He awoke from the dream, paralyzed with fear; sweat gluing the sheets to his body. Reflexively, his hand fell to the grip of the pistol on his nightstand. Sweeping the firearm and a storm of small debris off the wooden piece of furniture, he sat up swiftly, playing the barrel of the pistol across the room. Assured that he was alone, he cleared the weapon and then reloaded it. Re-chambering the same round over and over was asking for a catastrophic failure of the weapon, but at this point Leon no longer cared. Sighing, he put his hands to his head and closed his eyes. The cold steel of the pistol's slide felt good against his almost fevered forehead. Throwing the twisted sheets off of his body, he got to his feet and strode across his room to open the window. The night wind whipped the drapes into fleeting forms vaguely reminiscent of elusive ghosts, playing serpentine fingers across his cheeks. The wind brought with it the scent of trees – pine and maple. He exhaled, letting all of his anxiety bleed away into the night with the last traces of his breaths. Turning away from the window, he glanced at the digital clock on the dresser by the door. Four past midnight. Not bad. He'd managed to pick up a few hours of unbroken sleep for once. Leon was forced to squint after he flicked on the light switch – bright fluorescent light flooded his room, revealing a habitat so "squared away" that even the most hard assed drill instructor wouldn't be able to find fault with it. That is, of course, if they overlooked the mess of a bed and the mess on the floor. Leon kneeled and began gathering the spilled medications and prescriptions that had fallen from the nightstand when he had grabbed his pistol.
The day became a series of routines. Turn down the bed. Late night television. Mile run at the stroke of six. Cook breakfast. Eat. Shower. Dress and make ready for work. Every day was an exercise in repetition. Leon wondered if it would ever end. As he shut and locked the door to his apartment, he had a funny feeling that today would be the day that somehow brought an end to the meaningless practice that his life had become.
The door to Mount Forest's sheriff department announced its opening with a homely tinkling of bells. The receptionist and dispatcher, a petite brunette named Chelsea, welcomed him with a warm smile as the door shut behind him.
"Mornin' chief, you're early for once."
Leon smiled at the almost traditional greeting.
"So are you."
The two had been fast friends since Leon had first started work as an officer in the small town of Mount Forest. Both of them often showed up before their shifts started and relieved the people on call an hour or two before they were supposed to.
Chelsea rose and handed him a cup of steaming black coffee.
"Just the way you like it. Black with a few sugars."
"A few? Should I be worried about my blood sugar levels?" The hints of a smile played at the corner of Leon's mouth.
Chelsea cast an approving glance over him.
"No way. Not with your body."
Leon laughed, and thanked her for the coffee as he made his way into "The Trench". The sign above the door was lovingly affixed to the spot between the roof and the top of the door jamb. Duct tape and masking tape held it in place. It was made of cardboard and poorly cut out red construction paper letters. A signature so small you would've needed a magnifying glass to see it read "Nolan". Leon smiled to himself and reached up to give the sign a pat before heading to his office.
Passing by several cubicles, he noticed that one of them was occupied. Sighing, he walked over and was not surprised to fine one of his deputies asleep at his desk. Nolan Rogers, five feet and ten inches of childish pranks and practical jokes, lay dead to the world in his cubicle. Placing his coffee in the adjoining cubicle and rummaging through one of the drawers in Nolan's filing cabinet, Leon extracted an air horn. He braced himself, and let off one quick blast from the toy. Nolan exploded into action, leaping up and flailing.
"Huh – wazzat!? The fu- Oh. Sir."
From the reception area, Leon heard a peal of laughter.
"You can go home, Nolan. I'll hold the fort for awhile. And do something about that sign sometime, will you?"
Nolan grinned, his creased face falling easily into the laugh lines
that were a permanent part of his visage. He ran a hand through his
short black hair and snapped a mock salute in respect of the
"order".
"No way sir. The trenches are where people worked
and gave their lives back in the world wars. We're doin' the same
thing here – just not on such a grand scale, y'know?"
Leon picked up his coffee and spoke over his shoulder before closing the door to his office.
"If you say so."
The local newspaper, the Mount Forest Gazette, was waiting for him on his desk. As Leon picked it up, something fell out and landed on his desk. A disc complete with clear case. Someone had scrawled "PLAY ME" in large block letters across the front. Leon remembered the last time Nolan had suckered him with one of those. He had burned some kind of "optical illusion" onto a disc, and then pulled the same gag. It had ended up being a prank, where after placing his nose an inch from the screen, a picture had popped up… accompanied by one hell of a scream coming from the speakers that Nolan had secretly turned up. Leon had just about pissed himself and nearly managed to ruin a good pair of pants by spilling coffee all over them. Nolan thought it was hilarious, and Leon had to admit, that in retrospect, it was pretty funny. Smiling, he placed the disk to the side of his desk and opened the newspaper.
