Flashover (A Sean McGhee Mystery Book 2) Read online

  It was never easy to clean up a town, and it would take time before the predators decided to leave and find easier targets, but he was certain it was something his department could do, so long as they had the manpower and the support of those they were trying to help. He wanted to help. Nobody should have to live in fear and despair as these people appeared to. Tilley was trying to pull itself up by the bootstraps, like Brunswick had, and he wanted to give them a fighting chance to succeed.

  He’d seen what he needed to. Rudy wasn’t going to like what he had to say, but he wasn’t going to sugar-coat the truth.

  Tomorrow he’d start working up his report, and then he’d see if Rudy still thought taking over the patrols of Tilley was a good idea.

  Five

  Sean was busy in his small kitchen when he heard the knock at his door. It was probably Maggie, but even so, she was going to have to wait a moment. He dipped the last two fish cakes out of the oil, placed them on a baking sheet, and slid them into the oven. He flipped off the heat under the oil, sat the pan onto another element to cool, and then quickly moved to the door.

  “Sorry,” he said, opening the door and stepping to the side. “You caught me right in the middle of something.”

  Maggie stepped in and smiled before kissing him in greeting. “Smells wonderful. What is it?”

  “Cod cakes, baked beans and coleslaw.”

  When she cooked, Maggie made traditional southern favorites, and when he cooked, he did the same with New England and Boston classics. He didn’t mind cooking. Before he’d met Maggie, he cooked for himself most nights. The only frustration was trying to find some of the proper ingredients, especially the fresh fish. He’d stumbled across some nice-looking cod in the grocery store, so he picked up a couple of pounds in preparation of making the cakes. He’d started the meal last night, after he got home from Maggie’s, preparing ahead so it would go faster today.

  She peeked in the oven. “Those look wonderful!”

  He smiled at her compliment. He’d already introduced her to his recipe for Boston Baked Beans, which she liked, and Boston coleslaw. His slaw was creamy and made with mayonnaise, which was different than typically served in the area, but she claimed to like that as well.

  “It’ll be about thirty minutes before the cakes are done, then we’ll be ready. Want a glass of tea?”

  “I’d love one, thanks! I’m parched.”

  He pulled a glass from the cabinet, added a few cubes of ice, then poured from her pitcher, the one with the green lid and far too much sugar. There was another pitcher of unsweetened for himself, with a white lid.

  Now that the weather had warmed up he could understand the appeal of iced tea. They’d tried to find a compromise so he and Maggie didn’t have to go through the hassle of two pitchers, or her having to add sugar, but when he thought the tea was far too sweet, she didn’t think it was nearly sweet enough. So, for now, it was two pitchers.

  She took the glass, hoisted it in thanks and took a large pull. “Ahhh… Perfect. I can’t believe you don’t like this,” she teased.

  “I don’t know how you avoid hyperglycemia.”

  “Years of training.”

  He shook his head in amusement, pouring off the oil and then washed up the pan he’d used to sear the fish. He refilled her glass then took her elbow and steered her into the living room. There was no point standing in the kitchen while the fish baked. He slid a thin red sleeve off the television stand.

  “Look what I got today,” he said, handing her the disc he picked up at a Redbox.

  She took it and glanced at it. “Arrival! I’ve been wanting to see this!”

  “I know.”

  “You’re so good to me,” she said, putting the disc down and giving him a fleeting kiss. “We’ll watch right after dinner?”

  “That’s what I’d planned.”

  She softly clapped her hands in child-like delight, beaming at him as she did. She was so vibrant and effervescent he enjoyed surprising her just to watch her reaction.

  “I’m going to have to restart my DVD subscription. I love streaming, but there are so many things I want to see that aren’t on streaming yet, and I don’t know if they ever will be. Why can’t Netflix stream everything?”

  He shrugged. “I’m sure they’d love to. It’s a lot cheaper to stream video than send DVDs through the mail. Get your air conditioner fixed?” he asked, changing the subject as they settled into their customary places on the couch.

  “No. The coil is leaking. They’ve ordered a new part and it should be here in a couple of days. It was hotter than seven hells in the office today and it’s screwing up our lab.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “We bought a couple of fans today, and that helped, but it’s supposed to be hotter tomorrow than today. We may have to contract out our lab work until the we get the air fixed.”

  “I don’t know how anyone lived down here before air conditioning.”

  “You get used to it. We’re getting soft because everyplace is air conditioned now, but my parents didn’t have air conditioning in their house until I was in grade school, and then it was just a couple of window units. And the schools didn’t have air conditioning until after I graduated.”

  “Ugh. I can’t imagine.”

  “Why do you think so many people my age and older have their birthdays in the summer? Before air conditioning it was too hot to make babies in the middle of summer.”

  “Thank god for air conditioning!”

  She grinned. “Amen to that. What about your day?”

  He shook his head as he twisted his lips to the side in a crooked grin. “Nothing much. I got a visit from Mayor Klinger today.”

  “Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Nothing like that. He wants me to find out what it will take for the BPD to take over patrolling Tilley.”

