He has written about the profession in 15 novels but, until recently, mystery writer Archer Mayor never once clipped on a policeman's badge.
So when Bellows Falls Police Sgt. William Hoyt asked Mayor to join the department late last year, he couldn't resist the invitation. Mayor was sworn into the Bellows Falls police department in February.
Three months later, he is learning the job with the department he wrote about in his 1997 book, "Bellows Falls." Mayor allowed the Eagle Times to tag along with him one Thursday evening in May to get a peek at how his education was progressing.
Mayor hopped into a cruiser shortly after his shift began to follow up on a domestic situation.
There were problems between a couple. The man was not allowed contact with the woman but needed to get some personal things from her apartment. The police were serving as go-betweens.
The phone was not working, which was just fine by Mayor.
"There are a lot of no phones and disconnected phones in this town," Mayor said. "Which works for me quite well. I like the personal contact."
Tall and lanky with an erudite sense of humor, Mayor is not the portrait of a typical cop. He has an Ivy League education (Yale) and uses five-syllable words in casual conversation (he jokes that he's giving remedial English classes to the other officers every evening), yet Mayor approaches people with humility and deference.
On this occasion, the woman answers the door with kids peeking out from behind her. She is a little suspicious of the reporter and photographer hanging out down the stairs but he tells her not to worry.
"They're just tagging along with me," he tells her. "A little PR for the department."
She trusts the explanation and apologizes for not getting the man's belongings back to him sooner. She said she was in Massachusetts for a short time. Mayor accepts the excuse, re-emphasizes what needs to get done and leaves.
This could be the only call he gets tonight.
"The shifts I pull, I go wherever they put me," Mayor said after returning to the station. "I was brought on board for that purpose."
Mayor was hired to fill a vacancy. The department relies heavily on part-time officers with flexible schedules to plug the gaps when officers get called up for National Guard duty or leave for bigger departments.
Sgt. Hoyt asked Mayor to join the department over lunch at the Putney Diner last December. Both men are assistant medical examiners for the state of Vermont and have known each other for several years.
Mayor had competition for the part-time position, but Hoyt said maturity and experience gave him an edge.
"He's very intuitive, thorough and has excellent people skills," Hoyt said. "Those are important qualities we want to see in a person who comes to work for us."
Mayor has indulged several professions (reporter, theater photographer, emergency medical technician and assistant medical examiner) but, at 54, doubted he would ever practice law enforcement.
Mayor said he entered a very different world when he attended the part-time academy earlier this year.
"In part-time officer training, you really do think to yourself, 'Oh my God, what was I thinking?" Mayor said.
There are three segments of officer training: the academy, field training with another officer supervising and then, real life.
Despite having some minor issues memorizing codes, Mayor said things are starting to come together for him now that he is on his own. A self-described "Type-A" personality, Mayor said he always needs something to do. Police work gives him that opportunity.
"I have to be perfectly candid, I love this job," he said. "I find myself with constant things to do. The job is self-defining. You create your own task load."
Mayor says this while driving around the village searching for something to do. He said if he weren't preoccupied talking to a reporter, he would be looking around for potential scenarios in which to intervene. Somebody appearing confused or lost, a broken down car, a disturbance or fight.
No such luck today. It's raining outside and there aren't many people on the street.
But Mayor, both the writer and policeman, said driving around should not be underestimated. Reminding people you're around is important, he said, and you never know what you will find.
"If you have a dull moment, it's because you created it," he said.
Making what is probably the sixth lap around the village in less than an hour, Mayor is speaking excitedly about police work and what he has learned since joining the department.
Mayor has a healthy curiosity that helps him avoid the dull moments that, on a rainy weekday evening in a small town, probably often occur.
He moved around a lot as a kid and has lived in roughly 30 places around the globe. Mayor said his father, now 99 years old, was a middle manager with big ideas and few people to believe in them. He changed jobs a lot, moving his family of six children all over the United States and Europe. Mayor left home for boarding school at 14 but took with him the itch to try new things.
"When I left home at 14, I didn't break the habit," Mayor said. "And I moved and moved and moved."
Mayor eventually returned to his father's native region of New England. He said he chose Vermont because, with just more than 500,000 residents, everyone is essentially one phone call away.
When writing about human interaction and conflict, which is what Mayor said most interests him, there are few better arenas for study.
"I never rued the decision (to move to Vermont)," he said. "It was the right place."
We've just left the spot by the Bellows Falls Canal where Mayor concluded his novel, "Bellows Falls," when his ears perk up at some activity over the radio.
A woman is having an asthma attack in the police station's parking lot. Officer Alex Marx discovered the 53-year-old woman sitting limp in her car, the engine still running. Mayor politely ends the conversation about his book and heads back to the station one minute away.
Marx and Officer Mike Keefe are outside with the woman, still reclining in her Maroon Dodge van, when Mayor arrives.
The officers step aside and Mayor attends to her with an EMT from the Bellows Falls Fire Department. Keefe grins to Marx and tells him this is why he likes having Mayor around. You never know when those EMT skills, or any other skill he's picked up from various jobs, will come in handy.
Keefe was Mayor's field training officer for two months.
Sitting upstairs in the department waiting for pizza to arrive, Keefe kids Mayor about his problems with radio communication. But he is also quick to point out Mayor's strengths.
Mayor's interviewing skills have come in to play on investigations and Keefe said his medical examiner experience helps him understand the importance of preserving a crime scene.
The reports are also fun to read. The first time Mayor wrote a court affidavit, he used "circumnavigate" and "encumbrance" in the same sentence.
"Teaching him to write a report was more entertaining than it was difficult," Keefe said.
But Keefe and other officers say having Mayor around is not just a novelty. Mayor's reserve and intellect provides balance to the aggressive younger officers. Mayor may have a lot to learn, but Keefe said he's learning quickly.
"His investigative skills are on par, if not above par for where he is in his career," Keefe said.
Pizza arrives and everyone is huddled in the dispatch room watching Toronto hammer the Red Sox and trying not to get grease on their shirts.
Mayor is done philosophizing about the job. He's been talking about police work for nearly three and a half hours and, while willing to oblige another question, he won't encourage one.
Instead, everyone trades stories about childhood pets. Mayor tells a story about his brother's pet alligator in New York City, which leads to a story about his mother, beatnik older sister and a bowl of green jello at the dinner table.
Mayor has fun telling the stories. He narrates the jello tale while re-enacting the climax, slowly clenching his hand when his mother squishes the jello in her fist at the dinner table.
"All the jobs I've had rely on the power of language," he said earlier that day.
Mayor has been discussing everything from police work to growing up in France for his whole shift. He has conversed easily for all of that time, but it is when he is telling stories about alligators and green jello that he seems most relaxed.
He's still a part-time cop, badge #851, handling petty vandalism cases and struggling to learn "10-codes." He still has another four to six hours on his shift.
But there's always time for a story.