The usual small town gossip and scandal was quickly passed over in favour of the editorial section. Particularly, the section written by that attention craving harlot, Madison Scherer. In the past few months she had done nothing but criticize Leon and the entire sheriff's department. Phrases such as "Money wasting ineffective jokes of law enforcement officers" often abounded in her articles. Today's article was perhaps the most shocking yet. Leon came out of his chair directly onto his feet, the pages in danger of ripping, so tight was the hold he had on them.
"Chels!" he called, "Call Nolan back in. He's still got another hour or so of time to be here. If you can't reach him, call Mike up and ask him if he can fill in for awhile. Beg if you have to."
Her reply came back muted through two doors and fifty feet of air.
"Affirmative, but why?"
"I have something I need to take care of…"
The home of Madison Scherer was modest and blended perfectly with the suburban neighbourhood it inhabited. Such was the mark of a good snoop. Madison's house had no lawn ornaments to set it apart from any other. There was no intricate landscaping; no uniquely crafted window shutters; not even a slightly different paint job to set it apart from the neighbouring houses. A person could look right at it and keep on looking. Madison Scherer was an expert at blending in.
Early morning tranquility and calm was lost on Leon Scott Kennedy. He had to restrain himself from kicking in her front door, and instead resolved to pound on it until his hand went numb. Upon which, he used his other hand. He heard half a dozen bolts being drawn back, and a voice that oozed like honey calling "Coming, hold on please!"
When the door opened, Madison's face changed from a fawning smile to a barely concealed frown.
"Oh, it's you. How surprising. I wasn't expecting to see you until around after noon, Mr. Kennedy. Or should I say, Special Agent Kennedy?" A sickening smile had appeared on her face as she spoke the last few words.
"How did you find out? Who told you? Where'd –"
"One question at a time please, Mr. Kennedy. If you'd like, I'll make it easy for you and just say this. A little bird in red told me."
Leon froze.
Ada? his mind whirled, as the possibilities of that one sentence bounced around in his head.
"What do you mean, a little bird in red?"
"I can't say much; that was one of her conditions. I can tell you however, that she was quite the noble type."
Leon did not miss the obvious hint, though he didn't understand it. He changed tack.
"Get
that story off the press. Now!"
"Can't," she replied
airily, waving a hand in dismissal, "Already in print. If you'd
like, you can try and hit every convenience store and paper boy in
town… but I don't need to tell you that you'd be wasting your
time."
Leon was incredulous. All these years he'd managed to keep the past behind him, and now, because of this… this bitch, he'd have to pick up and start over again.
"I'm going to sue you."
"You won't."
He realized that she was right. She had only written enough to implicate him in the barest of ways. The whole story had come just short of flat out accusing him of being a government agent tucked away in some backwater county – to lessen the damage he could cause. The problem wasn't that it was true. The problem was that he had been hoping that that part of his life was behind him – he had believed it was behind him. His life here was still salvageable. If she wrote any more… the quaint little existence he had built for himself in this town would come crashing down around him.
What he was about to do caused him to grit his teeth and swallow every last bit of pride in his body.
"Don't print any more. That's best for me, and definitely for you. Please…?"
"Threats of violence?" She gave a wry laugh. "You don't have to ask. That was another condition set forth. But I'm so glad you did."
Leon spun on his heel and walked away from the door, the reporter's light laughter haunting each of his steps like a dog snapping at his heels.
Back in the squad car, Leon sat fuming for a moment before turning the key in the ignition. As the engine of the cruiser rumbled to life, a squawk burst from the scanner followed by Chelsea's voice.
" – nedy, do you read? Come in, Sheriff Kennedy."
Leon hesitated only a moment before hitting the response key.
"Dispatch, this is Kennedy, go ahead, over."
The relief in Chelsea's voice was immediately apparent.
"Just in time, chief. I was about to wake up Nolan and ask him to
cruise the streets looking for you."
"Chels, if this is about
that newspaper artic-"
"Don't sweat it chief, I read it before you came in this morning. You're Leon to me, always have been and always will be. Who you might have been before and who you are now… those are different things."
Leon slumped in his seat with relief. He hadn't realized how much he had come to love this little town and the people in it. It felt good to know that some people wouldn't care about whether or not he had been a government agent.
"Thanks Chels… that means a lo-"
"Would you shut it for a minute, chief? Mike's got a situation and he needs assistance. Like, five minutes ago."
Leon's cop mode kicked in, and he swung the car into the street.
"What happened?"
"Something big. Homicide, chief. Or that's what the person who called it in said."
Leon flicked on the emergency lights, their red and blue glow made seemingly insignificant by the morning sun. The wail of the sirens was swallowed up by distance as Leon sped away, leaving the suburbs once again to their morning tranquility.