Clean Slate

Chapter 9

"What I can't understand," Joe commented, "is why Ray didn't make you section supervisor again."

"I was gone a year," Mac said. "There was the chance I wouldn't come back. Somebody had to be supervisor. And it's not fair to have me bump Clare out."

"Except," Joe said distinctly, "that as supervisors go, Clare sucks double donkey dongs."

It was Tuesday, lunch hour, and the men sat in Mac's office, eating their lunches out of sacks. For Joe, cold chicken legs and an orange. For Mac, balogna spread and Velveeta on whole wheat. Pretty healthy -- at least for him.

"Must not be too bad," Mac said mildly. "You're still here."

Joe grinned. "Pound for pound, I'm still around."

Both men smiled, because the comment had double meaning. Joe Pipestone was a very large man, very tall and very, very spherical. He was in his late 30s, around Mac's age, and had deeply brown skin and very long black hair braided into a tail with leather thongs and beads. He wore his trademark commemorative ball cap -- this one signed in black marker by members of the Four Tops -- plus white shirt with bolo tie and sand colored Docker pants. Hanging from a strap around his neck was a laminated ID tag with his picture and his first name in bold letters. Like most PPO's Joe's demeanor was a mix of world weary acceptance interrupted by periods of exasperation set off by occasional moments of utter incredulity. But he had always been one of Mac's professional pals, and Mac was glad to see Joe still on the team.

Mac ate some sandwich, drank some diet Coke. Times like this, he thought, I feel really free -- because for just a moment or two, I'm not thinking about Nicholas. Last night had been a rough one, alone at the farm. Tonight would be better, with the guys showing up for cards. Mac was feeling his way along, moment by moment band-aiding together a new life, by trial and error. Not hiding anymore, as he'd been in France and Cambodia. Diverted by work and friends and activity, he could, he knew, get through each day, one way or the other. Trick now – and something he'd have to put to rest before he could really have a life – was to go head-on at the real problem: Nicholas – and Suzanne.

"So you getting settled in pretty well?" Joe asked, taking a bite of bird.

"Going through my cases," Mac said, indicating the pile of file folders.

"So," Joe grinned, "what kind of goody bag did our fearless leader set you up with?"

"You know how much I hate to sound like a suspicious little shit," Mac remarked. "But in reviewing these cases Clare handpicked for me, no doubt with considerable care and a lot of relish, a pattern seems to emerge."

"Hm," Joe said. "Let me throw out a wild guess. Retreads, recalcitrants, hard core recidivists?"

Mac nodded. "And it gets cuter still. A couple of them were mine before, and are now back for a second or third helping of judicial supervision. As if Clare's saying to me, ‘Hey, Mac, look at all your failures!'"

"Could be the reason," Joe said. "But it could also be you're a suspicious little shit."

Joe drank some soda. "But knowing Clare, my bet is she done it deliberately."

"I think so."

"Even though," Joe said, chewing, "our failure rate is 23 out of 24, isn't that the ratio?"

"About that." Mac drank some diet Coke. "And it's not like I haven't had reruns before. In fact one of them this time I volunteered for."

"Who?"

"Eddie Fant." Joe looked blank. "Eddie," Mac went on, "had a couple of drunk drivings with me. About as rock bottom a case as there is. No family, no means of support, chronic health problems, crippled in one hand -- he caught it in a scrap yard shear. One of those people, nothing seems to go right, but almost always he's his own undoing. What makes him different from your average clown is, he even seems to understand, somewhere in the dim recesses, that he's his own worst enemy."

"Shit, man. That's a high level of evolution, for our customers here."

"Well, let's not get too impressed. He keeps tripping on his dick and ending up back in here with us." Mac ate some of his sandwich. "I'm seeing him tomorrow." And I can't wait, Mac thought, for his explanation as to why he was bunking in my barn.

"What brings him to our attention this time?" Joe asked.

"He's doing a year, with costs and work program, for indecent exposure."

