The Opposite of Love

Ch1

"Callie," Dad yelled from the kitchen.

"What?" I yelled back.

"Can you open some windows before the smoke detector goes off?"

"Already on it," I replied, sliding the last window in the living room open. "You're sure you don't need some help?"

"Nope, all good in here." Not that I expected any less from him. He said that he was making our meal all on his own that night, as he liked to every month or so. I had snacked heavily that afternoon in response. He always refused to tell me what he was making until we were ready to eat, but based on the smell and the knowledge of his past meals, my best guess was a burnt roast, either undercooked or overcooked potatoes, and some frozen vegetables that won't be quite warm enough.

It wasn't that he was a bad cook; in fact, if he set his mind to it, I'm sure he could be a master chef. The problem was that his mind always seems to be on the cases we work, and the one we were on was extra puzzling.

The client had hired us to find out what her husband was doing on all those late nights he claimed he was working. If she had hired us to find out if he was cheating, the job would have been over in less than a week. That answer was no, he wasn't cheating. Not during those late nights, anyway. In fact, he hadn't met with anyone on those late nights. Not yet anyway. But he wasn't working, either.

The man in question, Jeramiah Harrison, worked at a pharmaceutical factory. The business part of the building, where Mr. Harrison worked, closed at exactly 6:00, and all the employees, including Mr. Harrison, were out of the building by 6:10 every night.

The first night that we followed him, Mr. Harrison drove straight to a park, took a long stroll around the grassy area, and then sat on a bench and casually read the paper, returning home around 7:30. The next night, he drove around a different neighborhood for an hour, basically in circles, before driving himself home. The next night, he walked around a block twice as if he were lost, eventually sitting in a diner for a half hour drinking decaf and looking very relaxed, and then he drove home. The pattern of the casual time wasting continued on every night that he told his wife he would be working late, although he never seemed to be wasting time in the same place twice.

That night, though, he had gotten more interesting. He got in his car at 6:09 as was usual, but he didn't drive away. He waited until all the other employees had left the parking lot, and then he got out of his car and went back into the building through the factory doors, where he disappeared for about twenty minutes. Then he got back in his car and drove home.

All this information, yet we had no idea what he was doing.

"Just about ready," Dad called. I quickly set the table, eager to see if I had guessed our meal correctly. As soon as I finished filling our glasses with water – from the bathroom sink, as I wasn't allowed in the kitchen while the food was being made – the doorbell rang.

"Don't worry, Dad, I got it," I said as I walked towards the door. Through the glass, I could see the khaki colored deputy uniforms, and I sighed. "It's the police," I called, then swung open the door. I recognized one of the two men standing in front of me immediately as Deputy Charlie Stone. Of course.

Our family and the Stone family have been enemies in this small town since at least the early 1900s, according to family stories. We were constantly in competition with each other. If a Stone was named after a superhero, the next Gordon was named after a president, and then the next Stone was named after a king. If a Gordon won the red ribbon at the science fair, a Stone would win the blue ribbon, and then a Gordon would win first place at the spelling bee. If a Stone worked at a car factory, a Gordon would become a mechanic, and then a Stone would open a car dealership. Charlie's grandfather, Edward Stone, sort of sealed our fates when he became sheriff. My grandpa then became a private eye. Charlie's father, John Stone, was quickly elected as the new sheriff when Edward retired, and Charlie would likely do the same. Dad joined Grandpa in the P.I. business, but he also managed to one-up the Stones when he married my mother, who was the town mayor for many years.