back out.
Table Rock had one deputy, part time, Rodney Klein, who had been on the force now for eleven years. The next Monday Carmelita showed up for work in the building on Main Street that also housed a pharmacy and an antique store. Rodney was sitting in the chair in the Chief’s Office with his feet up on the desk. He didn’t get up.
“Well, well,” he said. “This time they hired a woman! Will wonders never cease!”
“You’re in my chair,” she said without blinking an eye or saying good morning.
He looked up, obviously surprised.
“Well, it’s been my chair in the absence of a Chief.”
“There’s a Chief of Police now. That would be me. So, get up.”
Slowly, deliberately, as if he were a young boy reluctantly obeying his mother, he moved. Scowling, he retreated to his own desk in the reception area. Silence prevailed.
Eighteen months later, she fired Rodney and sixteen months after that, she was removed from her position. She later learned from Conchita after Mass one day that Rodney had been reinstated, this time as Chief.
“The safety of all the citizens of Table Rock hangs in the balance with that kid in charge,” she told Cliff.
“You can’t change much in a small town,” said Cliff. “People don’t want it. Even if they’re miserable. Their misery is at least familiar.”
She hated to leave Our Lady of the Fields and her many friends when, five months later, she landed the job as Chief of Police in Safety Harbor. Cliff couldn’t leave Ashland. Professorships were too rare these days. So, they made a pact to keep their marriage intact, long distance.
She got an apartment in Safety Harbor while Cliff lived in their house in Ashland. He had been in town for a month now this summer and it was both good and annoying to have him around, good because she missed him and annoying because he got in the way.
Even though she was gone a lot during his visit, she let him know where she was. She had called him and told him about Keith and that they were currently at the Monastery of the Unsettled.
She couldn’t tell whether he was interested or not.
Chapter 10
“There are going to be a heap of changes in the big parade coming up tomorrow,” Katye began.
Magdalena looked puzzled. “How would that possibly affect us here at the Unsettlement?”
“We want you all in the parade!” she said simply. She was never one to add a word to a sentence if it wasn’t needed.
“What do you mean, you want us in it?” Magdalena asked.
Katye looked to Father.
“The thing is,” he said, “you know Joe is gone. Disappeared.”
“Yes?” She failed to connect the two events.
“Even though he is gone he left instructions for us to carry out that have been deemed by some to be, shall we say, unusual.”
Carmelita nodded in agreement.
“Since Carmelita here is in charge of the parade, along with Katye, I’ll turn this over to them.”
It was difficult for Father to stop talking, but he did. He nodded to the Chief.
“We want to ask Rock and you to be the Grand Marshals of the parade.”
“No!” Magdalena responded in disbelief.
“This was the first of Joe’s instructions.” Carmelita continued. “Because so many respect and love him, we want to carry this plan out on his behalf.”
“Well, I’ll have to talk to Rock about it,” she said.
“There’s more,” said Father.
Katye spoke up. “We want the good people of this place to be first in line in the parade!” she said.
Magdalena was flabbergasted. “I don’t know where to begin telling you how logistically impossible this is going to be,” she said.
Father’s eyes twinkled. “All things are possible.”
“We would have to have a community gathering to talk about this. They aren’t just something to be put on display, you know.”
“I know Joe didn’t have that in mind at all,” said Father.
“I’m sure he didn’t either,” she responded, “but many of those who live on the harsher side of life are either invisible or two-dimensional. They need to know they are a part of things. They can’t just do this and then come home and then never the twain shall meet.”
“You mean the people of Safety Harbor and the Unsettlement,” said Katye.
“Exactly!”
“I’m not sure we’ve thought that far ahead,” said Father wistfully. “Yes, there will be implications, and perhaps complications.”
“Some of these people go to work at regular jobs; some are infirm and are on some kind of assistance; some are unemployed and there are some who stay here all day taking care of their children and the children of others who’ve gone to work. Their economic status is unstable at best and to make their lives easier, they help one another out with the basics of life. We’ll call a meeting at dinner time this evening when most everybody’s here. I wish Rock were here. He’s always good with these things and has the energy and vision to get everybody in action.
“I’m the thinker and the planner,” she smiled coyly. “Rock says that things have a way of working out. Little does he know that, before he gets there he has a partner who has quietly smoothed the way ahead.”
“How about the Grand Marshal business?” asked Father.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Magdalena offered, “when Rock is told that Joe wants it that way that he will do it.”
“There’s one more thing,” said Katye. “I think we should invite you to be a part of the Steering Committee. I haven’t talked to the rest of the members but I’m sure that since we’ve endorsed Joe’s Plan that they will agree that it makes sense.”
There was immediate assent by Carmelita and Father Callaghan.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” said Father. “If we want to do as Magdalena says and not put people on display or patronize them, we need to ask the Monastery of the Unsettled to be a real part of this whole thing including the planning.”
“I would agree with you,” said Magdalena. “I will assent to coming on board if Rock and the group approve of going forward with this.”
When she got back to her office, Carmelita quietly put out a BOLO on one, Joseph Vincent Magnus.
Chapter 11
By five o’clock in the afternoon, Katye had things organized. Safety Harbor-Clever School District would provide the buses to transport the people from the Unsettlement to Safety Harbor. The temporary food courts would provide dinner. The local churches would make accommodations wherever the people could make a place for a sleeping bag. Some cots and mattresses were borrowed from members. Some people opened their homes. Meriwether Starhawk’s congregation met at the Country Club and she used her considerable powers of persuasion to provide the showers of the facility. Joe’s Fine Dine-ing would prepare breakfast for all of them on the morning of the parade.
“Are you sure you are up to it?” Katye asked Sally when she agreed to open the Diner.
“I need something to keep me busy, to keep my mind off things,” Sally answered. “It will do me good.”
That evening, Magdalena called to inform Katye that the decision of the community