Northern Lights

Listen," he said before anyone could object, "this is our chief of police. He should be a part of this."
    "The fact is, Ignatious, we're discussing recent events. And your handling of them."
    "Okay. I take it some aren't satisfied with my handling of them."
    "Well, the fact is . . ." Harry scratched his head. "There've been some rumblings around town that we've had more trouble here since we hired you than before. Seems like we have—not that I see how that's your fault—but it seems we have."
    "It might have been a mistake." Ed firmed his jaw. "I'll say that right to your face. It might have been a mistake to hire you, anyone for that matter, from Outside."
    "The reasons for going Outside were valid," Walter Notti reminded him. "Chief Burke has done, is doing, the job he was hired to do."
    "That may be, Walter, that may be. But—" Ed held up his hands. "It could be some of the less lawful elements of this town look at that as a kind of dare. So they're more active, you could say. People around here don't like being told what to do."
    "We voted to have a police force," Hopp reminded him.
    "I know that, Hopp, and I was one who voted aye, right here in this room. I'm not saying Nate's to blame for the way it's worked out. I'm saying it was a mistake. Our mistake."
    "I'm stitching up the Mackies less often since Nate got here," Ken put in. "I had less patients coming in than usual for treatment after fights, less domestic violence. Last year Drunk Mike was brought in twice with frostbite after somebody found him passed out on the side of the road. This year he's still going on benders, but he's sleeping them off safe in a cell."
    "I don't think we can blame having a police force for you getting your equipment stolen, Ed, or your shack graffitied." Deb spread her hands. "We can't blame having law for Hawley getting his tires slashed, or for windows being broke at the school or any of that stuff. I say we blame it on parents not sitting hard enough on their kids."
    "A kid didn't kill my dog." Joe looked apologetically at Nate. "I agree with what Deb said, and with what Walter and Ken said before that, but a kid didn't do that to Yukon."
    "No," Nate said. "It wasn't a kid."
    "I don't think hiring you was a mistake, Nate," Deb continued, "but I think we've all got a responsibility to this town, and we ought to know how you're handling it. What you're doing to find out who's doing these things and who did that to Yukon."
    "That's fair. Some of the incidents mentioned may very well have been kids. The broken windows at the school certainly were, and since one of them was careless enough to drop his penknife, they've been identified. I talked to them and their parents yesterday. Restitution will be made, and both of them will get a three-day suspension—during which time, I doubt they're going to have a real good time."
    "You didn't charge them?" Ed demanded.
    "They were nine and ten, Ed. I didn't think locking them in a cell was the answer. A lot of us," he said remembering the sealed juvenile file on Ed's record, "do stupid things, get in trouble with the law when we're kids."
    "If they did that, maybe they did the other things," Deb suggested.
    "They didn't. They got set down in school by their teacher, broke a couple of windows. They sure as hell didn't hike all the way out to Ed's ice shack or sneak out of the house at night and walk the two miles to Hawley's to slash his tires and spray paint all over his truck. You want my input? Your trouble didn't start since you hired me. Your trouble started sixteen years ago when somebody killed Patrick Galloway."
    "That's something that's shaken everybody up," Harry said, nodding to the others around the room. "Even those of us who didn't know him. But I don't see what it has to do with what we're discussing here."
    "I think it does. So that's how I'm handling it."
    "I don't follow you," Deb said.
    "Whoever killed Galloway is still here. Whoever killed Galloway," Nate continued as everyone began talking at once, "killed Max Hawbaker."
    "Max killed himself," Ed interrupted. "He killed himself because he killed Pat."
    "Someone wants you to believe that. I don't."
    "That's just crazy talk, Nate." Harry pushed back air with both hands. "Just crazy talk."
    "Crazier than Max killing Pat?" Deb rubbed her fingers over her throat. "Crazier than Max killing himself ? I don't know."
    "Quiet!" Hopp held up both hands and shouted over the noise. "Just quiet down a damn minute. Ignatious."