And Grant You Peace (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 4) by Kate Flora

Author:Kate Flora
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
Published: 2016-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

The woman on the other end of the phone, when he finally reached the person identified on the message slips as Dr. Alyce Jorgensen, assistant principal, sounded way too smug when she said, "Mr. Burgess. We've been waiting for your call for hours."

He admitted to being a ball of knee-jerk prejudices, and one of them was a visceral negative reaction to educators with PhDs who called themselves "Doctor."

"I apologize, Ms. Jorgensen," he said. "I was attending the autopsy of a murdered baby. We can't take calls in there. And you didn't call my cell phone, so that compounded the delay. If you could make a note of that, for your file?" He reeled off the number, then carefully and slowly repeated it, and asked, "Can you read it back to me, please?"

All right. He was misbehaving and he knew it. But even at the fine school his son attended, the administration was all about power and control, and so was he. So he wanted to start this off on the right foot, power-wise, whatever his son was alleged to have done.

He realized that he was acting like almost every parent he'd ever dealt with—the ones who cared about their children, at least, perhaps even the overprotective ones—and had to smile at how easily he'd fallen into this.

When she'd read back the number, he said, "Now, tell me what this is about."

"Well, Mr. Burgess—"

"Detective Sergeant Burgess," he corrected.

"Officer—"

"Detective Sergeant," he said. "Go on."

"Dylan was in a fight," she said, in a tone that suggested the boy had just blown up city hall. "We've given him a one-day suspension. We need you to come and pick him up."

"Tell me about the fight," he said.

"We can discuss the circumstances when you get here, Mr.... uh... Detective Sergeant Burgess."

"Fine."

He grabbed his coat and checked for all the usual gear. A lot more stuff than an American Express card that he couldn't leave home without. And this might not be home, but he'd sure spent more time here than anywhere else in the last three decades. He clipped the reports he'd just done together and stopped at the assistant's desk.

"Can you get these up to Captain Cote? He's waiting for them." Then, "The next time one of my kids' schools calls, give 'em my cell number, okay?"

He wanted to do more, but no sensible cop offended the support staff unless a staffer was hopelessly incompetent. They had way too much power over whether life went smoothly. He had enough bumps in his road without creating new ones.

"Kids?" the younger one, Lorna, said, raising an eyebrow.

"Three. Dylan, Nina, and Ned," Burgess said. "I'd show you pictures, but I'm in kind of a rush. Dylan's been suspended."

"I'm sorry," she said. Then, with an impish grin, she added, "You go set 'em straight, Sergeant."

"That's the plan," he said, and headed for the stairs.

* * *

Dr. Jorgensen looked too young for her job, though she'd tried to compensate by wearing her hair in a severe bun that made her face look stretched, and glasses with thick, dark rims.

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