On the Clock
By Chris Owen
"Strang, you're up! Grab your coat."
Lieutenant Williamson's voice cut across the room, impossible
to ignore even though Cort was tempted to try. He'd been just
about ready to head home with a stack of files to read from
the comfort of his armchair, and now he'd have one more folder
to add to the pile and wouldn't see home for hours.
"Where?" Cort asked, standing up from
his newly cleaned off desk and reaching for his jacket. He was
pretty sure that Williamson hated him. His shift was over in
five minutes and there were already fresh detectives in the
room, coming in for the next watch.
"Oakplace." Williamson handed him a
sheet of paper with the address and the bare details on it.
"Patrol's already there and the ME is on her way. The victim's
a white male in his thirties, patrol reports no suspect at the
scene when the body was found."
Cort nodded and stuffed the paper in his pocket.
"On it." Arguing wouldn't get him anywhere but put
on notice, and Cort had learned a long time ago to just go when
he was told to, no matter what.
"Oh, and Strang," Williamson called,
just as Cort reached the door. "Don't bitch about not having
a partner on this one. If it looks like you need one, Samuels
and Turner will be wrapping up something this year, won't you
guys?"
Cort tried not even to look toward where Samuels
and Turner's desks were, but couldn't quite stop himself. As
expected, they were looking grimly at him instead of shooting
their glares at Williamson, which was probably safer for them
if not wonderful for Cort. "It'll be fine," Cort said
weakly and made his escape.
It had better be fine, he told himself as he drove
to Oakplace. He hadn't had a steady partner in months and was
barely keeping up with his workload, but it had better be fine.
Passing off his active cases didn't look good, and putting work
on the others would only earn him more grief from Williamson.
He hadn't even had time to look at his cold cases in weeks,
and there wasn't any telling when he'd get a partner he could
tolerate. It was looking more and more like it was time to put
in for a transfer. The bullshit was becoming unbearable.
His mood wasn't the best when he arrived at the
crime scene; he was tired and fed up, which wasn't his favorite
way to start a case. The uniformed officer waiting in the hallway
outside the apartment saw him coming and straightened up, clipboard
in hand.
"Relax, I'm with Homicide," Cort said,
showing his badge. "What's it like in there?" He scrawled
his name and badge number on the sign in sheet, making the officer
hold the clipboard steady for him.
"Pretty clean, no blood. The medical examiner's
waiting, and the forensic team got here about three minutes
ago. Everyone's kind of wound up that no one from Homicide's
here yet."
|
