Internal Affairs Read Free

efforts to get rid of all the young, energetic hires made by his forward-thinking predecessor, who had been disgraced and ousted when damning photographs had surfaced involving the mayor and several girls of questionable age.
    That had been too bad as far as Sara was concerned; she didn’t condone the former mayor’s ethical lapses, but she thought he’d been taking the city in a positive direction by bringing fresh blood into the crime scene unit, the ME’s office and several other tech-based divisions of city government. Since the ex-mayor’s departure, Proudfoot had been undoing those advances, piece by piece, making no bones about the fact that he intended to return Bear Claw Creek to the “good old days”—i.e., the days of minimal technology and pay-to-play politics.
    Proudfoot’s efforts had been blunted somewhat by the terrorist threat, but his image lurked at the back of Sara’s mind on a daily basis. She knew he was just waiting for her to mess up badly enough that he could get rid of her and return the ME’s office to the age of dinosaurs, with his cronies in charge.
    “Which is another thing that belongs in the category of ‘things I don’t want to think about right now,’” she said to herself on a long sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off the headache that always encroached when she thought about all the things she was trying not to think about these days.
    The list was long. And frankly, it didn’t leave her much to think about.
    “Hey, boss.” The hail came from Stephen, the sole remaining medical examiner beside herself. He was tall, lean and graying, a good ten years older than her own thirty-five, and had worked in the Bear Claw ME’s office for nearly a dozen years. Miraculously, though, he didn’t seem to resent that Sara—young, female, relatively inexperienced—had been hired in above him as his boss. If anything, he seemed happy to let her have the headaches that came with the position.
    “Hey yourself.” Sara didn’t ask about the manhunt,didn’t want to know. “You’re headed out early today, right?”
    He nodded, a soft smile touching his lips, lighting his usual neutral expression. “Celia and I are bringing Chrissy for a checkup.” Chrissy was the change-of-life baby, nearly twenty years younger than their eldest, who had surprised Stephen and his wife the year before. By all indications, little Chrissy would grow up dearly beloved by their entire extended family, and most likely spoiled rotten.
    The quiet joy on the older man’s face squeezed at Sara’s heart. She nodded, forcing herself to feel happy for him rather than sorry for herself. “Tell Celia I said hi.”
    “I’ll do that. I can come back after, if you want me to.” He glanced at the wipe board that hung in the hallway opposite their office doors, where the pending cases were listed. “Things are backing up.”
    They were, indeed, and a large part of Sara wanted to keep the office running around the clock until they’d cleared the board and gotten ahead of the looming mountains of paperwork. But logic said that Proudfoot wouldn’t be impressed with that show of efficiency. If anything, he’d take it as an indication that she’d manage just fine with an even smaller staff.
    She shook her head. “Thanks for the offer, but no. Head on home. I’ll clear what I can, and we can start over tomorrow.”
    He sent her a long look. “Promise me you won’t stay past normal human quitting time? It is Friday. You know…the weekend?”
    She winced. “You got me. We’ll start over on Monday.” Which didn’t mean she wouldn’t be in over the next two days. She had abolished the weekend and overnight shifts due to staff constraints, but she still liked to come into the office herself, when everything was relatively quiet.
    Two years earlier, it would’ve been easy to promise Stephen she’d leave for the weekend, because she would’ve known there was someone waiting for her at