One Day in a Small-Town Desert, chapter 14, page 8

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Lawperson Séara Nulıpésha drank the last of her coffee, letting the final drops take their time to fall from the edge of the ceramic mug onto the tip of her extended tongue. With her legs crossed at the knees, she sat at her desk in the middle of the open office portion of the precinct headquarters.

The office was absolutely quiet, except for the buzz of the fluorescent lights and the slight rattle of the ventilation system. Everyone except for Séara--and the desk lawperson, who was in her own room--was out at the Kılímos’ house, scouring the desert for the murder suspects. While they were out there, doing actual work, Séara was stuck behind a desk, filling out reports like a good little girl.

“Darn it!” she muttered to the empty room of desks, clunking her mug down. Senior Lawman Vomıvé had done it to her again. He’d shut her out from gaining experience, helping the constabulary, and helping society. If he would just let her prove herself, he’d see how good a job she could do.

Séara sighed.

Not after her debacle at the Kılímos’ front door would Vomıvé give her more responsibility. That hadn’t been her best moment, for sure. How in the worlds was she going to get promoted to the equestrian squad with something like that attached to her name? Maybe she should just quit now and avoid further embarrassment.

She looked back down at her report form. She’d filled in about half, describing everything up to the point where she drove to the Kılímos’ house.

She tapped her pen against her teeth, then wrote, “Obtained entry into residence for paramedics. CEs forced entry through back door. CEs arrested suspect Narak and transferred custody to constabulary.”

What about Bhanar? Was he really a suspect in the Enforcer’s murder? He seemed so calm, so above-it-all, so confident, as if he knew he was innocent and was just waiting for the police to figure it out.

The Enforcers had arrested him for hindering a police investigation, but Séara had seen no hindrance coming from the pseudo-emperor. He’d been the most compliant suspect in the history of the worlds.

Her telephone rang. Séara jumped back ten centimeters in her chair. She tsked at herself and picked up the receiver.

“Nulıpésha,” she identified herself. Holding the telephone receiver with her shoulder, she capped her pen and set it atop her report.

“Dispatch,” the man on the other end of the line replied. “Everybody else in the Tuhanı Precinct knows about this, but then I realized that you were at the headquarters instead of the search site. They couldn’t find either suspect in the desert near the house, so we’re going to do a full-scale search at daybreak. We’ll be using everybody we can get, from the whole county. I don’t know what your role will be. You should report to Senior Lawman Vomıvé. But try to get some sleep. Everybody will be busy, come sunrise. The search has been called off for the night.”

Séara soaked in the information. Of course she was the last to know. How else would it be?

“Thank you,” she replied. “Anything else?”

“Nope, that’s about it.”

She set the receiver back in its cradle and leaned back in her chair. The metal and vinyl chair squeaked in protest as her modest weight shifted, but she knew it wouldn’t break. Or, at least, it hadn’t yet.

The other lawpersons would be returning to the headquarters any minute now. She badly wanted to get out of there before they arrived, but first she had to finish her incident report.

What should she say about Mr. Kılímo’s arrest?

She stared up at the water-stained ceiling tiles.

Should she draw Vomıvé’s ire by describing the way he beat the old man, probably causing his death? It’s not as if she was ever on the senior lawman’s good side, so what was the risk in reporting her point of view? What would he do, fire her? She’d welcome it. Her career wasn’t worth enough to hide this. The worlds had to know of Mr. Kılímo’s death.

The ceiling grew blurry. Séara tried to blink the tears away, with little success. She sat upright once more and grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk and wiped her eyes dry, blew her nose, and tossed the wadded-up tissue into the waste bin with the other crumpled balls of sorrow.

Séara grabbed her pen and quickly scrawled her memories of watching Vomıvé and that medic beating Mr. Kılímo in the hallway, then how he screamed and died in their custody. Her stream of consciousness ended a half-page later. She took a deep breath and leaned back, exhaling slowly.

There. It’s written. May Pétíso treat you more fairly than we did, Mr. Kılímo. You certainly deserved better.

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