Chapter 12

Getting settled in as chief was an exercise in frustration. Even a small police department has piles of paperwork, and I made it a point in that first week to plow through it all, even stuff that I knew I'd bypass once I got a feel for the department. I wanted to be sure I knew what I was dealing with, and with my limited administrative experience I knew I had to be extra diligent.

I was relieved, therefore, when Friday came. It was the first day Mary had set aside on my schedule for patrolling, and so I wouldn't go into the office at all that day unless I absolutely had to. And because I'd said that I'd serve as Cecelia's training officer whenever I was on patrol, I'd get to spend my first day with her since we'd taken our oaths.

Darlia kissed us both goodbye as we went out the door about 15 minutes till 7. It was a short drive to the station – it was a short drive to the station from anywhere in town, for the whole county has a smaller population than some small towns – and I knew we'd be on time. I've never approved of cops who break the speed limit just because they can, so I wasn't going to do that, but we'd still not be late.

And we weren't. I parked in the chief's slot in back of the building, and used my key on the door there. We went inside, down the hallway that led eventually out to the area where my secretary sat, from which short corridors led to the dispatch room and the front desk. The patrol squad room was to the right, and we went in. Out of long-dormant habit, coming back to life now, I took a seat in the back, where all the old-timers had sat when I was a patrol officer in Red Hawk back in the 80s. I grinned at Cecelia. "You're fresh fish," I told her. "You get to grab a desk in front."

She smiled at me, looking absolutely delectable in her uniform, and went to sit in front. She'd done something to the uniform, I didn't know what, so that it fit her well. She doesn't have the figure to fill out a uniform shirt without making it skin tight, and she doesn't wear anything that tight, but it showed off her slimness without making her look insubstantial.

I set my hat on the floor beside my desk. I'd bought a new black bullrider just for the purpose, and pinned the department's hat device to the front of it. It wasn't regulation, but I don't like baseball hats much, and the dress uniform "flying saucer" hat didn't please me either. The rest of my uniform was as it should be, from rubber soled black shoes to the duty belt with its burden of equipment to the big oval shield gleaming on my left shirt pocket.

It was just a couple of minutes before the watch commander, a lieutenant I'd met only once, and the Sergeant of the Watch, a guy named Huddle, came and sat down behind the table up front, facing the room. The Sergeant of the Watch began calling the roll without looking up. As each officer responded, Huddle assigned him an area to patrol. Cecelia of course was with me.

Huddle read the crimes, handed out "hot sheets" with the license plate numbers – tag numbers, they call them in Oklahoma – of cars reported stolen in the county, and a list of BOLOs, the acronym meaning "be on the lookout for," the police term for what everyone else calls an APB. A BOLO can be for a car, a person, a refrigerator – anything or anyone that the police need to locate for whatever reason. Often, but not always, it's stolen property or a suspect in a crime.

He also handed out a sheet with current outstanding warrants. These would be simple things, like someone who hadn't paid a ticket or had failed to appear in traffic court to contest it. If an officer came across a person with an outstanding warrant he'd make the arrest, but the really important ones would go to the investigators, and they'd go out and make those arrests.

It was a fair amount of paperwork, and I knew that we absolutely had to get terminals in the cars if at all possible. A computer can come up with information a lot faster than a cop can sort through a printed list, and though the initial cost of the terminals would be high, over the long haul the department would save money because it wouldn't have to invest in so much paper that officers would throw out every eight hours.

Soon roll call was over and we all headed out to our cars. Cecelia followed me to the chief's cruiser, which looked just like any other Red Hawk police car. Harry Thomas, my old friend who'd risen to run the department, had instituted the practice of the police chief patrolling, and using an ordinary car to do it. I didn't know whether his successors had gone out on patrol as I was about to do, but they'd clearly kept his cruiser in commission. Cecelia and I put our briefcases in the trunk – there's so much paperwork in being an ordinary police officer that you've got to have something to carry it in – and I pulled out the shotgun that was there and checked it. The magazine was full, the chamber was empty, and the barrel was clean. I ejected the shells, made sure they were in good shape, and reloaded the weapon, then stuck it back in the lock that would keep it secure. When I'd been a cop before we'd kept the shotguns in dashboard racks, and in fact there'd been just such a rack in the unmarked car I'd driven for a few weeks back in 2006. But cops don't often need a shotgun, and it's safer to keep it out of sight.

With everything in the trunk that belonged there, and the lid closed, I asked Cecelia, "They been lettin' you drive yet, or you just been keepin' books?"

"Thus far I have handled the paperwork; my TOs have done all the driving."

I looked at her. "You usin' jargon? Will wonders never cease."

"When I worked in a financial institution, and discussed business with my colleagues, I used the language of the profession. You never heard it, because you were not a colleague and I left the office at the office. Now you are a colleague – and our profession at this time is police work."

"Makes sense," I said, "though you had to hit me over the head with it for me to notice. What I'll do, I'll drive till we go code 7, and then you can drive after."

She nodded, but said, "In the Operations Manual it says that officers are to use plain language, rather than codes."

I opened the driver's side door and slid into the seat. She did the same on the other side. As we fastened our seat belts I said, "Yeah, and I approve. We got too many officers from too many different places, even now, to use codes an' confuse everybody. But I learned to use the codes."