Broken Hero

Chapter 4

There was talk in the Newbury barracks locker room that the results for the latest test for sergeant would get posted in the immediate future. Kevin paid almost no attention to it, partially out of the knowledge that that overachiever Dillard would be on it despite getting exiled to the Berkshires over arresting a state senator on a speeding ticket and perp-walking him into Troop E Headquarters as a trophy, but mostly because of the money waiting for him back home. He still wanted to know how much he'd salvaged from the wreck before he made his final plans for it, but after pulling over a rather delightful redhead who tried to charm her way out of being ticketed for not stopping when a school bus had its open-door lights on, he was leaning strongly towards relocating to the Miami-Dade area and becoming a full-time womanizer on the nightclub circuit.

Since police work didn't recognize the existence of nights, weekends or legal holidays the way most of the private sector and even government bureaucracies did, patrol officers only had to work two or three days in a row before getting a day or two off. Kevin had reached the two-day mark, which netted him a day off, and he was going to spend it counting the money in his apartment. He would also make a trip to a decent restaurant for dinner, some place where the menu wasn't bolted to the wall behind the cash registers and somebody brought the food to you as you sat at a table they escorted you to rather than you taking it to an unassigned table or counter on a plastic tray.

He changed into his street clothes, pocketed his badge in its badge wallet, and holstered his SIG on his belt. As he exited the locker room, he bumped into Kersten, who normally worked the midday shift, as the other trooper was hurrying somewhere else in the barracks. "What's with the rush?" Kevin asked him.

"There's been a development on that plane wreck. Seems it might've been a smuggler. The Feebs are sending in their own crime scene people to get a closer look at everything."

"Smuggler of what?"

"They don't know yet. The NTSB crash guy found a couple sacks of cash where there should've been seats and called in the Feebs. Once their crime scene guys get done with it, we'll know more."

Kevin feigned a smile. "Things are finally getting interesting around here."

"Yeah, well, you know what the Chinese say about living in interesting times."

"What's that?"

"That it's a curse."

"'Curse,' my ass. All we do around here is bag speeders and drunk drivers. The most excitement we ever got to see before this happened was spinouts and crashes during the first days of winter before the plows and salt-and-sand trucks get ordered out and everybody remembers how to drive in snow and ice again."

"You know what else is a curse? Having your fondest wish come true, according to the French."

"Said the guy who's trying to get a gold shield."

Kersten shrugged. "Some of us think we have more to offer the department than just pavement-pounding."

"Yeah, there was a guy like that in my recruit training troop back at the Academy. He's now stuck out in the Cheshire barracks because he went supercop on the wrong guy."

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Now if you'll excuse me...?" Kersten slipped around Kevin to go do whatever it was he had originally planned before they ran into each other. Kevin shrugged off Kersten's comments because the majority of criminals wanted on federal charges were caught by local-level cops rather than the Feebs themselves, often on the most piddling of charges like a burned-out taillight or not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. He smiled, this time for real, as he headed out to his car, knowing that if the Feebs couldn't catch the 9/11 hijackers despite the President himself being told about them, they sure as hell would never come close to figuring out that he'd taken the money. And even if they did, he'd be in some non-extradition country by the time they got around to questioning him about it.