Free Edge of Midnight by Charlene Weir

Look, ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a cop. You’ve never seen anybody so happy as when I graduated from the academy. I thought I made it, I’m really going to do this. And then out there…” She waved a hand. “I thought you were dead. It was my fault. I thought…” That my father was right. I’m stupid, inadequate, useless, nothing but excess baggage . “I was really scared. I’m glad you’re okay.”
    â€œHard head,” Osey said. “Takes more than a mule kick to kill me. Just … would you believe I know a thing or two?”
    She relaxed her shoulders. “Thanks.”
    Did he resent being partnered with her? Hard to tell with Osey. Unlike Demarco who radiated hostility, Osey seemed to deal amiably with whatever got thrown at him. Although he had gotten kind of tight-lipped when she rushed in where she shouldn’t have. If he held it against her, he didn’t show it. He looked slow and lazy, and had a lanky stride that gave the impression he was on the verge of collapse.
    â€œForget it.” He braked suddenly to avoid a retarded squirrel who darted in front of the cruiser.
    â€œForget what?”
    â€œGuilt about nearly getting my head blown off. Just don’t do it again.”
    â€œGot it. Is he always like that? Simon, I mean. Lives in nineteen forty-two and runs around shooting people he thinks are Nazis?”
    â€œThe uniforms probably set him off. The thing about Simon is, he’s clever about sneaking away from his caregiver. But if you just wait him out, he forgets where he is and what he’s doing and you can just collect him and take him home.”
    â€œRight. Is he ever lucid?”
    â€œNot really, I guess. Sometimes he recognizes his daughter, mostly he doesn’t, thinks she’s his sister.” A second or two went by, then he looked at her and asked. “Why?”
    â€œJust wondered.” When she had—recklessly as it turned out—rushed into the house, Simon had shouted something about killing someone. But he hadn’t actually, he’d only shot a boy in the leg. The kid was recovering quickly and was getting a lot of mileage out of it.
    â€œWhen those blackbirds fly around like that, doesn’t it mean they’ve found something dead?” she said.
    â€œProbably. Why?”
    â€œThey’re always flying around the cornfield?”
    â€œSo?”
    She didn’t want to sound like some stupid city chick who didn’t know anything. And she didn’t want to get in trouble again either. From now on she was going to follow orders, not take a step until she was told to. Well, maybe just one.
    â€œYou think Simon murdered somebody and slung the body in the cornfield?” A hint of amusement sneaked into Osey’s voice.
    â€œIf something isn’t dead out there, why are those birds constantly circling?” It spooked her, those big blackbirds flying their endless circles, like a shot from an old western.
    â€œFarmers are into ecology. Nothing wasted. Cow drops a calf that doesn’t make it, the calf gets spread out for the critters to feed on. Deer hit by a car maybe.”
    Dead calves thrown out on the hillside for other animals to eat kind of made her queasy.
    Osey looked at her with a breath of inhaled patience. “What?”
    â€œI’m leaving after work. Going home for my niece’s birthday.”
    â€œI thought you were taking your car to the shop.” Osey’s father and brothers owned the garage where she took her car. “How you going to get there?”
    â€œI’m taking the bus home.”
    â€œAren’t you working tomorrow?”
    â€œYeah, I’ll only be gone a day. I get back around noon.” She didn’t have to report for duty until three.
    â€œWant a ride from the bus station?”
    â€œThat’d be great.”
    They picked up Brett Foster at the swimming pool where he