Second Watch by J.A. Jance

went on in there pretty much an open book, hence the moniker the Fishbowl.
    In this instance, Detectives Watkins and Powell were sitting like errant schoolboys in the principal’s office and being given a dressing-down. After asking a passerby for directions to Watty’s cubicle, I scurried off there and hid out. Word of Captain Tompkins’s incredibly foul temper had filtered throughout the building, even as far as Patrol. If he was reading someone the riot act, I didn’t want to be within range of the captain’s notoriously sharp-tongued verbal onslaughts.
    When Watty appeared at the door of his cubicle a few minutes later, he took one look at me and shook his head. It was the kind of welcome look people dish out when a new arrival has not only stepped in fresh dog crap but also walked it into the house and onto the carpet.
    “Great,” he grumbled. “Just what I need this morning—a baby detective, fresh from Patrol, for me to babysit.”
    I didn’t quite get it. Yes, I had taken the exam for detective, and I’d done all right on it, too—my score had been in the midnineties. That counted as a respectable score, even if it wasn’t one that made you full of yourself. I had also been told there were currently no openings in Homicide, as in not a single one.
    “I don’t know who you know or what kind of strings you pulled to make this happen,” Watty continued. “And having you dropped like a fifth wheel into an already ongoing homicide case doesn’t do anybody any favors. As of right now, you’re working days. Be here by eight on the dot. Got it?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You’ll go home when Detective Powell and I tell you you’re done for the day,” he continued. “We’ll give you a partner to work with when Larry and I say you’re ready to have a partner. In the meantime, you’ll be doing whatever grunt work we hand you. You will do it cheerfully, with zero complaints, starting by getting me coffee from downstairs—cream and three sugars. And by the time I see you again, I want you to ditch the damned uniform. Understood?”
    I replied with another “Yes, sir.”
    I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t pulled any strings—that I had no idea how this had happened, but I didn’t say any of that aloud. Instead, I went straight to the locker room and changed out of the uniform and into the jeans and grubby shirt I had worn in the car for my commute to and from Lake Tapps. I took a look at myself in the mirror and knew that outfit wasn’t going to pass muster.
    Karen and I had established a charge account at a Seattle department store called the Bon Marché. We generally used that account to the limit at Christmastime. I hoped there was enough room back on our line of credit for me to buy a new shirt, a tie, and a pair of slacks. The guys in Homicide all dressed that way, and I figured I should, too, if I was going to fit in.
    I raced out through the lobby, caught the first northbound bus on Third Avenue, and made for the Bon at Third and Pine. Since the trip was all inside the Metro’s newly established Magic Carpet zone, I didn’t have to pay a fare. Once inside the store, I dashed into the men’s department, grabbed up what I needed, changed into it in the dressing room, paid the bill, and then went racing for the next free southbound bus.
    By the time I returned with Watty’s coffee, I was a new man, properly attired in slacks, shirt, tie, and sports jacket, and in my wallet was a receipt for an expenditure that was going to send Karen into a snit the moment the monthly bill arrived in the mail. The fact that I now had a promotion that came with a minuscule pay raise wasn’t going to change her mind about my reckless spending spree.
    Watty looked me over as he took his coffee, then nodded in grudging approval. “Took you long enough,” he said. “Now how about getting to work?”
    “Sure thing. What do you need me to do?”
    “Go to the motor pool and check out a car. You drive. I’ll give