Mitchell Smith Read Online Free Page A

extraordinary demands infrequent.
    It was all legitimate police work, and not to be despised, but it wasn’t what Ellie had expected. The Squad handled no big cases, no difficult cases-not, at least, in a fashion likely to cross the lines of regular investigative or enforcement units. It was gradually borne upon her, as it had in their times been borne upon all the more veteran members of the Squad, that they were held in amused contempt by many of those in the Department that were
    “wised up”-a term adopted from organized crime. The Commissioner’s Squad was often a high-class dump, position on it a kick upstairs to nowhere. Most members had, after some usually public feat, been offered to the precinct commands as prize packages-and been turned down for this reason and that, occasionally from sheer superstition, as was the case with Graham, who’d had two partners killed through no fault at all of his own. Usually, though, the reason was a better one than that.
    Ellie’s package had circulated the districts, and been shipwrecked on two rocks: her failure to come effectively to the aid of Detective Drew and his partner four years before-and the bitter complaint addressed to the Department (and included in her file by a sullen lady clerk at Headquarters) from the office of the Manhattan Commander of the New York City Fire Department. It was the first rock, however, that really wrecked her ship; the fireman’s complaint was regarded as simple sour grapes.
    Doing the Fire Department’s job better than it did was well and good, but of no great account to these grim officers, captains and commanders.
    However, failing for whatever reason to succor an officer in distress-to fail, as a civilian might put it, to aid a cop in danger-was of the greatest possible account. It was unforgivable, however minor, however long ago. They refused to take her.
    “Ouch,” the Chief of the Department said, with unusual levity, as his assistant, a cool captain with a law degree and a masters in criminology as well, pointed to the comments column referring to that incident in her file. This assistant, named Anderson, was a lean, handsome man and recently divorced. In a year or so, Anderson would astonish Ellie, having called her up to his office to discuss a report she’d written on another report already on file concerning corruption at a construction site on Thirty-second Street. Internal Affairs had discovered a police sergeant involved in insurance fraud at that site, helping to steal, peddle, and set up recovery payoffs on heavy equipment. -During this meeting, Anderson will suddenly get up from behind his desk, come around to sit on its edge, lean forward to touch her face with his hand, her injured cheek, and ask if it still hurt her. Then, stroking her there gently with his fingertips, say, “You’re a sad and complicated girl, aren’t you?”
    Ellie was to sit there for a moment, under the Captain’s hand-then turn her head aside, get up, her clipboard held against her breast, and leave the office. In the ladies’ room-, afterward, she would smoke a cigarette on of her last, in fact; she would by then almost have stopped smoking-and look into the mirror, thinking it odd he had called her a girl. In the mirror, water-spotted, cracked at a corner, she would see a tall, thin, tired woman. Tired. Pale, bony blond. Going dry.
    Anderson now indicated the distressing entry, the comments column.
    “—Want me to pull that out of there … ?” offering to contravene Departmental regulations against such interference. Delgado sighed and shook his massive head. He, with a sensitive and more experienced nose, scented that where one such fault in the’ heroine stood revealed and commented on, more were likely to exist, or in future to occur.
    The Captain was quick. “Clevenger is out, sir,” referring to a woman detective promoted suddenly years before out of a daring drug-buy setup.
    A bank record’s check shortly thereafter had