Chapter 24

Mindy didn’t want to use the wand unless it was absolutely necessary. There were too many unintended side effects ... such as Horace’s admission he was having an affair with Gracie Winston. At the same time, she now had some powerful dirt on both of them.

It was that dirt she decided to use on Gracie to get the rest of the information she needed. That was: who came to Gracie to complain about the unwed and pregnant music teacher at the high school.

She didn’t want to chance using the wand again on Gracie, so she simply knocked on the door one evening and when Gracie came to the door, she said, “I know it was you who tried to get me fired, and I know that you and Horace are having an affair. If you don’t want that to become public knowledge, then you’re going to tell me who complained to you about me.”

“That’s blackmail!” gasped Gracie.

“Call it whatever you want to,” said Mindy. “I want the names.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Gracie. “I changed my mind about it. You being pregnant is of no consequence.”

“They’ll just complain to some other board member,” said Mindy. “I need to talk to them, that’s all.”

“But they came to me in confidence,” moaned Gracie.

“And the accused has the right to face her accusers,” pointed out Mindy.

“You’re not exactly accused of anything ... exactly,” said Gracie.

“And yet the consequences could have been draconian.”

“I suppose so. Please don’t make me tell you,” moaned Gracie.

“I’m not going to make you do anything. All I’m going to do is talk about your affair in public settings. I’m going to gossip. That’s not illegal. And even if there’s no proof, people will watch the two of you like a hawk. If I go public, the affair is over. On the other hand, I don’t really care if you and Horace have sex. Obviously, I’m morally loose, so why would I care if other people are, too? I could be convinced not to gossip, and you and Horace could continue doing whatever it is you’re doing.”

“You’re an unprincipled woman,” grumbled Gracie.

“I’m not the one going around trying to ruin someone’s career,” said Mindy. “I’m just trying to live my life unmolested.”

“It was the Petersons,” said Gracie.

“I’m not familiar with them,” said Mindy. “What is their child’s name?”

“They don’t have children. He’s the minister of the Holy Sepulcher Evangelical Brotherhood Church, over on Elm Street. They had three or four other people with them. I didn’t get all their names.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“They won’t talk to you,” said Gracie.

“We’ll see,” said Mindy. “Have fun with Horace. I assume you’ll let me know if any other citizens come forward to complain about me?”

“I hope I don’t have to,” sighed the woman.

“I hope you don’t have to, either,” said Mindy.

She produced the wand, waved it, and told Gracie to forget the discussion, and that Mindy had been there at all.

As she left, she felt like a mobster, who was eliminating all witnesses to a crime.

Mindy thought long and hard about what to do about the Petersons. Not knowing who all the players were complicated things. Finally she had what she hoped was a good plan. They ran a soup kitchen and rescue mission out of their church. Since there were only two homeless people in Indian Springs, and since one of them was a Vietnam vet who was homeless by choice, rather than circumstance, they spent most of their time outside on the sidewalk, trying to encourage sinners to come inside and have a bowl of soup while Steven preached a sermon. Mindy sat in her car, across the street from the church, waved the wand, and said, “Jesus loved sinners, and he loves Mindy Middlesex. Since Jesus is willing to forgive her, you are, too. In fact, you’re going to preach a sermon on this, and tell your congregation that judging people is wrong. You’re going to preach about throwing the first stone.”

She saw no visible evidence that it had worked. She tested it out by driving by slowly and waving at the couple. They smiled and waved back, happily. All she could do was hope that they would convince the others to back off.

Mindy’s due date was the seventh of June, and this time Bobby was at the hospital. He didn’t go in the labor or deliver rooms. His mother took care of that, again. But he got to see his son when he was fresh out of the oven, so to speak, and had already participated in naming the little boy Patrick David. They had decided to again use her maiden name on the birth certificate, and list the father as “unknown.” He planned to adopt both children and change their last name when they got married.

Bobby had already looked into applying for a position in the state patrol and had been given a date to show up for his entrance tests. The way Wyoming handled things was to spread the four parts of the process out over an extended, four day weekend. The entire process was completed during those four days and successful candidates would be scheduled for a slot in the academy. Normally, civilian candidates had to go to a thirteen week basic law enforcement course before being given a seat in the fourteen week trooper academy, but Bobby’s degree exempted him from that.

As he held his son, he was roughly seventeen weeks away from being commissioned, and assigned to a duty station as a Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper.

