The Priority Unit (Maine Justice Book 1)

by Davis, Susan Page

  Jennifer told the women she worked for a computer company, and Beth said she taught kindergarten. Ruthann said, “I’m a stay-at-home Mom.”

  “And don’t we envy you,” Beth said. They all laughed.

  “So, you’re living with Ruthann and Rick?” Jennifer asked.

  “Just until the end of the school year,” Beth said. “It’s getting pretty crowded around there with the new baby.”

  “Our house is so tiny,” Ruthann said. “Beth shares a bedroom with Clarissa. Ethan is sleeping in our room right now.”

  Jennifer heard Harvey tell Rick they would be back the next Sunday. On the way out, they again lingered to speak with the pastor.

  “I’m sorry about what happened this afternoon,” Harvey said as he shook Rowland’s hand. “I’m sure that wasn’t what you had planned for today.”

  “God is in control,” said the pastor.

  “It made for an exciting afternoon,” Mrs. Rowland added.

  “You were wonderful hosts,” Jennifer said. “Thank you again.”

  Harvey nodded. “I enjoyed tonight’s message. The armor of God is a great metaphor.”

  “I guess we saw something like that today,” said the pastor. “I thought of it when the bomb squad arrived in their protective clothing.”

  “The department has something called riot gear,” said Harvey. “We don’t use it much. SWAT teams use similar stuff. There’s a helmet and a bulletproof vest—”

  “The breastplate,” said the pastor.

  “Yes, and an acrylic shield they would use for riot control. Of course,” he smiled, “we don’t use swords. The only thing I would use would be the vest, and then not very often. Maybe once a month.”

  “Why don’t officers wear them all the time?” asked Mrs. Rowland. “Wouldn’t it save lives?”

  “The patrolmen wear them when they’re on active duty, but the vests are hot, and not very comfortable. In our unit, we use them if we know we’re going into a high-risk situation, but sometimes I sit all day at a computer. We don’t wear them around the office.”

  “And I suppose cops don’t get shot at in real life as often as they do on TV,” Pastor Rowland said, “although there have been more incidents lately.”

  Jennifer didn’t like to think about the number of times nationwide when uniformed cops had been targeted just because they were officers.

  “So, I wanted to ask you,” Harvey said to the pastor, “what kind of Bible should I buy? I looked online, and there are so many to choose from.”

  Mr. Rowland wrote down the name of a Christian bookstore and the type of study Bible he thought would help most. “You can order one online, but the people at this store are very helpful.”

  Harvey and Jennifer went out into the twilight. The Rowlands called good-night and walked to their house, and Harvey checked both their cars.

  “I’ll follow you home,” he said.

  “You don’t have to. I’ll be fine.”

  “No, I want to. I need to know you’re safe.”

  He drove home behind her and took her up to the door and unlocked it. His solicitousness filled her with contentment. She recalled vaguely the feeling that loving a man like Harvey would be too stressful. But that was before.

  It was nearly dark, and a mosquito buzzed around them.

  “Bug season’s started,” he said.

  “Too bad.”

  “So, you’re coming to my office to work on the computer tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll be there around 5:15.”

  “Okay.” He still stood there, looking as uncertain as she felt.

  “Did you want to come in?” she asked. It still seemed slightly improper, especially after dark, but she was getting used to his presence, and the old uneasiness was gone.

  He hesitated. “Better not.” He put his arms around her and pulled her against him for just a second, then released her. “Good night.”

  Chapter 14

  Harvey jogged around the softball diamond in the park while he waited for Eddie the next morning. He was glad he had worn a sweatshirt as they took off on their Monday route in the nippy air. They did the three miles, then as they walked a little to catch their breath, he told Eddie about the new bomb incident.

  “So, it looks like you were definitely the target, Harv.”

  “Better keep checking your truck to be safe.”

  “No worries there. So, where did you and Jennifer go this weekend?”

  “Fancy dinner and theater Saturday, church twice on Sunday, with the bomb squad sandwiched between.”

