Mortal Pursuit

18

Sergeant Ed Edinger hated coffee, all coffee, but he drank gallons of it to stay alert throughout the mid-P.M. watch. In a town with so little criminal activity that the very existence of a police department was optional, there wasn’t much to engage his attention even on a Saturday night.

He supposed he ought to like it that way, but just once a high-speed chase or a hostage situation might be nice.

Just once.

The coffee nook outside his office could have used a decorator’s touch. Its sole ornament was a cork bulletin board plastered with outdated memoranda, many generated by himself. The square of short-nap carpet under the folding table was a mosaic of deeply ingrained coffee stains. Ed was responsible for a few of those, as well.

He tilted the carafe and poured a steaming black arc into a souvenir mug from Palm Springs. His wife collected mugs.

Sugar and cream followed in excessive amounts. Ed would add anything to coffee, in any quantity, to make the damn stuff tolerable.

“Hey, Sarge.”

Glancing up, he saw a tall, big-shouldered woman saunter up to the coffee machine, holding a Styrofoam cup. Louise Stagget, one of the two night-watch dispatchers, known universally as Lou.

Ed nodded by way of greeting. “Radio keeping you busy” he asked, already knowing the answer. He monitored the chatter on and off throughout the night.

“Hardly. Even slower than usual.” Lou drained the carafe into her cup. “Pete Wald sure seems to think so.”

“What’s that supposed to mean”

“Only that he went code seven at twenty twenty-eight.”

Ed found Lou’s habit of using military time mildly irritating. He had to make the conversion to Pacific Daylight Time in his head, and he wasn’t that good with numbers.

“Just a few minutes ago,” he said, doing the math. “So what”

“Seemed a little peculiar. You know, he’d been on duty less than a half hour. Kind of early in his watch to be taking a break.”

Ed sipped his coffee and winced, his unfailing reaction. “Like you say, it’s a slow night.”

“He could at least cruise the shopping district or the motels by the freeway. Not everything comes in via nine-one-one.”

“Well, maybe he’s just not feeling so good.” Ed was reluctant to criticize Pete Wald, a good friend for many years. “Bad chili or something.”

“I don’t think it was him.”

Lou let the words hang in space as she busied herself with a filter bag, preparing to brew a new pot.

The phone in the lobby shrilled briefly, then was answered. Somewhere a police siren wailed, the sound making Ed frown in bemusement until he realized that it came from the detective squad room, where two of the guys were watching a TV cop show while filling out a burglary report.

“I think,” Lou concluded after a sufficiently dramatic pause, “it was that girl.”

Trish Robinson. No surprise.

Ed had suspected that Lou disliked the rookie, maybe because Robinson was twenty years younger and forty pounds lighter, or maybe just for the pure pleasure of spite.

“What about her” he asked, taking another sip and registering another grimace.

“She’s a slacker.”

“A what”

“Slacker. One of these young people nowadays who thinks the world owes ‘em a living. You know.”

“So she’s young. We were too.”

“But we weren’t slackers. It was a different world back then. People still had a sense of responsibility. Way things are going, soon there’ll be nothing but slackers. These damn kids’ll ruin us. No values. No backbone.”

“You’re being too hard on her,” Ed said, but he wondered. Robinson had been late for roll call. Not a good sign.

“Maybe I am.” Lou shrugged. “Hey, when was the last time you got down to L.A. Three, four years”

“More like five. City’s a hellhole. I keep my distance.” He finished his coffee in a noisy slurp. “Why”

“You ever talk to Robinson about the houses there”

“Houses”

“Like in Bel-Air, Beverly Hills …”

“Why the hell would I talk about houses”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” Lou turned away without explanation.

Baffled, Ed watched her walk down the hall to the communications room. She shook her head once, and he caught a muttered word.

“Slacker.”

Then she was gone, and Ed was left asking himself if the rookie was going to work out.