The Totem 1979 by David Morrell Read Free Book Online

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 breakin 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 breakin, 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.
    Two drunk driving, one assault (that was at a truckers’ bar-an argument during a pool game), one dog that kept barking all night, and one prowler. That was on the other side of town, and Slaughter would have a cruiser checking there tonight. He scanned the other items on the sheet. Two car accidents, no injuries. A broken window at the high school. A missing person. Well, not really missing. That was Clifford who had left his wife three times already. He kept going out and getting drunk and then not coming home. Clifford’s wife would phone to say that he was missing, and they’d find him two days later at a friend’s. Well, Slaughter would have a man check all the friends and this time tell the guy at least to phone his wife when he got sober. They had better things to do than run a marriage-counseling service.
    That was that. Nothing pressing. Although he didn’t want to, Slaughter would have to work some more on organizing traffic control for the Junior Ranchers meeting that was coming up next week. He would have to make a speech there too, and for sure he was going to have to work more on what he planned to say to them. He thought about the old man. Might as well get started. He was reaching into his desk for a pencil and some paper when the buzzer sounded on his desk.
    Slaughter pressed the button on the intercom. “What is it, Marge?”
    “A call for you. It’s Doctor Reed.”
    Reed had helped calm Mrs. Markle. “Put him through.” Slaughter straightened, reaching for the phone. “How are you, Doc?” And then he frowned and listened.
    Mrs. Markle was still unconscious from the sedative. She kept talking anyhow. Babbling was more like it. Mixing things like Sam Bodine, the steer, the old man, several other things as jumbled. Mostly, though, she just kept saying Sam Bodine. The doctor thought that Slaughter ought to know.
    “You think Bodine owns the steer Doc Markle had on the table?” Slaughter asked.
    “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. I thought I’d better call you, though.”
    “I’m glad you did.”