Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets

Thirty-Three

Tate came into Jesse’s office after his shift, wearing his tailored uniform.

“Molly said you wanted to see me, Jesse?”

Jesse closed the door. He didn’t want to embarrass Tate.

“Derek, I have a question for you. It’s important.”

Tate looked back at him, his face blank.

“Why do you want to be a cop?” Jesse asked.

Tate began to smile. “Didn’t we already go over this? In my first interview?”

“Let’s say I forgot. Tell me again: Why do you want to do this?”

Tate smirked. “Because I can help people.”

“Really?” Jesse said. “Who did you help today?”

“What?”

“On patrol. Who did you help today?”

“I don’t... Are you asking for what I did with my time? You think I’m slacking?”

“No,” Jesse said. “I really want to know. Who did you help?”

“I don’t understand. I answered my calls, I did my time out there like you told me—”

“Who did you help?” Jesse asked again. “Did you talk to Tish at Moxie’s about the graffiti that’s been popping up in the alley behind her store? Did you park by the middle school and keep people from speeding down Village Street when the kids are coming out of class? Did you stop at the Gray Gull for lunch and listen to the regulars complain?”

Tate turned away from Jesse and shook his head, his cheeks flushing. “Look, I don’t know everyone in this little town the same way you do.”

“Did you give a tourist directions? Did you help an old lady cross the street or get a little girl’s cat out of a tree? Anything at all like that?”

“That’s not what real cops do.”

Jesse sat back in his chair.

“It’s not? Because I’ve done it. I’ve done all that. And I write budgets and I talk to the mayor and I go to council meetings. Being a cop isn’t all running and gunning. Even when I was with LAPD—”

“Yeah, I’ve heard what you did with LAPD,” Tate muttered.

Jesse chose not to hear him. “There were days when all I did was the regular stuff. Taking reports. Writing citations. Knocking on doors and asking the same question over and over again.”

“You mean like how you handled that guy yesterday?”

“That was a mistake.”

Tate scoffed. Then he saw that Jesse was serious.

“What?”

“I let it go too far.”

“The guy got in your face, what else were you supposed to do?”

Jesse looked at Tate while he searched for the right words. “That’s the point,” he said. “That guy was an idiot. A bully and a loudmouth. If I can’t outwit someone like him, I’m not trying hard enough. I should have found another way.”

“Are you serious?”

“Look. Usually, if someone’s meeting up with us, something has gone wrong in their lives. We’re probably seeing them at their worst moment. And we have a choice. We can be the ones who help them out of it, or we can be the ones who make it even worse. It’s a split-second decision sometimes. But you have to live with the consequences forever.”

“Oh, bullshit, Jesse,” Tate said. “It’s not that simple. And you know it. What happens when you run into the other guy? The one who pulls his gun?”

“Actually, that’s when it gets really simple. What I worry about is a cop who tries to make every situation that simple.”

“What? What does that even mean?”

“It’s easy when it’s bad guys versus good guys, Derek. The job is hard when it’s just you and some people out there. When there’s noise and screaming and rage and pointing fingers and nobody has any idea what’s going on. You have to walk into those situations and find out what happens next. You have to rely on your instincts and you have to rely on people you don’t know and you have to listen and wait and see. That’s the hard part. That’s where we show what kind of cops we are.”

Tate laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. “That sounds like the kind of cop who gets shot to me.”

“Sometimes,” Jesse admitted. “Sometimes there is a guy with a gun. But there’s a kind of cop who’s ready to meet him. And then there’s the kind of cop who’s hoping to meet him.”

“I don’t understand,” Tate said.

“I think you do, Derek,” Jesse said. “The question is, what kind of cop do you want to be?”

Tate had an expression on his face like a kid being sent to detention. “What do you want from me?”

“I’d like you to ride with Peter Perkins. Peter’s a veteran. He’s been here longer than I have. He knows everyone. I want him to show you the ropes.”

“You’re giving me a babysitter?”

“That’s not what I said. Peter knows more about Paradise than anyone else in the department, except Molly Crane. He can be an expert resource for you. And since he’s retiring, I want some of that institutional knowledge to get passed down.”

Tate looked like he was struggling to control himself. His jaw set.

“What’s the problem, Derek? Talk to me.”

Tate crossed his arms. “Still sounds like you’re punishing me for what that Daisy...”

Jesse sensed Tate was reaching for a particular word. “Don’t say it,” he warned.

Tate looked offended. “She says it all the time.”

“She can. You can’t.”

Tate rolled his eyes like that was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. But he complied. “Well. It sounds like you’re still punishing me for what that Daisy... person told you.”

“I’m not going to lie, Derek. That concerns me. But it’s not punishment. Think of it as having a partner. I don’t have time to do it, or I’d ride with you myself.”

Tate took a deep breath. Then tried to plaster on another version of his smile. “You’re the boss, Jesse. Whatever you say.”

“You’re okay with this?”

“Absolutely,” Tate said. “Just happy to be on the team.”

Tate left without another word, still with that big smile on his face.

Jesse figured he was insulted. He was young. Jesse would have felt the same way back in his rookie days.

But that smile Tate had on his way out the door bothered him. It looked plastic compared to the one he’d shown when he joked about abusing Peebles in the cells.