Dan Retsler ripped the packing tape from the tape gun and tossed the thing aside. Useless. Completely useless. He was better off using fingers and teeth to put tape on his boxes. The tape gun jammed and twisted every time he tried to use it.
He sealed the box on his desk, got his finger wrapped in tape, and finally reached across the box to grab the scissors. He managed to cut himself free, then he cursed and tossed the tape in the same direction as the tape gun.
Outside his office, in the front reception area, Lucy swiveled her seat so that she could look at him through the glass window. The police station had once been a retail store and still looked like it. The only office had a large window so that the retail manager could keep an eye on the stock. The last thing Retsler, Whale Rock's police chief for another three weeks, wanted was his staff laughing at his attempts to pack. He stepped over a pile of boxes, walked to the window, and pulled the blinds closed.
Then he sank onto the pile, hearing the cardboard groan beneath his weight. He hated packing almost as much as he hated moving. But he had been excited about the new job and still was, despite the pain-in-the-ass transition.
He was going to be police chief in a Montana town not much bigger than Whale Rock. Only his new police station had a view of the Bitterroot Mountains, not Highway 101, and the police logs were filled with nothing more severe than shoplifting. It would be a relief to go to a place where the dispatcher hadn't known him since he was in diapers, where the only people who came to town were the occasional hunter instead of hoards of tourists determined to see the Pacific Ocean, and where there were no supernatural occurrences.
Retsler sighed and scanned his office. Maybe he didn't need all this junk. Maybe he'd just leave it for his successor. Jaclyn Tadero was an extremely capable woman who had been hired over his protests. The female city council members had accused him of sexism, but he hadn't opposed Tadero because she was a woman.
He had opposed her because she had never lived in a small town. She had never worked on a small force. She didn't understand the politics or the dynamics, and no matter what the city council said, it was politics and dynamics that made this job work, not experience with high-powered murder investigations.
Outside, the dispatch rang and Lucy answered. He could hear her voice but not what she was saying. Still he strained to catch a word or two. Old habits died hard.
When the murmur of her voice stopped, he stood. He didn't want Lucy to catch him moping. He walked over to the corner to pick up the tape gun. He was trying to shove the tape roll back on it as Lucy pushed open his door.
She had looked the same since he was a little boy, her curly gray hair worn in a short cap over her grandmotherly face. Despite her all-American cuteness, she was ex-military and tough, with a voice so deep that it growled.
"Where's Jaclyn?" she asked.
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