Fourth of July and Will had made it a reason to get away from that house. The mid-afternoon sun was brutal, of course, but he was sitting under an awning at the Maastricht baseball field and there was a breeze, so it was bearable. Sitting in the last row of bleachers behind home plate with a beer in his hand, he believed baseball would be the perfect diversion. He’d watched several Independence Day “town ball” tournaments with his grandfather. The baseball was usually lousy, but the atmosphere had always been good. He couldn’t associate a single bad memory with any of those trips to the park, but at the end of the third inning when he noticed the large man in the white shirt, khaki pants and badged cowboy hat coming up the bleacher steps, he figured that streak was about to come to an end. He looked over his shoulder, through the chain link fence lining the top of the bleachers into the parking lot below. He wondered how much damage he would do to himself if he clambered up the fence and leapt off. The drop was about fifteen feet. Not Much.
“Mister Holliday, good afternoon.” Will turned back around. The Sheriff was a step below him, holding a full beer.
“Drinking in uniform, Sheriff?”
The large man chuckled, came up the last step and sat down beside him, not bothering to even ask Will if he wanted the company. “I figured you might be ready for a refill and thought I’d save you a few steps.’
Will glanced into his own cup. There was less than a mouthful in the bottom of it, warm and flat. No sense in being stupid. He set it under the bench and accepted the full one from the Sheriff. Instead of thanks, he said, “Up for re-election?”
If Goosens was offended, he didn’t show it. “Not for a couple more years, and if it were only that easy.”
Will allowed himself a smile. He raised the glass. “Thank you and happy Fourth.”
“And a happy Fourth to you, Mister Holliday.”
They both pretended to watch the field for a few minutes, and both made the appropriate noises of disgust when the home side went down one-two-three. As the teams traded places, Goosens asked, “Getting settled in? Adjusting to life out there? Any problems?”
Will stalled by taking a strong swallow from the cup, then answered, “No more problems than you’d expect from a house that’s been empty over twenty years.” He suppressed a belch and added, “It’s a very tranquil existence.”
“Getting along with the neighbors?”
If Goosens was fishing for a denunciation of Arn Mikkelson, he was getting skunked. “Neighbor,” Will unnecessarily corrected. “Haven’t had much of a chance to get to know him.”
He heard a “hmph”, from the Sheriff. It sounded like an expectant “hmph.” “I stopped by, once,” Will added for no reason. “He wasn’t home. His wife was. She gave me cookies.”
“Well, that sounds very nice.”
“It sure was. Lovely woman,” Will said. “Salt o’ the Earth.” If this was the type of conversation the man was after, then Will could slug it out, banality for banality. He wasn’t that lucky.
“That Dr. Lee seems very nice as well.”
Upon hearing that name, Will was ready to dump the remainder of his gifted beer into its donor’s lap. It was all he could do to not crush the plastic cup in his hands. He responded with a “hmph” of his own.
“Had a conversation with him the other day. We covered a lot of things.” Will pretended to focus on a short pop-up to right centerfield. The second baseman made a nice catch. “It was you that prompted me to call him.”
Will risked a glance at Goosens. He didn’t appreciate the way the man was smiling at him.
“It was not long after that day I first met you.”
Will allowed himself to nod once.
“Decided it couldn’t hurt, just to check out the county’s options. You suggested them, so I made the call and they put me through to Doctor Lee.”
Will turned back to the ballgame.
“Nice guy,” the Sheriff repeated. “Kind of hard to understand him at first, but after a minute I could figure out what he was saying. Real nice guy.”
“Yeah,” Will said, following the track of a foul line drive.
“I had no idea of how many counties they handle down there. Wow.”
Will drained his beer and dropped the cup between his feet.
“I brought the situation we have here in Limburg up to him.” Goosens slid back on the bench and rested his broad back against the fencing. Will wondered if it would be wrong to pray for the chain link to give way.
“When I heard how he handled the other counties, I inquired as to whether he would consider adding us to the mix.” The chuckle was there again, and Will could feel him shaking his head. “Seems they’ve got enough on their hands already. He told me he’d have an uprising if he told the staff they would be taking on another client.”
Will said nothing. Ground ball to third, five, three, two double play. The boys from both teams had yet to get a man past second base.
“I’ll tell you, though, Doctor Lee thinks highly of you.” Will began to fidget. “Couldn’t say enough good about you.”
In a spot between panic and fury, Will said, “Lee’s not the kind of guy to give someone a job and then carp about hiring a shithead. Probably some kind of Asian thing, not wanting to ‘lose face.’” He heard the chuckle again. Will didn’t care for the man’s giggling any more than he did for his stupid grin.