  She looked like she bit into something unpleasant.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Why?”

  Before she could answer, the timer he’d set began to sound. He gave her a nudge to indicate his desire to get up, and then rose to take the fish out of the oven as she followed.

  “I’d be worried about the problems. Tilley and Abbeyville have always been considered the wrong side of the tracks. I remember when I was growing up everyone was told to steer clear of there, especially Abbeyville, and most especially at night.”

  “Why?” he asked again as he used a spatula to transfer the fish from the baking tray onto plates and then began to dip beans and coleslaw.

  She shook her head as she poured drinks. “I don’t know, exactly. I know, or at least I always heard, how there was a lot of crime and drugs, and the like, there. It’s where all the low skill labor for the mills lived. We have a lot of trouble out of them.”

  “How so?” he asked as he placed the two plates on his small table.

  “We have three lift stations in Tilley, two in Abbeyville, and we have more problems with theft and vandalism out of those five stations than we do the other twelve combined. It’s a constant problem.”

  He frowned. He knew his officers had a low opinion of Tilley and Abbeyville, but he’d taken most of that with a grain of salt. The police often saw the worst side of human nature, and that tended to make them cynical. It sounded like Maggie and Rudy shared the same low opinion. He knew Tilley and Abbeyville had a drug problem, but now with the rape of the little girl, maybe his officers weren’t so far off the mark after all.

  “What’s happening?”

  She pursed her lips. “Stealing fuel for the generators is a big problem. We put locks on the tanks, and there’s an eight-foot fence around the entire pumping station, but they cut the fence and the locks off the tanks, and syphon the fuel out. I guess they sell it, or put it in their trucks, or something. Whatever the reason, I guess they don’t care if those tanks are empty, and the power goes out, the pumps won’t run and the wa
ste will back up into their houses.” She paused a moment then continued. “That, at least, I can understand, but the rest, the vandalism, the painting graffiti on the fuel tanks, pump stations and generator housing, throwing trash inside the fence, that sort of thing, I don’t get that at all.”

  She placed the two glasses on the table and sat down.

  “Rudy was all gung-ho to hook Tilley and Abbeyville onto our system, but unless we’re billing them through the nose, we’re probably losing money on the deal simply because of the increased maintenance.” She paused and prodded her fish. “I hate to generalize, but I haven’t seen anything in the six years I’ve been the ORC to change my mind about them.”

  “What’s that?” Sean asked, his tone sympathetic.

  She poked at the fish again, clearly not wanting to answer.

  “That they’re nothing but a bunch of low-life hoods,” she said softly and then looked at him with sad eyes. “I know it sounds terrible, but the facts speak for themselves.”

  “If we start cleaning up the town then maybe the vandalism will go down.”

  “Maybe,” she said, keeping her eyes down.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she murmured.

  “It sure looks like something to me.”

  She looked up. “I worry, okay?”

  He gave her a small grin. “That’s sweet.”

  “It’s not funny, Sean. It’s against city policy, but I know some of my guys carry a pistol when they have to respond to a call in the middle of the night in Tilley or Abbeyville. Officially I don’t know they’re doing it, but I’m not stupid or blind. There’s a reason they do, and I’m not going to bust their chops for it.”

  He reached across the table and took her hand. “It’s not like in the movies, okay? We’re not going to be involved in bloody shootouts or anything like that. If we take on the job, we’ll start running more patrols and showing the colors. We’ll probably have to arrest a few people before they get the message, but criminals are mostly stupid, lazy, cowards. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be criminals. They don’t want a fight. When we start making life difficult for them, they’ll move on to wherever life is easier.”

  “I hope it’s that easy.”

  He hoped so too, but he couldn’t very well say so.

  “It will be. Besides, they may not go for it when they see what it’ll cost.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, okay. I hope you’re right.” She paused then smiled at him. “The fish is really good,” she said, clearly wanting to change the subject.

  “Thanks. It would be better with fresh cod, but really fresh fish is hard to come by around here.”

  They continued eating while talking about more pleasant things and avoiding the topic of work entirely.

  Finished, they quickly loaded the dishwasher and then settled down to watch the movie as the machine swished and purred.

  As the movie opened, he again thought about buying a larger television. Maggie had a sixty-five-inch monster that was almost like going to the theater. He’d never watched a lot of television, but his forty-two-inch seemed rather puny now that he was starting to enjoy movies more.

  She snuggled in close, and for the next one hundred sixteen minutes, he didn’t think about anything except the warm softness curled into his side as his hand casually brushed the top of her breast. When the end credits began to roll, she looked up at him and he kissed her softly.

  “Will you stay?” he whispered as their lips slowly parted.

  “I was hoping you’d ask,” she murmured in return.

  He kissed her again, more passionately this time, and she responded, opening her mouth slightly and offering him her tongue. He took it, offering his in return.

  She sighed out of the kiss, holding his gaze with her own, smiling softly as his hand softly caressed her breast. “That feels nice.”

  He smiled back. “Yes, it does.”

