Kathleen Creighton: One More Knight

Troy was grinning himself as he backed the Jeep around and drove down the driveway and turned onto the main road. It felt good to be heading out on a warm summer night. It had been a long time since he’d had a mission-a place to go and somebody needing him. Okay, as missions went it wasn’t much, fetching a maid of honor out of a small-town Alabama jail, but it did beat the hell out of installing light fixtures and intercoms. If there was anything the past few weeks had taught him, it was that he wasn’t cut out to be a handyman.

Not that he had a clue what he was cut out for. To tell the truth, he’d never thought much about it. His life had been focused on training and conditioning, keeping himself in a constant state of readiness as a member of the most elite and effective strike force in the world. On missions the focus became the job, and survival-his own and that of the other members of the team-in that order. He’d learned not to think too far beyond that, nor to form emotional ties or acquire too many responsibilities.

Now he was learning that he was highly trained for a lot of things, most of which had very little application in a peaceful world. And that having few responsibilities and emotional ties was a sure-fire recipe for loneliness.

To drown out that thought, he tuned the radio to a golden-oldies station out of Atlanta and opened the windows and let the car fill with the soft June night and the sweet smell of honeysuckle. He rolled down the back windows, too, so Bubba could stick his nose out and feel the wind tearing past his ears, which he thought might be a dog’s idea of heaven. Troy understood that. He felt a little bit the same way himself.

He picked up an hour at the Alabama state line, so it was only about eleven o’clock local time-2300 hours by the way he was used to reckoning-when he rolled past the Mourning Spring city-limits sign. Though by the time he’d driven another two miles without coming to anything resembling a city, he thought the sign was maybe a little bit optimistic.

Then, just when he was beginning to wonder if he’d missed it somehow, he drove past a sign that said Mourning Springs Motel. It was attached to one of those places that always seemed to him to belong to the same era as convertibles and drive-in movies, a row of dismal little one-story units painted a sickly green with doors that opened directly onto an asphalt parking lot. He was glad to see, though, that the Vacancy sign was lit up.

Even more encouraging, B.B.’s Barn, which occupied a cinder-block building across the street, appeared to be doing a booming business on this Friday night, and one of the two gas stations on the next corner was still open. He didn’t stop to ask directions to the jail; like most men, Troy liked to do his own reconnaissance.

Which didn’t prove to be too difficult. The main road into the town, which was empty of both cars and people, led him right to the town’s hub, a brick-paved traffic circle built around a nice little park and lit up with modern street lamps to a bleached and ghostly emptiness. He drove once around the square, past a stately brick courthouse and old-fashioned stores that had once housed banks and hardware and department and drugstores, and a five-and-dime or two. Now the signs in the windows mostly peddled antiques and real estate and insurance and flowers. There were a couple of restaurants, one of the basic-diner variety, the other a pizza place-both closed and dark even on a Friday night. Mourning Spring was definitely a town that rolled up its sidewalks soon after the sun went down.

On his second time around the square, alerted by a sign that said Police and an arrow pointing the way, Troy turned down one of the streets. A block farther on, slowing for the flashing yellow caution light over the street in front of the Mourning Spring Fire Department, he discovered that the police department evidently occupied the same building, with an entrance in the rear.

He parked in the brightly lit and almost empty parking lot, ran Bubba’s window down far enough for him to get his nose out and told him to stay. Bubba’s reply was a whine, followed by a heart-rending howl that followed Troy all the way to the door marked Mourning Spring Police Dept., Ring Bell For Admittance.

Troy pushed on the buzzer once and then tried the door, and since it was unlocked, he went on in. That put him in a little tiny vestibule with doors on both sides and a window straight ahead, behind which he could see a dispatcher sitting at a desk surrounded by muttering radios and glowing computer screens. The dispatcher had one hand cupped over the ear part of his headset and his elbow propped on the desk, and since whatever he was listening to didn’t appear to have him too excited, Troy went ahead and tapped on the glass to get his attention.

The dispatcher, who appeared to be the only officer on the premises, glanced up, nodded once and went on with his business. When he had it taken care of, he swiveled his chair around and got out of it, ambled over to the glass and said, “Yes, sir, can I help you?” The voice came through the glass muffled, sounding a mile away.

“Well, now, I hope so,” Troy said, raising his voice but smiling in a comradely way. He hadn’t quite figured out yet how he was going to play this, but the way he saw it, it was always a smart move to get on the good side of whoever was in charge. “What I’m lookin’ for is your jail.”

The officer, who, according to the pin on his pocket, was named Baylor, did not smile back. He had meaty-looking jowls and a buzz haircut and was built like the back end of a truck- sort of reminded Troy of Sergeant Carter on the old Gomer Pyle TV show. “Which jail would that be, sir?”

Troy scratched his head. “Lord, I don’t know. You got more’n one?”

“We got the county jail, down on Court Street, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for visitin’ hours tomorrow, sir. Unless you’re lookin’ for somebody in holding.”

“Holding?” Even though he’d been raised by people who would have skinned him alive if he’d ever been stupid enough to get himself arrested, and consequently his personal experience with such things was limited, Troy did know what “holding” was. He was just feeling his way.

And the dumb-and-innocent approach did seem to be working; at least Officer Baylor finally cracked a smile. “Drunk tank. Mostly.”

“Ah.” Troy thought about it. Hard as it was to imagine a friend of Mirabella’s occupying a drunk tank, it seemed even less likely that one could have done anything to warrant actual jail time. “Damned if I know. Person I’m lookin’ for is named Phelps. Charly. That’s a woman.” He took a wild guess and added, “About mid-thirties.”

“Oh, yeah, sure-she’s back there.” Officer Baylor relaxed some more and jerked his head toward the door on Troy’s right. “Already been processed. I’m just waitin’ on confirmation of her ID. Should be gettin’ that from the California DMV any minute now. Then she’s free to go. She’s gonna need a ride, though. Her car’s not goin’ anywhere.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Troy uneasily, more than ever sure he was about to have an inebriated woman on his hands and looking forward to it less and less. “Why’s that?”

“Tried her best to climb a tree with it, is what I understand.”

“Oh, boy.” It wasn’t difficult to look shocked at that bit of news. “Is she okay?”

“Oh, yeah, just a little shaken up. She’s seen a doctor, everything checks out okay. But, uh…” He paused. “Turns out there’s a stolen-vehicle report out on the car.”

“Oh, man.” Oh, Lord, thought Troy, this was getting better and better by the minute. What in the hell had he gotten himself into?

Officer Baylor, who seemed to have become downright chatty now that he’d unbent, put up a hand to reassure him. “That’s lookin’ like just some sort of a misunderstanding. Turns out there were papers in the glove box. It’s a rental.”