Page 19 of Aaron (Dresden Pride #1)

Peter had been put on notice by his boss.

Why the President of the United States had to stick his nose in on things he couldn’t quite figure out.

But the next morning, after talking with his wayward employee, he got a call from him telling him to step away from Mackenzie Troff or he was going to know the reason why.

There was something about that man, too, that pissed him off.

Aaron Dresden wasn’t a person that he would usually have anything to do with, but there he was sticking his nose in his shit, too.

Peter had a good mind to go find the man and show him what it was like to mess with the FBI that he was in charge of.

He’d tried to explain to the President that he was investigating the kidnapping of his sister-in-law and other women who had been abducted from the little town.

His brother, well, step-brother Larry Palmer, said that it was happening all over the town and someone should do something about it before every woman in the world was gone.

Not that Peter cared all that much for women in general, they were only good for a couple of things in this world, and one of them wasn’t working for the FBI, but he told him he’d look into it and see what he could find.

The only name that Larry had was Alaric Dresden, who had arrested him shortly after his wife had come up missing.

Now he’d been told that there were no missing women and that he needed to find things to occupy his mind other than old tales of abductions before he retired him.

He’d do it too. Peter was well past the age of retirement.

Not that he wanted to stay home all the time.

It was hard enough working with the women at work; he didn’t want to have to be around his own wife more than he had to.

Sharon was all right when he needed someone to hang on his arm when there were balls and such going on.

She was pretty enough still, even though she wouldn’t dye her hair like most of the other women in his age group did.

At sixty-seven, Peter thought of himself as a man about town, and he had all his teeth.

That was the advice his mother had given him when he’d been about to embark on the world of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

To keep his hair neat and clean and all his teeth in his mouth.

He never knew if she meant that metaphorically or just a passing comment, but he’d been really good at taking care of his mouth since he’d become an agent all those years ago.

And his hair had been the same style since then as well.

He was a man who knew the value of a good set of teeth and a good barber.

“Agent Gravestone, there’s a call for you on line two. I think it’s the president again, but I couldn’t be sure.” He asked his secretary why he’d not asked. “It seemed impolite to ask who it was at the time. He’s on line two.”

With the door shut behind him, Peter picked up his phone.

After saying his name and making sure that the agent part was said just loud enough to make the person on the other end of the line know that he was important, he waited for him to say something.

It was then that he realized that he’d been put on hold even before he’d been able to speak to anyone.

Damn it all to hell and back, that was one of his pet peeves.

Calling someone and talking to someone else instead of waiting until they were finished talking.

He was ready to hang up when the person on the other end said his name. “Yes, this is Agent Gravestone. What can I do for you, Mr. President?”

“I’ve been looking into the mystery of the missing women. You’re related to one of them. Is anybody you know able to call you up and get you into something that is on my time?” He said she had come up missing. “I also read her file. Did you?”

“I did. And according to my brother, she’s a lazy woman and only whines all the time about her lot in life.

” He asked why he’d want her back if she was lazy.

“I don’t know, sir, but he asked me, and after going over the reports of other missing women, I decided to send one of my agents down there to have a look.

I knew I should have sent a man to do it.

Women all stick together, and she’s lying in the hospital with a supposed broken ankle that has her not working her job. ”

“She does have a broken ankle. Had you looked into that, you might well have found out that it was a secondary break from the one she had here in DC several months ago. The doctor then told her that it was only a sprained ankle and didn’t give her what was due to her to heal.

” He said that he’d read that as well. “So now you’re a physician, are you?

You know when someone has only a sprain rather than a broken ankle?

I don’t want to talk about that right now.

I want to talk about these women who got away from abusive situations.

All of them had been beaten more over one month than I had been my entire childhood, and not nearly as bad. Did you investigate that too?”

“Men have to have the right to knock around their wives when they get out of hand. I’d not do it to my own wife, she knows better than to act out, but in my opinion, women have a soft head when it comes to following their husbands’ lead, and that’s all I want to say about that, too.

” He waited for the President to tell him he beat his own wife or something along those lines.

Agreeing with him about how his own wife was soft-headed, too.

After a time, he thought that they’d lost connection. “Hello, sir. Are you there?”

“I’m here.” Silence again. And it was longer this time before he spoke.

“I can’t believe you still think that way, Peter.

Spousal abuse is against the law. No one should be beaten to be kept in line.

Not ever. I don’t even want to ask you how you feel about child abuse.

I’m afraid of what your answer will be.”

“I’ll tell you how I feel. If parents beat their children more, we’d not have so many school shootings in the world.

Or, for that matter, as much crime at all.

I wholly believe that to spare the rod is to spoil the child.

People with children should be held accountable, too, if they have unruly children.

Why my wife and I went out to dinner the other night, and there were two children with their parents, making everyone in the place uncomfortable.

And don’t get me started on nursing mothers.

My God, man, they just whip out their breasts and show them off to anyone that is there, like they have the god given right to do so.

” He thought of something else that pissed him off when he went out to dinner nowadays, but was cut off when the President started speaking.

“You’re going to retire and soon, Peter.

Had I known your views on things like women and children, I would have done so sooner.

How can you live in this world and not be on board with the changes in it?

You need to be retired because of the beliefs that you have that are so antiquated that I shudder to think what sort of impression you’re making on the men and women—especially the women who work for you.

” The President told him to hold on for a moment.

When he came back on the line after about five minutes, he tried to tell the man that all his men thought as he did.

That’s why he handpicked them all to work for him.

But he wasn’t having it. “In half an hour, there will be a detail in your office to help you pack up. You’re to go home and stay there until you hear differently from me.

As of this moment, you’re retired from the FBI agency.

If you want your pension, you’d better not give them any trouble either.

Call your wife and tell her that you’re coming home, that you no longer have a job and—lord help her if she’s not just the way you described will be around the house for a while.

I don’t have any idea what you’re going to be doing with your free time, but you no longer work for the government.

Do you understand what it is that I’m telling you, Peter?

You no longer have a job working for the government, and you’re to stay out of the offices that used to be yours. ”

“I don’t know why you’re so upset with me.

All men think the same way.” He said that they didn’t.

“I know for a fact that my brother knocks around his wife and children. He’s never been in trouble with the law before.

I don’t understand why you’re retiring me when I have a lot of good years left in myself to run this agency with a firm hand and a good head on my shoulders.

” He said that no one should be subject to his way of life.

Not as long as he could do something about it.

“You’re just upsetting me, and that’s not good.

I’ve given my life to this job and the people around here.

You can’t just decide that I’m to be let go because you don’t agree with my way of life. ”

“No one should be agreeing with your way of life. Do you have any idea what ticket I came into the office with? The exact opposite of your own feelings about women and children. And you probably don’t believe this, but there are men who are abused by their wives, too, who need a hand up once in a while.

” He called them pussies. “To you. To me, they’re as helpless as the women that we help out of terrible situations.

Not to mention the children who are caught in the bad relationships, too.

Good lord, man, hasn’t anyone taken you to task about your attitude? ”