State police superintendent Parker Gray suffered a terrific jones otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this, not here in the office where he could get caught. He’d tucked his tie into his shirt, now he was rolling the chair away from the desk and leaning forward so he wouldn’t get any of the white powder on his clothes … it was already smudging three fingertips and a thumb, had already dusted the blue cover of a statistical report Gray was using as a placemat … virtually impossible to eat these powdered-sugar doughnuts without getting the white dust everywhere. Gray had acquired his addiction back when he drove patrol and every once in a while just had to have one.
If the powdered sugar fell on your clothes and you tried to wipe it off, that just made the mess worse, created a greasy white smear. The key was to stay leaning over until you could … shit, the telephone. Keeping his head forward and using his unpowdered left hand Gray picked up the receiver but didn’t speak just yet because his mouth was full.
“Superintendent Gray?”
“Mm-uh.”
“I hope you remember me … Kenneth Norton?”
Gray almost choked, quickly licking the fingers and thumb of his right hand before reaching for his coffee cup.
“Hello?”
After he got a gulp of coffee down, Gray said, “I remember you sure, what’s up huh?”
“Is Donald Growler out of prison?”
Gray felt his heart go funny. “Of course not … why?”
“For the past week someone’s been asking around for me … called a place where I used to work, showed up at one of my old apartments. People who’ve told me this, they’ve described the guy and it sounds a little like Donald … except he’s not giving anyone his name.”
Gray stood and moved away from the powdered sugar mess waiting like a booby trap on his desk.
Norton asked, “Are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
“If Donald’s out of prison—”
“He’s not.”
“You promised me … if I did what you said, you promised me Donald would never—”
“This guy you say’s looking for you, you don’t know it’s Growler huh?”
“No but—”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I am worried, I lied for you!” When Parker didn’t comment, Norton pressed the issue. “You and your partner said Donald was guilty but he’d get off on a technicality unless I—”
“You’re mistaken.”
Shocked into a moment’s silence Norton finally pleaded with the superintendent, “Don’t do this to me, you owe me protection—”
“Mr. Norton, I don’t owe you anything.”
“If Donald’s escaped from prison—”
“He didn’t escape, I would’ve been notified.” Maybe, Parker thought.
“Would you be notified if he was released?”
“He wasn’t.”
“But you don’t know that for sure do you … do you? If Donald finds me, I’m dead—”
“He’s in prison.”
“I hope you’re right!” Norton becoming screechy. “I hope to God you’re right!”
After hanging up Gray moved quickly behind his desk to get to the computer terminal, unluckily catching the edge of the blue vinyl report cover he’d been using as a placemat, flipping it enough to puff up a mini-snow-cloud of sugar dust that powdered his pants just over the left pocket. “Fuck me,” he muttered … a sentiment that after five minutes with the computer he found himself repeating.