“Oh, no Mister Holliday, that’s far from the impression I got. I’ll bet half our conversations centered on your time at that office. He like very much how you did your job, got along with folks, how you handled families and some of the difficult situations that come with the job. The thing that seemed to impress him most, and tried to impress on me, I have to add, was the extent of your credentials. I’ve got to admit I was surprised to hear that you…”
Will was struggling to contain himself, feeling it best that he just let the Sheriff prattle on while he did his best to make it obvious he was ignoring him, but hearing “credentials” was impossible to ignore and a solid tug on his trigger. He turned on the lawman.
“The only ‘credentials’ I had that mattered to that job at all was a silly scrap of paper issued to me by ABDMI, and that didn’t come until I’d already been working there for ten years. It didn’t mean anything at all as far as doing the job except to satisfy the county administrators, and it sure didn’t mean shit to me. And, I will add, those credentials became null and void the second I checked out of there.”
Goosens pursed his lips. When it looked as if he was going to speak again, Will shook his head and held a hand up. “End of story. Whatever other ‘credentials’ he may have mentioned—which I’ve no doubt he did as it was a hobby of his to shove that up my ass—is a dead issue. Dead-fucking-issue.” He kept his hand up, bent his wrist and close all but his index finger, which he aimed at the Sheriff’s nose. “As far as I—or anybody else for that matter—am concerned, the only document I have in life that grants me any right or privilege to exercise a skill is a driver’s license.”
Goosens took it all with a sober expression. He raised his own hand, nudging Will’s finger away until it was aimed out over the parking lot. “Didn’t mean to offend or poke a hornet’s nest. Consider whatever it is you want dropped, as dropped, though I confess I’m not clear as to exactly what that might be.” Bullshit, thought Will. He knew exactly what Lee had spilled to the bumpkin cop, and had probably even warned him as to what kind of reaction to expect. “All that said,” the Sheriff went on, “Doctor asked me to convey to you his best wishes, and he would be delighted that you stop in for a visit next time you’re in Saint Paul.”
Will relaxed a bit and felt the scowl controlling his face loosen. “Thanks for that, Sheriff.” He turned his attention back to the ballfield.
“He also wanted me to pass along that he hopes you’re keeping busy in a way you find both productive and satisfying.”
In spite of himself, Will shook his head and laughed. Any question Goosens and Lee were in collusion was answered by that phrase. “Productive and satisfying,” was a stock phrase of Will’s former boss, and it’s meaning was that whatever you were doing wasn’t very productive and it was by no means satisfying his expectations. Goosens may not have grasped Lee’s message, but Will was certain that Lee made damn sure those were the exact words he’d been instructed to repeat. Warm and fuzzy as it sounded, “productive” meant “waste of time”, and “satisfying” translated to “pointless.” “Busy” was just a modifier, and no matter how it was included the sum of its meaning was: “Quit fucking around.”
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. Sons of bitches, more like. He turned to Goosens. “Oh, I’m busy,” he said. “Busy like you wouldn’t believe. Mad busy, crazy busy. When I’m not busy, I get busy thinking up ways to get busy. That’s how busy I am.” He stood up. “And look at me, right now, what I’m doing. For shame, lolling about like this, watching baseball, drinking beer, when I should be back at the homestead busy with something. Thanks, again, for the beer.”
He edged past Goosens and trotted down the steps, leaving the Sheriff and the game behind him. He crossed the lot wondering what depths a man’s soul had to reach before attaining a level of depravity that would enable him to wantonly ruin a baseball game. He left the lot and made his way toward Central Avenue. His decision to take in the game had been last minute and he’d had to park several blocks away from the field. As he trotted across Limburg County’s busiest street, looking both ways through a gap in the holiday traffic, he almost ran into another representative of the Law. The deputy he’d nearly bumped into was the same guy he’d encountered at the vehicle wreck in the Spring.
“Deputy Poechman!” he gushed. “We meet again! A pleasure, to be sure!” The deputy looked both startled and confused. Will kept at it. “Just parted company with your boss. We enjoyed a nice little chinwag.” He raised a finger and applied to the side of his nose. Tapping, he said, “Between you, me and the fencepost, you might want to prepare yourself for a busy night.” He added a knowing nod and leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper. The deputy lurched back and Will didn’t miss the reflexive reach for the holster. Will offered a broad smile instead. “The Sheriff’s at the ballpark handing out free beer to the citizenry.” He left the man with a wink and marched off to his truck.
When he unlocked the door, he looked back toward Central. The deputy was no where in sight. The inside of the truck was a furnace. A hot ball of air rolled over him when he opened the door and he waited a moment before sliding behind the wheel. The seat was like lava. He started the truck in hopes that Venlo wasn’t such a one horse town that all had packed up and headed to Maastricht, and that the Muni would be open. He drove on to Central then headed West, a little sad at departing. He’d actually been looking forward to sticking around for the fireworks.