The Blue Edge of Midnight by Jonathon King Read Free Book Online Page A

interstate had speared through the community, splitting what cohesion the neighborhoods had once built. After that the poverty, crime, and apathy of government did its own erosion. The blocks around headquarters had been called “The Danger Zone” by the cops who patrolled the area. It had the highest incidence of burglaries, robberies and homicides in the county. The officers called the roaming neighborhood dogs “zone deer.” They called the yellow-eyed drug dealers by name. They called themselves the zookeepers. It reminded me of too many parts of Philadelphia. It took me back home.
    I pulled my truck all the way to the back of the parking lot and found an empty spot in the shade of a bottlebrush tree. I made sure the scratched side was facing away from the building and got out in the sparkling heat. It was before noon and already eighty-four degrees. The asphalt was like a burner turned low. In the two minutes it took to walk to the front entrance and get through the double doors I could feel the sweat start in my hair. Inside it quickly evaporated in the envelope of air conditioning.
    The lobby was circular with a rotunda-like ceiling soaring all the way to the top. The floor was a dark green faux marble and the stone crawled up the sides of a round reception desk and spread flat on the counter. Even at my six foot three, the desktop came to my chest. The only hint that I wasn’t standing in the lobby of a downtown bank was the uniformed officer looking down at me with one of those developed demeanors that says bored and too busy at the same time.
    I asked for Hammonds’ office and she pushed a clipboard with a sign-in sheet and a plastic visitor’s badge at me.
    “Fourth floor,” she said, pointing at the bank of elevators.
    On four I had to use a phone to get a secretary to buzz me through to a reception area lined with beige doors and offices with glass halfway down the walls. It was a far cry from the overwaxed and stale interior of the Philadelphia police headquarters that we had called the roundhouse. But the atmosphere was the same. The furtive glances, the busy work, the “anybody know this guy?” nods. No one up here was in uniform and they all seemed content to let me chill. When Hammonds’ secretary asked me to take a seat, I thanked her and paced instead.
    From the waiting area I could see into two offices. Behind the glass in one, the guys with ties shuffled back and forth between waist-high cubicles. In the other, an open desk dominated a room lined with file cabinets. Two wood-veneered doors were closed and positioned on the far wall. As I paced, one of the doors opened and the woman detective, Richards, walked out and headed for the desk.
    She was dressed in a cream-colored skirt and a long- sleeved, silk-looking blouse that fluttered as she moved. Her blond hair was up in some kind of knot and pulled severely behind her head. She was wearing high heels that made her look even taller than she appeared at the boat ramp. Aerobics, I thought, assessing the tight calf muscles in her long legs. She never looked up as she moved from the desktop to the row of files and the sense of athleticism was obvious. Twice she glided past a paper shredder and wastebasket without moving her eyes from the document she was reading. Once she spun away from the desk and then, without breaking stride, hip checked an open file drawer that banged shut hard enough to rattle the glass. Dancer and hockey player, I thought and then turned to see the secretary watching me.
    “Mr. Hammonds is right this way,” she said. Whether it was from the embarrassed flush in my face or not, the tight grin on her face said “Caught ya.”
    Hammonds’ office was like the rest of the place, indistinguishable from any other modern business I’d ever been in. His broad desk sat at an angle guarding one corner. Bookcases lined one wall, file cabinets the other. Two cushioned chairs were positioned in front of the desk. When I came in