"Oh jeez. Weenie wagger."

"Indeed. His first time for that."

"At least he doesn't keep boring us with the same old crimes over and over."

"Yeah, he's thoughtful, our Eddie is."

"What'd he do?"

"Had a landscaping job this spring," Mac said, "at an apartment complex out in Wynona. Tenant looks out her front window and sees Eddie, completely naked, lying on the freshly cut grass, whacking off."

"And she took exception to that?"

"Some people are extra touchy."

"And the offender explained this how?"

"Said he doesn't remember," Mac shrugged. "Said he was on crack at the time. Said he blacked out."

"Original excuse." Joe gnawed off the last of the chicken leg meat, chewed for a while, swallowed. "And you requested this customer?"

Mac finished his sandwich, picked up his apple, absently polished it on his shirt. "Ah," he said, slightly impatient with himself, "he's one of those guys, I keep thinking, he gets so close to straightening out. He's almost just barely there, and then something happens, and he swerves back out. . . .I know there's a key to him, I just haven't found it yet."

Joe was about to comment when Clare Epple swept in, resplendent in cornflower pantsuit and twinkling chrome from her ear piercings. Seeing the men involved in lunch, she ostentatiously checked her watch, as if to verify that they were within the approved lunch period. "Sorry to interrupt," she said through her clenched teeth, sounding in fact pleased. "Couple of things for you, Mac." Stepping to the desk, she set on it two items. An ID tag, similar to Joe's. And a handgun.

Mac stared silently. "What's that?"

"You need to wear it at all times," Clare said. "Gets you through security here in Fannie Annie and all other county facilities --"

"That's not what I'm --"

"And in a few days when the electronic door locks come on line, you'll need your ID to activate them in the lobby and at other checkpoints in the buildings," Clare bulled on. "Makes for tighter security, and the computer keeps track of where everyone is in the facilities."

Waiting her out, Mac said: "What I'm more curious about is the, uh, firearm, there."

Clare squinted. "Oh! That! I forgot, you weren't here! A few months ago the Commission decided to issue sidearms to all full time court employees. For personal protection, and overall security."

"Well, I don't want it."

"You don't have any choice, Mac. Technically we're all classified as law enforcement."

"Take it away."

"It's been issued to you."

"Well," Mac said, "unissue it."

"Sorry," she said not meaning it. "Have a good afternoon, boys," she said briskly, and exited the office.

Mac stood. His heart was racing. The anger at first surprised him, and then didn't. This is bureaucracy, he thought. Get used to it. He picked up the neck tag. It was hard laminated plastic with an old picture of him, his first name in big letters, full name and birth date printed smaller -- why the hell does my birth date need to be on here? Mac wondered -- and an expiration date one year off. Inside it he could feel a metal strip -- no doubt the magnetic "key" to be used at the checkpoints Clare had talked about. Like Joe's, it was fastened to a long leather loop. Mac hung it around his neck. "Last time I saw something like this," he commented to Joe, "it was back when I was a kid, when they clipped ID tags to the ears of our cows."

"That's us," Joe said cheerily. "Just the livestock of the judicial system."

"It's demeaning," Mac grumbled.

"You get used to it."

Recurring theme, Mac thought. "What about that?" he asked, gesturing at the handgun. "Do you get used to that?"

The weapon was gray and forbidding looking, no toy, all business. Officially it was a Beretta 92FS, 9 millimeter. Mac knew it better as the M9. Joe lumbered to his feet. "Mine's in my desk drawer," he said frankly. "I carry it when I'm out, but I feel stupid. Something else you get used to. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know." With a sigh – his old training was bearing down on him hard, forcing him to act -- he picked up the weapon, worked the action and checked the clip, to verify it was not loaded. Then, with no small relief, he put the gun in the bottom desk drawer.

Joe was staring. "You did that like you've been doing it all your life."

"Navy."

"But weren't you a typist?"

"Journalist," Mac answered, repeating, per his oath, the ancient lie.

