Free Damaged Goods (Don't Call Me Hero Book 2) by Eliza Lentzski Page B

Miller,” he joked. “I’m a married man.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    It was mid-afternoon, but the dark clouds in the sky made it appear more like nighttime. Webber Park was empty except for a few vagrant men huddled beneath the picnic enclosures, trying to ward off the worst of the whipping wind and steady rainfall. Even though it was raining, I looked forward to those moments in my patrol when I got to leave my FTO in the car and walk around the park. It was only Day Three and I’d already grown tired of my supervisor, but I was sure he’d have the same to say about me. My only solace was the knowledge that although Mendez was an annoyance, he was also temporary. If I played by the rules, spit-shined my shoes, and did his paperwork for him, I’d have my own beat soon enough.
    My police radio crackled at my hip with an incoming call from central dispatch: “432.”
    “This is 432,” I heard Mendez’s voice over the radio.
    “432,” the original voice recited, “you’ve got a 10-53 at 45th and Lyndale. Multiple car accident, Code Eight.”
    Leaving the pedestrian walk, I jogged back to the patrol car where Mendez already had the reds and blues flashing. I didn’t waste time removing my rain jacket even though my seat would be wet the rest of our shift.
    “Sounds serious,” I said as I buckled up. “Code Eight. EMS is en route?”
    Mendez grunted affirmatively, and we began to drive in the direction of the accident.
    If possible, it started to rain even harder when we arrived on scene. The corner of 45th and Lyndale was a sprawling three-way intersection, dotted by fast food restaurants and small businesses. Traffic had come to a complete stop and only the rain kept the gawkers and onlookers inside of their vehicles. Beyond the rapid back and forth of the patrol car’s windshield wipers I could see the flashing lights of an ambulance and fire truck, but we were the first police officers to arrive.
    A white four-door sedan was tipped over on its side in the middle of the intersection and a second vehicle, a blue coupe, had veered head-on into a row of parked cars. Broken glass and bits of plastic and twisted metal littered the intersection.
    One of the paramedics was helping a man and a woman out of the nearly inverted vehicle. They looked shaken up, but not seriously hurt. The vast majority of emergency responders were swarmed around the second vehicle. There were too many bodies in the way and too much distance for me to visually assess the condition of the second vehicle and its driver and possible passengers.
    “Set up a road block to redirect traffic,” Mendez instructed me, “and I’ll check out what we’re dealing with.”
    The trunk of our car was equipped with road flares and first aid materials. I began to establish a perimeter around the two-car crash. Statistically, directing traffic could be more hazardous than a high-speed pursuit, especially when it was overcast and raining. Vehicles drove too fast and too close, and after a while of pointing and waving and moving traffic safely through the intersection, my uniform pants and yellow rain slicker had become splattered with dirt and debris. To add insult to injury, tires kicked up rainwater, soaking my already saturated uniform.
    Despite my soggy clothes, I preferred this task to what Mendez was doing. I had training as a first responder, but I was grateful the paramedics had already arrived and those kinds of services weren’t needed from me. The sight of blood didn’t bother me—in Embarrass I had once wrestled with a guy tripping on animal tranquilizers in a bathroom covered in his own blood—but this was different.
    Mendez strolled across the intersection. “You making mud pies over here, Miller?” he called to me.
    I shook out my legs. My socks were soaked through and the polyester material of my uniform pants clung uncomfortably to my skin.
    “Our 10-53 turned