The room was done in black leather furniture and chrome and glass tables. It had a clean but dated look—expensive, but terribly out of style—Mickey noticed a small pipe sticking out from behind a lamp on an end table. Mickey suspected it had been hastily tucked away when the red and blue lights flashed across the window. Mickey wasn’t interested in it, but it could be a reason to make an arrest if it turned out he needed a reason. The coach’s behavior was odd enough to put Mickey on guard.
“Billy,” Mickey pointed down the hallway, “check the rooms back there.”
“Right away, Chief.” Billy darted down the corridor, flipping on the light switches as he went.
Mickey eyed Ron, still standing near the doorway, trying to look like he didn’t care about two cops rifling through his house. Near the door, a small cluster of baseball bats leaned into a corner. Under the circumstances, they should be considered weapons, and Mickey tried to lead Ron away from them. He turned and walked through the living room and into the kitchen. “The team looked pretty good tonight.”
He could hear Ron following. “Yeah, they’re doing okay. It’s tough to get them to practice. No discipline, you know how kids are.”
“Sure.” Mickey stood in the kitchen. It was a large, galley style room with cabinets dating from the fifties. Mickey imagined very little of it had been replaced since the house was built. The stove and refrigerator were newer, but still quite old. It had the feel of a kitchen where no serious cooking ever got done. Much like his own kitchen. There was a door in the wall at the end of the room. Mickey pointed to it. “This go downstairs?”
“Yeah, there’s a little cellar down there. Mostly full of junk.”
Mickey opened it and flipped on the light. A bare bulb revealed a set of steep wood stairs. He went down them and peered into the small room below. It was piled with ice chests and other camping gear. Along one wall was a large stack of old cardboard boxes filled with mason jars. On top of them was a dusty textbook about nonlinear optical physics.
“You do a lot of canning?” Mickey asked, as he came back up the stairs and into the kitchen.
“Oh, that stuff was here when I moved in. I’m just lazy, I guess.” Ron leaned against the counter with his back to the sink and his arms folded across his chest.
“How long you been here?” Mickey knew the answer, more or less, but was trying to keep the small talk going.
“Oh, about four years.”
“Where were you before that?”
“I worked at a refinery in Houston.” Ron shifted his weight and scratched behind his ear as he spoke. But despite the agitated nature of his movements, there was a certain smugness to his voice. It was almost as if he were daring someone to prove him wrong. Mickey guessed it was connected to Ron’s having his home suddenly invaded by police. He sensed a palpable outrage just below the surface of their mundane conversation.
Mickey nodded at the comment about Houston and waited for Billy to return from the other end of the house. As far as Mickey could tell, there wasn’t anything going on and perhaps the 911 call really had been a mistake. The silence between them lingered and Mickey filled it. “You come out here for the job?”
Ron nodded, “Yep. Driving forklift.”
Just then, Billy entered the kitchen and stood, looking at the two of them. He shook his head as he spoke. “I couldn’t find anything, Chief. I don’t understand who could have called.”
“I told you.” Ron shrugged. “I didn’t call 911. Hell, you hear all the time about people calling and no one ever showing up, but I’ve never heard of the cops showing up when no one calls at all. Seems kind of funny to me.” The way he said it made it clear that he meant suspicious, not humorous.
“I’m sure you can understand,” Mickey began, turning to walk back through the living room, “we have a protocol. You always have to go through the house in case there’s someone trapped somewhere.” Mickey turned back and grinned at Ron. “Those are just the rules.”
“Hey, I understand having rules. But they’re your rules, not mine. I never asked anyone to hook me up to the 911 system, and I’d be perfectly happy to be taken off the list.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not a system you can opt out of. If