Dead Waters - Anton Strout [49]
I didn’t know what to say, but I could feel my face going red.
“Now, now,” the Inspectre said. “I also understand this: our lives, especially in the Department and at F.O.G., are always too brief. That is always a possibility in our simple day-to-day existence. You want to make sure you do right by her. Pushing people away, well, that’s something I do know a little bit about. It makes you live with regret, and regret is a monster that slowly eats away at you.”
“It killed you when you heard Professor Redfield was dead, didn’t it?”
The Inspectre closed his eyes and nodded. “More than you know, my boy,” he said. “When Mason left the Fraternal Order of Goodness, I all but pushed him out of my life. I simply didn’t have time for someone who walked away from what I considered the noblest of causes. If he didn’t care enough to stand against evil, he was dead to me.”
“But after hearing about his life as a teacher in my preliminary reports, you felt different.”
The Inspectre nodded. “A life had happened to that man since I knew him,” he said, “one that I never got to know. From what you’ve told me of his university life and his students, it sounds like it was a good one.”
“From what I can tell so far,” I said, “yes.”
The Inspectre looked distant. “I should have liked to have known it, that’s all.” He turned to look at me. “Sometimes I envy you your power, Mr. Canderous, your ability to reach into the pasts of others and truly see it.”
“It’s funny,” I said. “I’ve spent so much time trying to avoid reading anyone I was close to psychometrically because it always ruined things for me in the past. I always saw what I did as a bit of a curse or, at best, a way to score a quick buck. I never thought of it like that.”
“I’m afraid that I am partly to blame for that,” the Inspectre said.
“How so?”
“I’ve pushed you too hard with this, on top of your regular caseload,” he said. “I’ve let my own personal involvement get in the way. For that, I am truly sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m a big boy. I can handle it . . .”
The Inspectre stood and came around his desk. He patted me on the shoulder, and then started toward his office door. I stood and followed.
“Do me a favor, would you?” he asked. He stopped at the door, his hand on the knob, and turned to look at me.
“Sure. What is it?”
“Take the rest of the afternoon off.”
I stepped back, shocked. Was I hearing him right? “Now?” I asked. “What about everything we just talked about? The budget cuts and the workload . . .”
“That can wait,” he said. “And that wasn’t all we talked about.”
“This is about Jane, isn’t it?”
The Inspectre opened his office door. “I want you to give it some thought,” he said. “About what really matters, about who really matters to you. Do it without distraction, but take a little gratis downtime approved by me to do so.”
Something deep inside me felt like it had just been freed and a tension I didn’t even realize I had been carrying released. Maybe a few hours of downtime would do me some good after all. “Thank you,” I said.
He nodded.
“A few of us are meeting up tonight after work at Eccentric Circles,” he said. “Nothing formal, just getting together to celebrate the passing of one of our own.”
“But Mason left the Fraternal Order of Goodness,” I said.
“Nonetheless,” he said. “I think the other agents are mostly humoring me. Still, I could use a few drinks to loosen my lips and wax nostalgic.”
“I’ll try to be there,” I said, stepping out of his office. “Thanks.”
As the Inspectre closed the door behind me, his face registered a silent sadness. I wasn’t sure if it was from old age having seeped into his bones or not, but I decided that after taking a little time off for myself, at least a round or two of drinks would be on me tonight. Getting the Inspectre a little drunk seemed like a fine way to respect my elders, and now that I thought of it, I never did ask him for the damned boat requisition I had come up here for in the first place. Ah, well, it could wait. That would probably go over better with a few drinks