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“Hey why’re we pulling over?” Doug pointed out. “We can’t just stop mid route for a coffee break.”
“I’m the chief, I decide when we take a break,” Sam shrugged. “Who’s gonna get us in trouble?” No one could stop him from pulling over outside of Beanies anyways, his parking job was messy and veered over the faded white lines on the cracked tarmac. “I’ll be ten minutes,” he hummed, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he checked his parking, seeing no issue with it. “If you have any problem with it you can wait in the car and listen for calls.”
“Ten minutes?” Doug echoed. “Ordering a drink?”
“Mhm, want anything? Black coffee?” He unbuckled his seatbelt, opening the car door and getting out without waiting for his colleagues’ orders.
Rob leant forward from where he was sitting in the back seat, resting his forearms up against Sam’s seat. He was not going anywhere, he didn’t usually get to go on coffee breaks.. “I’ll watch the radio,” he assured Doug.
“Thanks, Rob,” Doug touched a hand to their heart, “I just wanna make sure he doesn’t- you know, I just wanna keep an eye on things,” they hurried to explain, already hopping out of the car, and shooting him an apologetic glance as they went.
“Of course,” he touched a finger to the brim of his hat as if to dip it. He didn’t want to leave Sam alone with Zoey either, but Doug was better at keeping an eye on things when they weren’t going the right way, and he didn’t want his own short fallings to put someone in harm's way.
He’d wait in the car, as he always did. Maybe he’d get a coffee out of it. Who knows? Someone always had to watch the car, just in case they got any important calls, or on the off chance someone was pulling off a get-away down their street.
He unlocked the doors to step out and take the front seat, stretching his back and breathing in the fresh air. There were a few beams of sun cutting through the chill of the morning, and he let them warm his skin. “Good morning, ma’am,” he dipped his head to the lady leaning up against the wall of Beanies, glancing uninterestedly at the clipboard in her hands.
“Good morning,” she glanced up with a light in her eyes only for it to dull when she saw it was just an officer. “Busy day?”
“Just getting started,” he rested his arms over the roof of the car, tall enough to see over the top. “You?” He asked, she was the girl who worked with Greenpeace. He often saw her about on his regular route, it was easy to spot her green apron.
She shrugged, shaking her head. “Don’t suppose you want to sign up by any chance?”
He gestured to the car. “I’m not allowed to leave it while on the job,” he apologised. “Someone has to stay by the driver’s seat, and my chief seems to have abandoned that duty,” he explained a little sheepishly, glancing through the windows to see if any coffee was actually being ordered. Fortunately the young barista, Zoey, didn’t seem to be at the register. Emma was working, and Doug was keeping an eye on things anyways.
“Oooh, gone to visit his girlfriend, officer?” The Greenpeace girl crossed her arms, tucking her clipboard by her side, a slight scowl on her face.
“Uh,” he rubbed his neck, adjusting his cap. “I wouldn’t quite say that,” he confessed. He didn’t like the word anyways. It just seemed a bit strong for what it was.
She let out a relieved sigh, shrugging her shoulders just to warm herself up. “Isn’t that true,” she gave a small roll of her eyes. “Sure, have an affair, that’s none of my business, but I draw the line with the way he treats women.”
Rob shifted uneasily, nodding. “Well I don’t suppose he’s stopping by beanies for the coffee, that’s for sure.” There was a starbucks with a drive through right down the road, if he really wanted the coffee he could at least save their time.
“Mm, he seems real big on the coffee here until his wife is around.”
Rob grunted, it was very true. Sam knew Charlotte’s behaviour. She liked tea on monday mornings, so Sam got his coffee at Starbucks instead. “Do you know Charlotte?”
“Oh, that’s her name?” The lady shook her head. “I’ve just happened to notice they have matching wedding rings, they’ve walked by together on occasion, not as often as they used to.”
He let out a surprised sound. “That’s a good eye.”
“Not much else to do while you’re out here but people watch,” she rubbed her other hand up her arm with a slight shiver.
“Aren’t you cold out here, ma’am?” He inquired.
She licked her lips, standing up straight now. “The planet is not going to save itself, sir, I’m not going to be bothered by a bit of a chill.”
