Blackbird Read Free Page A

civilian review board, for one thing. Whichis a piss-poor idea on a good day, and there ain’t no good days.’
    I shook my head, imagining a dozen petty bureaucrats micromanaging the department and fighting over the microphones at press conferences as they tried to position themselves in terms of sound bites, headlines and voting blocs. Calls to abolish the use of Tasers, demands for budget increases to buy more Tasers, new automatic weapons and sniper rifles to go with them, pleas for a return to God, detailed suggestions for rewriting the Constitution.
    ‘Then the cabrón got goin’ about you and that old graveyard collar,’ he said. ‘Wanted to know how I thought you were dealin’ with your “issues”, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.’
    I heard three quick taps behind me, recognising them because they were the same three I routinely got at my own office door. Like OZ, I usually kept all of my phone’s mechanical and musical noises disabled, admittedly a hardship for Bertie, the head secretary, who was constantly having to huff her way back by shank’s mare to tell me to pick up.
    At OZ’s grunted invitation, Bertie stuck her head in the door. ‘Line four,’ she said testily. ‘For Lieutenant Bonham.’
    She glanced at my right hand, frowned at the square of grey sky showing through OZ’s window, then returned her gaze to me. I looked down at the hand myself as I stood to reach for the phone, made myself stop clenching and unclenching it, and raised the handset to my ear.
    It was Wayne Gaston with the Crime Scene unit. It sounded like he was out in the rain, meaning he must be at a scene somewhere. He said, ‘How about lookin’ at some evidence with me, Lou?’
    ‘What have you got?’ I asked.
    There was a silence, then, ‘Uh, that’s kinda what I’m askin’ myself right now – ’
    ‘Can’t you send me a shot with your phone?’
    ‘Sure would like to have you take a look in person.’
    ‘Not to jump to any conclusions here, Wayne,’ I said, biting back the unexpected impatience I felt edging into my voice, ‘but can I at least figure on somebody being dead?’
    ‘Eyes-on, boss,’ was all he’d say.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    TWO
    I loosened my tie and unbuttoned my collar, trying not to limp as I crossed the squad room to grab my gun and get a car. No new business on my desk, just the twenty-tens on a grill-fork stabbing at a family reunion out on the white end of Burnsville Road, and the potshot a one-legged combat vet on Maple Hill may or may not have taken at his neighbour’s cat last night with his AR-15.
    I checked the Glock’s chamber and magazine, slid the weapon onto my belt and went looking for Mouncey. I never drove when I went out on a call if I could help it because I wanted to see everything I’d otherwise miss by rolling up on the scene and parking the vehicle myself. There was general agreement at Three that Mouncey operating a motor vehicle was at least a metaphorical felony in itself, something along the lines of criminal assault against time and space, but she was always my first choice as a driver because she never had to ask where anything was, got us there fast, and up until now had always given the other traffic enough time to get out of her way. I found her at her desk picking through the old maids at the bottom of the bowl for the last few kernels of popcorn, and asked her to get us a car.
    She made the call, checked her own .40 and pulled on her tan leather jacket. ‘Where we goin’, Lou?’
    ‘Wayne’s at a scene.’
    ‘What he got?’
    ‘He wants to surprise us.’
    Ten minutes later we were out of the garage and headed north in the rain, which had lightened a little for the moment but was still falling steadily from a sky that now had taken on the look of heavy oilsmoke. Mouncey was decked out in tight pressed jeans and a lavender turtleneck under the leather jacket, with rings on every finger and what looked like a quarter of