Girl Most Likely

by Max Allan Collins

  She took the nine steps hugging the building up to street level, where a black wrought-iron fence separated the parking lot from a space for a couple of patrol cars. She went around front to the station’s Bench Street door under the two-tiered white-pillared overhang, and stepped inside. In the entryway, she glanced left at the steps down to the PD’s former quarters, which she and the other eleven officers still referred to as “the Dungeon.”

  Until two months ago, everybody had been crammed in down there, desks, files, records, before the Galena Police Department moved into a remodeled second floor when the city hall took on newer, bigger digs on Green Street. The Dungeon was now used for personal lockers—extra uniforms, coats, bags—and the caged-in evidence room.

  She took the stairs up to the department’s new home. At the top, she was greeted by a massive wall painting of a shield-style badge, its navy-blue background dominated by a solemn portrait of President Grant against a waving American flag as he loomed over a steamboat, back when the Galena River had been wide enough to accommodate such a vessel. Above him in yellow was

  GALENA

  POLICE

  and below, just above the shield point,

  IL.

  The beige-walled reception area sported a pair of modern-looking chairs and a couch, fairly (but not too) comfortable, overseen by a bulletin board and a rack of tourist brochures. Facing this were the three office windows, with clerk-dispatcher Maggie Edwards at the center one. Slightly heavyset with big blue eyes and a head of curly red hair, Maggie—the chief’s late mother’s best friend and formerly an administrative secretary at Galena High School—was a doggedly pleasant person, perfect for the job.

  Put it this way: an eleven-year-old Maggie had played the title role in a local production of Annie, and had been well cast. Even today, working in a police station with all its ups, downs, and tragedies big and small, she felt the sun would come out tomorrow. Maggie and Krista smiled and nodded at each other as the chief was buzzed into the bullpen area.

  How different from the Dungeon! The first third of the space was barely taken up yet, except by a row of file cabinets along the left wall. Krista passed the short hallway at right, off of which were the doors to the two interview rooms and Detective Clarence “Booker” Jackson’s office, then moved past the doors of the conference room and continuing-education classroom. At the Front Street end, facing her glassed-in office, were four desks for the uniformed officers, three men, one woman, each with his or her own generous space forming a collective U, joined by a common Plexiglas barrier.

  Krista said her hellos to the four officers and went on into her office, which was a good-size area, with a small table and chairs at right and three windows onto Main Street under which was a low-slung file cabinet. In the corner at left was her L-shaped desk with computer screen and keyboard at its juncture. She kept the office neat, the desk only mildly cluttered, considering how much work passed through this place.

  Maggie, as if the clerk didn’t already have enough to do, came in and, unbidden, delivered a cup of coffee. Normally Krista would take care of that for herself, but she had walked by the table of coffee and snacks in a daze, distracted by the thought of what lay ahead, and Maggie had noticed.

  A civilian employee, Maggie wore a light blue blouse and tan slacks, casual but not sloppy.

  “Lovely morning,” the clerk said.

  Maggie had brought the chief a napkin, too, and a doughnut, unfrosted, out of which Krista promptly took a bite.

  “Lovely morning,” Krista echoed, chewing.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Now I am, thanks to this.” She sipped the coffee.

  When Krista began here—down in the Dungeon, anyway—she’d taken on Maggie’s role. Unlike the older woman, she had used it as a stepping-stone to becoming a uniformed officer. Truth was, Maggie had one of the most demanding jobs in the department—part receptionist, part dispatcher, part file clerk; she even worked up certain monthly reports.

  Maggie went to the door, paused there, and said, “They could have sent Ben, you know.”

  “He’s mostly sports.”

  Maggie’s understanding, compassionate smile was something Krista knew well, usually finding it comforting or at least benign. Today it mildly irritated her.

  “Are you all right, dear?” Maggie asked. With no one else in earshot, at least, the clerk could get away with calling the chief “dear,” having known Krista since childhood.

  “Fine,” Krista said.

  “How’s your father doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “All settled in?”

  Krista smiled and nodded.

  “Big job, was it, moving all his things?”

  “No,” Krista said. “One U-Haul load. Everything else went at the tag sale.”

  “That must have been hard for him.”

  Krista just sipped her coffee.

  Maggie smiled in a sad-eyed way. “I bought a few things myself. Just to remember Karen by. Your mother.”

  Yes, I know Karen was my mother.

  “That’s nice,” Krista said.

  Maggie closed the door, as if that would provide privacy for an office fronted with a wall of windows onto the bullpen.

  The chief of the Galena police realized that her clerk would not likely go on and on so, if Krista would just open up to her a little. But even as a girl, Krista had not been one to blather, and in this job, she had emphasized that stoic side of herself even more.

  If she were to be taken seriously, as Galena’s first female chief of police, particularly at her age, she could convey nothing girlish. She must be steady, serious. . .

  . . . like her father, when he was a cop across the river in Dubuque.

  Her visitor wasn’t due till eight thirty, so Krista got to work, going over the weekend’s activities (this was Monday), starting in on approving completed reports on arrests made, tickets written, and so on. But by a quarter till nine, she was still at it, with no sign of her scheduled guest.

