FIRST IMPRESSIONS - A Grace deHaviland Bounty Hunter Short Story

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

 A Grace deHaviland Bounty Hunter Short Story

 DAVID DELEE

“WE DON’T GET a lot of folks like you up here.”

Patrol Sergeant Sean Ritter sat behind a scarred desk stuffed into a cramped office in what served as a police station in the foothills of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He leaned back in a creaky wooden chair that had seen better days and put his legs up over the corner of the desk, crossed them at the ankles. He wore salt-stained brown hiking boots with his forest-green uniform and dug dirt from under his fingernails with the blade of a small pocket knife.

“Latinas?” I asked with one raised eyebrow. While I’m only half-Latina—the other half is Irish—I do have dusky skin, raven black hair and eyes as green as emerald pools, or so I’ve been told.

“Bounty hunters, Ms. deHaviland. We don’t get many bounty hunters up here.”

Oh. I’m quick to jump to conclusions too.

“So tell me. It’s Grace, right? What brings a big city bounty hunter like yourself all the way out here to our little neck of the woods?”

I don’t think of my home turf of Columbus, Ohio as the big city but when you police a community of six thousand people like Ritter does, I’d looked it up, I could see why he might think so. I put my PI license, my Bail Enforcement Agent ID, and a file folder on his desk. The file contained the bail papers for Colin James Maynard, my legal authorization to pick him up.

“Colin Maynard’s on trial for aggravated assault, battery, drug possession with intent to distribute, and child endangerment. Two days ago the defense rested, the jury went to deliberate and Colin jumped bail. New Hampshire law requires I check in with local law enforcement before I extricate. Consider me checked in.”

Figuring my work here was done, I pocketed my credentials and reached for the file but Ritter grabbed them from my grasp. Damn it. I guessed I wasn’t going to get away that easily. Ritter opened the file and flipped through the papers, slowly examining each document, one at a time. He grunted when he came to Maynard’s mug shot.

When he reached the last page, he tossed the file back on the desk and returned to cleaning his fingernails. “And you think he’s here?”

“I know he is.”

I took back the file before he could grab it again. My wool-lined leather coat stiff from the cold, crinkled with the movement. Late March, it’s below freezing out here in the boonies, and there’s still three feet of snow on the ground. At least in Columbus there were some signs of spring by now; temperatures north of freezing, a few buds on the trees, no snow.

“I found his car, an old ’72 Charger,” I added. “Still has the Ohio plates. It’s parked outside an old rundown Cape on the outskirts of town.” I gave Ritter the address.

His attention remained on his fingers; the nails were cut short, clean and neat. I put Ritter in his mid-to-late thirties. No wedding band. When he finished scrapping his fingers, he folded the little knife with a snap and put it in the pocket of his pants. He glanced up at me with pale blue eyes, the kind Huskies’ have. On the thin side he appeared to be in good shape, someone who stayed fit through an active lifestyle, not a health club membership. A looker too, I thought.

“How’d you happen to find his car at that particular house?”

“You are familiar with the concept of police work, aren’t you?” Ok, that came out a little bitchy, I supposed.

Ritter must have thought so too because he snapped up out of his chair so fast I took a step back. Not in fear but in defiance, setting my stance, fisting my hands.