Page 7 - The Peggy's - Chapter 1

She snickered. You had to have the rank of lieutenant or above to have a desk that
was all yours. Rowena looked down at the crap she shared with two other officers.
Each of them took great pains to claim some part of the small area as their own. A
place to put their pictures or other instruments of intimacy to sort out the boredom of
being assigned to this division.
As Rowena settled into her desk, the kid who wanted her to answer the phone came
over to her elbow. Pointed at the lights on her own phone. Told her she had the Police
Commissioner on one, the Chief of Police on two, and the Chief of Detectives on
three.

“Then hang the fuck up you God forsaken moron.”
The youngish man slunk away. His head hung low. It gave Rowena a bit of an uplift
to see someone who felt like his career was worse off than hers. If he only knew. Well,
he knew some of it. Every cop on the force knew some of why she was now in charge
as a fucking sergeant, not even detective sergeant, on the Dead Division’s graveyard
shift.
To be shot down from Deputy Chief of Police to sergeant certainly made news. Made
even more ripples on the scuttlebutt circuit among the city’s various police
departments. Hell, she was still being talked about at the water fountains and in the
local bars where the cops hung out.
It tickled Rowena that every cop knew, and yet; didn’t have a clue as to what actually
happened, and why.

Her smile slipped away as she removed her cell phone from her uniform jacket
pocket. A uniform she hadn’t worn in twenty-five years. This time, she answered.
“Adair,” Rowena said into the phone’s receiver. A thing she’d place between her
shoulder and ear as she sat down.

“You have twenty minutes to get down here,” a hard voice growled into her ear. A
familiar voice. One belonging to a man who was not used to being told no.
“Why on earth would I bother?” Rowena answered. Her own tone hard now. Hard
as steel.
“Because I said so,” the police commissioner said as he ground his teeth.

“Not good enough,” Rowena answered. “We have a deal.”
“Listen to me you conniving cunt,” the police commissioner said. Rowena certain the
asshole in his five thousand dollar suit was doing everything he could not to scream
curse words at her. Which meant he was being watched. “You now have seventeen
minutes.”
Before she could continue, he hung up. Rowena laughed. She could care less what
kind of troubles the police commissioner had. She would be retired in four months.