A pair of tall oak trees guarded the walkway leading up to the police station. They had just shed their leaves and looked like twin skeletons. Just beyond these there was a concrete set of stairs that led to a wide set of glass doors. He headed in that direction.
There was a gray-haired, potbellied uniformed officer behind a bullet-proof glass partition, which seemed to the Big Bad Wolf to be unnecessarily excessive. It was unlikely any desperado was going to break through with guns blazing. The police department itself was typical for a town that size. It had a three-member detective branch and a patrol segment. It had specialists in domestic violence and rape and a traffic squad that turned a significant profit for the town annually with the number of tickets it wrote for speeders. It even had a modest fraud office, which spent its time handling calls from elderly residents wondering if the e-mail they received from a Nigerian prince asking for money was legitimate. Like any modern, organized department, each element had its own cubicle, and there were helpful signs on the walls directing him through the warren of police work.
It did not take the Big Bad Wolf long to find Detective Moyer, sitting behind a cluttered desk and a computer screen filled with FBI lookout notices. Moyer was a large man who sported a jolly look that made him seem more suited to department store Santa Claus than major crimes detective. He shook hands with an enthusiasm that matched his bulk.
“Glad to meet yah,” the detective boomed. “Man, this is an unusual request. I mean, most of the time when some citizen has some questions it’s because they want their brother-in-law followed because they think he’s dealing drugs or cheating on his wife or something. But you’re an author, right? That’s what the chief’s public relations assistant told me.”
“That’s right,” the Big Bad Wolf answered. He dug about in his satchel and produced the bloody-knife paperback. “Here,” he said, with a grin. “Dramatic proof. And a gift.”
The detective took it and stared at the jacket.
“Cool,” he said. “I don’t read many mysteries. Mostly sports books-you know, like about championship basketball teams or famous coaches or breaking the four-minute mile. But my sister’s husband, he’s like addicted to these things. I’ll give it to him…”
“I’ll sign it for him,” the Big Bad Wolf said, producing a pen.
“He’ll get a kick out of that,” the detective replied.
The Big Bad Wolf finished with a flourish. Then he produced the small digital recorder. “You don’t mind?” he asked.
“Nope,” Detective Moyer answered, smiling.
The Big Bad Wolf smiled in return. “I really like getting my research right,” he said. “You really don’t want to make mistakes on the pages. Readers are sensitive to every word. They’ll call you on an error faster than…”
He let his voice trail off. Detective Moyer nodded.
“Hey, it’s the same for us. Get second-guessed all the damn time. Except for us, well, it’s real. Not made up.”
“That’s my luxury,” the Big Bad Wolf joked. Both men smiled, as if sharing a small secret.
The Big Bad Wolf pulled out his notebook and pen. These items were more like props. They allowed him to avoid eye contact when he wanted to. The digital tape recorder would capture every answer accurately.
“And sometimes it’s really helpful to have both notes and exact words,” he said.
“Sort of redundant systems,” the detective said. “Like on an airplane.”
“Exactly,” the Big Bad Wolf replied.
“So what is it you want to know?” the detective asked.
“Well,” the Big Bad Wolf said slowly, hesitantly, before beginning to probe. “In my new book, I have a character stalking a person from afar. He wants to get closer, but he doesn’t want to do anything that will attract the police, you see. Wants it to be just one-on-one, if you get what I’m driving at. Got to have it all play out before the cops get involved.”
The detective nodded. “Sounds tense.”
“That’s the point,” the Big Bad Wolf answered. “Got to keep readers on the edge of their seats.” He smiled and clicked on the recorder and bent to his notebook, as the detective rocked back and forth in his desk chair before starting to describe in friendly, substantial detail just exactly what the police were-and were not-capable of doing.
As a general rule, Mrs. Big Bad Wolf always took an entire hour for lunch away from her desk in the dean’s office. When the weather was nice, she would make a quick salad or sandwich in the school’s dining hall, then go outside and sit beneath the trees, where she could be by herself and idly watch students pass by. When the weather was poor, as it was this day, she would head inside with her meal to any of the small spots around the campus where she knew she would be left alone: an alcove in the art gallery, a bench outside the English department’s offices.
This day, she hunkered down in an empty lecture room. Someone had written on a blackboard: What does Marquez mean at the end? Honors Spanish, she told herself, but she was just guessing the assignment had been One Hundred Years of Solitude. She tore through her light meal and then sat back in her chair and opened up a copy of her husband’s last book, which was the novel with the serrated-knife jacket. She had already read the book at least four times, to the point where she could actually quote some passages verbatim. She had not let him know she could do this-it was a part of her love that she liked to keep to herself.
He also did not know that shortly after she’d learned about his complaint to his publisher about the jacket cover, she had sent the editor at that house a furious letter, underscoring the same problem. They had been married barely a year, but loyalty, she thought, was an integral part of love. She had harangued the editor that the jacket was misleading and inappropriate and told him that she would never buy another novel from that publisher again. Uncharacteristically, she had filled her letter with violent threats and rampaging obscenities. Carried away, she at least had the good sense to not sign her name.
The lecture room was hot. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she allowed herself to daydream, she often imagined herself in some sort of public setting-a restaurant or a movie theater or even a bookstore -where she would have the opportunity to loudly verbally assault the editor-all the editors-who hadn’t seen her husband’s genius. In her imagination, she was able to gather them together, alongside all the film producers, newspaper critics, and occasional Internet bloggers who had failed him or been snide and less than complimentary.
When she painted this inward portrait, the men-they were always small, sallow, balding men-reeled under her volley of criticism and humbly admitted their mistakes.
It gave her great satisfaction.
Every author’s wife would have imagined the same scenario, she believed. It was her job.
Mrs. Big Bad Wolf opened her eyes and let them drop onto the open pages and creep over the words gathered in front of her. She placed her finger in the midst of a paragraph describing the very beginning of a car chase. The bad guy gets away, she reminded herself. It’s very exciting. When she was a little girl she hadn’t been popular in school, and so she had descended into the safety of books. Horse books. Dog books. Little Women and Jane Eyre. Even after she grew up, titles and characters remained her truest friends.