“I hope it warms up later for you, then, not nice to be out in the cold.” Neither of them spoke as he fished about in the backseat for his jacket, feeling the warmth of the inner car on his face again. The radio was grumbling to itself as officers on different routes exchanged messages. He turned it up a notch. “You know, our chief made us get these dumb jackets,” he started as he shrugged his on, just making conversation since the girl seemed rather lonely. She seemed surprised when he spoke up again, like the conversation had ended when he went for his jacket. “Me and Doug race to see who gets to wear theirs first, they’ve got matching signs on the back so we aren’t going to be caught dead wearing them at the same time. It’s a bit tacky as far as uniform goes.” He was glad to have beaten Doug to the chase. It was a friendly competition.
“Doug is nice,” the lady stated. “They’ve signed up. They keep the peace quite nicely at least don’t they?”
Rob nodded. “I don’t like to say it but if it was just me and Sam on patrol,” he made an exploding motion with his hand, chuckling. “I’d lose my mind.”
“With all due respect, your chief is an asshole.”
“None taken,” Rob scrunched up his nose since his eyes were hidden behind his shades. He dipped his head anyways to show she could carry on without trouble. “He gets the best of me sometimes.”
“Ohh even you officer?” she turned back to her clipboard, her tone dry, or maybe defensive. “I’m humbled.”
“Well. It’s a small town, huh?” He sighed. He couldn’t tell if she was interested in talking or not, although he couldn’t blame her. “Sam really thinks he runs it.” He could think of ruder things to say, but kept his mouth shut, eyeing the cafe door.
“Small town indeed!” She exclaimed, drawing his attention back. “You’d be surprised how many love triangles you can point out if you pay attention. Charlotte has herself quite the collection of admirers.”
“Ohohoh,” Rob couldn’t help a deep chuckle from his gut at that though. “I am quite aware, have you seen my squad?” He grinned, happy to find some middle ground. “Not that Sam has much good to say about her, though,” his sentence ended in frown. “Doug likes to make sure he isn’t causing her trouble. I’m glad. He needs to cut her some more slack.”
“Doug likes to make sure he isn’t causing her trouble,” she repeated. “Have you seen them? They look like they’re just waiting for that divorce to roll in from what I’ve seen.”
“Oh but aren’t we all?” Rob had to admit. He didn’t feel all too comfortable gossiping about his only good colleagues’ crushes though. “Hard to get a divorce when the only lawyer in town is having an affair.” It felt funny to talk like this, he was never really a talker himself, more of a listener.
“You want a list of names of the clients he’s been seeing?” Once more, her eyes rolled to the side like she was trying to feign interest, he supposed she wasn’t used to people sticking around to chat in her profession, he realised. He leant in, trying to make an effort to show his investment. “Or, more interestingly to you I bet, have you seen how many people seem to have a crush on your coworker?“
“Doug?” Rob had to turn around to lean up against the car for a second, laughing to himself and gripping his hat before he turned back. “People have brought flowers to the office for them before, y’know?
“Really?” She let out a rather loud giggle, covering her smile. “Even I think they’re really something.”
“Want me to throw in a good word?” He offered jokingly. “Y’know when we’re down at CCRP, down where Sam’s wife works? He drags us in to visit sometimes and the poor PA working Charlotte’s floor can hardly string a sentence together around Doug and they haven’t even noticed,” he ran a hand through his hair, adjusting his cap. “They’re sweet, but they have a tough time reading the signs.”
“Doug and Sam really steal the show do they?” She tilted her head. “Do you have any secret admirers? Crushes?”
He shook his head, waving his hand nonchalantly. “They’ve both got enough to make up for me. What about you?”
“Oh well mind your business there, sir!” She retorted. “Although I mean if you wouldn’t mind throwing in a good word with someone else,” she joked for the most part, but didn’t mention any names.
He offered a small smile, but fell silent on his end. Unfortunately he didn’t really know what else to say. He was not usually the talker when it came to conversation, and he was noticing that any time the chat lulled she would turn away like it was over. Quickly, he began to search for something else, another interesting story that might catch her attention. “Have you heard about the Witchwoods?”
“Hm?” She tilted her head, jaw dropping ever so slightly.
“Well I like to leave the seniors alone, but unfortunately one of them has been throwing bear traps out into the woods,” he gestured over his shoulder in the direction of the Witchwoods.
“No,” she shook her head in disbelief. “Bear traps? In the woods?”
