The Man Behind the Cop

Snores, he wrote, for no good reason. Unless someone in a cheap motel complained to the manager about a guy who sawed wood on the other side of the wall?

He noted food likes and dislikes, Roberto’s opinion about people he worked with, his anger at what in his view was his mother’s betrayal.

“Guy wasn’t doing well where the women in his family were concerned,” Bruce commented.

“No, and Lenora admitted to being inspired by the way his mother just let his words wash over her—like rain running over a boulder, I think is what she said—and kept on with her plans to go home to Mexico. Possibly for the first time, she realized he could be defied.”

“I wonder if that was a good part of why he was so angry. Afraid his wife would see a chink in his supremacy?”

“Um…” She pursed her lips and thought about it. “No, I doubt he reasoned it out that well. Or believed Lenora had it in her to defy him in turn. Mostly, he’d have been angry that his mother chose her other son. Although since he’s continued to call her, he may be channeling that anger onto his brother, who somehow lured their mother from her duty to her older son.”

“In other words, he has a massively egocentric view of the world.”

“Oh, entirely,” Karin assured him.

They quibbled over the bill, with Bruce winning. He couldn’t help noticing how little she’d actually eaten. He suspected she’d picked up her fork from time to time more to be unobtrusive about not eating than out of actual hunger.