Hold the Patrols

Sarah Lahey came into the station without having slept. She had weighed staying home and decided an absence would draw more questions than her presence, so she showered, dressed and walked in meaning to get past Detective Sergeant Charlie Claiborne's office unseen. Claiborne called her name as she went by, and again, more firmly, when she was slow to turn. He told her to step into his office.

She went in braced for an accusation. Claiborne moved past her and closed the door, then studied her face for a long moment without speaking. When the question came, it was about her partner: had she seen Jenkins that morning? Sarah said she had not and that she thought he was still at home. She did not know where Karl Jenkins was. She had had no contact with him since the night before.

Claiborne stepped in close, well inside ordinary professional distance, and told her that an anonymous woman had called that morning to report a break-in at Luke Smith's house. Sarah had been inside that house the night before, and what it held was a great deal worse than a break-in. She held her breath, clasped her hands behind her back to hide the tremor in them, and kept her face as still as she could. Claiborne watched her the whole time.

He said he had told all the other patrols to hold off. He wanted her to take it.

Every instinct Sarah had wanted to refuse. Against that stood a plain calculation: she had chased the Luke Smith investigation harder than anyone in the building, and turning down a job at his house would be the most conspicuous thing she could do. She nodded and said she would take Glen Crosswell. Claiborne looked at her a moment longer and said only that it was fine.

Claiborne gave no reason why a break-in had come to a detective instead of a patrol car, and Sarah did not ask for one. She walked out of his office as the officer assigned to investigate a scene she had helped to contaminate.