Deathwatch by Dana Marton

of pleased. “Pete Kentner’s taking over my route.”
    He raised an eyebrow. He knew Pete from high school. He was a couple of years older than Murph. “He’s moving back home?”
    “ His mother has cancer, but I don’t have a bad feeling about her,” Robin said earnestly. “I’m pretty sure she’ll make it.”  
    “ I hope she does.” Mrs. Kentner was a nice old lady, a professional volunteer. Any kind of fundraising and she was your gal. She’d raised money for everything from the bandstand to a new fire engine. Murph made a mental note to stop in and offer help once he’d gotten a few things squared away.  
    Robin glanced at her watch. “I better go. Mrs. Torrino will be waiting by her mailbox, if I slip as much as five minutes behind schedule.”
    She rose to the tips of her toes and pinched his cheek like she used to when he’d been much younger. Murph enfolded her in a bear hug.
    “ Aw, Murph.” Her eyes glistened when he let her go.  
    He waved after her as she progressed down the street, then he drove to the police station, his second home.
    The square brick building was nothing impressive, pretty much as plain as can be. Nothing fancy inside either: reception, the main area where all their desks stood, the Captain’s office, the interrogation room and the conference room, then the hallway that led to the holding cells and the evidence room in the back. Pretty utilitarian, but the work didn’t leave them time to worry about the aesthetics.
    “ Murph!” Leila, the admin assistant, rushed from behind the counter and gave him a fierce hug. She was a no-nonsense widow with three boys, cropped hair, short nails, little makeup, black pants, tan shirt, but the most colorful footwear she could find—her only nod to fashion.  
    A plate of his favorite chocolate chip cookies sat on the reception desk. Bing must have told her that Murph was coming in.
    “Man, it's good to be back.” He might not have had a large and loving family, but somehow the town had always made up for that, even when he’d been a troublemaker of a kid.
    “ Welcome home.” She pulled back so she could fully look at him.  
    He narrowed his eyes. “You look younger than when I left. How are people around here supposed to focus on their work?”
    She swatted him on the arm, but she smiled.
    “ How are the boys?”  
    “ Trying their best to drive me to drinking.”  
    “ Have they discovered girls yet?”  
    “ Bite your tongue, Murphy Dolan.” She looked like she might say more, but the phone rang and she grabbed for the switchboard. “Broslin P.D.”  
    Harper Finnegan and Chase Merritt came from behind their computers to take a turn at greeting him. They were in a contest to see which one of them would make detective first. Murph had been in the running until his deployment. And he’d get back into the game, he promised himself, no matter how long it was going to take.
    “ Now he comes back,” Harper groused, struggling with a grin. “When all the puke is mopped up and the Deering twins have been sent upstate.”  
    He was Broslin’s black sheep turned cop, tall and lean, a ladies’ man and then some. His parents owned and operated Finnegan’s, the town’s only Irish pub. Harper and his six brothers weren’t officially involved in the family business, but helped out when called upon.
    Harper flashed a long-suffering look at Chase. “The man treats police work as a holiday.”
    “ If this is vacation, where is the beer?” Murph challenged them.  
    “ You let me know when you find it.” Chase gave him a quick, manly embrace, nothing near as demonstrative as Leila’s had been.  
    He was the mildest of the bunch, easy going. Had a reputation for being a big teddy bear, but he could lay down the law and finish a fight with a single right hook if the occasion called for it. Of course, with Chase, that was rarely the case. He was good at talking people down. Such an all-around nice guy, even the