Flashover (A Sean McGhee Mystery Book 2) Read online

  “How often will you be doing the sweeps?” another man asked.

  “As often as we have time.”

  “Are we paying full price for this?” a third man asked.

  “No. We’re going to bill only for the hours actually spent in Tilley until we can staff up and begin assigning officers on a permanent basis.”

  The crowd was beginning to accept the idea that maybe things were going to turn around and the questions came fast.

  “Look,” Sean said with a smile when the questions began to repeat. “Let me put it to you simply. I have a vested interest in making Tilley a safer community, a place where people want to live. One,” he said, ticking off his fingers. “A lot of the troublemakers we pickup in Brunswick are actually from Tilley and Abbeyville. I’m not blaming you for that, but the facts speak for themselves. If Mayor Voiles’ plan works, and Tilley can pull itself up and become a good, safe, place to live again, then that’s one less headache I have to deal with. Secondly, Brunswick desperately needs more places to eat. I’m a single guy, my girl doesn’t like my cooking, and I get tired of driving her to Raleigh.”

  The crowd twittered out a laugh. He was stretching the truth a bit, but he wanted to wrap this up. He wanted to check the downtown to see if his officers were having any luck, and he wanted to get back to Maggie.

  “The point I’m trying to make is this. Mayors Klinger and Voiles are working together to try to make things better for both Tilley and Brunswick. I support that. My officers and I are going to do everything we can to make this cooperation successful.” He paused, allowing the assembly to think about what he said. “Bear with us as we transition to this new system. It’s probably going to be bumpy in the beginning, but it’s going to get better, you have my word. You can help us by reporting any suspicious activity. Spread the word there’s a new sheriff in town, so to speak. We can’t do this without you, but if you help me, know the BPD will be there to help you take back your town.”

  A few more questions were asked, mostly about how Tilley was going to pay for all of this. Hud, Greg and Vince never wavered in their support, and he appreciated the fact they didn’t blow smoke up anyone’s butt that it was going to be quick, easy, or inexpensive, but he would make sure his department did its part. With a working police department, Tilley had a real chance to turn their town around and become a place people wanted to live and work again.

  Sean spent a half-hour or so after the meeting concluded talking with people. He’d become a minor local celebrity when he’d arrested Steve Locoste for the murder of Boyd Thacker, and everyone seemed cautiously optimistic he could do good things for their town as well.

  Nineteen

  When Sean stepped out of the Tilley City Hall, he could see the beacons of a patrol car reflecting off buildings and lighting the night with a disorienting blue strobe. He hurried to his car, started it, and immediately flipped on his own beacons, giving the siren a quick whoop as he approached the knot of people that had gathered outside the town hall to watch.

  Once on the road, he put his foot down, his Charger bellowing as he raced the four blocks to the downtown area in support of his officer. He pulled to a stop behind the cruiser and stepped out of his car, his own strobes behind the windshield, rear glass, and in the grill adding to the crazy disco like effect.

  Chips was standing beside his patrol car, his hand resting on the butt of his still holstered side arm as he talked to a small group of men. He didn’t like Chips’ alert and aggressive stance, so he used the car door to obscure his movements as he relocated his side arm from behind his back to his hip. His holster was a left-handed model, so he could draw it from behind his back with his right hand, forcing him to carry it to his left hip. His left wasn’t his preferred carry location, but just showing the weapon should be enough to make someone think twice before doing something stupid.

  “Come on, my nigga! You can’t come in here, get all in our shit, and tell us what to do! What the fuck are you doing running with the fucking five-oh anyway?” one of the men sneered as Sean stepped out from behind his door.

  The three men were full of scorn and contemptuous attitude. They were dressed in dark hoodies, skull caps, and baggy pants that puddled at their ankles. Though it was hard to tell with the wildly dancing lights, their dress made Sean suspect these were the same toughs he’d spoken to when he was looking for where the homeless had landed.