  “You ready for bed?”

  It wasn’t quite ten, and he wasn’t sleepy, especially now, but she hadn’t said anything about sleeping.

  “Yes.”

  She sat up so he could stand. He rose then offered her his hand and gently pulled her to her feet. They walked, hand in hand, to his bedroom. She stopped just inside the door and turned to face him, melting into him as she pulled him in for another kiss.

  They kissed as their hands leisurely roamed before she slowly pulled back. She smiled at him, still standing close, as she lightly scraped at his cheek with her fingernails to make scratching sounds.

  “I need to brush and you need to shave.”

  He held her gaze as he took her hand and kissed it. They hadn’t reached the point where Maggie had a change of clothes at his house, but she did have a toothbrush and a bottle of something she used to clean her face. They’d shower in the morning, and have breakfast together, and then she’d dash home for a quick change of clothes before going to work. It was the same when he stayed at her house. Sometimes one or the other would bring a change of clothes, but that was usually only on the weekends.

  It was a cumbersome system, but it worked for them, and he didn’t want to move too fast and risk screwing up a good thing. He’d give it another month or two, and then if everything was still going well, he’d casually mention that maybe she should just leave a couple of changes of clothes at his place and see what she said.

  She smiled and pulled his glasses off and placed them on the dresser where he parked them when they weren’t on his face. When she turned back to him, he kissed her again, but gently.

  With his strawberry blonde hair and light coloring, his beard didn’t show until it was long and course, and he’d seen the results on her skin the next morning when he didn’t shave. She hadn’t complained, much, but he always shaved now so her face, and other parts of her, didn’t look so irritated, even if she didn’t mention it.

  They spent a few minutes performing their evening routines, Sean shaving as Maggie brushed her teeth. They finished about the same time and he took her place at the sink to brush his own teeth while she cleaned her face.

  He finished first and stood behind her, holding her close as he nuzzled her neck and enjoyed the smell of her. She always smelled of apples and vanilla, a scent he’d become very fond of.

  She finished with her face and then turned in his arms. She didn’t wear much makeup and looked just as lovely now as before.

  “Now, where were we?” she asked, her eyes bright.

  “Right about here, I think,” he murmured before taking her lips again. He left her lips and kissed down her jaw and under her ear to the place he’d found that made her squirm.

  She pulled his lips from her neck with a soft gasp and then gently nudged him out of the tiny bath and back into the bedroom. The moment she passed through the door he pulled her into another kiss, more heated this time, as their fingers went to work, slowly undressing each other as their lips began to explore.

  Six

  “Sean,” he said in way of answering his phone.

  “Good morning, Sean. Evie Wirick,” Evie’s slightly distorted voice said.

  “Good morning, councilwoman. How may I help you?”

  “I’m calling to let you know we passed the budget last night and the money for your computers and software has been approved.”

  Sean smiled. Of all the members of the city council, Evie was his biggest ally. During the mess with Steve Locoste, she’d been steadfast in her support, allowing him to do his job until he got to the bottom of the murder. She’d run for a position on the city council for the express purpose of breaking up the ‘good ol’ boy’ network that pervaded city politics, and she was doing a good job of shaking things up. He decided not to mention Rudy had already told him it was going to pass.

  “That’s good news, Ms. Wirick. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, though it wasn’t that hard. There were no dissenting votes. We all know what you’re working with.”

  He smiled. His predecessor was st
rictly old school. The Brunswick Police Department was still a paper-based operation and their computers were new when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Several members of his department, himself included, were lugging their personal computers back and forth to work because the department’s ancient Windows XP desktops were all but useless. He’d been lobbying hard for replacements, and new software to run on them, so he could modernize and streamline the department. If they were going to take over patrolling Tilley, the new computers and software were going to be even more necessary.

  “Please pass along my sincere thanks to everyone on the council,” Sean said.

  “I will, and thank you for putting together such a detailed plan. That went a long way in convincing everyone why you needed them and what the money would be spent on. I won’t keep you, but I know you were anxious to get moving on this. You must feel like a kid at Christmas.”

  He could hear the smile in her voice and chuckled. “Not quiet that bad, but yeah, I have a couple of phone calls to make.”

  After they said their goodbyes, he dug through his emails until he found what he was looking for. He placed the call to PISTOL systems—Police Information Systems & Tracking: On-Line—the company he’d selected to provide the hardware and software his department would use to computerize their evidence tracking and case files. PISTOL was the same software they used in Boston, and if it could handle Boston, it’d have no problem doing everything they needed it to do in Brunswick.

  “Robin Ghebli.”

  “Robin, Sean McGhee, Brunswick PD.”

  “Good morning, Sean. How can I help you this morning?”

  Sean smiled. It was barely after seven a.m. in California, but Robin sounded as awake and chipper as she always did.

  “I just found out my budget has been approved and goes into effect August one. I need you to send me the contract to sign so we can get moving on this.”

  “That’s great news! I have it ready. I’ll get that out to you as soon as I get into the office. Any changes?”

  “No. It’s just as we discussed.”