More Than Friends by Erin Dutton

around in court all day had exhausted her, and now she had to endure the rest of her regular shift.
    “What’s wrong? You seem a little edgy.”
    “Eh, my dad.”
    “He was in court?” Kendall winced. Evelyn had watched him cross-examine Kendall once, and he didn’t give her any slack either.
    “Yeah.”
    “How is Charles W?” Kendall asked, making her usual joke about his penchant for introducing himself as “Charles W. Fisher.”
    “Same as always. He is who he is and I’m not changing either.”
    “Did something happen today?”
    “No, we didn’t even speak, except when I was on the stand.”
    “Unfortunately, he really is good at what he does.”
    “I know.” His questions were always on point and delivered with just the right amount of respect and skepticism.
    “So, what’s the score now?” Kendall asked.
    “What?”
    “You keep a running tally every time you’re in court with him, right?”
    His criminal-trial record was beyond impressive, and he was a pro at winning juries over. But she had inherited his trustworthy smile and usually felt she could hold her own against him. Against him. Despite knowing that they were both simply cogs in the gears of justice, she couldn’t help making their encounters personal.
    “Forget that. Let’s go find out what they’re fighting about this time.” She forced her attention back to her current situation—one she could do something about.
    Today wasn’t the first time they’d been to this particular residence. The husband and wife who lived here argued often, which usually resulted in one of them calling the police. Today it was the wife. But when police officers arrived, neither would make a statement against the other. If they got physical, they were careful about it. She hadn’t seen a mark on either of them yet, and until she did, she couldn’t do anything to force prosecution.
    Kendall nodded and opened the chain-link gate leading to the residence in question. Aside from the bright-red front door, the small, square house wasn’t different from any of the other houses on the block. But before they could reach the front porch, that very door flew open and a harried-looking woman hurtled out and stopped when she saw them. She wore fuchsia fuzzy slippers and a flowing nightgown covered in huge, obnoxiously bright flowers. She shook one fist in the air while clutching the neck of a broken wine bottle in the other.
    “Where have you been? I called fifteen minutes ago.”
    “What’s going on today, ma’am?” Kendall asked. She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, leaving plenty of room between them and the woman.
    “Other than the piss-poor response time of the police? If I’d been shot in the street, I would have been dead before you got here.”
    Evelyn bit back a snarky response. She’d heard this twisted logic before and had long ago given up explaining just why this woman would not have been left to die in the street while the police ate doughnuts down the street.
    “Where’s your husband tonight?” she asked, ignoring the rest of her tirade. If the woman complained to the department, their response time would be investigated. The department didn’t have enough officers to answer every call immediately, so incidents were prioritized and that meant some people had to wait. She had no doubt that’s what had happened in this case. Neither of these two admitted to physical injury, and despite the bottle in the woman’s hand, she hadn’t mentioned any weapons on the phone, so some high-priority calls had been dispatched first.
    “He’s inside. On the kitchen floor where I left him.”
    “What happened to him?” When the woman tightened her grip on the bottle, Evelyn rested her right hand on her gun. “Ma’am, I need you to put down the bottle and stay out here with my partner while I go inside and check on him.”
    She nodded and set it down in a nearby rocking chair. Evelyn met Kendall’s eyes in silent communication, and at