  “Wow!”

  “How about you and Pamela?”

  “I took her for eats and dancing Friday night. She wants to go to Old Orchard Beach this summer, but I don’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s okay in small doses, but I like a woman who can carry a conversation.”

  “I thought she was a physics major?”

  Eddie grimaced. “I think she fabricated that to impress me.”

  Harvey nodded. “Sorry, buddy.”

  “You were right, as usual.”

  “Well, I never met a cocktail waitress who was a rocket scientist on the side.”

  “She might be fun at Old Orchard, though.”

  “That’s the last place I’d want to go,” Harvey said.

  “Really? It’s a fun date.”

  “Sure, if you like rides and junk food and trashy souvenirs.”

  “Gotta live a little, Harv.”

  “I do.”

  “Yeah?” Eddie grinned at him. “So when are we going to have that double date? Jennifer seemed agreeable.”

  “With you and Pamela? Never.”

  “I was thinking I’d ask somebody else.”

  “Who?”

  Eddie shrugged. “There’s somebody I’ve got my eye on.”

  “Yeah? So come on over to my place and eat breakfast and tell me about it.”

  “Do you have a table yet?”

  “No, but we can eat Wheaties and bananas in the living room.”

  “Still sleeping on the floor?”

  Harvey scowled. “So?”

  Eddie shook his head. “I’m so hungry, I must be delirious. The thought actually entered my mind of asking you to move in with me.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Agreed. We’d hate each other inside a week. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Ten minutes later they were slouched in Harvey’s worn chairs drinking coffee and balancing their cereal bowls.

  “So who’s the girl you’re thinking about?” Harvey asked. “I refuse to accept an engagement on Jennifer’s behalf without knowing what we’re getting into.”

  Eddie swallowed and gave him the Innocent French Boy stare. “You know her.”

  “That means nothing. I know every lowlife in the city. Oh, no, don’t tell me. It’s not Jennifer’s so-called friend from Coastal Technology? Because I don’t think I could stand to be within a mile of her for more than five minutes.”

  “No, I ruled her out, too. When I’m with a woman, I like to have a turn to talk.”

  “Whew. So, who is it?”

  “Sarah Benoit.”

  Harvey set his mug down with a jolt. “Sarah? No, no, Eddie, not a good idea.”

  “Why not? She’s pretty, she’s smart, and she likes me.” Eddie took a bite of Wheaties.

  “Yeah, but a female cop? Don’t start that, Eddie.”

  “Why not? She likes me.”

  “Girl cops are hard, Eddie.”

  “Sarah’s not hard.”

  “She’s tough as nails.”

  Eddie scowled. “Are you ready to go to work?”

  *****

  Mike gathered the men of the unit around his desk to receive their assignments for the day. “Harvey, you stay here to look at the bomb squad’s report. Eddie can handle the paperwork from your last case and that habitual offender arraignment. Pete, Arnie, you see if you can track down Bobby Nason.”

&nbs
p; “Let me,” Harvey said.

  “No, you can’t be objective about this. If Nason’s in the city, Arnie and Pete can find him.”

  Harvey disagreed, but he didn’t want to say so. “There’s one thing that bothers me.”

  “Just one?” Mike said. “For a morose guy like you, that’s phenomenal.”

  Harvey didn’t respond.

  “So what’s the one thing?” Arnie asked.

  “If Bobby Nason wanted to kill me, why did he wait so long? The first car bomb was planted three months after he got out of prison.”

  Mike took a pen from his shirt pocket and wrote something on the file folder on his desk. “You couldn’t find anything that would tie it in with one of your current cases, could you?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with the drug ring at the school, and I don’t see anyplace else where it fits in. But here we’ve got another attempt.”

  “Somebody’s got a long-standing grudge against you,” Pete Bearse said.

  “None of it makes sense to me.” Harvey shrugged. “At first I thought maybe the bomb wasn’t meant for me. Maybe someone had it in for Eddie.”

