Midday Clouds - The Charlie Swan Story

Chapter 7 (Twilight 7/11)

Given what Billy had said during the game the previous night, I decided to keep a closer eye on my daughter.

It felt wrong, in a way, to be watching Bells without her knowing, but I needed to know if she really was secretly spending time with that Cullen boy -- and besides, I'd told Billy I'd look into it.

It really wasn't all that hard, seeing as teenagers don't seem to have much on their minds besides each other when they're together. All it took was pulling off down a side street shortly after leaving for work, parking in the shade of an elm, and keeping low. Within five minutes, I saw a silver car drive down the street our house was on, and another two minutes after that saw the same car drive the other direction, towards the school, with a new, brown-haired passenger.

I recognized the car as one of the Cullens' -- most residents of Forks didn't have that kind of money, or if they did, they'd buy something a little more country -- and when I made the half minute trip back home, I saw that Bell's truck was still sitting in the driveway.

The front door was locked, and when I popped inside, the house was empty.

So Bells was getting rides to school with Edward Cullen. Well, I expected her to be popular with the boys at school, though I was a little hurt that she felt the need to keep it a secret from me. Maybe Jake had said something about me and Billy's little tiff over Carlisle or something. I'd just make sure to be available to chat whenever Bella felt ready to talk to her old man about her dating life. Driving to the station, I couldn't help but chuckle to myself; I realized that was actually quite the ask.

My mind was quickly diverted from thoughts of my daughter and her potential boyfriend, however, because the first thing on my desk that morning was another homicide report; though this one was a lot closer to Forks.

"Shit, Charlie," Jim said, sipping a coffee and leaning over my shoulder. "Shelton hasn't seen a homicide in what, five years? The boys over there must be scramblin'."

"Yeah, well, it's not like we'd be faring much better," I said. Shelton was still three hours southeast of Forks, but the dread of Seattle's troubles having made their way into the Olympic National Park region sent shivers down my spine.

"If whoever the hell this killer is makes his way into our town, you'd best believe he'd get one of these straight between the eyes," Jim said, patting his side-arm. I put the report down and swiveled my chair to look at him. Today was not the day for this shit.

"Goddamnit Jim, listen. I know you're eager and all, but what is the one thing I've been trying to drill into your head about our duty as officers of the law?"

"Only as last resort..." Jim mumbled, looking down and away from me.

"You're damn right only as last resort. I don't want you, or any of you for that matter," I said, standing now, speaking to the other two deputies who happened to be in the station at the time, "to ever feel like it's your instinct to go for your weapon, you hear me? I've spent 15 years on the force and never once have I had to fire, let alone draw, this weapon. We are keepers of the peace, first and foremost, and these things, these tools, are the opposite of peace. They are death, and harm, and hurt. You got that?" The two deputies nodded their heads. They'd heard this lecture a few times before. I turned to Jim.

"If you signed up for this job just to get to carry one of those around on your side, James, then you tell me right now so I can reassign you to some other PD. We will not have trigger-happy officers in this department. We are better than that. You are better than that."

"Charlie, it's a serial killer we're talking about he-"

"Damn it Jim, it's not up to us to decide who lives and who dies, though. You get that, right? It's our job to arrest and charge, as dutifully and as harmlessly as possible, so that the courts can have their due process. I know that even then it's not exactly a fair system, by any means, but to needlessly take a life as an officer during an arrest is nothing short of murder. And you can bet your ass that any one of you will be facing a full investigation if that ever were to happen. I get that that's not how things are usually done in other PD's in this state, or, hell, in this whole damn country, but this is the way we do things here. We can strive to be at least a little bit better here, got it?"