Free Shadows Everywhere by John Lutz Page A

thirty-four-year-old detective now, doing well enough...under the circumstances. Still, it got to a man every so often: the squalor of the job, the unappreciative, misunderstanding, even despising public. There was the hopelessness of trying to get convictions, of long hours of hard work going for nothing–hours he knew he should be spending at home with Audrey and his boy Greg. Sam Day had risen fast enough in the department, but only to a point, it seemed. Suddenly, men with less ability, even less time on the force, began to pass him, were given more responsibility, chances to prove themselves. He adjusted the chafing shoulder strap of his holster and silently cursed the heat, and despite himself he looked around him again and wondered if it were worthwhile.
    The lieutenant's door opened all the way as there was another loud laugh, and a short man with a yellow face and thin wisps of black hair walked out, smiling to himself: Jack Vectin, Twelfth Precinct alderman. Idly, Day wondered what he'd been talking about with the lieutenant. Not that it mattered.
    " Boston Eight ," Day heard the speaker near the switchboard operator blare, " go 10538 Chambers Street and investigate a reported cutting. "
    Nothing for me, Day thought to himself as he half listened to the patrol car's laconic reply. For the present he'd been assigned to the burglary detail.
    Then Lieutenant Harold Weston appeared in the doorway to his office. A man of medium height with a deceptive smoothness to his round face, a deceptive blandness to his eyes, he was acting captain in charge of the Eighth Precinct. He placed his cigar in his mouth and waved for Day to enter.
    "How you been making it?' he asked Day, as he settled himself behind his desk and motioned for Day to sit in a nearby small wooden chair.
    "Good enough, I suppose, Lieutenant." Day wondered why he'd been summoned, wished the man would get to the point.
    "Don't get the idea I asked you in here to chew you out," Lieutenant Weston said. "Nothing like that. More just a word of caution."
    "Caution?" Day began to feel uneasy. He knew he was talking to a much smarter man than appeared on the surface to anyone.
    The lieutenant looked thoughtful, chewed on his cigar. "Maybe more like advice. I learned a few hours ago that Fred Brent left town and nobody knows where he went."
    Day was silent; he knew what that meant. Brent had committed a large-scale burglary at Hollman's Department Store. The police were sure he did it, and in time they would have gathered enough evidence to bring him in. Gathering that evidence was Day's job, and the fact that Brent had cut and run meant that Day had not been quite careful enough and had somehow alerted him.
    "A month down the drain," Day said to the lieutenant, "unless he comes back."
    "He won't be back," Lieutenant Weston said, "not Brent. Somebody tipped him you were investigating him. You asked somebody the wrong questions."
    Day didn't answer. He didn't feel like saying he was sorry. He felt like telling this good cop, Lieutenant Weston, just what he could do with the Brent case.
    "You've been moving in on them too soon and too fast," the lieutenant said. "Hard as it is to get convictions these days, we've got to be sure."
    "You and I both know he's guilty," Day said, and he knew as soon as he'd spoken that it was an inexcusably dumb thing to say. Lieutenant Weston stared at him.
    "Sure, we know it, Day. But the judge doesn't, and the jury doesn't, and it doesn't matter a damn to them what we think we know. Our job isn't to decide guilt or innocence. You know that. We gather evidence we can hand to the prosecutor. We don't let personal feelings enter into what we do."
    "I don't need a police academy refresher course, sir."
    Lieutenant Weston laid his cigar in a brass ash tray and looked hard at Day, anger darkening his round face. "1 told you, Day, this is no chewing-out. No need to get so damn upset. Just don't do it again."
    Day nodded.
    The lieutenant picked