  “Yeah, some girl he forgot to call back,” Pete said, and they all chuckled.

  “Well, now there’s no question who it was meant for,” Mike said. “But keep checking your vehicles before you drive, you two.”

  When the others had left, Harvey sat across Mike’s desk from him. The captain’s tie was already askew, and he was chewing gum. He had the new bomb squad report and a copy of the one from the week before. They went over them meticulously.

  “The two bombs had to be made by the same person,” Harvey said.

  “Too coincidental otherwise,” Mike agreed.

  “And I’m not sure I believe in coincidence anymore.”

  “One good fingerprint,” Mike observed.

  “Not Nason’s.”

  “I’ll have Arnie and Pete run the print.”

  “Please let me work on this, Mike.”

  The captain shook his head. “You know I can’t. It’s personal for you. Let Pete and Arnie look for Nason and any other potential suspects. You and Eddie need to keep a low profile until we get to the bottom of this. I’ll put you on something totally unrelated.”

  “We know all Bobby’s haunts,” Harvey protested.

  “Look, Harv, I’ve almost lost both of you guys in the past ten days. Forget it.”

  Harvey knew Mike was following standard procedure, but he still didn’t like it.

  Mike sighed and popped his gum. “I’m getting too old for this. I think I’ll retire. Get a camp on Moosehead Lake or someplace. Sharon wants to get out of Portland and live in the woods.”

  “You should have been a game warden instead of a cop,” Harvey said.

  “Maybe. What were you doing at that church, anyway?”

  “Going to church. What else?”

  “I never knew you went to church.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “Do you believe in the trinity?” Mike asked.

  “Trinity? Three Gods in one?” Mike was the last person Harvey expected a religious question from.

  “Three people, one God, that’s what Sharon says. She believes it. You know, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?”

  “I don’t know,” Harvey said. “I’m just starting to learn about this God thing.”

  “Jennifer’s religious?”

  “No. Well, we’re sort of studying it together.”

  “Huh.” Mike chewed for a few seconds. “Well, Trask needs two extra men today. He’s got a big investigation going on at some warehouse and needs guys to sort boxes or something. I’ll send you and Eddie.”

  “Trask?”

  “Yeah, I know.” Mike shook his head. “He’s a plodder.”

  “This is supposed to keep us alive? It will bore us to death.”

  *****

  At lunch time, he and Eddie managed to shake the new assignment for an hour. They got into Harvey’s vehicle.

  “There’s a bookstore I need to visit on Forest Avenue,” Harvey said. “That all right?”

  “Can we drive through the Burger King first? I’m starved.”

  Harvey made the lunch stop, then drove over and parked in front of the Christian bookstore.

  Eddie eyed the sign dubiously. “Harv, this isn’t your kind of bookstore.”

  Harvey got out without saying anything. A hymn played on the speaker inside the store, and Bibles and religious books were prominently displayed. The glass case under the counter held cross pendants and dove pins. A large poster on the walls shouted, “Vacation Bible School Materials.” He pulled the piece of paper Pastor Rowland had given him out of his shirt pocket and handed it to the clerk.

  “Do you have these Bibles?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. That’s a very nice study Bible.” The clerk walked over to a display, picked one out, and opened the box on the counter for Harvey.

  “Harv?”

  He turned around. Eddie was right behind him, looking warily about the store.

  “What?”

  “Did you mean to come in here?”

  Harvey turned back to the clerk. The man had lifted the Bible out of the box. Harvey took it and looked it over. Nice paper, shiny gilt edges, soft black leather cover. He flipped to the back and saw maps and appendices.

  “How much?”

  “Sixty-nine-ninety-five. We also have it in hard cover for $39.95.”

  Definitely leather for Jennifer. “Okay, I’ll take two of these.” Eddie stepped up beside him with bulging eyes.

  “What colors would you like?” the clerk asked serenely.

  Weren’t all Bibles black? “What colors you got?”

