Fewer extensions being granted. Fewer residents being admitted. I should be okay with that. Dalton has said that, ideally, he’d like to see a town of about one hundred and fifty. He’s done the math and calculated that fewer than one-thirty would risk essential services, but more than one-seventy means less choice in living quarters, fewer jobs, and lower overall resident satisfaction. Maybe this suggests the council is actually listening to him, rather than overpopulating Rockton to fill their own pockets.
“I’ll talk to Jen later,” I say. “Get a feel for whether she’s honestly looking for an extension or just being a pain in the ass. For now, we have a Danish tourist in the clinic.”
“What?”
I start at the beginning.
EIGHT
It’s a good thing Dalton had to head into the forest in search of Jacob. It’s much easier to deal with the council’s bullshit without also having to mediate between them and our sheriff.
I understand Dalton’s frustration. He has a town to run, and his focus is on the people in it. He is the shepherd, and he needs to make sure every one of his flock returns home healthy and whole. To the council, though, the residents are widgets in two-year storage, and what counts is how much they pay for that privilege.
If Rockton were a country, the council would be the corporate interests and Dalton would be in charge of social services. That leaves me playing politician and negotiating between the two.
Fortunately, I have a budding ally in Phil. When he was first exiled to Rockton, he’d been like the junior exec sent onto the work floor, supposedly to get a better understanding of the business from the ground up, but really all sides knew it was a punishment. In his case, a punishment for failing to protect a very wealthy client … who was also a serial-killing psychopath.
Phil had reacted like most junior execs sent to work among the masses—he’d waited for his bosses to realize that it was all a big mistake and that they couldn’t live without him. When that didn’t happen, he made the best of it. They wanted him managing the town from the inside? Then that was what he’d do.
The thing about being on the inside, though, is that your perspective shifts. If I’d told him about Sophie a year ago, he’d have scolded me like a child bringing home a stray—and potentially rabid—animal. He’d lecture me on all the ways my actions had endangered the town and then trot off to tattle to the council.
When I tell him now, he just sags, one hand going to his forehead. I push the lone chair from behind the desk and let him sink into it. I
make coffee and, while it’s only 10 A.M., I add a generous shot of Irish whiskey. Tasting that, he hesitates, before his face fixes in a “fuck it” look and he downs the rest.
Phil’s equanimity restored, we discuss the matter. Never once does he chastise us for bringing Sophie in. He can be an ass, but he’s not an asshole. Not a monster. Not a sociopath. Living in Rockton, I’ve learned more about all three than I ever cared to.
Phil doesn’t suggest, even for a second, that we should have left Sophie on that lakeshore. Even in the beginning, he wouldn’t have done that, but he’d probably have suggested we pop a tent outside town and care for her there. Now he sees the ridiculousness of that. It will be far easier—and less suspicious—to feed her a story once she’s awake enough to ask questions.
The problem is that any story we devise still needs a helluva lot of explanation. Maybe not to Sophie herself. You were found by people in a small fly-in community. That makes sense. Or it does until we fly her back to civilization and she tells people about this town of two hundred souls that everyone knows does not exist.
The council, not surprisingly, freaks out. We have a new liaison on that end. A woman named Tamara who, to be bluntly honest, sounds like the female version of Phil. She does exactly what I’d have expected of him a year ago, and it’s Phil himself who gets the worst of her patronizing “disappointment.” He’s the council representative here; we’re just the dumb cops.
Tamara takes the information, and an hour later, returns to convey more “deep disappointment” from the council. As they’ve reminded me before, Rockton is for Rockton residents, who pay for their safety and privacy, and it is our duty to provide that. We should have stabilized Sophie at the scene and then notified them to pick her up and discreetly deposit her outside Dawson.
I’m sure this makes sense to them. It would in a city or even a rural countryside. Here, though? The council wouldn’t need to send a plane because she’d be scavenger-chow before morning. I’m not sure they would send a plane. Just let the scavengers do their work for them.
Chiding us about resident safety is bullshit. Every resident who goes home is a security risk. Sure, they might not know our GPS coordinates, but like Sophie, they could provide a general distance from Dawson plus directional cues if they understand the basics of the “sun rises in the east and sets in the west.”
But there are ways around this, too. We can tell Sophie that this is a secret scientific facility devoted to climate change research, and she’d almost certainly keep our secret, given that outdoor enthusiasts tend to be more concerned about the environment than the average person.
I suffer the council’s condescending bullshit in silence. I don’t just sit there and listen, though. The lack of a visual screen means it’s like being on a telephone conference where my input is not required. I take out my notebook and start writing down questions to ask Sophie, along with avenues of investigation. When Phil glances over, I’m tempted to pretend I’m taking notes from the meeting. Then I decide “screw it” and let him see.
Phil glances at my notes and then snatches the pen from my hand. I’m reaching to take it back when he draws the beginning of a hangman game. I stifle a laugh and guess a letter, and we proceed, with random verbalizations of “uh-huh,” “right,” and “I understand” as we play our game.
Dalton couldn’t do this. He couldn’t make notes for his day. He couldn’t play hangman. He definitely could not manage those meaningless verbalizations. He’d need to argue and debate, his blood pressure rising until he stalked off, requiring a good hour of forest prowling before he was fit company.
After the hour-long reminder of why I hate the council, I return to the clinic to find Sophie unconscious. She’d woken and flown into a panic. Before they could find me, April sedated her again, since she’d been in danger of ripping open her stomach with her flailing.
That’s where my day hits a brick wall. Dalton has gone looking for Jacob, whom we need to find the missing tourists. The missing tourist we have is unconscious, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get more out of her. I’m not even sure she has more to give.
I spend the afternoon and early evening doing regular police work. There isn’t really enough in Rockton for a full-time detective. The last case I worked was a sexual assault: guy expects sex after a date, woman says no, he tries to change her mind by demonstrating his skill with a nonconsensual make-out session behind the Red Lion. All it took was a cry to bring someone running, and by then, she’d escaped. Dalton sentenced the guy to two months of literal shit duty, emptying toilets. Curfew from 9 P.M. until 7 A.M. One-drink limit. No access to the brothel.
I check in on both parties today. Is she okay? Is he still grumbling that we overreacted? We’re fine on both sides. She’s had no further contact with him, and he’s embarrassed and contrite. All good.
Then I follow up on a complaint between neighbors and a workplace-harassment charge. I also take a militia shift patrolling town, and finally I join Anders doing community policing—wandering about, chitchatting with folks heading out for the evening.
The community service part is not Dalton’s forte, which is one reason Anders is such a critical part of our force. Everyone likes Will Anders. Everyone’s happy to talk to him. Today, our socializing has a purpose—seeing how many people know we have a stranger in town. According to Jen’s spy research, a few know there was an emergency, and many realize the clinic is closed except for emergencies, but their curiosity is purely the gossip-fodder kind. Rumors are currency here, and they want tidbits to share.