10:07 AM

17
10:07 AM

     Deputy Powell sat in the car with the map on his lap, trying to figure it out, when he realized the path of least resistance was just to start knocking on whatever door until he was told the right way.
     He folding back up the map and drove to the first house he saw.
     There was a rumbling the back, but no one answered the door.
     He rang the doorbell again.
     "Sheriff's Department," he said. "I'd like to ask you a few questions if I could."
     The door opened, but it was just a little boy.
     "Hey there. Anybody else home?"
     The boy looked up, his finger firmly up his nose working on a booger. He shook his head.
     "Do you happen to know where the Haverfords live?"
     He walked up, his eyes full of either purpose or fear and pointed down the road.
     "Thank you," Deputy Powell said honestly, and then he took a took a quarter out of his pocket and gave it to him. The boy looked almost like he wasn't sure what it was, but he figured if someone gave it to him it must have something good about it, and put ran to put it in a hiding place he had. "Alright then," the Deputy said. "Thank you. Goodbye."
     Scenes like that made his heart break. Here was a child no more than two or three getting by by themselves. He supposed it was on him to call child services, but then, expectations were a bit different out here. There could be folks checking on him throughout the day. There was no way of knowing. Plus, could have been a brief trip to the store.
     He drove down the block to what he now believed was the Haverford house, and knocked on that door.
     Immediately a door opened wide.
     "What do you want?"
     "Hi. I'm Deputy Powell, from the Sheriff's Department."
     "Yeah, hi. What do you want?"
     "I'm looking for Nicole Haverford. Are you her father?"
     "Yeah, I am. She in trouble for something?"
     "No. Not at all. I hear she's working on a nursing degree in Austin. Highly commendable."
     "She is."
     "The trouble is, doctor she worked for has been shot."
     "Oh, I heard about that."
     "The office manager told us your daughter might have got a good look at a good might be the killer, or might even know who he is. Trouble is, she doesn't have any way to contact her."
     "Oh, you want her number at school. I have that."
     The man went into the back of the house, and then came out with his little book. "This is it."
     He showed Deputy Powell the book with the phone number underlined.
     "Thank you so much. You wouldn't happen to remember her mentioning, in the time she worked for the doctor, anybody that threatened her personally, or threatened anybody else at the practice."
     "To be honest, she's the quiet sort of girl. The kind you go into her room and the curtains are on fire, and she tells you calmly 'that there might be a little problem with the curtains.'"
     "I understand."
     "It's terrible about that doctor, though. I really did appreciate him giving my daughter some work experience."
     "We'll get the guy that did it, don't you worry, but every little bit helps, you know? Thank you for your cooperation."
     "Sure, sure."
     "Well, I guess I'll be on my way. You should take this card, though, just in case you think of anything, or the wife thinks of anything--"
     "It's just me."
     "Well, anyway, sometimes people think of things. I want you to call if you do."
     "I will."
     "Alright, then."
     Deputy Powell rather softly closed the screen door that was bent and only on one hinge. The siding around it looked no better, with insulation coming out of a part of it next to the door. There was some furniture on the patio, but it seemed to be made of discarded pieces of other furniture fitted together, and there was quite the collection of spider webs in the dark corner by the two chairs and a tree stump table.
     The front window had a hole in it which was patched up with tape, though was sagging slowly, and the whole thing was probably a stiff breeze away from falling apart entirely.
     Hard to think, Deputy Powell shuddered, that these people don't do something about their living condition. But, he supposed there wasn't much to do. Not around here. Not without a truck that worked at least as often as it didn't.
     He wanted to help, he really did, but instead he just went back to the cruiser and drove back to the Department.
     "You get that number?" Margaret said.
     "I did. I'll call her right now."
     He stood there a moment too long.
     "Anything else, deputy?"
     "Terrible the way people are living out there."
     'You're telling me! Got two cousins live out that way. Like a third world country! I don't even bother to visit them these days, got so tired of the whole thing."
     "You don't think something ought to be done?"
     "Oh sure something ought to be done. A lot of those people ought to get a decent job, or just move away entirely. There's nothing there. I suppose, in time, they will, or die."
     Deputy Powell nodded, and went over to his desk.
     He paused for a second before picking up the phone and dialing.
     The machine.
     "Hi, Nicole this is Desmond Powell calling you from the Sheriff's Department in Flat Bluff County, back home. If you could call me at your earliest convenience. It involves a matter of some importance."
     Deputy Powell gave the number and hung up.
     He still wasn't satisfied, but there was nothing much he could do about it at that moment, so he went over to the snack table and got a cup of coffee, as well.