On a Killer's Trail by Susan Page Davis Page A

one flight to confer with him in Priority.
    Funny, during the three years Neil had been in the unit under Mike, he’d never been upstairs to the chief’s office. But since July, when Mike Crowley became chief and Connor took over the unit, Neil had been up there maybe a dozen times. It used to be really scary. When a man was called to the chief’s office, it was like being a schoolboy who was sent to the principal. Not anymore. When Connor went upstairs now, Neil figured either they were getting a new case to work on, or Connor and Mike were drinking coffee and catching up on the latest cases.
    Mike actually joined them during their break most mornings and prayed with them, now that he was a Christian. The other guys in the unit knew that they’d better stay out of the break room between ten and ten-fifteen if they didn’t want to go to a prayer meeting. Mostly, they stayed away. Jimmy Cook came once in a while.
    When Connor came back from Mike’s office, his face was grave. “Bring the men over here, Neil. We’ve got to pick up another case. There’s been another murder.”

FOUR
    K ate was shocked to see a bouquet of roses on her desk when she walked into the newspaper office after lunch on Monday. Her pulse quickened as she hurried between the rows of workstations toward it.
    “Hey, Kate, great job this weekend,” one of the copy editors called.
    “Thanks.” She hurried to her desk and looked the flowers over. Very classy arrangement in a glass vase. She couldn’t think of anyone who would send her flowers…unless Neil…No, he wouldn’t. Would he? She found the card and opened it.
    “Wow, roses,” said one of the clerks. “Is it your birthday?”
    “No. It’s from Mr. Cleeves.” The letdown feeling annoyed her. That was irrational. Her new boss, whom she’d slaved all weekend to impress, had sent her a flamboyant symbol of his approval. Why should she be disappointed?
    “Kate, great story on the murder.”
    She looked up to find the senior reporter, Milton Henderson, standing by her desk. “Thank you.”
    “You must have put in a lot of hours over Christmas.”
    “I did, but it was worth it.”
    Henderson nodded and went back to his own desk when Kate’s phone rang.
    “Hello, Miss Richards. This is John Cleeves.”
    She gulped. “Hello. Thank you so much for the flowers, Mr. Cleeves.”
    “Well, you did an excellent job on your stories about the Riley murder.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “Could you please step into my office for a minute?”
    She walked across the room swiftly, trying to control her wobbly knees.
    “Sit down, Kate,” Cleeves said, indicating a chair opposite his desk. “What do you have planned for this afternoon?”
    “Uh…” She zipped mentally through her options. “I’ve started an update on the Riley murder. I interviewed several of the victim’s friends this morning. I intend to contact Captain Larson’s unit to see if they have a report from the medical examiner yet and find out how their investigation is going.”
    “Good. But we just heard on the scanner that there’s another homicide in the city. Since you have such a good rapport with the detective squad now, I thought I’d have you do the initial write-up about it. I can put Milt Henderson on the Riley murder follow-up if that’s too much for you.”
    She inhaled carefully. “I think I can handle it, sir.”
    “Okay. Well, Milt is interviewing the mayor at one-thirty, but don’t hesitate to ask him for help later if you need it. I want you to know that I have complete confidence in you.”
    “Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me.”
    He nodded. “Get as much as you can on the new case, but leave yourself time to finish the Riley update. Oh, and I have you down for the Rotary auction tomorrow night. You’ll still be covering that, so pace yourself.”
    Kate returned to her desk and stared down at the notes she had scrawled while Cleeves talked. She was amazed that he had handed her another