Close to the Heel Read Free

large police force. One tough guy—that’s my dad, the Major.
    And what had I done to deserve grief, you might ask? My current crime was tardiness. Yeah, you heard it right. I was running a little late, which, for anyone in the armed forces, is a major crime . Unless I missed my guess—and I hardly ever do when it comes to my dad—the Major was standing at attention on the front walk of the crappy little house we’d been assigned for this posting, his head swiveling from side to side like he was watching a tennis match, scanning the environs for Yours Truly while steam blew out of his ears.
    The first words out of his mouth, when he finally saw me, would be: “You see that thing on your wrist? That’s a watch.”
    At least, that’s what he’d start to say. But the Major is excellent at his job. When lesser CFNIS members talk shop over brewskis at the end of the day, they talk about the legendary Major Charbonneau. He never misses a thing. Also, he’s used to giving orders. Used to having them obeyed. Used to interrogating people. Used to getting answers. Used to winning.
    The Major would notice right away that my watch, the one he gave me when I turned thirteen, the one that was supposed to guarantee that I was never late, wasn’t on my wrist. He’d switch his priorities from chewing me out for being late to demanding, “Where’s your watch, mister?” He called me mister whenever he was revving himself up on the pissed-off-o-meter. He only used my real name, which he insisted on pronouncing as if it were French—René, instead of Rennie—when he was in a good mood. For the Major, that meant when he wasn’t preoccupied, overworked, exhausted, impatient, annoyed, or any combination thereof. In other words, hardly ever. My name, like everything else between my mom and the Major, was a compromise. The Major’s dad’s name had been René. Mom said no one would ever pronounce it right in Alberta, where the Major was stationed at the time, so why not make life easier on me? According to the Major, on those rare—as in, once-in-a-blue-moon—occasions when he was feeling mellow, my mom was the only nonmilitary person on the planet who consistently got her way with him. She must have used up the Major’s entire compromise quota, because I had never won an argument with him in my life. Not that I didn’t try.
    I didn’t turn on the speed, because the faster I ran, the sooner the Major would get fixated on my bare wrist—bare, that is, except for the rattlesnake tattoo that he hated—and the sooner he’d third-degree me until I’d finally have to tell him (just to get him off my back) that I’d traded my watch to a guy for a first-generation iPod. I could save him a lot of misery by telling him right away what I’d done. But—you probably don’t know this—jazzing an army cop when you’re not in the army can be a lot of fun. At least, it can if you’re me.
    I hadn’t set out to be late, although I’m sure the shrink I used to see would have disagreed. He would have said that, subconsciously, I was going for that edgy thrill you get when you purposely fly up the nose of a guy who’s twice as strong as you are and has a short fuse. The Major would have said that, subconsciously, I was late because I loved to piss him off. But that wasn’t true. There was nothing subconscious about it.
    Surprise number one: the Major wasn’t standing on the front walk when I finally rounded the corner onto our street.
    Surprise number two: he didn’t start hollering at me the moment I came through the front door.
    Surprise number three: he wasn’t alone. There was some old guy with him. He had gray hair and a neatly trimmed gray beard, and he was wearing a dark suit. He smiled when he saw me.
    â€œYou must be Rennie,” he said, thrusting out a hand.
    â€œThe late