Happy Policeman by Patricia Anthony Read Free Book Online

What’d you do, jack it up in the driveway and crawl underneath?”
    “I took it to the Mobil station. I put it on that thingy that goes up and down . . . “
    DeWitt felt frantic, as if even now he were seeing her beneath the hydraulic lift, tons of metal above her fragile shoulders. “Don’t ever do that again! What if something went wrong? I didn’t know the oil needed changing. Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I want to learn how.”
    “Why don’t you stick to your hobbies? Isn’t it enough to pretend to sell makeup? And have people pretend to pay you? I had Seresen get you a knitting machine and you never use it. All that candle-making stuff is collecting dust.”
    She faced him, spoon in hand. “You’re the one who thought I should have a knitting machine! You decided what hobbies I would like. That’s the problem with this marriage—you never listen. I tell you I want a Celica, and one Saturday you come home with a grin on your face driving that fat-assed Chevrolet! “
    The profanity surprised him so much, he stepped back, banging his hip on the comer of the table. “I’ll tune the Suburban, Janet. I really want to do that for you. Won’t you let me tune your goddamned car?”
    Her lips tightened. She started spooning again, her movements jerky and awkward. The bowl toppled, fell with a crash. A shard of milk-colored glass pirouetted across the linoleum and came to rest by his boot.
    Janet bent over the counter with a reedy note of anguish. Her body shook with sobs.
    DeWitt stood unmanned and inept, desperate to contain the storm, realizing he couldn’t. He didn’t know from which direction the gale had come.
    “Janet.” He picked his way to her through the broken glass, the spilled food. “It’s okay. It’s all right, honey. I’ll clean it up.”
    She pivoted from under his calming hand. In the charged air of the kitchen, DeWitt felt the wind shift. The tears left abruptly as they had come. Not a hurricane, then. A passing thunderhead. “Get ready for dinner.”
    He went into the living room, unbuttoning his shirt.
    “Where’ s your jacket?” she called after him.
    He paused at the phone on the end table and dialed 911.
    A Torku answered: “Emergency.”
    “This is DeWitt Dawson. I left my jacket at the clinic. It’s a leather jacket with sheepskin lining. Make me another one.”
    “The other is broken?”
    “Don’t argue with me. Just make me a new one.”
    Putting down the receiver, he continued his strip-and-walk, draping his shirt and wide leather belt on his arm. He showered and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater.
    Janet and her book. What were Chapters Eight and Nine? Replacing the Transmission? Rebuilding the Engine?
    By the time he returned, the children were already seated around the kitchen table. Denny, face bright from a pre-dinner scrubbing, was playing war games with his utensils. The clashing of silverware annoyed Linda, DeWitt’s solemn middle child, and she schoolmarmishly told Denny to stop. Tammy, her lips a faint Avon pink, was seated next to Janet, a detail-perfect miniature of his miniature wife.
    “Hi, Daddy,” Tammy said. “Is it true Mrs. Harper got murdered?”
    “You see her?” Denny lay his silverware soldiers down.
    “Of course he saw her.” Linda rolled her eyes. “Daddy’s the Chief of Police. That’s part of his job, looking at dead bodies and everything.”
    Denny bounced on his chair. “Was she all gooshy? Did she have ants crawling out her eyes?”
    “Not while we’re eating,” Linda said.
    DeWitt sat. The roast chicken squatted spread-eagled and stiff in the middle of the table. Fighting a wave of nausea, he took a piece of bread, folded it, and filled the hollow with a buckshot load of green peas.
    “Did you see Loretta at church last night?” DeWitt asked his wife.
    She didn’t look up. “I don’t know. I got there late. We sat in the back.”
    “No, we didn’t, Mommy,” Denny said.
    Janet’s pink sweater matched the