Small Town Romance

Chapter 2

One of the reasons Amy's apartment was one of the less exorbitant on the street was the view. The house across the street was the last one on the block that had not been bought, divided up and renovated. It was a little smaller than the others, not as ornate, but still a 'grand lady' of a house. At the moment, however, the view from her bay window was filled with peeling paint, loose shutters and overgrown bushes—classic haunted house look. Considering the going prices for these apartments, Amy had been willing to put up with the view for the considerable discount. But this light moving in the window was different. The light was real. When the moon came out from behind the cloud, the light faded rather than got brighter, so it wasn't just some reflection off of her building.

She considered calling the cops. It's Saturday 2AM and I want to go to the Arts & Crafts Festival in Greene in the morning. I am not stay up all night waiting on the cops, IF they even show up.

But she kept thinking about the light, as she got ready for bed and in the end decided to call the police anyway. If some tramp over there starts a fire, the whole block would probably burn. Pop said 'Do right, especially when its not convenient'. As an afterthought, she realized here was that mystery she kept saying she wanted in her life! But why did mystery and inconvenience go together? Maybe a Lady Jane McMurray adventure wasn't what she wanted after all. So, she called, reported the suspicious activity across the street and told them she didn't need to be contacted about the outcome. She just wanted someone to know.

* * *

He was six foot, two inches tall, two hundred twenty pounds of muscular cop and he worked out four days a week. Patrol Officer Michael Edwards pulled up in front of the dilapidated house, more bored than excited. A light in the upstairs window? Maybe a homeless guy with a stolen flashlight, or a teen boy looking for a place to screw his girlfriend tomorrow night. Or the moon. He glanced in the rear view mirror before he got out of the patrol car. Pleasing, even features. Average looks, brown hair and blue eyes. Nose just a little crooked from a high school fight. He smiled to himself: he won. Time to earn his paycheck.

Michael's work life had officially begun his freshman year of high school washing dishes ten hours a week at Garf's, a local restaurant. It hadn't stopped yet. He began full time two years later and hadn't worked less than forty hours a week since. He got his Associates degree at the Morrisville Extension and then on to Police Academy. For all those years of work, he had the job experience and the savings account to show for it.

Life hadn't been easy but he was grateful for what he was dealt. His father had died before he knew him. His father was an Army officer in the Iraq War. An IDE took out him and two of his best buddies. Two of his father's buddies who survived the blast had kept in close touch, and in many ways they had been fathers to him. One even offered to marry his mother, but she wouldn't and she had struggled ever since. When Michael started college his mother had gotten real clingy and it ended in a big emotional blowup. Mike moved out to live with one of the buddies. He and his mother had patched things up eventually, but it was never the same. Probably shouldn't be anyways, he had thought at the time.

He had his own apartment now, third floor across from the park in the middle of town. Great view and good exercise. He was working his dream job, went to his mother's for Sunday dinner every week, and made a point of keeping her place in repair. He was his own man now.

He was a saver, saving for a house of his own. A big one, big enough that mom could have her own apartment in it and he would have room for a wife and kids. And a big garden. Dad had always had one, mom said.

Being his own man was good, but at about seven o'clock at night, it got lonely. He had friends and co-workers, and he dated. But the women that fell for him seemed as clingy as his mother on her bad days. Or else some kind of tough broad who seemed more interested in his body than anything else. He didn't need that, couldn't stand it. He had friends that went to the titty bars and such. He tried them, but it was obviously fake, the girls were there to earn money, and he didn't have the imagination to make it feel like anything else.