David Handler - The Hot Pink Farmhouse

“I’d like that very much.”

“Outstanding! Bring a girl. You got a girl?”

Takai let out a sharp laugh. “Of course he does, Father. Haven’t you heard?” Clearly she had.

This was the downside of small-town life, Mitch reflected. Being talked about behind your back by people you didn’t even know. “As a matter of fact I do, but she’s tied up tonight.”

“Too bad,” said Hangtown. “Come stag, then. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“Father!” scolded Moose.

A crusty old hippie appeared in the barn doorway now. He had a graying ponytail, a wisp of a beard, eyes that were bloodshot and suspicious, skin that was sunburned and leathery. Cords of muscle stuck out on his wrists. It was impossible to place his age. Mitch guessed he was somewhere between fifty and sixty-five. He wore a filthy denim jacket, torn jeans and oil-stained work boots. In a sheath on his belt he carried a large knife. “Let’s get it on, Chief,” he said to Hangtown in a rasping voice. “Else we won’t beat the rush-hour traffic over the bridge.”

“Not you, too,” Hangtown said sourly. “Say hello to Mitch, Big Jim.”

“How ya doing, man?” Jim Bolan, the ex-con, said guardedly.

“You got our smokes, Big Jim?” Hangtown asked him.

“In the truck,” Jim responded, shooing the old man out the door. “Let’s go, Chief. C’mon, c’mon…”

And out the barn door they went, followed closely by Takai, who was in a hurry to see a man about a tree.

Mitch was left there alone with Moose. “I don’t really have to come for dinner,” he said. “I don’t want to impose on you.”

“No, not at all,” she said quickly. Now that it was just the two of them, she seemed a bit uncomfortable. “You’re invited. Please come.”

Mitch stood there looking around at Wendell Frye’s workshop. “I’m having a little trouble believing that this is really happening.”

“That’s a common misconception. My father’s not as reclusive as everyone thinks. He’s simply reached a point in his life where he believes that very few people are worth knowing. He’s eighty-three years old. He has no time left to waste. And he has an instinct about people. I call it his smell test. Most people fail it. You passed.”

The two of them headed back outside. The old Land Rover was still parked in front of the historic hot pink house. The pickup truck and Porsche were gone. The Porsche was Takai’s, not that Mitch had doubted it for a moment.

“It sure is pink, isn’t it?” he said, gazing at the house.

“Father likes to do the unexpected. That’s what passes for normal around here.”

“How come I passed?” Mitch asked her.

“I don’t know,” Moose replied. “And I probably know that man as well as anyone. The only thing I’ve ever been able to figure out is that he can’t stand anyone who’s selling something.”

“But everyone is selling something, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do,” she said, turning her gaze on Mitch. There was a scrupulous absence of sexuality in her gaze, especially compared to her sister. Or maybe because of her sister. “What are you selling, Mitch?”

It was the high schoolers in their Jeep Wranglers who were her biggest headache, Des had come to discover as she stood out there in the middle of Dorset Street with her orange reflector vest on, making her official presence felt.

They were just so jacked up on their hormonal energy and deafening suburban hip-hop that the posted speed limit of twenty-five felt like a baby’s crawl. Most of them were doing forty when they hit the high school driveway and that was simply not acceptable, because both the high school and middle school were located directly behind Center School. Dozens of school buses were pulling in and out. Soccer moms in minivans were dropping their kids off. More kids were arriving on their bikes and… well, it was a major public safety situation.

Speeding tickets? She’d tried that, but tickets didn’t mean a thing to these kids in Dorset. Their parents just paid the tickets for them, same as they paid for everything else. Out of sheer frustration, she’d resorted to this-standing in the damned street-holding some of the traffic up, waving some of it on through, trying to keep it under control and moving. Knowing full well that if the Deacon saw her out there like this he would have himself a stroke.

Christ, all I need is a pair of white gloves and a whistle.

In all honesty, becoming a resident trooper was a bigger adjustment than Des had anticipated. She hadn’t just changed jobs-she’d changed careers. She was in community relations now, not law enforcement. Her role was to be a liaison between the state police and this stable gold-coast community that was home to more millionaires per square mile than East Hampton. She handed out free trigger locks for handguns, signed off on fender benders, made sure the kids got home in one piece from their keggers on the beach. If a break-in went down, she picked up the new digital handheld radio that connected her to the Troop F barracks in Westbrook and they took over. Anything hot, Westbrook called Major Crime Squad Central District headquarters in Meriden, her old crew.

Not that she’d had a single hot call yet. In fact, the only ongoing crime problem she’d encountered was a roving late-night gang of high-spirited local boys who liked to spray-paint erect penises on store windows and proudly sign their work-they called themselves the Mod Squad. Lately, they’d also taken to stealing things out of unlocked parked cars. The town fathers were not amused, and Des was under tremendous pressure from First Selectman Paffin to nail them. She was finding leads hard to come by. It was not easy building trust when she was still finding her own way-especially in a village with such a pigment-free population. Face it, Des saw only one face of color all day long-her own in the mirror. Not that anyone had acted unfriendly toward her. It was a very polite town. They respected the uniform. They respected order. It’s just that she was different. Plus she was a young single woman. She was not going to cultivate local relationships in her off-duty hours by hanging at the barbershop or the fire house swapping fish tales. No, she had to find a new way, a way that suited her.

And fast.

On this particular morning she was presenting DARE awards to a classroom full of Center School second graders. When she was done with traffic detail she unlocked the trunk of her cruiser, stowed her reflector vest and removed one kid-sized DARE baseball jacket and five stuffed animals-the Drug Abuse Resistance Education mascot was a fuzzy lion named Darren. Then she slammed the trunk shut and started up the bluestone path to the front doors.

Center School was a beautiful old building of whitewashed brick and granite with a slate roof. There was no metal detector at its front doors. No bars on its windows, no gang markings on its walls. It was a throwback. Which, Des supposed, was why people had such strong feelings for and against it.

She went inside, her big leather belt creaking, and started down a corridor lined with class photographs and Halloween art projects. It had been a long time since she’d been inside a grammar school. It was the smells that struck her the most, those forgotten childhood smells of finger paint, glue and heavy-duty floor cleanser. The principal’s office, where she got directions to Miss Frye’s room, had a knee-high drinking fountain outside the door. It was a bright, sunny classroom filled with tiny desks for tiny, tiny people. A motto written in big blue letters stretched across the wall over the blackboard: A GOOD BOOK IS A GOOD FRIEND.

Miss Frye’s second graders were scrubbed, alert and excited, although Des couldn’t help but notice that most of them still had their jackets on. Three big windows were thrown wide open and two fans were circulating fresh, chilly morning air throughout the entire room. Miss Frye herself wore only a dowdy cardigan sweater over a blue denim jumper. She was a strongly built farm girl with muscular flanks and a gentle, natural manner with the children. Des wondered if she was one of the Fryes.