with us. They smelled like military, and being ex-military would have given them clout with the cops. Nicky and Dev were just going to set off their bad-guy sensors, and nothing about the two handsome, physically imposing, armed men was going to endear them to the cops. Crap.
10
Deputy Al Truman was tall and thin, with disproportionately large hands and feet, as if he’d hit that growth spurt in his teens where the extremities are big and clumsy and his body never caught up with the rest of him. It made me expect him to be awkward, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t grace personified, but he was normal, and I was betting I wasn’t the only person who had been fooled into thinking he’d be clumsy. I wondered how many suspects had expected him to move badly and gotten surprised.
He took off his cowboy hat with its official-looking band. In another part of the country it would have been a more typical Smokey Bear hat. Those big hands rubbed the hat brim over and over like a nervous habit of long duration. His brown hair was crushed by the hat but looked like it had some wave to it, but whoever cut his hair had managed to butcher it so that it was just a mess, hat or no hat.
‘I hate that you’re coming home to this, Mike.’
Micah nodded. ‘Me, too, Al.’ He turned to me and Nathaniel. ‘Al and I went to high school together.’
‘I was best friends with Richie. We went through boot together.’
Al assumed I knew the family tragedy that had turned Micah into a wereleopard, and he was right, but I thought the assumption was interesting. I was betting that Micah’s mother, or someone, had told him who I was, and then he said, ‘You must be Anita,’ and he offered to shake hands. Yep, someone had been talking.
‘How did you know …’ Micah started to ask.
‘Your mom said you’d be bringing your fiancée. Congratulations, we were all thinking you were going to be an old maid.’
It took me a second to realize he was still talking to Micah and not me.
‘I just had to meet the right people,’ Micah said. I don’t know if anyone caught the ‘people’ part, but the next officer stepped up and offered his hand and introduced himself.
Sergeant Michael Horton kept his Smokey Bear hat on; it went with his Colorado state trooper uniform. He was younger than all of us, except Nathaniel and Dev, though I’d noticed that people assumed Dev was older than he was, because he was tall. The taller you were, the more years people added to your age at an earlier age, just like they thought you were younger if you were shorter. Most people would have added years onto Sergeant Horton’s age because he was over six feet, but I didn’t add them; I knew better. He was twenty-five tops, which would actually make him a couple of years older than Dev and Nathaniel.
The hair that showed around his hat was buzz-cut short and if he hadn’t spent a few years in the military I’d lose a bet with someone. I would have bet even money it had been the Marines.
‘Sheriff Callahan is a good man,’ Horton said as he shook Micah’s hand.
‘Thank you.’
But Horton looked behind us all at Dev and Nicky, one big, physical guy sizing up the competition. That he discounted the rest of us made me take points off his I-would-depend-on-him-in-a-crisis card.
Sergeant Ray Gonzales stepped into the silence. He was with the Boulder Police Department. He was just under six feet, but built big like Nicky so he seemed taller. His shoulder width didn’t come out of a gym, and there was even a slight stomach bulge starting to fight with his equipment belt. Gonzales was just a big-framed man, built like a huge rectangle. He was going a little soft with age, which had to be closing in on sixty, but most of him was more solid than he looked. He reminded me of one of our guards, Dino, who looked out of shape and ran like a lumbering elephant, but all that bulk was solid and he was one of the few guards who I never, ever wanted to hit me for real.
He hugged Micah. ‘I’m glad you came, Mike. It’ll mean a lot to Rush.’
‘I just wish I’d come sooner.’
‘You’re here now, that’s what counts.’
‘I know,’ Micah said, and something about Gonzales had made him more emotional.
‘I’ve known Mike