Midday Clouds - The Charlie Swan Story

Chapter 44 (Eclipse 3)

I did my usual rounds of the town before heading into the office, a sickly weight pressing down on me as I went. I had to admit I was still technically new at the whole parenting thing; during all those visits Bells had made to Forks as a kid and as a teenager, I was beginning to realize, I wasn't parenting, I was just hosting. She would come for a few weeks in the summer, I'd take whatever vacation days I hadn't used up on fishing trips, and we'd hang around town basically playing tourist and tour guide to a town that only ever saw a few backpackers passing through.

Parenting was different. We were existing in each other's orbits, gravitational pulls distant from one another, but ever present. And then Edward shows up and throws us into three body problem with no general solution. I could feel her slipping further and further into his orbit, and her saying the quiet part out loud, that she would rather move out than be away from him, sank my heart straight down to my stomach.

"What's got your goat, Chief?" Steve asked as I collapsed into my chair. The department was quieter than it had been for weeks, given that Smith and his cronies had exited just as quickly and inexplicably as they'd arrived.

"Oh, you know. Dad stuff."

"Well that I don't know, but hey, maybe someday right?" Steve said with a laugh and a general wink in Janet's direction. She didn't respond in kind.

"Yeah you'd have to find someone willing first, god forbid. Hey Chief, did you know Steve took his cousin to our junior prom? She was a senior, and rumour was that his parents helped her buy a car a month later as thanks."

"Second cousin, thank you very much," Steve shot back. "Not that it matters. We were friends! Can't a guy and a gal be friends? And my parents actually gave her that car, but no one was using it, and family is supposed to look out for each other."

All I could do was offer a half-hearted grunt of approval. They had me thinking of Bella's guy friends, Mike Newton and Jake and that Asian kid, Eric. I wondered how many of them were hoping for something more, of if they were actually, genuinely just interested in hanging out with Bella as "just a friend."

"Oh hey, Charlie, this came for ya this morning," Steve said, throwing a brown package onto my desk. It hit with a thud, as though there were something substantial inside. "No return address, either. "Paul from the post office hand-delivered it and everything. Said he was told to wait until today before bringing it over to ya. And also to give it just to you, but I told him 'a deputy is the right hand of the Chief' and that he could trust me to get it to ya."

"Hey Chief, what hand do ya wipe with anyway?" Janet joked from her desk.

"Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Janet." I took the package over to the break room, much to Steve's disappointment. But I had a hunch, and my hunches usually turned out right, for better or worse. This one definitely was the latter.

Inside the box was a cellphone. Not a standard brick, like the one I usually forgot I had, but one of those new flip ones, with an extending antenna and everything. It was turned off, but I found a charger in the box as well, along with a note folded up a few times into a crisp square.

I unfolded it slowly, unsure I really wanted to know what message awaited within. It turned out to be a typewritten letter.

"Chief Swan,

My apologies for the expedient departure of myself and my men. Pressing matters called us back to HQ in Seattle. I would like to thank you and your department for the assistance in our recent investigations, and would again like to extend my apologies for the tragic passing of Harry Clearwater.

I trust in your discretion regarding our involvement in Forks, Wash., and can say with near certainty that the threat that called us west into your jurisdiction has been neutralized. However, while the possibility of repeated circumstances are low, a continued vigilance on your part would be appreciated, and a report on any suspicious activity – specifically to do with any recently arrived residents – can be made using this device through the sole contact number found within. I also trust that calls made to this device, once reactivated, will be answered immediately and with discretion.

Destroy this message upon reading.

With confidentiality,

Agent Smith"

So he wants me to keep an eye on the Cullens then, I thought to myself. It made sense, given what I'd gleaned from Sue about their dangerous nature, and it had me thinking of all the old mob and spy movies I used to watch with my dad as a kid. Obviously the modern criminal underworld of 2005 worked a whole lot different than the fedoras and smoky speakeasy parlours that came to mind, and I, not for the first time, realized just how out of my depth I was. I just wanted to keep my neighbours safe from each other, and traffic hazards, and the occasional bear. This wasn't the kind of police work I was qualified for. Hell, this wasn't even the kind of work that your everyday cop even dealt with – they had detectives for this kind of thing.

Which brought me back to Smith. If he was some hotshot detective from Seattle on the tail of the Cullens, he sure didn't seem like it. First off, he showed while they were out of town, and then split the second they showed back up. Maybe he just didn't want them to know that those on high were watching, but if leaving me a cellphone and a note about "recently arrived residents" was the state's (or, hell, the fed's) best bet at surveillance, then I really didn't know where my tax dollars were going.

I stepped out back, grabbing a cigarette from the communal pack by the door and a lighter as I went. Steve motioned to join me but I just gave him a firm shake of the head. Tearing up the letter, I dropped each little white piece into the coffee can we kept as an ashtray, and, against my better judgement, lit up a cigarette as I burned away the note. It had been a few years, and I would made damned sure that Bell's didn't ever catch me at it, but the smell of the smoke, the deep breaths, and the slight lightness of head calmed me in a way I hadn't felt since Bells had shown up here for good.

But that wasn't fair to her, either. Sure, Bell's arrival seemingly kickstarted a series of stressful events, but it's not like she brought any of this evil with her. The Cullens had been living here for years. And there was no knowing whether they were involved with the string of deaths last spring, or the trail of bodies dotted from Seattle to our very doorstep over the past few months. Or the sightings of monstrous bears and wolves... Not that that would have anything to do with a family of gangsters, but it was curious that Smith, who allegedly was here for that very reason, fled upon the unrelated return of the Cullens. Still, there hadn't been a death since.

As I reached the bottom of my cigarette, there was one thing firmly rattling around in my mind that I just couldn't kick, and I just kept repeating it over and over and over again: "Billy was right about the Cullens."

"Steve, we're gonna add the Cullen's place to our afternoon rounds," I said as I stepped back inside. He didn't look all too enthused.

"They're way the hell out up Elk Creek Ridge and they're the only house up there," Steve whined. "What's the point in that? You think someone might wanna break in there or something?"

"No. But come to think of it, they're some of our wealthiest – if not the wealthiest – residents of Forks, so if someone were looking to do a smash-and-grab, it's a prime spot," I argued.

"Well yeah but you'd assume the doc would have some pretty serious security system set up then, hey? With all that cash and all those fancy cars."

That, and whatever dragon's hoard of guns, drugs, counterfit bills, or who knows what else they might be hiding, I thought, but didn't dare yet say.

"It's not our place to decide who does and doesn't need to be checked in on. They're back in town now, so we should be keeping an eye out, and it was, frankly, a failing on our part for not having them included in the rounds before they left in the first place. Afternoon rounds, Steve, and a report on any unknown vehicles parked up there."

"That wouldn't happen to include a certain red truck, now would it Chief?" Janet asked. I hesitated. As much as I would like an official report on just how often Bells was at the Cullen's house, my old instinct of not being that helicopter parent, combined with the need for the department to know that these new orders were definitively not due to their boss just wanted to keep an eye on his kid, led me to answer, "No. No worries about that. And Steve?"

"Yeah, Chief?"

"I'll handle today's afternoon rounds."