  Then at a quarter after, she saw him moving along the edge of the long bullpen, a good-looking guy her age with dark curly hair, nice dark brown eyes, a purposely scruffy barely-a-beard.

  Jerry Ward wasn’t short but he wasn’t tall, either—maybe an inch over her own five eight. He wore a black jacket over an untucked white shirt, distressed blue jeans and Chelsea boots, and moved with confidence and ease.

  He knocked and she called for him to come in—in an uninterested, businesslike way, of course.

  “Sorry to be late,” he said, and flashed the James Franco grin. Not why—just “sorry.”

  She gave him a perfunctory smile, barely looking up from her work to acknowledge his presence. His existence.

  He stood there, close enough for her to smell his Armani cologne, possibly waiting for her to tell him to pull up a chair, which she didn’t. She finished reading the report, signed off on it, stood, smiled in as slight a way as possible and still have it register, then gestured toward the small square table with its several chairs on the other side of the room.

  They sat across from each other. He set his Yamaha Pocketrak on the table, which she knew he’d gotten back at the Des Moines Register, before they downsized him. Being back in his hometown (he had frequently let her know) was just a way-station stop on his path to becoming a bestselling novelist.

  Which he’d been trying to be as long as she could remember. They’d been in high school together; senior year, an item, before Astrid Lund came between them.

  But that was a long time ago. Water under assorted bridges. The big city reporter had moved back in with his parents while he worked toward fiction-writing fame. Taking a job at the Galena Gazette—one of the nation’s oldest established weeklies—was just another way-station stop. Slumming, he’d called it, one night after a beer or two too many at the Galena Brewing Company.

  “Hope this is not a problem,” he said, his smile in response to her stone face not anything near Franco leve
l.

  “No.”

  “How’s your, uh, father doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it. Always liked your father. But I don’t think he ever liked me.”

  Not asking would have been rude: “And your folks?”

  “Fine. Fine. Getting used to having me around the house again, I guess.”

  “Well,” she said with a shrug, “you have your own entrance, anyway. Basement cold this time of year?”

  “No, it’s fine. I mean, it’s a finished basement.”

  “. . . So you had questions for me?”

  “Yes! Yes. You’re all right with the recorder?”

  She nodded.

  “I mean,” he said, “it’s better than note-taking. This way I can be sure to quote you right.”

  “Good.”

  “You understand this is not for the Gazette. It’s for the Telegraph Herald.”

  The Dubuque paper. He was a stringer for them.

  She nodded.

  “And with luck,” he said, “it’ll get picked up on the wire. There could be national interest.”

  “Really.”

  His turn to nod. “After all, you’re the youngest female police chief in the nation. Kind of a big deal. There’s a younger one in Maine, but. . . a guy. You began as a clerk-dispatcher?”

  He already knew that, but she said, “I did. I liked the work, I liked the people. Finally thought I’d see what life was like on the other side of the glass.”

  “It was a fast rise. Two years in your civilian role, then by twenty-five you’re an officer, twenty-six the department’s detective, and now. . . chief.”

  “Right.”

  “You cracked that big case, while you were a detective.”

  “Yes.”

  “Must have helped?”

  “I guess so.”

  He sighed, sat forward. “Even so, some of your fellow officers, who’ve been here longer, must have felt passed over when you were selected.”

  “Most seem happy for me. Everyone’s cooperative.”

  “Well, other than that one case. . . how did you land the position, over older, more experienced people?”

  “I applied and the city council gave me the job.”

  “That was. . . six months ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must have been at least a little surprised.”

  “Yes.”

  He sighed again. Shook his head. “Krista, meet me halfway here. Give me a little more to work with.”

  “Ask me better questions.”

  “Oh, is that the problem?”

  “Give me something that isn’t a yes or no.”

  He thought about that. Nodded, admitting she was right.

  “So what’s your typical day like, Chief Larson?”

  “One can vary greatly from another.”

  “Uh. . . how so?”

  She shrugged. “Today was pretty usual. Started with coffee and a doughnut.”

  He laughed. “So cops really do eat doughnuts?”

  “Good cops don’t allow themselves to be shamed out of one. This morning, before you got here, finally got here, I started in on my reports. After this interview, I’ll gather my officers and talk about what’s going on in town, for example whether the sheriff’s office has arrested anyone, in particular anyone who we might’ve been looking at on an ongoing case.”

  “You work closely with the sheriff’s office?”

  She nodded, and gestured toward Bench Street, across which were the sheriff’s office and courthouse. “We don’t have any holding cells, for one thing. I meet with the sheriff on an almost daily basis.”

  “What else happens on an average day?”

  “Sometimes I have a department-head meeting over at city hall. I return phone calls and take them. If an officer on duty needs help, I may lend a hand. . . nice to get out of the office.”

  “What kind of help?”

  She shrugged again. “Traffic control when an accident causes a lane blockage. Ambulance call. Domestic situation, a fight, missing child, someone wanting to file a report—maybe complain about a neighbor. I cover for the clerk-dispatcher over her lunch hour. We all pitch in here. We’re twelve in a town of three thousand with a million-plus visitors a year.”

