“Anything broken?” Jack asked, wiping blood from his nose.
“I don’t think so. Just bruised.” But he winced again when he touched them.
“Go get them checked out. I’ll handle things here.”
The officer, Enoch Stanfield, had a fat lip and a rapidly swelling eye. He was trembling slightly from adrenaline overload as he soaked his handkerchief at the watercooler and held the cold cloth to his eye. “God, I love this job,” he said in an exhausted voice. “Nowhere else would I have the opportunity to get the shit kicked out of me every day.” He eyed Jack. “You sounded like you were having fun, Chief.”
Jack looked down at the big drunk, who had gone to sleep almost as soon as they got him hog-tied. Gargantuan snores issued from his open mouth. “I live for days like this.” Jack was abruptly exhausted, too, though he wasn’t shaking like Stanfield.
He had to call in another officer to help them drag the drunk into the tank to sleep it off. He also called in one of the medics to check him and make sure he was okay, that the big guy wasn’t in insulin shock, or something like that, even though the Breathalyzer indicated that he was simply piss-assed drunk, a diagnosis with which the medic concurred. A cold pack was put on Stanfield’s eye, a stitch in his lip, and another cold pack on Jack’s left hand, which was beginning to swell. He had no idea what exactly had happened to hurt his hand, but that’s the way it was with fights: you just threw yourself in and took stock afterward. By the time he had everything organized, including a replacement for Wylie for the rest of the shift, it was almost ten-thirty, the third-shift officers were there to take over, the second-shift officers were all there except for Wylie, and a couple of the first-shift guys had heard the excitement on their scanners and had come over to take a look. After all, it wasn’t every day the chief got involved in taking down a D and D, drunk and disorderly.
“There’s no way Eva Fay won’t hear about this,” he said glumly, causing general laughter.
“She’ll raise hell, you being here without her on duty,” Officer Markham, a twenty-year veteran with the force, said tongue-in-cheek.
The men, Jack realized, were thoroughly enjoying the situation. It wasn’t often the rank and file got to see their chief get down and dirty. There had always been a hint of reserve in them that wasn’t due just to difference in rank; the biggest part had been that he was an outsider. His wrestling with a big drunk had made them feel he was one of them, a regular cop despite his rank.
To top it all off, he had to walk back home. He could have had one of the guys drive him home, but then he’d have had to come up with a reasonable explanation for why he’d walked over in the first place, and he didn’t want to deal with it.
The house was just as he’d left it. Nothing seemed disturbed or out of place. He went straight to the phone and called information, to see if he could get the number of the mayor’s private line in city hall. There was no such listing, which didn’t surprise him. Next he called Todd Lawrence, who answered on the third ring with a sleepy “Hello.”
“I got the address changed,” he said. “And I used call return on the mayor’s private line to get the number of the last call to him, and redial to record the tones of the last call he made.”
“You’ve been a busy little boy.” Todd sounded more alert.
“This gives us two numbers to check out Think you can find out what the mayor’s private number is and get those records, too?”
“Too? You want me to get telephone records on three numbers.” It was stated as fact.
“What else are federal friends for?”
“You’re going to get your federal friend’s ass fired.”
“I figure my federal friend owes it to Daisy.”
Todd sighed. “You’re right. Okay. I’ll see what I can do, maybe call in some favors. This is completely off-record, though.”
Next Jack called Daisy, though a quick look at his watch told him it was just after eleven. She’d probably gone to bed at ten on the dot, but after all his efforts on her behalf that day, he thought he deserved at least a brief chat.
“Hello.” She didn’t sound sleepy; she sounded tired, but not sleepy.
“Are you already in bed?”
“Not yet. It’s been an . . . eventful night.”
“Why? What’s happened?” He was instantly on alert.
“I can’t turn my back on him for a second, or he’s tearing something up.”
“ ‘Him?’ ”
“The dog.”
The dog. Jack heaved a sigh of relief. “He doesn’t sound very well trained.”
“He isn’t trained at all. Killer, no! Put that down! I have to go,” she said hurriedly.
“I’ll be right over,” he said, just before she hung up, and didn’t know if she heard him or not. He didn’t care. He grabbed his keys, turned off the lights, and went out the door.
Daisy was exhausted. Her mother had called her at three P.M. and said tiredly, “Jo and I are taking the puppy over to your house. At least the yard is fenced in and he can run there. We’ll stay there with him until you get home.”
“Oh, dear.” That didn’t bode well. “What has he done?”
“What hasn’t the little devil done? We’re run ragged just trying to keep up with him. Anyway, we’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
When she got home at ten after five, both her mother and Aunt Jo were dozing in the living room, while the puppy slept between her mother’s feet. He looked so adorable, lying on his belly with his back legs stretched out behind him, like a little bearskin rug, that her heart melted.