“Yeah it’s uh, not exactly a hunting zone, we don’t really have hunting zones here, thank god, but he was saying something about uh,” he waved his hand as he tried to remember. “Bigfoot, or wooly-foot or something. Some sort of Sasquatch type creature.”
“And what’d you do?” She squinted, tilting her head to the side.
“Sent him back with a warning to get his traps cleared up before there are any injuries,” he remarked, his breathy laugh clouded out in front of him in the cold air. “He was a strange old man, I don’t see him around town a lot. He keeps to himself.”
“Oh that’s good of you,” she let out a relieved sigh. “I know a lot of people don’t go to the Witchwoods but it’s got a great ecosystem down there, especially with how undisturbed it is, it’s really great for biodiversity and we really have to look after it. I’m glad you did something about that.”
“Oh yes we don’t like to go down there much,” he admitted gingerly. “Usually Doug scopes it out for us if there’s a problem down there. They’re the real hero. I just had had the pleasure of explaining to that poor old man that bigfoot was not living in the Witchwoods of all places for about three hours until the barista in there had to come to pick him up, actually!”
“Small world,” she glanced into Beanies, pursing her lips shut. She looked hungry or thirsty, Rob couldn’t tell for sure but she certainly looked like she could benefit from going inside from the cold for a moment. But similarly to him, he supposed she wasn’t allowed to leave her spot while working. “The professor down at the community college then I bet?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“I see them talking a lot. They’re good friends, by the looks of it. Emma’s only just moved back into town recently.”
“Oh,” he took his hat off to hold to his chest, ruffling his hair with the other. “She lost her sister, Jane Perkins. She’s come back to her roots here.”
“It’s the first time she’s been back in ages,” the Greenpeace girl cut in a little prematurely. “Sorry,” she apologised. “Jane, we knew each other. She had a lovely young boy, Emma didn’t even come to the wedding, she’s only met him a handful of times.”
Rob wasn’t Hatchetfield born himself, he knew Jane better than Emma too, but on account of only really meeting the younger sister late last year. “They say Jane was working on something interesting before she passed,” he cleared his throat awkwardly around the topic. “It’s all totally confidential of course, not even I’m sure. But the staff at the clinic would always be making calls, they said there was something threatening about him, Jane was a good therapist though.”
“You make it sound like the accident was a set up,” she stretched onto the tips of her flats before rolling back to her heels, “do you think?”
“Oh, of course not,” he chuckled, shaking his head frantically to hammer home the point he knew it couldn’t have been that. “Well Mister Houston really likes that car. It was pretty wrecked up in the accident but he’s had Tony repairing it.”
“I would’ve just let it go at that rate,” she winced. There had been photos of the accident in the news, it didn’t really look like there was much to salvage.”
He shrugged, he had driven by a few times, and it was getting its shape back bit by bit. “He has a son, Ethan? I don’t really know him but we’ve had a few run-ins,” he rubbed his hands together as they started to feel the chill, and he caught her shooting an envious look at his jacket. “Two weeks ago we had to bust their gang for breaking into Hatchetfield high past closing time. We found them telling ghost stories in the gym.”
“Yeah?” She raised a brow.
“He thinks the Houston’s car is haunted. Apparently it starts up in the middle of the night, plays music, honks its own horn.” The idea was a bit chilling, really. “Tony reckons the wiring is worse than he thought.”
“Hah, you ever seen ‘Christine?’” She fired back, leaning in excitedly. “Maybe it is haunted.
You’ve got some interesting stories!I take it you’re more of a listener? I’m a bit of an observer myself.”
“Yeah. You get a lot of gossip when you interview people. Sorry about your wife cheating on you, now are you gonna pay that parking ticket or not?” He chuckled.
“Linda Monroe’s husband, right?” She perked up, pointing a finger. “Gerald, saw him get that parking ticket last week! He was getting coffee inside for his wife but the short barista was busy staring at that guy,” she rolled her eyes at the thought. “Tall guy, suit?” She gestured to his height, about half a head taller than her. “She’s got eyes for him. Or she’s just forgetful, but poor mister Monroe was here for a lot longer than the five minutes his parking space allowed.”
“Paul Matthews?” He recognised the description. “Seriously, the council needs to repaint these drop off bays, they aren’t car parks.”
