“I expect better—”

“We can talk in your classroom, or the teacher’s lounge, whichever you prefer.” Or you can try to haul me into the principal’s office, Reed mused.

Dobson strode off. A little guy, Reed thought. Maybe five-seven, on the stocky side, and with a serious stick up his ass.

It might have been small as high schools went, but it smelled like school to Reed—commercial cleaner, tinged with the messy mix of jittery hormones and teenage boredom. Sounded like one as his wet sneakers slapped on the floor. Looked like one with its administrative offices straight to the left, and its facing walls of dull gray lockers.

“It’s a nice school,” Reed said conversationally. “I had a tour of it, along with the middle and elementary, over the winter.”

“Nice isn’t relevant. It’s a place for education and discipline.”

Though he felt like he’d regressed to high school, Reed rolled his eyes behind Dobson’s back as the man unlocked a classroom door.

“My time’s limited.”

“Then I’ll be as quick as I can. According to the incident report, you didn’t see anyone in your yard or around your house at the time you woke and saw the toilet paper in your trees.”

“At the time I saw the vandalism. It had already been done. If you can’t identify and apprehend a gang of vandals, you have no business in your office.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. What did you do with the evidence?”

“Evidence?”

“The TP.”

“I removed it, of course—at considerable time and trouble—and disposed of it.”

“Well, that’s a shame. I might have been able to find prints. Can’t guarantee that, as the perpetrators might have worn gloves. But at this time, no one, including you, saw anyone, heard anything, and the evidence has been disposed of by your own hands. You could give me a list of names, people who would wish you harm.”

Dobson’s mouth popped open in shock. “No one wishes me harm! There are several teachers in this school, any number of students, and certainly some parents who have issues with me, but—”

“‘Issues’?”

“Many who don’t approve of my teaching methods or philosophies.”

“‘Many,’ ‘any number,’ ‘some,’ and ‘several.’ That’s a lot in a school this size. Did any of them threaten you or your property?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Mr. Dobson, I’m going to keep my eyes and ears open, as will my deputies. But without a witness, without the evidence, without you being able to name individuals who might have had the time, opportunity, and motive for committing this act, we don’t have a lot to go on.”

“I expect better! I expect justice.”

“Mr. Dobson, if I identified the individual or individual responsible, the most justice would offer is a few hours of community service, maybe a negligible fine. And by pursuing that, demanding that, you’d have more people than you do now who have issues with you.”

“I’m going to speak to the mayor again.”

“Okay. Have a good day.”

He led Barney out. A handful of students began to file in, bringing color and chatter and the smell of wet hair.

Reed went outside, waited.

Mathias spotted him at the same time he spotted Mathias with two other boys.

Mathias looked instantly guilty. Reed sauntered over.

“Mathias, how you doing?”

“Fine, sir. Ah, we’ve got to get to class.”

“There’s time yet. Jamie Walker?”

The kid wearing the hipster hat with his hair shaved on the sides and floppy front and back shrugged.

“I need to talk to you about the party the other night,” he said loudly enough for anyone passing to hear. “Let’s walk over here. You, too,” he said to the third boy—the one with the hood of his orange hoodie over ginger hair. Adding more of his cool by wearing sunglasses in the rain.

“We already caught it for that, Chief,” Mathias began. “I’m grounded for two weeks.”

“You do the crime, you do the time. Who else is grounded?”

Both the other boys raised hands. “I’m eighteen,” Jamie said with overt disgust, “and I’m grounded for having a party.”

“In your parents’ house, without their permission. With beer—and weed.”

“Nobody found any weed,” Jamie insisted.

“Because you were smart and quick enough to get rid of it. My officers smelled it. But that’s done, and you’re lucky, as they could have hauled you in.”

“It was just a party,” Jamie grumbled.

“I might agree, but you were stupid enough to make enough noise and get caught. Be smarter next time. Now, where’d you get the TP?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Reed turned from Jamie to Mathias. Cecil’s brother had his hood up, too. “You know Donna the dispatcher.”

“Yes, sir. She’s grandmother to a friend of mine, and friends with my mom.”

“Here’s the deal. She had me take an oath with my hand on the damn Bible—shit, she’d skin me for saying ‘the damn Bible’—I’d keep her grandson, who I suspect was in on this, and the rest of you out of trouble.”

“She would.” Mathias ducked his head, but Reed saw the grin.

“I’m not risking the wrath of Donna to slap you back for TPing a house. I’m asking because if you were stupid enough to buy it, that’s going to come out, and I’ll have to do something.”

Mathias hunched his shoulders, scuffed the ground with his already scuffed Nike KD’s. “We each took a couple of rolls from home.”

“Not completely stupid. Don’t do it again—and pass that to the ones I haven’t caught. Yet. Meanwhile, stay away from Dobson outside the classroom, keep your heads down. Don’t go around his house, and for Christ’s sake, don’t go bragging about doing this. You hold to that, all that’s going to happen is you’re all—plus Donna’s grandson, who I have caught but haven’t talked to yet—going to do some community service. Two weekends of yard work, or whatever your mother needs around the house. No bitching about it. I’m going to check.”

“You’re not going to tell Mr. Dobson?” Mathias asked.

“No. You’re all going to college or into the world of employment. You’re going to run into more Dobsons, trust me. Figure out a better way to deal with them. Get to class.”

“Thanks, Chief,” the three of them said, almost in unison.

Reed walked off satisfied. Yeah, he thought, it was good to be back to work.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Mail took its time getting to the island. Reed got the next card five days after his weekend off, and right before the Memorial Day weekend with its village parade, LobsterFest, early bird summer specials, and the first influx of summer people.

As always, Donna picked up the mail on the way in and arrived shortly after him. He’d made his first cup of station coffee from the machine he’d paid for himself. He’d settled the dog down with a chew bone and, though it humiliated, the little stuffed dog Barney loved.

Reed expected Barney to chew the toy to bits, but Barney habitually clamped it gently in jaws or paws and did no real damage.

As he booted up his computer with an eye toward looking over the June calendar again, Donna came to his open door.

“Chief.”

“Yeah. So this Arts and Crafts Festival the second weekend in June? I remember my mother being all about that one year. Do we have an estimate on…”

He trailed off as he glanced up, saw her face.

“Problem.” It wasn’t a question.

“You got another card in the mail. It’s the same handwriting, I know it. The postmark’s from West Virginia. I only touched it by the corner to stick it in my tote.”

“Let’s have it.”

He hadn’t expected another card as much as he’d hoped for one.

Another trail. Another break in control.

Donna set it carefully on his desk, sat.

“I’ve got something to say first, before you open it.”

“I need to get to this, Donna.”

“I know you need to get to this, but I’ve got something to say first.” She clutched her big summer straw purse in her lap. “I want to say it before you open it, because we both know this is another threat against you.”

“Go ahead then,” he said as he got out a pair of gloves, his penknife.

“You kept your word. I believe you’d have kept it whether or not you took an oath on the good book. But that’s a kind of insurance. You did the right thing and didn’t let those boys—including my grandson—off scot-free, but you didn’t mess up their lives over a prank. Dobson hammered at you, pushed at the mayor, but you did the right thing.”

“It was toilet paper, Donna, probably biodegradable.”

“That’s not the point. I didn’t know what to think about them bringing you in as chief, but I didn’t think very well. You’re young, you’re from the mainland, and you’ve got a sassy way half the time.”

He had to smile, even with the slow burn working inside him over the card waiting on his desk. “I’m sassy?”

“That’s not a compliment. But you do a good job, you treat the deputies with respect, and you kept your word. You’re good to that idiot dog.”