Angels Burning Read Free Page A

on vacation), four vehicles, and a frequently broken vending machine. The investigation is his, but we’ll assist. The arrangement would be the same if the girl had been found on my doorstep. The crime is too heinous to risk failure due to our inexperience with homicides and a budget that can barely put gas in our cruisers and ink in our printer.
    It doesn’t hit me until I pull into my parking space and realize I’m still in my bare feet because I wouldn’t put my new shoes back on, that I forgot to go home and shower and change. I think about turning around and leaving, but we have a single shower in our locker room and I have a pair of sweats in my office. I have a lot to tackle this morning. I’ll go home and get some real clothes on my lunch hour.
    Singer and Blonski are deep in conversation with Karla, our dispatcher, and Everhart and Dewey, my two other available officers. Thiswas their day off, but I need all hands on deck. Dewey has four kids out of school for the summer and seemed happy to be called into work. Everhart’s wife is pregnant with their first child, just past her due date, and is driving him crazy; he seemed even happier. All talking ceases when I enter the building.
    â€œI realize I’m a little dirty,” I say, and walk past quickly without allowing any commentary.
    I motion at Singer and Blonski.
    â€œYou two. A word, please.”
    They follow me into my office. This ten-by-twenty-foot enclosure painted the color of khaki pants with one window overlooking a parking lot and no central air is the closest I come to having a nest, and the vigilant fondness that comes over me once my officers enter here is the closest I come to feeling maternal.
    â€œHow much do you weigh?” I ask Singer as I open my window and perch on the sill, hoping for a breeze.
    â€œOne sixty,” he says.
    â€œNo way,” Blonski cries out, plopping down in a chair the same way he might land on a buddy’s chest during a backyard tussle. “And you’re six-two? You’re a freak. You need to bulk up.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter how much I eat. I don’t bulk,” Singer replies, lowering himself into the other chair.
    â€œI didn’t appreciate your comments in front of Corporal Greely,” I tell them.
    â€œWe were trying to protect you,” Singer replies.
    â€œYou’re an idiot,” Blonski informs him, shaking his head.
    â€œIf I were a man would you have felt the need to protect me?”
    â€œIf you were a man you wouldn’t have been wearing a skirt and a—”
    â€œDo you know why I’m dressed like this?” I interrupt Singer.
    â€œI like your blouse,” he says.
    â€œBecause I was on my way to eat tasteless scrambled eggs and soggy bacon with town officials and concerned citizens and discuss the potholes on Jenner Pike and the new dog-barking citation. Next time you want to protect me, protect me from that.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    Blonski grins. The chastisement was meant for both of them, but Singer has taken on all the blame and this means Blonski won.
    The first time I saw BROCK BLONSKI written across the top of a job application, I pictured a linebacker from Fred Flintstone’s favorite football team, and when I met him, aside from the fact that he wasn’t a cartoon character wearing a loincloth, he fit the bill: square-jawed, broad-shouldered, competitive, with a deceptively lumbering large-primate gait. He spoke in grunts and monosyllables and ate entire rotisserie chickens for lunch. I was beginning to think the fact that his first name was only one swapped vowel away from the word “brick” completely summed up his personality until I overheard him explaining the latest developments in neuroscience nanotechnology to the mother of a boy who had just suffered a head wound after wrecking his dirt bike. He only pretends to be dumb.
    â€œI wanted to thank you for