two years ago. What did he want her to do? Brood forever, like him?
Besides, she wasn’t the only ghost threatening to visit him tonight.
The television guide channel suddenly annoyed him. He grabbed the r e mote and flicked the off button.
“You know,” he said to the small pinpoint of light on the TV screen, “the thing that bothers me the most about losing the FTO gig is that I am good for those kids. They come out of the Academy and can barely tell the difference between a bad guy and a magpie. I teach them what they need to survive.”
He took a hard swig of the beer, his eyes fixed on the fa d ing light on the screen. “Other FTO’s teach them other things,” he conceded, jabbing his index finger at the TV to stress each word. “But I concentrate on showing them how to stay alive. How to be a warrior in peace-time.”
Just like in ‘Nam, he realized. Try to jam in enough knowledge into in the short training time so that they learn how to stay alive. That way, their deaths aren’t on your conscience.
But Thomas Chisolm housed a vast cemetery in his conscience and all the beer in the fridge wasn’t going to wash it away.
Wednesday, August 16th
Graveyard Shift
0126 hours
The River City Police Department had a successful Reserve Officer program. Reserve Officers were su b jected to the same hiring process as commi s sioned officers and then attended a condensed version of the Police Academy. They always rode with a commissioned officer, except for a handful that graduated to a higher rank and rode in two-man reserve cars. All of them were volunteers.
Some officers resented the reserves, claiming their presence took the place of hiring another commi s sioned officer. Stefan Kopriva disagreed. He saw the reserves as a supplement, not a replacement.
Besides, Kopriva knew that the same people who complained about the reserves taking away jobs would grouse even louder if they had to field some of the calls reserves often took. Reserves fielded a steady diet of cold burglary reports, bicycle thefts, and found property calls, all things most cops considered boring.
The reserve officer in Kopriva’s car was a green one, just three rides out of the Academy. Kopriva didn’t mind. The kid seemed bright and eager to learn. Kopriva had discovered in his sensei’s karate dojo that it gave him satisfaction to show someone a skill and then see that person ‘get it.’ Police work, som e times a very play-it-by-ear profession with a lot of gray area, was tricky to actually teach someone and thus, even more gratifying when someone caught on.
Kopriva let the reserve, Ken Travis, drive for the first half of the shift until oh-one-hundred. Then they switched. Not surprisingly, none of the officers in his previous three rides had allowed him to drive.
“Were they from the sit down and shut up school of thought?” he asked.
Travis nodded. “Pretty much. But you learn a lot from watching.”
“Not as much as from doing,” Kopriva said.
Ten minutes later, Kopriva spotted a car sneaking down Regal, a side street with a lot of offsetting inte r sections. This allowed drivers to treat it like an arterial. The street was fr e quented by drivers without a valid license, a practice so common that Kopriva and his sector-mates had dubbed any car on Regal after midnight in violation of the “felony Regal law” and therefore fair game.
Kopriva whipped the cruiser around with a u-turn and swooped in behind the car, a ‘71 or ’72 Monte Ca r lo. “Find the stop,” he instructed Travis. He’d already noticed the driver’s side headlight was burned out, an Easter Egg of a stop. The vehicle sped along thirty miles per hour, five over the limit. And to make things even easier, the passenger-side taillight was broken and showing white light to the rear.
Travis peered closely at the car for a block. In that time, the vehicle slowed to twenty-three miles per hour.
“How fast is he going?” Travis asked
Besides, she wasn’t the only ghost threatening to visit him tonight.
The television guide channel suddenly annoyed him. He grabbed the r e mote and flicked the off button.
“You know,” he said to the small pinpoint of light on the TV screen, “the thing that bothers me the most about losing the FTO gig is that I am good for those kids. They come out of the Academy and can barely tell the difference between a bad guy and a magpie. I teach them what they need to survive.”
He took a hard swig of the beer, his eyes fixed on the fa d ing light on the screen. “Other FTO’s teach them other things,” he conceded, jabbing his index finger at the TV to stress each word. “But I concentrate on showing them how to stay alive. How to be a warrior in peace-time.”
Just like in ‘Nam, he realized. Try to jam in enough knowledge into in the short training time so that they learn how to stay alive. That way, their deaths aren’t on your conscience.
But Thomas Chisolm housed a vast cemetery in his conscience and all the beer in the fridge wasn’t going to wash it away.
Wednesday, August 16th
Graveyard Shift
0126 hours
The River City Police Department had a successful Reserve Officer program. Reserve Officers were su b jected to the same hiring process as commi s sioned officers and then attended a condensed version of the Police Academy. They always rode with a commissioned officer, except for a handful that graduated to a higher rank and rode in two-man reserve cars. All of them were volunteers.
Some officers resented the reserves, claiming their presence took the place of hiring another commi s sioned officer. Stefan Kopriva disagreed. He saw the reserves as a supplement, not a replacement.
Besides, Kopriva knew that the same people who complained about the reserves taking away jobs would grouse even louder if they had to field some of the calls reserves often took. Reserves fielded a steady diet of cold burglary reports, bicycle thefts, and found property calls, all things most cops considered boring.
The reserve officer in Kopriva’s car was a green one, just three rides out of the Academy. Kopriva didn’t mind. The kid seemed bright and eager to learn. Kopriva had discovered in his sensei’s karate dojo that it gave him satisfaction to show someone a skill and then see that person ‘get it.’ Police work, som e times a very play-it-by-ear profession with a lot of gray area, was tricky to actually teach someone and thus, even more gratifying when someone caught on.
Kopriva let the reserve, Ken Travis, drive for the first half of the shift until oh-one-hundred. Then they switched. Not surprisingly, none of the officers in his previous three rides had allowed him to drive.
“Were they from the sit down and shut up school of thought?” he asked.
Travis nodded. “Pretty much. But you learn a lot from watching.”
“Not as much as from doing,” Kopriva said.
Ten minutes later, Kopriva spotted a car sneaking down Regal, a side street with a lot of offsetting inte r sections. This allowed drivers to treat it like an arterial. The street was fr e quented by drivers without a valid license, a practice so common that Kopriva and his sector-mates had dubbed any car on Regal after midnight in violation of the “felony Regal law” and therefore fair game.
Kopriva whipped the cruiser around with a u-turn and swooped in behind the car, a ‘71 or ’72 Monte Ca r lo. “Find the stop,” he instructed Travis. He’d already noticed the driver’s side headlight was burned out, an Easter Egg of a stop. The vehicle sped along thirty miles per hour, five over the limit. And to make things even easier, the passenger-side taillight was broken and showing white light to the rear.
Travis peered closely at the car for a block. In that time, the vehicle slowed to twenty-three miles per hour.
“How fast is he going?” Travis asked
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