Five Days in Summer

nodded to the front desk officer at the glass-and-stainless reception window. Her blue uniform was nice and neat but her shield was upside down and that caught his eye; must have been why she was at the front desk. A man about forty was slumped in one of the brown leatherette chairs that lined the wall facing the road. He looked agitated. The minute he saw Geary he jerked forward.
    “Detective Snow?”
    “Sorry, not your lucky day.”
    “I’ve been waiting for over an hour. He told me he’d be here.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” Geary said. “I’ll check his desk and see if he’s there.”
    “Thank you. Tell him Will Parker’s waiting. Tell him I’ve been waiting—”
    “Over an hour. Got it.”
    Parker was wearing blue jeans and a white shirt it looked like he’d slept in. Except that it looked more like he hadn’t slept at all. His brown hair was as mussed as very short hair could get. He hadn’t had ashave in at least twenty-four hours. Geary wondered what was on his mind but didn’t stop to ask.
    He hiked a left down the hall, past the records division, to the dispatch center. He’d been introduced to half the small staff the day before, and one of them, an officer who looked like a coed too young to be on the force, was typing into the computer in the report-writing room. Now that he thought of it, someone had said she was a detective. Hard to believe. Long dark hair pulled off her face by a headband. Too pretty for a cop.
    “Morning!”
    “Morning to you, too.” Crisp voice. No smile. Must have been a habit picked up from too much getting leered at.
    “Looking for Snow. Seen him?”
    “He’s out on a missing persons.”
    “Must be a relative out in the lobby. Guy’s pretty eager to talk to Snow.”
    “I’ll let him know if I see him.”
    Geary considered going back out to tell Mr. Parker but decided not to get involved. Snow would show up eventually.
    He backtracked to records. Twenty years of case files were on computer, which meant that plenty of unsolved cases were still filed on paper. With his printout of cold cases from the Middleboro State Police up in Framingham, he’d been making his way slowly through the town stations throughout the Cape. He skimmed each file, looking for the most interesting ones.
    Just half an hour into it, he was ready for a cup of coffee. Age worked him; sixty-eight and he needed not just trifocals but liquid stimulation to read for very long. He gathered up his papers and walked down thehall to the kitchen. It was a spare white room with a dropped ceiling. Wires from the wall clock and wall phone dangled down to the same outlet. A white formica counter separated the kitchenette from two round tables. Al Snow was sitting at one of them, eating cold eggs and slick buttered toast out of a molded foam container. He had brought his own diner coffee in a blue-and-white cup.
    “Morning, Detective Snow.”
    “Morning, Mr. Geary.”
    Geary sucked down the spiky comeback that wanted to rip out of him. He was Dr. Geary or Special Agent Geary or Retired Special Agent Dr. Geary, but not Mr. Geary. He would never get used to that.
    Snow shoveled a mound of scrambled eggs onto a triangle of toast. The long black fringe of his comb-over fell into the plate when he leaned over to take a bite. If he lost twenty pounds and accepted his baldness, he might have had better luck at the singles bars. He was a big bear of a man, all smiles and winks and whatever s, whatareyougonnado s, the kind of guy no one much minded having around. Affable, like a hat rack or an initialed hand towel. Not Geary’s type.
    The coffeepot was empty. Geary had a thought.
    “What’s the girl’s name at the front desk?”
    “Suellen, and she’s no girl. She could be my mother.”
    “I guess you both look younger than your age.”
    Snow raised his wormy black eyebrows and smiled. “We’re having a birthday cake for her Thursday, if you’re here. Five o’clock.”
    “Mum’s the word.” Geary zipped his lips and pretended to throw away the key, mixing his metaphors and not giving a damn. “Think I’ll just go check with Suellen about the coffee supply.”
    Out in the lobby, he leaned on the counter in front of the reception glass. “Any news about the coffee situation? Snow’s in the kitchen and he sent me out to ask.”
    Parker was on his feet. “Detective Snow’s here?”
    “Excuse me?” Geary twisted around to look at the poor guy.
    “Did you say Snow was in the