The girl would have to endure her wet clothes. He had neither the time nor the inclination to do anything about that.

Voskuil glanced at the lineup outside his partition. While he’d been with the child five more cases had joined the queue. Long night ahead.

Irritated, Voskuil returned to his review of the girl. Busy or not, he’d make time for a word with Gladden. That was some stunt she just pulled. At twenty yards he could tell that old bag was one cold night away from croaking in her sleep. 

It’s the pity cases that get blood on your hands, he thought, and handed the child a towel. “Try to dry yourself off, would you?”

It was definitely going to be a long night. 


#

 

A light rain drummed the Interceptor’s windows. The drive back to the station was virtually silent. Except for the chatter of the dispatcher, of course. Nic had stared into the opaque windshield until Winter prompted her to put on the wipers. The atmosphere outside was thick and gray.

He was always spent at the end of a tour — they rarely had one without action — but today he was particularly glad that only the most serious of calls could keep him from clocking out.

The riot had been a tough one.

Worse, he saw, for Nic. Her face was stony, her eyes focused on the road ahead. She was seldom voluble, these days, but he’d never seen her this withdrawn. And they’d encountered, in the course of their eleven-month partnership, worse things than what happened to the teen in the Seahawks jacket.

Of course, Winter hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger today. 

“Nic,” he said, unable to bear it. She must have known from his tone where he was going with this because she immediately said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” he said. “If you ever do… Lemme know. Whenever.”

She glanced over and he saw, in her slight, pained smile, a gratitude he savored. She nodded.

They passed one of the ubiquitous billboards — huge red type stamped on a black background. The simple, unequivocal declarative: THERE IS NO CURE.

We get it already, Winter thought. The truth is all around us.

But people needed the reminder. If you forgot that simple fact at the wrong time, you’d break the rules. And that meant more death.

The one thing we have plenty of, he thought. His bleak mood got bleaker.

What a shitty day.


#


A high perimeter wall enclosed a collection of multi-story buildings that, in simpler times, had served as county courthouses.

As they passed through the fortified gates, Winter gazed at the lichen-encrusted sign that identified the complex as the KING COUNTY MUNICIPAL DEFENSE BUREAU. They need to scrape that shit off, he thought. The green stuff grew fast and would make the stone letters decay.

After two checkpoints, the Interceptor entered a subterranean garage and joined its fellows in the motor pool. Winter and Nic unloaded their gear and carried it to the elevator. 

They walked in step. Winter liked that.

Donny Petrescu, with his perpetually oil-stained coverall, was chatting it up with one of the other mechanics in the garage office. 

“Hey Donny, her engine’s running rough. We put in a req on that tuneup three weeks ago,” Nic said, crossly.

“I’ll get on it, boss,” Donny said, amiable as ever. “But shop’s running six weeks behind right now, so you got three weeks to wait.”

“Good thing it’s not the brakes,” Winter muttered as the elevator doors closed behind them.

“Place is going to hell in a handbasket,” Nic growled as they rode upward. 

The elevator deposited them in a courtyard connecting various agency buildings.