"Oh, well," Joe said, laughing, "knowing journalists like I do, I can readily understand your need for expertise with weapons." Wadding up his trash, Joe stood. "Have fun working through your recidivists."

"Later, man," Mac said, sitting down to his computer.

Joe wheeled out, and then poked his face back in the doorway. "By the way," he said, "far as I'm concerned, you're still my supervisor." He left.

Mac grinned briefly. Funny how a brief offhand comment like Joe's could just warm you up, he thought. Glancing at the computer screen, he checked the continuous news scroll at the bottom – an innovation since his previous hitch, and one that Mac had to admit was a hypnotic thing to watch. It said: JUDGE ACCEPTS HOOKER PLEA-BARGAIN. . .SUSPENDED SENTENCE AND TIME SERVED. . .MADAM RELINQUISHES RECORDS. . . ‘BLACK BOOK' TO BE DESTROYED UNDER COURT SUPERVISION.

Well well, Mac thought. What an elegant solution to what had to be a painful problem for some of the prominente in town. Typical St. Marys smashmouth politics, in which the guilty, especially if they were powerful, got a walk. Mac wondered if Judge Wildern had anything to do with this. He regarded the Judge as essentially honest, but not above a little harmless finagling. And even if the Judge had his fingers in this one, nobody would ever find his prints behind all the prism-and-mirror layers of cut-outs and deniability.

Mac went back to the case file he'd been reviewing. It was his first appointment – a run of the mill drunk driving – scheduled to show up in an hour. Mac felt distracted. Thoughts of Suzanne kept intruding. He had to do something. Had to move forward. Had to get the answer.

But how to proceed?

One thing I know, he thought, sitting there. If I don't do something soon, now, I'm gonna bust.

Okay.

Picking up the phone, he dialed RackMasters and asked for Lon Guderian, the quality manager. Expecting to leave a voice mail, Mac was surprised when Guderian picked up.

"Mac McGladrey. Been a while, Lon."

"Mac!" Lon said. "Suzanne said you're back home. How are you?" he asked, with that careful tone Mac had come to know so well; people preferred to dance around the heart of the issue, which, at this point in Mac's life, was fine with him.

"I'm all right," Mac said. "Listen, now that I'm back, I'm square-ending some things. And I got a question, and I may be putting you on the spot a little."

"Oh? What's up?"

"It's about that trip Suzanne took, up to Detroit. Back in --"

"Oh, I remember," Lon said, sounding guarded now.

"We've never really talked about it, you and I."

"Talked about what?"

"What she went up there for."

"She must have told you."

"She did."

Pause. Mac let it drag out. Then: "Well," Lon said uncomfortably, "what she told you, let's just leave it at that."

"I'd like to hear about it from you."

"I'd rather not get in between --"

"Nobody's putting you in between anything, Lon. Just help me out here."

Lon's deep breath was audible. "I'm sure you know it was for a conference, and --"

"What kind of conference?"

"Quality technologies update. Multi-track presentations. Quality function deployment, Taguchi, SPC, Ishakawa, the Five Whys, Sick Sigma."

"‘Sick Sigma'? What the hell is that?"

Lon explained for a little while. "Anyway," he interrupted himself, seemingly aware that Mac had tuned him out, "all our top quality department people get these updates every year."

God help them, Mac thought. "Including Suzanne, huh."

Pause. "Well, not exactly. Strictly speaking."

"What do you mean?"

"As a gage tech, she wasn't on the list. But she really wanted the training. She's pretty ambitious, you know."

"Indeed."

"She offered to pay her tuition and travel, if I'd hook her up with the company discount. Which I was glad to do."

"So you weren't making her go."

"No," Lon said carefully, "but I was glad she wanted to go. Showed a lot of initiative. That means something around here."

"She volunteered."

"That's right."

"Thanks."

"'Bye."

Mac hung up, eased back in his chair, gazing out at nothing.

I need a detective, he thought. Not here. In Detroit.