I stood there, outside the polished wood counter that ran the whole front of the station and separated the reception area from the inner workings of the department.
There were people behind the counter, quite a number of them, and I now had much more attention than when I’d first walked in.
Except from the men who were all in a glass-walled conference room at the back, discussing something with what seemed great intensity, while staring at a board that had its back turned to the window wall.
Sheriff Dern was not among those men.
Nor was Cade Bohannan.
A further note, there was not a woman in that conference room, or in uniform outside of it.
Ditto that for a person of color.
But the rest of the area looked like a mashup set design directly inspired by Veronica Mars, several dozen Supernatural episodes and Twin Peaks.
“Oh my goodness, oh my gosh, oh my goodness,” a woman sing-songed.
I turned right.
And I had to reach out a hand to the bench and curve my fingers around as a plump, diminutive, red-cheeked, helmet-haired woman, wearing an ill-advised pleated skirt and a twinset with requisite string of pearls, appeared.
She looked fresh from wardrobe.
Honestly.
What was happening?
“Oh my goodness.” She lifted the section of counter that swung up and over (because of course it did) as she exited the back to approach me, her hand already raised. “I’m Polly Pickler.”
She was not.
No one was named Polly Pickler.
Unless she was named by Dashiell Hammett.
“And I know you get this a lot,” she went on, taking my hand, clasping it in both her own, and hers were so small, both of them didn’t even cover one of mine, “but I’m your biggest fan.”
I opened my mouth to speak but was unsuccessful.
Still holding tight to my hand, she bounced it with her words.
“I really, really, really loved Those Years. I didn’t miss that first episode when it was airing. I even taped it while I watched it, just in case. I have them all on DVD now. Boxed sets. All ten seasons. Even so, I watch them on Hulu.” She released me only to snap in the air. “I just pick an episode, any episode from any season, and I’m transported back to happy times for at least a half an hour. But I tell you, most of the time, I’ll just settle in and watch four, five, even more episodes all back-to-back.”
I again opened my mouth.
And was again foiled.
She leaned into me, and I unconsciously bent down from my five-eight height (well, more like five-eleven in my booties) to her four-eight as she carried on.
“But We Pluck the Cord is the best book of all time. I will argue it with anyone. And I have. Yes, To Kill a Mockingbird is fabulous. Of course. A classic. But don’t hand me any of that 1984 or Lord of the Flies or The Sun Also Rises nonsense.”
I stared aghast at her.
“And yes, The Handmaid’s Tale was exceptional. But just because the author also starred in one of the funniest, and I’ll say most poignant and often very touching and real sitcoms in television history does not mean she hasn’t written the modern classic that will be on par with Woolf, Fitzgerald and Salinger.”
She wagged a finger in my face.
I’ll repeat, she wagged a finger in my face.
“Mark my words,” she concluded.
I didn’t know what to say.
Obviously, considering We Pluck the Cord won every literary award going, made a fortune in royalties (and still does), was added to high school literature reading lists across the globe, and had more than nine dozen credit hours devoted to the dissection of it at universities in seven different countries, and I wrote it, I was not going to debate her opinion.
However…
“We teach it in school, here, in Misted Pines,” she proclaimed proudly. “And that was before you moved to town.”
“I—”
“I’ve called Sheriff Dern and told him to get his keister here right away.”
She did not use the word “keister.”
“No lip from him,” she blathered on. “No excuses. He was supposed to get out to the lake and see you, I know. I told him he needed to go.”
“Oh no, that’s not why—”
“And now look what he’s done.” She blew an irritated puff of breath out of her mouth that was so strong, I felt it go through my sweater and touch skin. “You had to come all the way into town.”
“It isn’t that far,” I said swiftly.
“You’re right. Still. I mean,” she leaned in again, “you…are…safe. No one would harm a hair on your head. Including keeping mum about you being here with us. We love you in Misted Pines. Everyone loves you.”
That was part of the problem.
There was one man out there who loved me way too much.
“Though,” her mind seemed to drift, “it prolly would have been good when you came in that you brought Jace.”