Free THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE by Jason Whitlock Page A

concoctions for which Dojcsak resented paying four dollars a cup. The local police detachment was scheduled to relocate to the new municipal facility by the end of the year, with Dojcsak’s current workplace converted to a museum.
    Initially, Dojcsak had complained to town council over the move, arguing that the cost and nuisance of the relocation was disproportionate to any possible benefit. Mayor Keith Chislett had explained to Dojcsak—as if speaking to a dull child—that as the village was expanding north, so must the hub of government activity. Dojcsak had complained of the price for take-out coffee and the cost of a restaurant meal on the north side of the bridge, to which His Worship the Mayor replied caustically, “If you’re arguing for a raise, Ed, take up a part-time job. The museum will be looking to hire wardens. With your experience, it should be no problem to qualify.” It was well known that Dojcsak and Chislett did not get along.
    In the office, the command center was presided over by Dorothy O’Rielly. Dorothy was a five-foot tall ball of tightly compressed energy, the human equivalent of Indian rubber. Possessed of the vigor of a hound, properly channeled, her intensity could be set to useful purpose. Misdirected, her zeal turned caustic, taking on a stridency that had the power to bruise. Though Dojcsak was grateful for the selflessness with which she contributed unasked to Luba’s convalescence, one evening a week and every second Sunday providing Rena respite from the unremitting burden of his youngest daughter’s care, toward him, she made no effort to conceal an observation that he was himself not up to the obligation.
    Dojcsak hauled his bulk the seventeen steps from first floor to second, along the narrow corridor to the makeshift dormitory where coffee, artificial whitener, paper filters, and the ten-cup coffee maker were kept. His stomach bubbled, cursing him for three cups at the crime scene, two cups at home and cautioning him against the dozen more to come. Dojcsak ignored the threat.
    Christopher Burke lay atop the sofa. Obviously, he had not returned home since parting with Dojcsak and Sara three hours earlier in the alley where the body had been discovered. The steady rise and fall of his broad chest and the shallow inhale and exhale of his breath indicated to Dojcsak his Deputy was still deep in sleep.
    Burke’s face was overcast, shadowed with beard, his dark hair pulled tight in curly knots around his square jaw and flat cheeks. If Dojcsak begrudged Burke anything, he sometimes begrudged him his good looks, jealous of the injustice that concentrates in some people all the best ones. Burke had the frigid appeal of a Greek God, Dojcsak thought, observing the younger man more closely. It was no wonder to the senior officer that women were attracted to him.
    As a young man girls hadn’t much liked Ed Dojcsak. In fairness, he supposed he hadn’t much liked them. As a child, Ed learned they could be cruel. Dojcsak’s height hadn’t caught up to his weight until he was in high school. Up to then, he’d paid a terrible price: humiliation bordering on despair. Afterward, it was a skin condition. By the time Ed Dojcsak could appreciate himself for the good-looking young man he was, it was too late for any chance at self-confidence or esteem, though at nineteen a new position with the police went a significant distance toward redressing the oversight.
    Dojcsak did not imagine Christopher Burke to have ever had the same problems.
    “Wake up, sunshine,” he said to Burke now, nudging the younger man. “Rise and shine.” He said it more urgently, fearing Burke might sleep the long day away. (And who could blame him, knowing as he probably did the hours before them held only grief, recrimination and despair?) Burke stirred. Dojcsak said, “You haven’t been home.”
    “And they say you’re no Colombo,” Burke said without malice, his bunched knuckles busily wiping the sleep from