  “I’m not your nigga,” Chips growled, his voice steel hard and ice cold. “You’re either going to clear the area or you’re going to take a ride to the station. It’s your call.”

  Chips had placed the dazzlingly bright roof strobes of his cruiser behind him, forcing the men to look into the flickering lights to rob them of their night vision and put them at a disadvantage.

  As he approached, Sean put on his cop face and prepared to give these goons an attitude adjustment. He stepped up beside Chips but left a gap so the light could flash between them. He left his own weapon in the holster, but like Chips, he placed his hand on the butt to silently signal they were ready for trouble.

  “What seems to be the problem here?” Sean asked, making his voice as cold and hard as Chips’.

  “What the fuck is this, and who the fuck are you?” one of the men demanded.

  “Sean McGhee, chief of police, Brunswick Police Department. This officer gave you a lawful order. Move on or we’re going to arrest you for loitering, public nuisance, and failure to follow a lawful order.”

  “That’s bullshit, man,” one of the men said, waving at Chips and Sean with the same pointer and pinky finger gesture Sean had seen before, confirming Sean’s suspicion these were likely the same men. “You Brunswick five-oh’s got no fucking right to come down here and order—”

  “I suggest you pay more attention to what’s going on,” Sean said, interrupting the man. “You obviously haven’t heard that Brunswick, under contract with the town of Tilley, has taken over law enforcement. That gives us the right. So, the question is, do you want to sleep in your own bed tonight or would you rather spend the night in lockup?”

  The men looked at each other. “Fuck you twelves, and fuck you too, nigga!” another of the men sneered, flicking his cigarette at Chips’ feet before they turned and sullenly shuffled away.

  Sean and Chips watched, their hands still on their weapons as the men melted into the darkness, relaxing slightly once they were a half-block away.

  “You okay?” Sean asked.

  His blood was stilling boiling at the disrespect Chips had endured, and he wondered how much more Chips had taken before he arrived.

  “Yeah. I’ve been called a lot worse, but if that wasn’t a drug deal about to go down, I’ll eat my holster,” Chips said with a grin.

  “Did you pat them down?”

  “I didn’t have probable cause, but three guys standing around like they were looking for something, and a car pulling to a stop and then turning around?”

  Sean nodded. “You’re probably right. We should get our drug car and try to do some buys. See how many we can bust while its easy pickings.”

  Chips grinned again. “I like that idea. I’ll volunteer for that.”

  Sean matched his officer’s smile. “I thought you might. This your first sweep?”

  “Yeah. Caswell did one earlier but said he didn’t see anyone.”

  Sean nodded in the direction the men had gone. “Maybe they’ll start spreading the word. We just have to keep the pressure on.”

  Chips nodded and flashed another grin. “This is a lot more fun than barking dogs, speeding tickets and burglary.”

  “Just be safe, and don’t be afraid of calling for backup,” Sean said, his tone making it clear he wasn’t kidding. “The last thing I want is someone getting hurt.”

  Chips nodded in understanding. “Got it, but I knew these punks were all bark and no bite.”

  “Don’t try to be a hero. You need anything before I leave?”

  “Nah. I’m going to take a c
ruise to the end of the block, but with all the lights, anything interesting is probably long gone by now.”

  Chips was a good officer, but sometimes Sean worried he was a little too fearless. Chips’ cruiser was the closer of the two cars, and he was pulling away as Sean flipped off his beacons. He’d authorized as much overtime as anyone wanted for the two evening shifts to put some extra patrols on the street, but he was still going to have to add officers as fast as he could to prevent his people from burning out.

  As Chips slowly cruised through the downtown, his car mounted spotlight flashing into buildings and down the one side street, Sean turned around and headed home. Now that the excitement was over, the knot of people at the town hall was beginning to break up. The citizens of Tilley were wondering if Brunswick would take their problems seriously? Maybe tonight would put some of that doubt to rest.

