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Now he walked to the cruiser, glanced around, opened the driver's door and slid inside. He sat there for a moment, then reached to grab the microphone from the two-way radio on the dash.

He pressed the button. "Marge, it's Slaughter. Any news?" He released the button.

Hiss of static. "Nothing, Chief. What about Doc Markle at the vet's?"

Slaughter didn't answer.

"Chief?"

He swallowed. "It's too late. He's dead."

"Oh." Hiss of static. "Lord, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well… Guess his time just came." The words were like stones in his throat. "Damn it," he murmured.

"Say that again, Chief. I didn't understand you."

"Nothing. I'll be back to the office shortly." Slaughter returned the microphone to the radio, grabbed the key and twisted it, starting the car.

He had tried his best to be objective in there. Really it was hard. The doctor and the medical examiner both knew the way he felt. So did Marge. That was what she'd meant when she had said that she was sorry. Not for Markle, but for him.

Markle was the man he'd known out here the longest. It was Markle who had come out showing him about the horses he had tried to raise, explaining his mistakes. Markle had told him that a vet should come out twice a year at least, checking, giving shots and worming. Just when Slaughter got so he had one thing right, though, he would screw up on another, and soon Markle had to come out nearly every day. In the end, the old man had asked him why he wanted in this business in the first place, and then Slaughter had told him of his ideal image, living in the country, raising horses, selling them, sitting on the porch and watching all the animals run free. Markle shook his head. The word he'd used was "business," and he meant it. If you wanted horses just to ride and look at, that was one thing. Raising them and selling them, that was something else. People out here bred their own. Anyway, you needed decent stock. Good brood mares, a winning stallion. It took years to build a proper herd. Not to mention all the care and work. Days and nights of making sure that they were healthy, taking pains that they stayed out of trouble. You needed to watch them all the time.

Slaughter had listened, nodding, but he'd persisted, and only when the herd-not one horse or a couple, but the whole damned herd-came down with colic, did he know enough to stop. It was Markle who had told him of the old chief's death and how the town council needed a replacement. Markle was a member of the council, and that had helped, of course. Plus, Markle felt close to Slaughter by that time, at first just full of pity and exasperation toward him but then growing to admire his determination and the way he liked the country and the people and the style of life. Indeed, they'd gotten to be good friends, sitting on the porch each time Markle had come out, discussing each new set of problems, Slaughter drinking beer, the old man drinking Coke. The old man sensed in him a gentleness that went beyond Slaughter's name and strong, tough manner. The old man had told him so, and while there were some members of the force who stood in line to get the job, the old man had felt that since Slaughter had singled out this place in which to live and since he had a sympathy for ranchers, since he had the best credentials, he ought to have a good chance for the job.

So the two of them had done their best, the old man working on the members of the council, especially those who felt that big-time tactics weren't exactly what the town required, Slaughter coming in to say that big-time tactics were exactly what he didn't want, that they had been the reason he had left Detroit. He made a good impression. The issue was-even those who didn't want him had to say-he knew so much about this kind of work. They couldn't help but be convinced. And Markle was the cause of it. That night Slaughter took the old man on a celebration. Markle even drank some beer.

And now Markle was dead. Slaughter pulled up at a stoplight, waited, thinking, shook his head, and when the light turned green, he angled left. He thought of how he'd never spent the time he planned to with him. There had always been a thing to do, some aspect of the job to keep him occupied. Oh, sure, he'd gone around to see him and his wife from time to time. But not enough and not for long, and now he'd never have the chance again.

EIGHT

The door was thick wood, rich and solid, and Slaughter swung it open, stepping into the shadowy coolness of the stairway. The cells were down the stairs to the right, connected to the courthouse by a tunnel. Above and straight ahead, a wide square vestibule led into the offices. The floor was wood. The vestibule was rimmed by treelike plants. The ceiling, two floors up, was domed with glass.

He climbed the stairs and stood in the middle of the vestibule, looking at the ceiling and the glass. The sun was not yet high enough to gleam in. Where he stood was in halflight. He felt the halflight match his mood, thinking of the old man, and then shaking off his mood, he turned abruptly left to enter his office.

"Morning, Marge."

"Morning, Chief. Your coffee's on the desk. The night sheet's right beside it."

"Thanks."

But he'd already known she would say that. It was what she told him every morning, reduced now almost to a ritual. In spite of what had happened, he was forced to smile, walking past her toward his glassed-in section of the office in the far right corner. Marge was forty-five, gray-haired, heavy-set. She had been here briefly with the old chief just before he died, and wanting to keep everything efficient, the change as smooth as he could manage, Slaughter had kept her on. It was the best move he could have made. Marge was widowed with two full-grown children, and she had gone to work to get some order in her life. She had helped Slaughter ease in to his job, telling him which man was good at what he did and which was faking. She organized things so he could find out quickly what was going on. It had been her notion that they move the two-way radio unit from the room across the hall and put it in here with him. That way Slaughter could overhear whatever messages were coming through and maybe save some time. Certainly that saved the town some money. Rather Marge did, taking on two jobs instead of one, freeing one man who had always worked the radio (now he could go out on the street), at the same time taking Slaughter's calls and acting as his secretary.

She had the unit on the desk beside the entrance to the office, typing at another desk and waiting for the cruisers to start checking in with her. Behind her, desks were set in rows where officers would come in for debriefing after finishing their shift. The desks were empty now. There wasn't any point in having men here waiting for some trouble; best to keep them on the street and have Marge call to tell them where to go if they were needed. Slaughter barely glanced around the quiet room as he entered the glass-partitioned section of the office, sitting at the desk. He reached to swing the door shut, peered out the window at the cars and trucks that went by past the trees out there. Then sipping at his coffee-cool; he hadn't drunk it soon enough-he took the night sheet, leaning back until his chair was braced against the metal filing cabinet.

There were ten notes on the sheet. Last night hadn't been busy. A break-in at the hardware store. He saw that two men from the day crew were already working on that. They would check the manner of the break-in, find out what was taken. Chances were by Monday they would catch whoever did it. Strangers didn't come to steal here very often. When they did, they surely didn't try the hardware store. Most likely these were locals. Even though the town had a population of twenty thousand, it was small enough that there would be no problem discovering who'd suddenly gotten his hands on lots of hardware store equipment.