Page 39 of The Birthday List (Maysen Jar 1)

“So you’ve been having some rough stops lately?” I asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.

“Yeah.” His smile turned down. “No matter how polite I am, everyone fights the ticket. I asked a couple of the other guys on patrol, but none of them seem to be having the same problem.”

I didn’t want to be the one to break it to the kid, but his face was probably the reason he’d had such a hard time lately. Not because of the color of his skin, but because at twenty-something years old, Terrell Parnow had a baby face if I’d ever seen one.

Round, chubby cheeks. Soft brown eyes. There wasn’t a thing hard or angular about him. Add to that his shorter stature and skinny frame, and the only intimidating thing about the kid was his gun.

But if someone didn’t step in, his confidence would keep getting rattled and only make the situation worse. He’d either quit the force or someone would think they could push him too far.

“Look, Terrell. I’ll be straight with you here.” I slid off my sunglasses so he could see my eyes. “You’re fighting an uphill battle. You’re half the size of most guys on patrol, and people aren’t going to take you seriously by default. You’ve got to figure out a way to be assertive but not come across as a dick. Find the balance between pushover and asshole. Understand?”

Terrell stayed quiet. The radio clicked on and off as dispatch made calls to other cars, but the kid didn’t say a word.

Shit. Was that too blunt? Had I scared him? He had to know he looked like a teenager, right? I opened my mouth to tone it down a bit, but he spoke up first.

“What if I grew a beard?”

I grinned. “It’s worth a shot.”

“Thanks, Detective. I appreciate the honesty.”

“No problem. And it’s Cole.”

He nodded. “Cole.”

“One other thing,” I said as we passe

d another patrol car heading in the opposite direction. “If the other guys on patrol say every stop is a good one, they’re full of shit. With every four good stops, you’ll have one bad. That’s normal for everyone and we’ve all been there. Toughen up that skin and don’t let the bad ones get to you.”

“Okay.” He nodded. We rode in silence for a few blocks until Terrell spoke again. “What should I have done differently with that woman?”

I rubbed my jaw, the stubble thicker than normal because I hadn’t shaved this morning. “If I was in your spot today, I wouldn’t have let her out of the car. I wouldn’t have let her cuss at me, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t have let her touch me. But when I was your age? When I was a rookie? I probably would have done the same thing as you. I would have stood there and taken her shit until she ran out of steam. Then I would have handed her the ticket and gotten back in my cruiser and had a beer when I got home.”

“No shit?” His frame perked up.

“No shit.”

For the next hour, we drove around Bozeman, staying fairly quiet. I’d been on my way to Poppy’s restaurant for an early dinner break when I’d seen Terrell, but this hour or two was important for the young patrolman. So I rode along, marveling at how much my hometown had changed over the years.

Bozeman had once been a small college ski town, but the population had boomed these last ten years. Big-box stores and chain restaurants had flocked to this mountain valley. Construction had reached an all-time high as builders replaced wheat fields with apartment complexes and townhomes. Open lots had been filled with tech centers and office buildings.

“Have you lived here long?” I asked Terrell.

“Just a couple of years. I moved from Arizona to Montana for the skiing, then decided to go to the academy.”

“Bozeman is changing fast. None of this was here when I was in high school.” I pointed to the new subdivisions on both sides of the street. We were at the far edge of town, miles from where I remembered the last stoplight being when I was a kid.

Terrell smiled. “I hear we might be getting a Best Buy.”

I frowned. “Great.” I could live without a Best Buy.

I missed the hometown feel that Bozeman once had. I ran into fewer and fewer familiar faces at the grocery store these days. I got stuck in traffic almost every morning. And walking down Main Street, something I remembered fondly as a kid, now just pissed me off. The local shops had lost some of their authenticity, becoming too fancy in an effort to mimic ski towns like Aspen or Breckenridge.

Out went the small-town charm and in came the higher crime rate.

Bozeman was getting to be as bad as a fucking big city. Drugs. Murder. We were even seeing a stronger gang influence.

“Whoa. What the hell?”