  “How’d it go?” Maggie asked as he stepped into his apartment.

  “About like you’d expect,” he replied as she rose and approached. He gave her a kiss before he continued. “They’re suspicious they’re getting a raw deal and we’re not going to provide even basic service.”

  She nodded as they moved to the living room and settled back on the couch. “I know how that feels. We heard the same gripes when we started hooking them onto our system.” She shook her head, the corners of her mouth pulling down. “If they thought they were getting screwed on price by hooking onto us, they’d have really had a fit over their rates if they’d had to build their own treatment plant.”

  “What prompted that?”

  “Hooking Tilley to our system?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Regulations. Same with Abbeyville. Their treatment ponds were no longer meeting state limits, so they had to do something. Rudy convinced them it would be cheaper in the long run to tie onto our system than renovate and expand their ponds.”

  “Part of his plan to merge ABT into one community?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I thought the whole idea of combining the towns was dumb at the beginning. I didn’t think Tilley or Abbeyville would ever go for it, but now it looks like they just might. Water, sewer, and now police. Not many city services left in Tilley. Who knows, in another few years maybe Tilley will vote to have Brunswick annex them and be done with it.”

  He grinned. “I’m sure Rudy would love that.”

  “Probably.”

  “I found out what their long-term plans are. I think with a little luck, they might just be able to pull it off.”

  “Oh? What?”

  He repeated what he heard at the meeting.

  “That’s just great,” Maggie said, but her tone didn’t match her words.

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Good thing we have some extra capacity at the plant, but inspections are going to be a problem. It’s almost more than we can manage now. If Tilley adds a bunch of restaurants…” She shook her head again.

  “It’s not like this is going to happen tomorrow,” he pointed out.

  “I know, but trying to add staff is like pulling teeth. Nobody ever thinks about what happens when all this growth comes in, especially the impact it has on the treatment plant.” She huffed. “Tilley will add another restaurant, and we’ll begin to inspect it to make sure they are compliant with their grease trap and not dumping a bunch of crap into the sewers. It’s just one more restaurant, right? It’s no big deal, right? But then they add one more, and one more, and pretty soon we can’t keep up. When I ask for more people, the council can’t understand why I need another inspections person. After all, it’s just one more restaurant, and I was managing before. It’s like this deal with that new apartment thing going in. Nobody asked me if the lines or plant could handle it. Some engineer said it would be fine, but they’re not the one having to make it work. The plant can handle it, but I argued with him about the size of the lines in the area. Theoretically the lines were large enough, but nothing ever works as well as the engineer thinks it will. The site is going to generate a lot more waste than it did when it was a textile mill, and it hasn’t even been that in forty years. I finally won and we’re going to enlarge the line that services the area, just to be safe.”

  He pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

  She sighed as her arms went around him. “It’s not you,” she said into his shoulder. “I’m glad you did. It’s just… never mind. I’m not going to worry about it now. As you said, it isn’t going to happen tomorrow. At least now I know what the plan is. Most of the time I don’t find out about this stuff until after the fact.”

  Sean pushed her back and gave her jaw a caress as he smiled at her. “I didn’t mean to set you off.”

  She huffed again and then smiled. “It’s okay, but it’s so frustrating. When we started accepting waste from Tilley, the first town to go online, our expense went up. We were handling more waste, so it makes sense, right? You should have heard the complaining over it downtown. Thank god Gordon was still the ORC then and had to deal with it. It seems like we’re always the last people they think about. That’s the reason the whole system has gotten so bad. They bury the pipes and then forget about them. Out of sight, out of mind, but this stuff doesn’t last forever. One of these days, it’s going to bite them. I’ll bet money Tilley hasn’t considered what putting in a bunch of restaurants will do to their system. I’ll also bet that entire section is undersized for what they’re planning to do, and guess who’s lap that’s going to fall into?”

  “Yours?” he asked, cocking his head to the side and raising one eyebrow.

