Spencerville

called headquarters and said to Blake, “Takin’ an hour. Beep if you need me. In fact, beep in an hour so I can get onta where I’m gonna be.”
    “Right, Chief.”
    Baxter pulled into the cracked concrete driveway of a wooden bungalow and used an electronic opener to raise the garage door. He parked the police cruiser inside the garage, got out, and hit the button to close the door.
    He went to the back door and opened it with a key. The kitchen was small, dirty, and always smelled like bad plumbing. Annie, at least, for all her other faults, knew how to keep a house.
    He took a look into the untidy living room, then walked into the first of two bedrooms. A woman in her mid-thirties lay sleeping on her side on top of the bed sheets, wearing only a T-shirt. The room was warm, and a window fan stirred the hot air. Her white waitress uniform and underwear were thrown on the floor.
    Baxter walked up to the bed. The T-shirt had ridden up to her hips, and Cliff stared at her pubic hair, then regarded her big breasts and the nipples pointing through the pink T-shirt. The shirt said, “Park ’n’ Eat—Softball Team.”
    She had a good body, good muscle tone, and good skin if you overlooked a few zits and mosquito bites. The short hair falling over her face was blond, but the hair on her crotch was black.
    The woman stirred and turned on her stomach. Cliff looked at her rounded rump and felt himself getting hard. He reached out and squeezed a handful of cheek. She mumbled something, then rolled over and opened her eyes.
    Cliff Baxter smiled. “Hey, good-lookin’.”
    “Oh…” She cleared her throat and forced a smile. “It’s you.”
    “Who’d you think it was?”
    “Nobody…” She sat up, trying to clear her head, then pulled the T-shirt down to cover herself. “Didn’t know you were coming.”
    “I ain’t come yet, sweetheart. That’s why I’m here.”
    She forced a smile.
    He sat on the bed beside her and put his hand between her legs, his fingers entering her. “You havin’ a wet dream?”
    “Yeah… about you.”
    “Better be.” He found her clitoris and massaged it.
    She squirmed a little, clearly not enjoying going from a sound sleep to having a man’s fingers in her within sixty seconds.
    “What’s the matter with you?”
    “Nothing. Got to go to the bathroom.” She slid off the opposite side of the bed and went out into the hallway.
    Cliff wiped his fingers on the sheets, lay on the bed fully clothed, and waited. He heard the toilet flush, water running, gargling.
    Sherry Kolarik was the latest in a long line of women that had begun before his marriage, continued during his courtship of Annie and through his engagement and all through his marriage. They never lasted too long, and he never had a real heartthrob, a girlfriend, or a full-fledged mistress—they were all just sport fucks of short duration. In fact, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was incapable of any real relationship with a woman, and his ladies were simply targets of opportunity—the town sluts, women who ran afoul of the law, desperately lonely divorcees, and barmaids and waitresses who needed a little extra cash—the lower elements of small-town American society; they were all easy marks for Police Chief Baxter.
    Now and then, he picked on a married woman with a no-account husband such as Janie Wilson, the wife of the station house janitor, or Beth Marlon, wife of the town drunk. Sometimes he got the wife of a man who needed a favor real bad, like a prisoner. He enjoyed these conquests more than the others because fucking a man’s wife meant you were fucking the man, too.
    He was careful not to try his act on wives who had husbands who could become a problem. He did ogle female attorneys, schoolteachers, doctors, and other professional women, married and unmarried, who turned him on; but he knew without admitting it to himself that he didn’t have a chance with these women. He knew, too, or rather had a dim awareness, that even if he scored with one of them, they’d reject him after they got to know him better. His only major conquest on that level had been Annie Prentis. But at that time, Cliff Baxter was better-looking, a little more charming, and also gave it everything he had. And, in truth, there had been a war on then, and the pickings in Spencerville were slim, so that a draft-deferred cop looked good to a lot of young ladies. He knew all of this without actually acknowledging any of it