Chiefs by Stuart Woods

Author:Stuart Woods [Woods, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2005-07-05T05:00:00+00:00

11

FOXY FUNDERBURKE woke about nine and took his time about rising, as was his custom. When he had shaved and dressed, he went to the kitchen, looking forward to what he would find there.

He felt the tiles first with his hand, then tapped them with a heavily shod foot. Dry. Firm. Foxy was delighted. He ate his breakfast quickly, anxious to finish with the floor. When he was done, he took a stiff brush and scrubbed down the whole surface to remove any vestige of dirt or cement left from his work, then attached a hose to the kitchen faucet and rinsed the floor. He watched delightedly as the water swirled, then inexorably flowed down the cleverly slanted surface to the drain he had installed in the center.

The stains in the old wooden floor had bothered him for years, and now he was rid of them for good. There would be no new stains, either. The glazed surface of the tiles would prevent that. Everything would disappear down the drain. Forever.

His task complete, Foxy went to his closet and pushed back the clothing hanging on the rack to expose another rack behind the first in the deeply built enclosure. From half a dozen things hanging there he chose a neatly pressed shirt and trousers of tan tropical gabardine and draped them across the bed. He dragged a stool over and, reaching to the back of the shelf above the rack, retrieved a peaked cap of matching material. He chose a black woolen necktie and from a box at the back of his sock drawer took two badges. He fixed one to the cap and pinned the other carefully to the shirt. Both badges bore the legend Chief of Police.

Foxy felt good about today. He had had a couple of false starts, lately, suspects who hadn’t panned out, who’d been expected somewhere by somebody. Then Sonny Butts’s visit had shaken him for a couple of days; he’d had to regain his confidence. Now that was back, and the pressure, which had been building for a long time, was nearly unbearable. He knew that because of the pressure he would have to be extra careful not to make mistakes. The need to act had done that to him before, had made him careless in his excitement, and he must not let that happen again. He was in control; he must stay in control. Balancing need against control was the essence of his crusade.

He stared longingly at the uniform. He wanted so much to wear it away from the house, but he controlled the urge. It was too dangerous. He would think of the preliminaries as undercover work, in plain clothes. He had his badge and gun and handcuffs, anyway, should he need them.

He left the house, double-locking the door. He wished, too, that he could have a proper police car, with a black-and-white paint job and a siren. The pickup would have to do.

Foxy was, in fact, a deputy sheriff of Talbot County.

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