Nash

“I ’m gonna burn this house to the ground,” Mayor Hilly Swanson griped as I emptied her coat closet of boots and gardening clogs.

“Probably shouldn’t be sayin’ that in front of the law,” I said as I shook

out a snow boot and tossed it aside.

She was standing behind me on a step stool in the foyer, wringing her hands.

Officer Troy Winslow was backed up against the front door holding the twelve-gauge shotgun we’d relieved the mayor of upon our arrival. He was looking like he wanted to bolt.

“I should sue that dang real estate agent. If she woulda said ‘snake migration’ at any point during the buying process, my ass woulda said no thank you,” Hilly said.

She’d lived in this house for twenty years, and the Knockemout PD went through this ritual twice a year. In the spring, snakes slithered their way down from the limestone bluffs toward a swampy area of nearby state park lands for the summer. In the fall, they slithered their way back to the bluffs to wait out the long winter.

Hilly Swanson’s house was smack-dab in the middle of the migration path. Over the years, she’d spent a small fortune to snake-proof the foundation, but one or two always managed to find their way in.

I shoved the now empty shoe rack aside and checked behind it.

“This is just like waitin’ for those refrigerator biscuits to pop,” Winslow said. “You know it’s comin’ but that don’t mean you’re ready for it.” Winslow was not a snake person. The guy had no problem chasing bears out of campgrounds, but if it slithered, he wasn’t going near it.

I, on the other hand, had grown up on and in the creek, which had given me a hell of a lot of experience with snakes.

“I told Mickey not to leave the door open when he was cartin’ groceries inside. But he said I was crazy. And then he took his butt off to the golf course and I’m the one who has to deal with the consequences. If I was a braver soul who wasn’t about to pee her pants, I’d put that damn snake on his side of the bed to teach him a lesson.”

I reached for the trench coat belt in the corner only to realize it was moving. “Gotcha.”

“Oh my God. I’m gonna kill Mickey.”

I aimed the beam of my flashlight at the reptile and reached out lightning-quick to grab it just behind the head. It was cold and eerily slick under my hand, like no matter how tight I held on, the muscles under all that smooth would just slide right out.

“It’s practically a baby,” I said, stuffing all five feet of pissed-off rat snake into the pillowcase I kept in my cruiser for such occasions.

I backed out of the closet and got to my feet. Hilly recoiled. “Lord have mercy.”

Winslow looked like he was trying real hard to back through the front door without opening it.

“I think we’re done here,” I said, holding the wriggling pillowcase in one hand.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Hilly chanted. She followed us out onto the front porch, still wringing her hands. “You got a second to talk about another snake-related matter?”

“Sure. Mind gettin’ our new friend settled in the car, Winslow?” I handed over the snake in the bag to him, mostly to mess with him. “Watch where you step. The ground’s slithering this time of year,” I warned.

He swallowed hard, held the pillowcase gingerly at arm’s length, and tiptoed toward the SUV.

“What’s the latest on Dilton?” Hilly asked, sliding back into her usual tough broad role now that the snake was no longer in her vicinity.

“Investigation is ongoing,” I said.

“That’s the standard line,” she complained. “That’s what’s on record.”

“Well, then gimme off the record so I can start preparing what the hell I’m gonna say to the town council.”

“Off the record, so far we’ve only dug back a few months into his cases, interviewing victims and suspects.”

“But?”

“But there’s a pattern on the calls he handled solo since I got myself shot. Being a man down opened a window for him and he took advantage. He’s not comin’ back from this.”

“What’s the town’s responsibility in all this? How do we make this right?”

I expected the first question and respected the hell out of her for the second.

I blew out a breath. “We’re going by the book, crossing t’s and dottin’ i’s. He’s not getting off on a technicality. But here’s the part you’re not gonna like.”

“Knew it was comin’.”

“I reached out to the Kennedys, the husband and wife Dilton harassed during the traffic stop. I spoke with both, without counsel.”

She raised her auburn eyebrows. “And how did that go?”

