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As Harry got off the bench, he used his Nokia cell to call Janice and tell her he’d be late getting home this evening.

Standing next to their bed, using the extension that sat on the bedside table, Janice said that was a shame, because she had

a surprise for him. A surprise? What kind of surprise? he wanted to know. His thoughts immediately leaned toward matters of

an intimate nature. With all the stress he’d been under these last few weeks, he knew he hadn’t exactly been the most attentive

partner, and maybe Janice had something in the works to get him back on track.

But then she offered one hint. It was a surprise for both him and Dylan. Well, so much for that theory.

“I might be home after he’s gone to bed,” he said.

“Then we can do it tomorrow. What are you working on, anyway?”

He almost told her he was going to be on a “stakeout” but didn’t want to sound like he thought he was in an episode of NYPD Blue . But he wanted to tell her something, and she was about the only one he could tell. And even then, he wasn’t about to get into specifics. Not that he actually had any.

“There’s this guy I’m keeping my eye on.”

“Oh?” Janice said, intrigued. It wasn’t very often, in a town like Lucknow, that Harry had to conduct a surveillance. “Can

you say anything?”

“Not really. I haven’t got enough to get a wiretap or a search warrant. What I do have is so out there, I’d get laughed out of a judge’s chambers. But there’s something just wrong about this guy. So I’m gonna sit on his place tonight.”

“Be careful, will ya?”

“In this town?”

It was their private joke. A snippet of dialogue from early in the movie Jaws . Chief Brody laughs off his wife’s concerns as he heads to work. Amity was like Lucknow, a place where nothing big happened.

Of course, this was before the shark showed up.

Harry wondered what kind of shark was in his future.

“I’ll be home when I get home,” he said.

“I’ll save you some dinner.”

“I might grab something. Gotta go.”

Janice placed the cordless receiver back in its cradle and hung up the phone and looked at the large gift-wrapped package

resting on the bed.

Inside the box, something stirred, as though it had been listening.

The alley behind Main Street was lined with Dumpsters and garbage cans and bundled cardboard. The odd rat scurried by. Cats

wandered, hunting for them. There were service doors to all the businesses, and where there was enough room, merchants’ vehicles

hugged the walls so others could pass.

Among them was Nabler’s white van.

Harry was keeping an eye on it, but not from behind the wheel of his cruiser. It would have attracted unwanted attention. Instead, he was a few businesses away from Nabler’s, perched atop a stack of old cinder blocks around the corner of a Dumpster. If Nabler emerged from the back of his shop, Harry would hear either the door opening and closing or the engine of his van turning over when he keyed the ignition.

Harry was counting on the fact that if Nabler left his shop, he wouldn’t come out the front door. Once the closed sign was on, the door locked, he’d leave by the back door because his vehicle was here. If he came out at all.

If he did drive off, Harry would run flat-out to his car, parked across the street, and trail Nabler before he was out of

sight.

And where did Harry think he might go? What would be the point of following him?

Harry had no idea.

He sat on the cement blocks and waited. And waited. Did this guy ever go out for groceries? Hit the drive-through for a Big

Mac and fries? Go to the lumber store for more shelving?

And damned if Harry hadn’t forgotten to pick himself up a sandwich before embarking on this mission. By half-past six, his

stomach was growling so loudly he was worried he’d give away his hiding spot. He had his phone, but what was he supposed to

do? Order a pizza to the alley?

He heard a door open.

Harry poked his head out around the edge of the Dumpster. Someone was coming out the back of a business a couple of doors

beyond the train store. Len’s Bakery, he thought. An woman in her sixties appeared, hunting in her purse for the keys to a

silver Kia Sportage. She started up the car and began slowly making her way up the alley to Harry’s position. Not wanting

to alarm her, he moved back and crouched down next to the Dumpster until the little car had rolled past. The woman had her

eyes focused straight ahead, hands gripping the wheel at ten and two, and did not notice him.

The evening dragged on. Shortly before eight, he realized he had to take a leak. He turned in close to the wall, unzipped, and did what he had to do. Good thing there wasn’t a cop around, he thought. Might have gotten arrested for indecent exposure.

He kept glancing at his watch, wondering how much longer he could do this. By nine, it was completely dark. If Nabler wanted

to conduct some nefarious business, this would be a good time to get to it. But the door never opened, and the van never moved.

Harry was coming to the realization that this stakeout (he did kind of like that word) was a waste of time. Whatever Nabler

might have been up to, maybe he’d finished. And anything that might incriminate him wasn’t to be discovered by following him.

It might well be in his shop.

What Harry really needed was to get in there . And if he wasn’t going to be able to get a warrant to search the place, he might have to bend the rules somewhat.

A plan began to formulate in Harry’s mind. He would need to enlist an accomplice.

Janice met Harry when he came through the front door shortly before ten.

“I forgot to eat,” he said.

There was some leftover lasagna that she popped into the microwave while he took off his jacket, put his service weapon in

the top of the front hall closet, then went to the fridge for a cold beer.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Gonna have to come at this another way.” Harry looked at her as he took a long pull on the beer.

The microwave tinged. Janice slipped on an oven mitt to bring out the plate, peeled off the plastic wrap, and put it on the

table. “Thanks,” Harry said, sitting down. “I’m gonna hoover this.”

Janice took a seat across from him. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” he said, blowing on a forkful of pasta before putting it into his mouth.

“You’re exhausted. This Angus Tanner thing is wearing you down. Can’t you get help from, I don’t know, the FBI?”

He shrugged. “I’ve called. Everything’s taking a backseat to anti-terrorism. First all those planes, then everybody losing

their shit over those letters that maybe were loaded with anthrax. You think anyone outside of Lucknow cares about one murder

and a couple of men still missing, one who was pretty much the town drunk? The things keeping me up at night, I don’t even

know how to explain what the hell they’re about.”

He shoveled more lasagna into his mouth, washed it down with more beer. He set the bottle down, rested the fork on the side

of his plate, and went quiet.

“Talk to me, Harry.”

“For a long time, I wondered if maybe I made the right decision, about never moving away, staying in the town where I grew

up, becoming a cop, working my way up to chief. Did I settle? Doesn’t everybody have to go someplace else to become something?

Could I have been more?”

Janice smiled sadly. “You’ve been talking to Melissa.”

Harry sighed. “Busted.”

“You think you’d have been happier working for the FBI, having to go all over the country, being transferred to North Dakota,

dealing with a massive bureaucracy? Is that what you would have wanted? Don’t ever, ever discount what you do for the people

of Lucknow. You make a difference here.” She put her hand over his for a moment. “That’s what matters. You help folks, one-on-one,

and I could not be more proud walking the streets of this town knowing you’re my husband.”

He looked off to one side. “Yeah, well.” He got the last piece of lasagna onto his fork, popped it into his mouth, and finished off the beer. He was picking up the plate to take to the sink when Janice grabbed him by the wrist. She stood, took the plate from his hand and put it on the table, slid her arms around him, pulled him close to her. She tilted her head up and put her lips on his.

“Take me upstairs,” she said.

Once they were undressed and under the covers, it was as special as it had ever been, and Harry found himself thinking fate

was a wonderful thing, that somehow he had met this woman and fallen in love with her, that they had made a life together

and this union had blessed them with a terrific son, and it didn’t matter how much shit got thrown his way as Lucknow’s chief

of police, he was still the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole world.