Err on the Side of Violence: Terribly Acronymed Detective Club Series (Book 3)

Chapter Forty-Five: Joe, Summer, 2011

Joe wished DiTomaso Construction had never taken on this particular project, a new subdivision planned for the small farming community of Aldergrove, in the east end of Langley Township. It seemed cursed from the start. The developers were being uncommunicative and late with payment, the neighbours surrounding the planned subdivision were making a stink, both at the zoning hearings and on the site itself. Some had even placed themselves in the path of the bulldozers and other clearing equipment, a dangerous action for both protester and operator, and the police had been called in on more than one occasion to help cool things down.

Now there was theft.

He wished he'd listened to Johnny and hired security to watch the site at night, but Justiciar didn't send its staff this far east, and he didn't want to offend Lauren by hiring someone local (of course, he hadn't even asked her, and maybe he should have done that.) Now the pipe they'd brought in to connect to the municipal water supply was gone, and they would more than likely have to eat the cost of replacing it, and now they were behind schedule waiting for replacement.

Still, he did the right thing and called the police to report the theft, and when the RCMP cruiser pulled in to the site, which still looked like a blasted landscape in the aftermath of a battle, he strolled over to meet it and admit to his own culpability in not securing their stuff.

The person that emerged from the cruiser was a woman, and he was surprised to feel relief at this; perhaps he thought a female officer would be more sympathetic to their predicament, or perhaps he would have felt more ashamed to admit to a male officer the fact that they'd left valuable and saleable construction material out in the middle of nowhere, free for the taking. Was it sexist to believe he'd get gentler treatment from a female? Perhaps it was. Perhaps she would give him the same look of pitying contempt he'd get from a male counterpart.

She stood from her car and closed the door, and he was surprised to see her unfolding into a very tall person. Very tall for a woman, anyway. She turned to him, and they locked eyes, and she tilted her head and squinted at him, looking him up and down with something like appreciation and... recognition?

"Hi," he said. "I reported the theft."

"Hi," she said. "I'm Sergeant Joanie Mara, Langley RCMP."

He blinked in surprise. "Did you say Joanie Mara?"

"Yeah..." She looked at him again and said, "I know you from somewhere, don't I? What was your name again?"

"Joe. Joe DiTomaso." He offered his hand, although he wasn't sure if you were supposed to do that with a cop.

She didn't seem alarmed. She took it and shook it firmly.

They stared at each other for another minute before he asked, "Do you... by chance... forgive me for being impertinent... do you have red hair under that hat?"

She smiled and blushed a little, and he knew it was her.

Joanie Mara, after all these years.

"You're Lauren's groom," she said, confirming it.

"You remember me?" he asked, feeling happier about it than he should have.

She nodded. "Your height and your hair are pretty memorable."

He smiled giddily and said, "So, I think I remember Lauren telling me you wanted to go into the RCMP. You made it, then."

"Yeah. I started not long after your wedding, actually. I guess that's why I never saw you again. Training in Regina, then posting in faraway corners of the country."

Her ambiguity of the word you, whether she meant him or Lauren and him, gave him a little thrill.  "You made it back, though," he said.

"I did."