“It was a judgment call. I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. Dilton was my responsibility. It happened on my watch. Husband was more understanding than he needed to be. The wife was understandably less so. But we talked it out. I apologized profusely and took full responsibility.”

“Solicitor’s gonna love that,” Hilly said.

“Yeah, well. Sometimes sayin’ you’re sorry is more important than coverin’ your ass. Either way, it was the right thing to do. Mrs. Kennedy called me back yesterday and gave me the contact info of a training organization that works with departments on de-escalation and diversity training. Expensive, but in my opinion, necessary. And cheaper than the lawsuit we’d settle.”

“How much are we talkin’?”

I nodded toward the car where Piper’s head was hanging out the driver’s side window. “Let’s just say that’s gonna be the only K-9 officer we can afford for a while.”

She shook her head. “Fuckin’ Dilton. One bad cop is all it takes.”

“I know. It’s one hundred percent my fault for keepin’ him on. For thinkin’ I could change him.”

She put her hands on her hips and stared out through the forest. “Yeah, well, now you know how it feels to be a woman in love with a dumbass with potential. Ninety-nine percent of the time, that potential never gets realized.”

“Mickey have potential?” I teased.

Her smirk was quick. “Hell yeah, he did. And I didn’t give him a choice about the realizing part of it.”

“Been thinking,” I began.

“Anytime an official says that, things are about to get expensive.”

“Not necessarily. Since we’re already adding on some education, what would you think of bringing in Social Services caseworkers to do a training for us?”

“What kind of training?”

“Mental health calls. You know Xandra Rempalski?”

She shot me a look that said I was tiptoeing into dumbass territory. “The nurse who saved my chief of police’s life? Nope. Never heard of her. Nor do I own four necklaces and three pairs of her earrings.”

“Okay. All right. Her nephew has autism.” “Sure, yeah. I know Alex.”

“He’s nonverbal, six feet tall, and Black,” I said, rocking back on my heels.

Hilly blew out a sigh. “I’m pickin’ up what you’re puttin’ down. Moms with Black babies have a lot of conversations with those babies on how to interact with cops.”

“And I wanna make sure that we cops are having conversations on how to safely and respectfully interact with those babies. All of them. Especially the ones who can’t talk back. Doesn’t sit well with me that some of our people still don’t feel safe here. That’s exactly why I took this job, and I’ve still got a lot of learning and a lot of work to do.”

“Don’t we all, Chief? So how do we go about that?”

“I’d like to talk it over with Yolanda Suarez. She’s been a caseworker a long time and she’ll have some ideas. Right now, I’m thinking some kind of combination of ongoing department training and tag teaming mental health calls with social workers. Other departments in bigger cities have rolled out

programs like that and they’re seein’ results. Maybe we could bring Naomi Witt into it since she’s community outreach coordinator.”

“It’s a damn good idea.” “I think so too.”

“Why don’t you set up a meet with you, me, and Yolanda first? Then we’ll go from there.”

“Appreciate it. Guess I’d better get your slithering roommate to his new home.”

Hilly shuddered. “Chief, after I’m done burning this place to the ground and murdering my husband, I’m putting you up for a raise.”

I paused. If there was one thing Hilly guarded with her life, it was Knockemout’s purse strings. “I wouldn’t feel right about that. Not with what’s gone down the past few months.”

She reached out and patted me on my cheek. “That’s exactly why you’re gettin’ one, son. You care. You take responsibility. And you create solutions. This town is lucky to have you. I’m damn proud of the man you’ve grown up to be.”

I wasn’t one to get choked up about a few compliments, but growing up without the mom who’d sprinkled them so liberally through my childhood left a void. A deep one that I was only just beginning to recognize.

It had been a long time since anyone I loved had been proud of me.

I surprised us both by leaning down and brushing a kiss to her cheek. “Thanks, Mayor.”

She turned bright red. “Go on now. Get that damn snake off my property and get back to work. We’ve got people to serve.”

I threw her a little salute and headed for the car. “Make sure you alibi up before you go on your arson-murder spree.”

“Will do, Chief.”