  He grinned. Actually grinned. “I just wrote that myself, for the next issue of the Galena Visitor.”

  “Well, you got it right. After my lunch break, I usually meet with my lieutenant, to discuss upcoming events, scheduling, various things. . . personnel issues, departmental needs. I work on policies, read law updates, help with training. Nothing too exciting.”

  “What if there’s a serious crime?”

  “Well, again, we work with the sheriff’s office. We can pull in resources from surrounding communities and the state police. If it’s a crime that requires interviewing witnesses or suspects, I’ll handle my share of that.”

  “Because you were a detective yourself.”

  “Yes, but also because that’s one of the chief’s duties here. We’re not just any small town.”

  “Of course, your father was a detective.”

  “Until he retired he was.”

  “Retired early—what, at fifty-something?”

  “Yes. Is that part of the interview?”

  He opened a hand. “I need background. It’ll interest readers to know your father was a detective, well known in the area. Chief of Detectives on the Dubuque PD—no small thing. Medals of valor and various other commendations.”

  “I’m proud of my father.”

  “So, in a way, you went into the family business.”

  “In a way.”

  “Kind of funny, though, that he never figured out you were living with somebody.”

  She nodded toward the recorder. “Turn that off.”

  He did. “Funny that he never detected you were living with me.”

  “We’ve talked about this.”

  He was smiling, but something a little nasty was in it now. “You really think he would have moved in with you, if he’d known you threw your live-in boyfriend out to make room?”

  She didn’t look at him. “This is over, Jerry. Leave.”

  “I’ve respected your wishes, haven’t I? You said, ‘Don’t call,’ and I haven’t called.”

  Now her eyes found him. “Jerry. . .”

  “But you said you would call me. I guess I didn’t get that what you were really saying was, ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you’. . . in the time-honored ‘get lost’ manner.”

  She pointed at the door. “Go. Now. Not appropriate here.”

  “Appropriate where then?”

  She stood. “We’re done.”

  “Is that the chief of police talking or Krista?”

  “It’s Krista. But I am armed.”

  He stood, too. Flushed. “I’ll treat you right in the article. Don’t worry about that. But we need to talk when we’re not yelling at each other.”

  “We aren’t yelling.”

  “We did when you threw me out, remember?”

  “I didn’t throw you out. I asked you to leave. Like I’m asking you now.”

  “No, you yelled. You were human. You were real. You weren’t this, this law enforcement automaton you pretend to be at work.”

  He left.

  At least he had the courtesy not to slam the door.

  This time.

  THREE

  Karen had been gone six months now, but it felt like forever, and yesterday.

  In a gray CUBS sweatshirt, jeans, and Reeboks, Keith Larson was in the kitchen of his daughter’s home, at the counter, preparing things for the evening meal he’d promised her. The fifty-eight-year-old retired police detective, who had only moved in with his daughter Krista yesterday, had already made a trip back across the river to Dubuque. To get the makings of frikadeller, he’d needed to go to Cremer’s Superette, because their fresh meat was the best in the area. Right now he was hand-grinding half a pound o
f veal and another of pork with an onion.

  The kitchen was large, almost ridiculously so; but then the whole house seemed overlarge and always had. Dating to the 1890s, high on Quality Hill overlooking the downtown, the white-trimmed, gray-frame two-story with its quaintly covered porch had been the family home for Karen and her parents. Not only had Karen grown up here, but so had Krista, who like her mother had been an only child.

  The place, with its lovely old woodwork, hardwood floors, and ornate wood-burning fireplaces, retained much of its historic look down to the leaded-and-stained-glass windows, pocket doors, and walk-up attic. The latter Keith thought could be remodeled into a good study or home office, but with so much space here—and just his daughter and himself to rattle around in it—that seemed excessive.

  He’d met Krista’s mother at the University of Dubuque in 1981. He was studying criminal justice; Karen was an elementary education major. The joke was, he was such a big kid and she such a sneaky little devil that they made a good fit. And she was on the small side, five three, and brunette, while he was a sturdy six-footer, with a head of blond hair worthy of a surfer here in farm country.

  That hair now was thin as hell on top, and he had a slight gut that his exercise bike was not interested in doing anything about—of course he wasn’t terribly interested in the bike, either. All his life he’d been told he almost resembled Paul Newman, thanks to those sky-blue eyes of his; but the emphasis was frequently on the “almost.”

  Karen had never looked like anybody but Karen, and that had been fine with him. Her big brown eyes, her dark curly hair, which she’d worn so big in the ’80s, had seemed just right to him. She wasn’t skinny, either, which he liked, but she’d fought with her weight until the cancer had brought it back down, last year. Ironic that for a few months she had been the slender girl he’d fallen for, as the real woman she’d become slipped away.

  He’d lived in this house before, for the first dozen years of their marriage, after Karen’s parents retired to Florida, generously making the young couple a wedding gift of the family home. For those first twelve years, Keith had driven to his job in Dubuque, starting in uniform, rising to detective. But when he landed the demanding Chief of Detectives role six years ago—making even a half-hour commute impractical—they’d gone looking on the other side of the river and found a perfect little ’50s-era ranch-style on Marion Street.