  She thinned her lips in clear annoyance. “Exactly. They may have to upgrade the size of the pipe. The increased flow may force us to upgrade the lift stations, and maybe the main from the area. Stuff like this ripples through the entire system, but nobody ever thinks about it until it starts causing problems.”

  “Well, consider this your heads up, then.”

  “Thanks. But like I said, I’m not going to worry about it tonight.” She brightened. “Instead, I want to watch Desk Set.”

  “Desk Set? What’s that?”

  “1957, Kathern Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. I haven’t seen it but I’d like to. It’s only an hour forty-five long.”

  He glanced at his phone for the time. That would put the movie over a little after eleven thirty.

  “You’re staying tonight?”

  “If you’ll have me.”

  He gave her a playfully lecherous grin. “If you stay, and are in the mood, I will.”

  She giggled. “Naughty. You’ll hook up the computer while I make some popcorn?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  She grinned and bounded from the couch. His television was too old to have built in Netflix like Maggie’s, but they’d done this so many times since they started dating they had it down to a routine.

  While Maggie supervised the microwave bag of popcorn, Sean hooked his computer to the television and navigated to Netflix. His machine was already logged in under her account and it took him only a moment to find the movie.

  The movie was just starting when she returned with a bowl full of hot popcorn. She settled onto the couch and snuggled in close before placing the popcorn on his leg where they both could reach. Less than five minutes after it was decided they would watch a movie, they were crunching on popcorn as the music swelled and the title sequence began.

  The movie wasn’t really his thing. It showed its age and he had a hard time getting past the elaborate, overdone, Hollywoodized computer, but Maggie was beaming when the end credits began to roll, and that made the time well spent.

  He knew from experience tomorrow she’d write a thoughtful and in-depth review of the movie on the Netflix website. He hadn’t mentioned it to her, but he’d started reading them, working his way through the backlog, and found her writing style to be insightful, humorous, and fun to read.

  “Ready for bed, Bunny?” Sean asked, calling Maggie by Spencer Tracy’s love inte
rest in the movie.

  She grinned. “I certainly am, Mr. Sumner,” Maggie replied in kind.

  While she washed up the popcorn bowl, he unhooked his computer and put it back in his computer bag. Now that he had a decent office computer, maybe he’d start leaving his computer hooked up until he upgraded his television.

  They moved to the bedroom, flipping off lights as they went, and then spent a few moments preparing for bed. Finished, Maggie flounced into the bedroom with an impish smile.

  “You wouldn’t choose some old computer over me, would you?” Maggie asked as she crawled into bed then draped herself over his chest, her eyes full of playful mischief.

  “Well…” he replied, drawing the word out as if thinking.

  Her smile widened. “Let me see if I can help you make up your mind.” She leaned in for a long, leisurely kiss before slowly pulling back. “Can a computer do that?”

  His lips twitched as he used his finger to delicately brush a strand of hair from her face.

  “No,” he breathed as his hand went behind her head and gently pulled her lips back to his.

  Twenty

  Sean was reviewing and approving time sheets while the three laptops sitting on his desk ground away on the Microsoft Office365 install. Next week the training team from PISTOL would be there, his officers would have functioning computers on their desks, and they could begin using PISTOL to track their time. Once that was in place, he could approve their hours with a click of a mouse and wouldn’t have to deal with tracking down missing time sheets or deciphering handwriting anymore.

  Yesterday the construction fence had gone up around Barns’ site and the demolition equipment was arriving. He had his officers looking for Ricky Cowler, but so far, they’d come up empty. He wanted to talk to Clicks one more time to put the arson case to rest. If Clicks’ couldn’t identify Barns as the man who hired him to torch the buildings, the case would be at a standstill and would become another unsolved arson case.

  Not that it bothered him. With the construction fence up, and a security guard on site at night, there wasn’t likely to be any more trouble, and he had other things to worry about. But like a sore tooth you couldn’t leave alone, the case still nagged him.