“Paul Matthews!” She gave an exacerbated sigh. “Surely he would just ask the barista out by now, he tips her just about all his loose change and talks about giving to the right causes, is he paying her student loan or something?” She was rambling to herself ever so slightly, head always turned to the right like she expected Rob to walk away mid conversation. “‘The right causes,’ happen to be standing just outside the door, thanks, man!” She clapped her clipboard down to her side angrily, her other fist balled up.
“I didn’t know that one!” He hadn’t really had either Paul or Emma in for questioning over anything, that wasn’t really gossip that got around. He had to stop and think, trying to come up with something to raise to her. “Did you hear,” he tapped his finger on the top of the car, racking his head for something.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to come up with anything. The radio inside buzzed, audible to both of them now that he had turned it up. “Route 20, outside St Damien’s we’ve got someone with an injury, they say they’ve stepped in a bear trap, they need a police report filed, we’ll get a transfer and patch them through.”
“Oh,” Rob clicked his fingers, paling. There was an equal look of horror on her face too, but when they exchanged shocked glances the girl couldn’t help but let out a laugh she seemed to be trying to force down, a hint of guilt in her eyes.
“Guess he didn’t pick up those traps just yet then,” she joked, catching his eye. “Oh god, I hope they’re okay. They can snap bones,” her tone immediately snapped back to a more serious, sombre tone of voice, her rosy cheeks paling again.
“Guess I know where I’m headed after this!” Rob smacked a hand to the top of the car, frustrated that someone had gotten hurt when they had given the order already. “It better be god damn bigfoot in that hospital bed if someone’s been hurt,” he joked, but seconds after it had left his mouth he wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to say - however she laughed, shaking her head.
“I don’t know how people can do that, be so careless about their surroundings.”
“Oh, hey,” the call had reminded him of something though, and he perked up as another interesting story came to him to share. “You know that lovely lady down at St Damiens, Miss Barnes?”
“Ooh,” she trailed off. “Yes, she’s very sweet.” Both of their tones had soured ever so slightly. There was unfortunately a lot of gossip surrounding the nurse, and all for the wrong reasons. It was funny now, with her husband suddenly going missing no one was sure whether to offer her sympathy or not. He was sure it’d do her a lot better in the long run to be away from that terrible man. He had never liked Stanley much.
“She used to date Mister Houston back in highschool, the shop class teacher at Hatchetfield high? I don’t mean to spread rumours but I was down at the ward the other day helping someone fill out a report, there’d been a burglary gone wrong,” his nose crinkled up at the memory. “The two of them are talking again it seems.”
“Ohh, he lost his wife almost a year ago now didn’t he?” She shut her eyes as she tried to gather a mental timeline. “I was a few grades down from those two, they were always sweet for each other, old news though.”
“Old news?” He snickered. “Why, you’ve got something better?”
“Oh officer, Hatchetfield has some very interesting gossip if you connect the dots,” she teased, striding closer to the car for what Rob could only assume was going to be quite the big secret. “We live in a town full of mystery.” She was about to open her jaw when the bell above the door rang, and out hurried Sam and Doug.
His chief was sipping at his coffee, in a brisk walk back to the car. “Robbo! Any calls?”
He shook his head, “Not for us. We’ve gotta make a visit down to the Witchwoods, though.”
Doug was following right behind, trying not to spill either of the drinks they were holding all the while trying to keep Sam’s pace. “Let’s go! I got you a latte, soy milk?” They outstretched a hand and Rob circled the car to take it, the Greenpeace girl had quickly resigned as his friends had returned, stepping back to the wall.
“Thanks for the entertainment,” she gave him a quick glance like he was going to walk off even before she could finish her sentence.
“You have lots of good stories to tell, you’re very interesting to talk with,” he assured her, picking up the pen resting on the clipboard to scribble his name down on her clipboard. “Officer Rob,” he introduced himself.
“Oh, Aubrey,” she couldn’t help but give a surprised grin, glancing down at the signature on the board.
“Well stay warm out here alright ma’am?” He handed her his latte. He didn’t need it, and she looked tired and cold enough. In the brief second their hands touched he could tell she was cold to the bone, and a grateful look flashed in her eyes. “Maybe you can tell me next time?” He asked as he backed up towards the car, Sam was already starting the engine.
Her smile stretched as she raised a hand in a silent wave goodbye, the other clutching the warm cup in her cold hands. Both knowing his chief rather well it seemed, they both knew there’d be a next time for sure.