Whatever their plan, they hurt an innocent woman. Maybe that’s the way for me to go after them. They assaulted one of the town’s most popular residents. Get a little outrage on my side and help me solve this case. The sooner we shut down Conrad, the better.
I invite Phil to breakfast the next morning. Well, second breakfast for me. I ate with Dalton and Anders, and then left them at the station and grabbed egg sandwiches and coffee, which I took to Isabel’s door. She accepted the offering and let me borrow Phil for a breakfast meeting.
We convene at his place. I tell him about the break-in and my plan to conduct the blood test, for which I will need access to Conrad’s blood type. What he fails to see are the implications of me requesting that. Even after I explain them, he’s exasperated bordering on annoyed.
“A crime has been committed,” he says. “You are investigating that crime. Of course you may have access to his blood type.”
“Right, but the fact he broke into Will’s place suggests I might be making this a personal vendetta.”
“What it suggests doesn’t matter. A woman was injured. A property was entered illegally.”
“Marissa is fine, and nothing was taken.”
“Crimes were still committed. In pursuing the offender, you are doing the job we hired you to do. You cannot allow that to be influenced by how residents may react.”
We debate this, but I can tell I won’t get anywhere. Phil is the ultimate corporate manager. Brilliant at his job, a true wizard at analyzing and tweaking systems to achieve maximum output for minimal cost. CEOs and boards of directors love someone like Phil. Employees stick his photo on the wall for dart practice.
He’s getting better at understanding the human cost, but mostly as another vector to consider. An unhappy workforce produces inefficiently. While he has come to see residents as more than “the local workforce,” he analyzes this situation and decides that a few malcontents will not affect the system as a whole, and therefore should be ignored. What he fails to take into account is the contagion of discontent. Conrad, Jolene, and their ilk are already spreading their disease as fast as they can.
“Let me talk to Marissa,” I say. “We can stoke a bit of outrage on her behalf and then—”
A rap on the door cuts me short. Phil checks his watch.
“Office hours,” he says with a moue of displeasure. “I have not been looking forward to this today.”
Office hours are something Phil recently instituted, in recognition of that “resident satisfaction” component to the efficiency equation. Isabel convinced him that it would help if people could speak to him directly about their concerns. He argued that most of their “concerns” are the result of poor critical-thinking skills, like complaining about powdered milk and creamer without working through the logistics of transporting and storing fresh milk and cream. The rest is just garden-variety whining. He doesn’t have time to listen to that. So, as she argued, does he have time instead to be waylaid with questions and complaints every time he steps outside? He conceded the efficiency issues, and now has office hours. One hour, twice a week, and it ends on the hour, even if that means cutting someone off midsentence, I suspect.
He opens the door. “Oh, Marissa. Did we have a meeting this morning?”
“No.” Her voice wafts back to me. “I needed to talk to you. There are others waiting, so I won’t jump the line—”
“No, no. Come in. We wanted to speak to you, and your timing is impeccable.”
Marissa steps in. When she spots me through the hallway, she stops short. “Casey. I didn’t…” She takes a deep breath, audible from here. “Well, this is probably for the best. Saves me explaining twice.” She walks in. Phil waves to a seat, but she stays standing.
“I’m here in an official capacity,” she says. “I’ve been asked to represent the residents calling for Will Anders’s removal from Rockton.”
I rise. “What?”
She turns to face me. “I’ve been asked—”
“Got that part,” I say. “I’m waiting for the second part, where you tell us that you refused them, and that you’re here to warn us that they’ll be making this request official.”
She shakes her head. “I accepted their offer. I will be making that request. I came to ask Phil how to do that.”
I open my mouth, but she cuts me off. “This isn’t about Will. I think he’s a good person. Finding out what he’s done doesn’t change that. We might no longer be in a relationship, but I am firmly pro–Will Anders.”
“Yet you want him gone?”
“For the good of the town. He made a mistake, and I believe—I know—he has paid the price for that. He deserves better. The problem…”
She sinks into a chair. “The problem is that we need to remove ‘Will’ from this equation and focus on ‘Deputy Anders.’ As a resident in a position of authority, his record must be spotless. People must be able to trust him implicitly.”
“What he did happened before he came to Rockton. If we discovered he’d committed a crime here, that would be different.”
“I disagree. Again, we aren’t talking about Will. We’re talking about the perception surrounding a figure in a position of power and how this revelation will affect the comfort of the residents.”
“Comfort?” Phil says. “By that measure, Marissa, Sheriff Dalton should not be in his position either. He makes many residents uncomfortable. It’s part of his effectiveness as a sheriff. These people enforce our laws. They aren’t meant to be the residents’ friends. The question for me is whether Will Anders performs his job. He does, very well. The other question would be whether he presents a danger. He does not. He’s been here four years without a single strike on his record.”
“No one is disputing Will has been an excellent deputy. But he cannot continue to hold that position after this revelation.”
Phil glances at me and then says, “Would your clients be satisfied with a temporary suspension, pending a full investigation?”
She shakes her head. “He must leave Rockton. That’s the only solution.”
I keep my mouth shut. I must or I’m going to explode and say things I can’t. Like how we have at least a dozen killers in this town, including me, and they’re rarely the ones who cause the problems. An ordinary resident, here for an ordinary reason, is just as likely to lose control and hurt someone. It’s the nature of this isolated, insular life.
“Will Anders will be leaving Rockton when his term ends,” Phil says. “It is up at the end of the year, and any request for an extension would likely be denied. I propose that he be allowed to remain here, in an administrative capacity, until that time.”
“No,” she says. “I’m sorry, Phil, but my clients—”
“Your clients knocked you out last night,” I say, unable to hold back any longer. “You do realize that, right? Conrad is the one who broke into Will’s place.”
“I am aware that he is your lead suspect. He has also retained me to represent him in that matter.”