The planning, and waiting, and being patient was almost over.

Bobby had handled his academy graduation differently than the rest of his classmates. He’d had a moment of misgiving as he saw the crowd of their family members and well-wishers sitting in the bleachers of the gymnasium the patrol borrowed for these events. It had been much more festive than he’d imagined. He’d assumed that, after high school, people didn’t really care all that much about graduation ceremonies.

But he had a plan, and he wanted that plan to work, so he didn’t even tell anyone back home when his graduation was. He knew he’d get yelled at, but he was willing to take the abuse.

What gave Bobby the self control not to go to see Mindy instantly, as soon as his badge was pinned on him, was that he’d had to be patient for literally years. Each day had been one more plank on the bridge he was building to his future. He didn’t plan that future in detail. He just knew it meant living with, and loving Mindy, and his two children. He was used to taking each day as it came, as long as that day was moving things forward.

He had talked to Mindy about the future, of course. He knew, for instance, that she wished she could take some time off from teaching, to be a stay-at-home mom. He knew that she dreaded the day that they would make their relationship public, because of the backlash she expected. His plan, vague though it was, took those things into account.

He intentionally asked for one of the semi-remote districts as his first duty assignment. There were parts of the state where a trooper might only see four or five people each day, unless he was dispatched to an incident. Out there, you were your own boss, and the bureaucracy almost never intruded on your day. The caveat was that, out there, your work day might not conform to the norm.

That “day” varied from division to division. Some divisions rotated from day shift to night shift every 4 or 6 weeks. Troopers work days, nights, weekends, and holidays. If you were on day shift, you were on call from 3:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. and then worked in uniform 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. If you were on night shift you were on call from noon to 3:00 p.m. and were then in your patrol car (usually) from 3:00 p.m. to midnight. If, on the other hand, you worked in one of the very remote areas, you basically set your own hours, as far as being in uniform. Troopers out there were assigned in pairs. In one case a married couple patrolled an entire district by themselves. Then there were the floaters, who worked everywhere. They did all sorts of things, but primarily covered vacations and days off for other troopers. Being a floater was considered the best assignment of all, at least for unmarried troopers.

Bobby thought it might be great to have all that autonomy, but he also knew that he wanted his family to grow where there were services, amenities, and other people. It needed to be people who didn’t know about their past, though, because that would dispense with the angst and judgment he knew Mindy was so sensitive to. He also didn’t want his children to grow up being looked at as different.

So he gave his family and Mindy faulty information, telling them graduation was later than it actually was. Then he found a place to live for his family, bought a car that would handle them all comfortably (plus any future additions) and went back to Indian Springs to get the people who he had gone through all this for.

On the sixth day of September, a spanking new Honda Odyssey pulled up in front of Jane and Bruce’s house, and a Wyoming State trooper got out, resplendent in his new uniform. When he knocked at the door and Jane opened it, she looked shocked.

“There have been complaints of wild parties and sex orgies at this address,” said the trooper, sternly.

“There have been no such things, and you know it!” yipped Jane. “What are you doing here?”

“I graduated,” said Bobby.

“But graduation isn’t for another week!” said Jane.

“I sort of wasn’t completely truthful about that,” he said. “I’ll explain that later.”

“I thought you were joining the State Patrol!” she said to her son.

“I did,” said Bobby, grinning from ear to ear.

“You look like a park ranger,” said his mother, eyeing the brown and green uniform, and Smoky-the-bear hat.

“Well I’m not,” said Bobby, whose mood could not be dampened. “I am assigned to District Two, Division B and I still have to be supervised for fifty days before I can work alone.”

“Where is District...”

“Two, Division B,” said Bobby, helpfully.

“Yes,” she said.

“Most of my time will be spent on Interstate 25 from east of Casper to west of Douglas. I rented a house in Glenrock.”

“But that’s hours away from here!” complained Jane.

Bobby looked at his watch.

“Two hours and six minutes, to be exact.” He grinned. “That’s doing the posted speed limit, of course.”

“Where did you get that car?” asked Jane, looking around his shoulder at the charcoal gray minivan.

“I bought it,” said Bobby.

“But it’s a van,” said Jane.

“I can finally ask Mindy to marry me. I’m going to have a family, soon,” he said. “A Camaro just wouldn’t work.”

“Mindy didn’t say anything about this to me,” objected Jane.