  “That one comes in black, white, brown, red, rose, or teal.”

  “Uh…one black, one rose, I guess.”

  The clerk got a second box from the shelf and held it up for Harvey’s inspection. He nodded.

  “Anything else, sir?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Eddie was right on his elbow. Harvey scowled at him. “Do you have a book called a concordance?” Pastor Rowland had mentioned that to him as well. He could find it online, but he liked his reference books in print.

  “Yes. I’ll get you one for this Bible version.” The man walked to another shelf and came back with a hardcover book the size of a good dictionary. “Twenty-four-ninety-five.”

  Harvey got out his credit card.

  On the sidewalk, Eddie couldn’t hold it any longer.

  “You dropped a hundred and fifty bucks on Bibles? I can’t believe this!”

  Harvey got into the Explorer.

  “I coulda got you one for nothing,” Eddie said. “There’s an old one lying around my Mom’s house. Nobody ever reads it. You could have it.”

  “These are special.”

  “But you’re the guy who never buys anything new!”

  Eddie ate his lunch and drank a milkshake while Harvey drove. He knew Trask would be looking for them soon, and he managed to down his burger at traffic light stops.

  Eddie kept looking over at him as they headed back toward the warehouse. Finally he said, “Harv, you didn’t have to go to that church where they tried to bomb you. You could have come to my church.”

  Harvey looked at him. “Did you go to church yesterday?”

  Eddie looked out the window. “That’s not the point.”

  “Look, Ed, It’s just a philosophical difference. Jennifer and I both come from Protestant backgrounds.”

  “What’s wrong with the Catholic church?”

  “I dunno. Maybe nothing.”

  “You don’t have priests,” Eddie said in an accusatory tone.

  “You’re right. So?”

  “Priests are in the Bible.”

  Harvey pulled into the warehouse lot and parked. He grabbed the bookstore bag and took out the concordance and looked up the word priest.

  “You’re right. There’s a page and a half of listin
gs for the word priest here. Every one of them is for a different place that word is in the Bible.”

  Eddie looked impressed but still not won over. “So how come you Protestants don’t have priests if they’re in the Bible?”

  “I don’t know,” Harvey said, “but I’ll ask the pastor.” A vague memory of Martin Luther came to mind. He decided he needed to get out some of his history books, too, and read about the Reformation again before he engaged in a lengthy debate with Eddie.

  *****

  They spent the afternoon at Trask’s beck and call. By 4:30, Harvey had lifted so many boxes his back ached. Trask let them go back to the station to wrap things up for the day. Harvey didn’t have any reports to write, so he got online and checked his stocks. His restaurant stock had split. The drug company was up ¾, and Coastal Technology was looking good. Should he invest in Jennifer and her productivity? He decided to wait. He looked at his watch. It was five o’clock, and Jennifer would arrive soon.

  “Guess I’m going.” Eddie sounded lonely. Harvey thought of making a basketball date for later, but he wasn’t sure how long he would be with Jennifer.

  “You got a ride?”

  “Pete’s dropping me off.”

  “Good night, Eddie.” Harvey headed to the locker room, took out his electric razor, and started to shave.

  “Well, well,” said Mike as he came through the door. “Have to shave twice a day now, Harv? Just how thick are you two?”

  “She’s a lady,” he replied.

  “Well, if this computer program is as good as you think it’s going to be, I may ask the lady to install it on my machine. Keep me posted.” Mike took his jacket out and slammed his locker door. “How’d you and Eddie make out today?”

  “Awful. Did Arnie and Pete find anything?”

  “No.”

  “Put us back on the case, Mike.”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m begging.”

  “I’ll find you something else for tomorrow.” Mike swung the jacket over his shoulder. “Harvey, I want you to think back. Is there something you did that would make somebody mad at you?”

  Harvey shook his head. “Nothing a cop doesn’t do every day. Maybe Pete’s right, and Bobby Nason has held a grudge since I put him away.”