Spencerville

scared, you know, figuring we were laying for him.” Ward added, “It’s all there in the report.”
    Baxter glanced at the paper again and said, “You called him at ten thirty-eight and he answered?”
    “Yup.”
    “He could have been home about an hour already.”
    “Could have. Depends on how long he stayed with Wilkes, and where he went after that. Like I said, I think he took the long way home. He was scared.”
    “Yeah. You really scared him. You see any other car goin’ in or comin’ out of his farm?”
    “Nope.”
    “You stick around after you called him?”
    “No, because it looked like he was in for the night. But about an hour later, I drove by again, and his light was still on upstairs. What are you thinking, Chief?”
    “Nothin’. I’ll be at the Park ’n’ Eat for breakfast.”
    “Okay.”
    Cliff Baxter left police headquarters and walked the half mile down Main Street to the east end of town and entered the Park ’n’ Eat at seven-thirty A.M.
    He took his customary table, and an older waitress named Lanie came over and said, “How’re you this morning, Chief?”
    “Just fine.”
    “Coffee?”
    “Sure thing.”
    She poured him a cup of coffee from a carafe and asked him, “Need to look at the menu?”
    “Nope. Ham, two eggs over easy, home fries, biscuits, no toast, and no juice.”
    “You got it.” She started to walk away, but Baxter said, “Hey, where’s Sherry this morning?”
    Lanie replied, “Called in sick.”
    “Yeah? Friend of mine saw her last night.”
    Lanie smiled. “Maybe too much partying.”
    “Nah. This guy saw her at church. St. James, out by Overton.” Baxter studied the waitress’s face, but clearly she didn’t know anything.
    “I’ll get those eggs going for you.”
    “Yeah. Hey, if she comes in or calls, tell her I’m lookin’ for her. We got to talk about some parking fines.”
    Lanie’s smile dropped, and she nodded and moved off.
    Breakfast came, and Cliff ate. Nearly everyone who came in greeted him, and he tried to guess who knew what at this early hour.
    One of the city councilmen, Chet Coleman, who was also a pharmacist, came in and saw him. Coleman sat down opposite Baxter and, without any preliminaries, said, “Hey, Chief, you know about that meeting at St. James?”
    “Heard about it.”
    “Yeah, while we were having our council meeting, those folks were bad-mouthing us.”
    “No shit?”
    “I didn’t like what I heard.”
    “How’d you hear?”
    “Well… had a friend there.”
    “Yeah? A friend who stayed up late to call you, or a friend who got up early to call you?”
    “Uh… this morning…”
    “Yeah? Friend couldn’t be named Mrs. Coleman, could it?”
    Chet Coleman didn’t respond to that, but he didn’t have to.
    Baxter said, “You know, Chet, this whole goddamned country is getting out of control. You know why? Pussies. When the men can’t control the pussies, you might as well kiss the whole country good-bye.”
    “Yeah… well, there were a lot of men there, too, and from what I hear—”
    “Let me give you some advice, Mr. Councilman. If your wife winds up on the wrong side of this thing, it ain’t gonna look good for you in November, and it ain’t gonna look good for your business ever.” Baxter stood, threw a few dollars on the table, and left.
    It was eight forty-five A.M. now, and there were cars and people on Main Street, not as many as there’d been twenty years ago at this hour, but enough so that Cliff Baxter felt like he was walking through his domain, greeting his subjects like a prince who’d stepped out of the palace to check out the mood of the populace. Most people seemed their usual selves, but now and then someone seemed to be avoiding him or looking at him funny.
    Cliff Baxter stopped and spoke to a few citizens, shook a lot of hands, chatted with shopkeepers opening for business, tipped his hat to women, and even walked old Mrs. Graham across the street.
    He lingered in front of police headquarters awhile and greeted everyone who walked by, calling most of them by name, joking with Oliver Grebbs, the bank president, about Oliver embezzling money to keep a mistress and both of them knowing the embezzlement was a joke, but the mistress wasn’t.
    He looked across the street at the courthouse where the city employees were walking through the park to go to work. At some point today or tomorrow, he knew, he’d have to go see the mayor.
    Cliff Baxter couldn’t get a sense of