Free School Days by Robert B. Parker Page B

tinted windows parked on the curb behind the squad car. A cop in plainclothes got out of the front seat and opened the back door.
    â€œIn here,” he said.
    I looked into the backseat. Cromwell was there. I slid inbeside him, and the plainclothes cop closed the back door and opened the driver’s door to get in.
    â€œWait outside the car,” Cromwell said.
    The cop closed the door and went and leaned with the two uniforms on the squad car in front of us.
    â€œThis mean you like me?” I said.
    Cromwell was wearing his big, terrifying pearl-handled revolver. I felt honored. Cromwell ignored my question. Probably felt it was frivolous. He looked at me with his eyes half closed. It was supposed to make my blood freeze.
    â€œOptics are amazing, aren’t they?” I said. “We can see out fine through the tint, but people outside can’t really see us much.”
    â€œShut up,” Cromwell said.
    The eyes behind the rimless glasses narrowed some more. I squinted back at him.
    â€œHard to see, isn’t it,” I said, “with your eyes three quarters shut.”
    â€œThis is your last chance,” Cromwell said finally.
    â€œIt is?”
    â€œAfter this, it gets very rough.”
    â€œOh,” I said. “That’s when.”
    The front windshield wasn’t tinted. Through it, the three cops leaning on the squad car could look in at us.
    â€œYou might get hurt bad,” Cromwell said, “resisting arrest.”
    â€œGee,” I said, “maybe this doesn’t mean you like me.”
    â€œDo I make myself clear?” Cromwell said.
    â€œActually,” I said, “I’m a little murky on some things. Likewhen your guys arrived, why did they secure the perimeter and stay there while the shooters inside kept shooting?”
    â€œIt was a hostage situation. Anybody knows anything about policework knows you don’t go charging into a hostage situation.”
    â€œBut it wasn’t a hostage situation. It was serial murder in progress.”
    â€œWe had no way to know that,” Cromwell said.
    â€œThe sound of gunshots inside didn’t suggest anything?” I said.
    â€œBesides, it might have been booby-trapped.”
    â€œBut it wasn’t,” I said.
    â€œWe had no way to know that, either.”
    â€œSo you didn’t go in.”
    â€œWe weren’t going in until we had proper intelligence and appropriate backup.”
    â€œYou’re telling me,” I said, “you didn’t go in because it might not be safe?”
    â€œGoddamn it, that’s not what I said.”
    â€œIt is what you said; it’s just not what you wanted me to hear.”
    Cromwell’s voice had gotten hoarse as we talked.
    â€œWe contained it,” he rasped. “Goddamn it, we contained it.”
    â€œYou were scared,” I said. “And you didn’t know what to do. And there are some kids dead who would be walking around today if you’d gone in there sooner.”
    â€œYou sonovabitch,” Cromwell croaked.
    He took his big pearl-handled gun out and started to pointit at me. I took hold of the barrel before he leveled it and bent it back so the gun was pointing at the roof of the car. He struggled to level it. But I held it there. So we sat, sort of frozen in place. The three cops out front glancing through the windshield couldn’t see much in the backseat, and whatever they saw didn’t look like trouble. They stayed where they were.
    â€œLet go,” Cromwell said, “or I’ll shoot.”
    â€œYou’re a small-town police department. You never saw anything like this before. You had no hands-on experience. You were scared. So you hunkered down and waited for the Staties.”
    â€œLet go,” Cromwell said.
    His voice was so thick, he seemed to be having trouble squeezing his words out.
    â€œOkay, it was a fuck-up,” I said. “And it cost lives. But it was sort of