.
“Look, Miller, I appreciate—”
“You’re the chief,” Miller repeated, downright adamant now. “Everybody’s got to do what you say.” Clearly, giving orders was the end Miller desperately hoped to achieve without first understanding the means. Had Raymer himself ever wanted that? To tell people what to do?
“Nobody does what I say, actually,” Raymer assured him. Charice routinely ignored his orders if she considered them unwise. Likewise, her brother. Even old Mr. Hynes felt free to ignore his advice. When an armed white man in a position of authority couldn’t even get black people to take him seriously, well, it said something, didn’t it?
“I do,” Miller said. Which was true. Until he learned to think, Miller had little choice but to remain a model of literal-minded obedience.
“And I appreciate it,” Raymer said, anxious to draw this conversation to a close. “Well, good night, then.”
“Chief?” said Miller, evidently just as anxious to prolong it.
“What, Miller?”
“Am I going to get fired?”
Raymer paused, unsure what he was asking: if the day would ever come when Raymer would have to terminate him, or if plans to do so were already afoot? “Why do you ask?”
“I knew it,” Miller said, dropping his head miserably. “It’s Officer Bond’s brother, isn’t it?”