Passion In James County IV: Hell Hath No Fury
Chapter 2
Tim Jackman finished putting on his uniform in the locker room of the Jamestown police station. He was a good-looking young man of twenty-one who stood six feet tall, had brown hair and blue eyes, and weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, thirty pounds more than he'd weighed in high school. He was also more muscular than he'd been in high school because of the hours he spent daily working out to keep himself in shape for his job.
After he had his uniform on, Tim joined the other officers working night shift in the roll call room to await their nightly briefing from the sergeant who was the night shift supervisor.
Tim was finishing his first year as a patrolman on the Jamestown Police Department. After he graduated from high school, he attended a local community college and got an associate's degree in law enforcement, then he joined his hometown police department. He was still attending community college at night, working toward his bachelor's degree in law enforcement.
He told his parents, who weren't thrilled by his choice of careers, that he intended to become a lawyer eventually but now, after a year in uniform, he knew he never wanted to be anything but a working cop. The only career change he contemplated was promotion to sergeant and assignment to the detective division.
He found a seat near the back of the roll call room and, along with the rest of the night shift, waited for the sergeant to appear and give them their patrol assignments for the night.
Sergeant Dawson, a bulky man with dark hair and a bushy moustache, who wore his wire-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his pointy nose, walked into the room carrying his clipboard in his hand. He looked around at the officers who comprised his shift and nodded. "Listen up, people," he said. He glanced down at his clipboard. "Here are your assignments for the night."
Ten minutes later, Tim and his partner and field training officer, Lex Dumont, walked out of the station, headed for their patrol car.
"You mind being recorder again, college boy?" Lex asked. He was the senior member of the two man team, a fifteen-year veteran of the streets. Normally the junior officer was the driver but Lex, who was computer-phobic, hadn't managed to master the intricacies of the computer terminals the department had installed in all of the cruisers. That meant Tim was passenger officer ever since they began working together.
Tim laughed. "No problem, old-timer," he said. "You know where all the donut shops are better than I do, anyhow." He liked his partner who had earned the reputation of being one of the best patrol officers on the force. He learned a lot from Lex; every night brought new lessons which helped him improve his police skills.
"Damn smart-assed kid," Lex muttered. "You know I don't eat donuts."
"Yeah, I know," Tim shot back. "It's those cheese Danish at Flossie's you're addicted to."
They stowed their gear in the car, got in, and Lex started out of the parking lot while Tim put them in service using the computer terminal.
"I don't see why we have to have those damn computers in the cruisers," Lex grumped as he headed for their patrol sector. "There's nothing wrong with radios far as I can tell." He snorted. "Actually, I never minded using call boxes, for that matter."
Tim didn't respond to his partner's comments. He and Lex had the radio versus computer argument at least once a month and he wasn't in the mood for it tonight. "Be nice if we had a quiet night for a change," he ventured.
"Yeah," Lex agreed. "Actually, seeing as how we're patrolling the high-rent district tonight, maybe it will be quiet." Their patrol area, known as the East Sector, consisted of mostly high-value residential properties. There was little or no criminal activity in the East Sector, other than an occasional prowler complaint, and those almost always turned out to be unfounded.
They had been assigned to Central Sector, the downtown area. It was a busy district, filled with rowdy bars. Working there helped keep their arrest statistics up, but left them drained at the end of the shift. Despite the heavy workload, Tim liked working Central Sector because the action gave him the experience he knew he'd need.
They managed to get half-way through their shift without having any calls. The only police work they did was issue one traffic ticket for speeding and a warning for the same offense.
"Working this sector sure is boring," Tim commented after he gave the second driver, an older woman, her warning.
