“HOW THE HELL are you doing up there, Nate? Miss us?” The welcome in Manny’s voice surprised him. He had half expected his sergeant to ask him to identify himself, but it hadn’t been that long. That was an illusion on his side.
“Not so bad, Manny,” he said.
“You’re being polite. I bet you’re going stir-crazy. Pace up there is slow as molasses, as I recall.”
“So what’s going on these days?” Nathan asked casually.
“Since I can’t reach you up there in the boondocks any old which way, you’re asking for a couple of weeks of data. Doesn’t matter, I can give it in a nutshell. Hold on.”
Nathan heard muffled sounds in the background and a shout and then quiet.
“These interruptions annoy me. Why can’t people behave themselves?” Manny said when he came back on the line.
“If they did you’d be out of a job,” Nathan observed.
“True, true. Well, I’ll say it quick before I get rudely taken away from this conversation again. Paulson is flying high—solving cases right and left. He thinks he is. It’s like working inside a revolving door. Almost every case has to go up for a second review. Criminals back in here so fast I get dizzy. The Captain hired a rookie detective. Nice guy but in way over his head, you ask me. Doesn’t have your flare, Detective Byrne.”
“Call me Nate again,” Nathan said. “Sounds like I’m being replaced.”
“Not possible. We’re just dying here in overload. We need twice as many cops as we have—same old, same old. When’re you coming back?”
“Not sure. You’ll be the first to know.”
“Can’t be too soon. Have fun up there in the meantime. Anything happens here I think you should know, I guess I can reach you by sending one of those letters you put a stamp on,” Manny said, chuckling at his own joke as he hung up the phone.
Nathan had wanted to ask more about Oberson, but that would have compromised Manny, and he didn’t want to do that. If the sergeant could have told him anything else, he would have. He felt a brief dismay that his old world was progressing on without him pretty much in a normal way, but the sensation passed. Familiar as that world was to him, and all of it came back in a rush as he listened, it was also strange, and he realized he had already detached from it at some level.
He was scheduled for another evaluation by the doctor in three weeks. Janis would expect him and send the results to Oberson again and that would probably finish Nathan in the force, because the anomaly was still there, the dreams were still occurring spontaneously, which meant the blackouts were, too. Would their decision prevent his working with Harry? He didn’t want that to happen. How odd, he thought, that his life in Canyon City seemed to matter more than anything they did to him in the city. He’d have to ask Harry about that before he went down to see Janis. Maybe he wouldn’t have to go at all, if he didn’t want his old job back and could keep the one he had. It was something to know.
He dropped the subject from his mind and began his research on Jimmy Norton. There were over eighty logging companies registered in the state, but only one of those was near Jackson. He called its main office and stated his purpose. The receptionist told him he needed to talk to the side rod, the foreman of the logging crew, she explained, and put him on hold.
“Becker here,” said a pleasant and confident voice when the call went through.
“This is Detective Byrne, out of Canyon City, working with the sheriff here, Harry Turner. We’re looking for information on a logger of yours.”
YOU ARE READING
The Magic Hour
Mystery / Thriller"It was not exactly dark, but a kind of twilight or gloaming. There were neither windows nor candles, and he could not make out where the twilight came from, if not through the walls and roof." -Childe Rowland "T...
