Chief Stonetree nodded thanks as the mail boy dropped a
disorderly heap in his “in” basket.
Ah. The latest copy of
DNA had arrived. He certainly
preferred the revised publication,
Defending North America, with its Canadian and Mexican content, to the
previous all-American magazines he’d been receiving.
Two burly men, one black, one white, posing back to back,
gazed shrewdly at him from the cover; apparently the authors of this issue’s
feature story. The title was printed across their almost-touching shoulders:
Civilians Among Us: Budgetary Necessities
Or Vigilantes? by Captains Simon Banks and Harding Welsh.
Stonetree chuckled and flipped past ads for tasers, Kevlar
and state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, eventually reaching the article.
He’d had some luck in the past with civilians working cases side by side with
his detectives. For several years the Chief Coroner had worked beside his best
detective, coupling her medical and forensic skills and fierce intelligence with
the detective’s uncanny ability to be at the right place at the right time. That
was before Stonetree’d taken that promotion to head up the entire Mississauga
Police Services Division. Captain Joe Reese had taken over the Toronto post
then, and it was on Reese’s watch that Detective Knight and Dr. Lambert had been
killed. It had been years ago, and they still had no leads; no idea why or by
whom the couple had been slaughtered in Nick’s apartment: Natalie exsanguinated
and Nick impaled on a wooden staff.
He glanced through the opening paragraphs. Apparently Banks
of Cascade, Washington, had some university wiz-kid who worked with his best
detective. Officially he was an observer, but anyone reading between the lines
could see this kid rarely remained on the sidelines—kidnapped, held hostage,
shot—not exactly the experiences of a passive observer.
He skipped the part about legal and insurance implications
to see what Welsh had to say. He thought he remembered meeting Welsh one time at
a conference. Yeah, Chicago PD. Had to be the same guy. And his story involved—a
Mountie? Hardly a civilian by Canadian standards, but still, without
jurisdiction Stateside. Well, maybe Stonetree could requisition a constable for
his own staff—at least he was in Canada, although he didn’t think he’d ever met
a Mountie in all his years in Toronto; not since his mom had packed them all up
and left that depressed and depressing Manitoulin Island reserve.
Interspersed through the article were pictures of the two
captains and their men. Jeeze, what a bunch of good-looking guys. Nick,
Stonetree’s former star detective, had been a looker too—must have used half a
can of hairspray every night before coming to work. But that had been the
eighties; everybody had big hair then. Well, not himself and not Skanke anyway.
Not enough hair to be big. Almost none now. He ran his hand absently over his
nearly-bald pate, feeling a tinge of guilt that he hadn’t thought of Don Skanke
in years—course, old Iron Balls Cohen had been the Captain back in those
days—God, wasn’t this a night for remembering those long gone. Amanda Cohen and
Skanke had been killed in that plane crash back in… ’93? ’94?
Sighing deeply, he put the magazine and the memories away
for another time and returned to the paperwork on his desk. Just six short
months to retirement. Then what? Maybe he’d follow the lead of the wiz-kid
observer and the Mountie liaison and just keep coming to work every day, even
after he had no more official jurisdiction. But not this lousy desk job—back out
on the streets again, where he hadn’t been in twenty years. Who cared if he got
paid, or even killed, as long as he was back out there again? He glanced out the
window at the streets, shivering at the sight of new snow. Maybe they could use
a vigilante in Ft. Lauderdale. He reached for the next report in his inbox.
End
