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the young officer. She had regaled him with coffee, some cookies from Palmer's rapidly depleting shelves, some clever repartee, and was now dazzling him with her multifaceted personality. All of which wasn't lost on Madden; with each report, the big man became a little more surly. |
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Twice following the two o'clock shift change we altered our patrol routine, once to check with Hawkins and Caleb Hall, who were working the four square block eastern quadrant of the village, and the other to briefly check out the darkened marina. |
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Kendall's makeshift communications network was more than adequate. We were working with standard 40 channel citizens band units of the handheld variety, and the patch-through buddy system had effectively kept everyone in touch. The too frequent, too nervous, too excited transmissions of the early evening had settled into a series of terse, almost laconic "all's quiet" and "nothing to report" static-laden crackles. Still, Madden manfully monitored each and every one of them. He systematically recorded each one on a battered clipboard that lay on the front seat beside him. |
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The frequency of conversation between Jake and myself had deteriorated over the course of the long night until it became little more than a series of cryptic grunts. The coffee was gone, and I was down to my last cigarette. |
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