Saint was sitting behind her desk at the Monta Clare Police Department when the phone rang.
Deputy Michaels flinched a little when he patched the call through.
“It’s the school, Chief,” he said. Michaels was a decade younger and too eager, his uniform as sharp as his haircut, buzzed at the sides like a marine who’d taken a misstep and landed far from the action.
Saint sighed and stared out at Main Street as she spoke with Mildred, the principal’s secretary, the two so close now that Saint knew to sometimes bring the woman a slice of pecan pie from the Monta Clare Bakery on the way in.
She took the walk slow, heard the early spring call of a junco as she looked up and watched Mitch Evans painting the sign for the opticians. The forest green had been approved at a town council meeting so heated Saint had threatened to draw her gun to defuse it. She stopped to collect a Monterey pine cone, checked the scales and carefully slipped it into her pocket.
Mitch raised a hand. Saint would’ve rather he kept it fixed to the ladder.
She passed Sammy, who crossed the street with a brown paper bag, guessed where she was headed, and chuckled because he read the thunder in her face.
Old stores with new fronts; cars that did not dare double-park so circled round looking for an opening; the faded white skeleton of graffiti so primitive Saint had narrowed the culprits down to a group of junior high kids, then made them spend a weekend collectively scrubbing as acetone filled the air and locals tutted at the chain gang as they passed by. People whispered she was tougher than Nix, worked harder and smarter, cared more and took each infraction so personally crime levels had dropped to nonexistent. In truth it was perception, the FBI veteran who returned to her hometown to become the youngest police chief in the history of the state of Missouri. The respect and fear fell short of acceptance, for she would always carry the trace of Jimmy Walters.
“Fuck them. And fuck the church,” Nix had said, as he stopped by on his way to the pharmacy on her first day, his name in gold lettering still on the glass door in a show of respect that would endure.
At Monta Clare High she sat in the familiar hallway, shot the shit with Mildred.
The principal was new, the routine was not. Saint did not need to plead Charlotte’s case because they all knew, everyone knew. Saint guessed that was part of the problem as she agreed on a week’s suspension.
Outside they walked beneath a high sun, and the girl bled attitude. Saint was tired enough that she no longer smiled at transgressions that carried the haunt of one, Patch Macauley.
“You want to get this done?” Charlotte said, hair streaks of blonde, skin so pale and delicate despite the fire that simmered just beneath.
“Who was it?” Saint said.
“Noah Arnold-Smith.”
Saint knew the kid, knew the kind, did not know how to be a mother or guardian no matter what Patch’s wishes had dictated. “You popped his shoulder out.”
“You showed me how,” Charlotte fired back.
They stopped on the edge of Walnut Avenue where the big houses had slowly been remodeled, and foreign cars sat on cobblestone driveways beside postcard lawns bordered by blue sage and crested iris.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Saint said.
“He grabbed my ass.”
Saint thought of Noah Arnold-Smith, and how the popular still carried that smirk. Her mind ran all the way back to Chuck Bradley and how he had treated her, and Patch. “You still…you shouldn’t have done that, Charlotte.”
“You know his family. Sammy told Grandma that Mrs. Arnold-Smith is a double-barreled cunt.”
Saint looked away for a moment, bit her lower lip till it hurt, same each time the girl cursed like that.
Saint sat on the bench and waited an age for Charlotte to join her.
“You don’t come here,” Saint said.
She looked across at Misty’s grave, the flowers changed each week by Mrs. Meyer.
“Will you tell Grandma what I did?”
Saint shook her head.
Charlotte tucked her hair behind her ear. “She’s close to cutting me off. And I desperately need the five bucks a week she gives me if I’m going to save enough for that new life in Vegas.”
“Right.”
The girl swallowed. “I don’t need to come here, like it’s a reminder of who I’m letting down.”
“That’s not—”
“Less than four years till you can stop pretending to give a shit, Saint.”