“Overtime is paid at one point five. So shouldn’t I get four point five hours? Otherwise, comp time sounds like a bad deal to me.”

His eyes went cold and what little friendliness he had been able to fake vanished from his face. With his overly sharp incisors, too-white skin, and too-red eyes, Cal looked like a vampire or an albino cat. He was a man of no true authority, Maddie saw. How it must have grated on him.

“Very well, then,” he said. “You’ve earned four point five hours. To be taken by mutual consent. What are you going to do? Enjoy a longer lunch hour? Go shopping?”

“I’ll bank the time for now. One never knows when one might need time. Will you explain the situation to Don? That you asked me to do this for you and I earned comp time?”

“To be taken by mutual consent,” Cal said. “You can’t just announce that you’re leaving early. You’ll have to clear it with Don.”

“Of course.”

She walked away, well aware that she had not answered his intrusive questions about what she intended to do with her time. She had no intention of telling him that she planned to find another way to get into the paper. A real story.

When the Star was published the next day, her piece had been cut to five paragraphs. There was no trace of Maddie’s name and everything she had thought lively or good about the writing, the quotes, had been excised. She didn’t care. She cut it out and put it in a manila folder in her desk, which she titled, after some thought, “Morgenstern, Madeline.” When she did get a byline, maybe that should be the name she used.

She opened the letters she had left when Cal had sent her to the police station. Two of them had potential and she put them to the side to give to Mr. Heath. One was something she could handle. A passerby had noticed that the lights were no longer working at the fountain in Druid Hill Park. She would call the Department of Public Works tomorrow and report the outage. It wasn’t worth space in the column. She had learned to make such distinctions by now and was proud of the initiative she showed. Bob Bauer had warned her that Heath was worried that Maddie was gunning for his job.

Maddie had her sights set much higher, so high that she could not yet see exactly what she wanted. She cosseted and spoiled Mr. Heath, bringing him Entenmann’s cookies or a slice of Sara Lee swirl cake with his afternoon cup of coffee. Soon enough, she was back in his good graces. Four point five hours, hers to use as she wished. But how did she wish to use them? What could one do with four point five hours?

An electrician in a rowboat was about to provide the answer.

Lady Law

Lady Law

I did not want the party. Who has a party in one’s twenty-ninth year of employment? I’m not leaving until I make captain, as I have told my superiors numerous times. Numerous times.

But I understood what was going on, why the department wanted to celebrate me, why there were photographers, even a reporter, although she seemed very green to me, despite her age. I thought, She’s going to need more confidence to do that job, that’s for sure. I have been interviewed quite a bit, for much more in-depth pieces. I did not need to be photographed holding a cake knife.

Confidence is something I have never lacked. My father taught me not to fear death and that is why I have been able to do the work that I do. Not fearing death is not the same as being fearless. It means that I am not worried about where I’m headed, the consequences of death. I have not led a blameless life. But I am a Christian woman who prays to my Lord to lead me through my hard times, to forgive me when I slip from the path, to extend a hand and help me back onto the straight and narrow.

I often don’t like things people think I should like. I don’t like parties. I don’t like being photographed. I don’t like attention. I didn’t really like being on that television show, To Tell the Truth, but at least I was the one telling the truth. Still, there was something undignified about it. The whole point of the show is that one is somehow odd, maybe even freakish. I am not freakish. I am a college-educated woman who cared about children, my own—I have four, two that I birthed and two that I adopted—and all the children of the neighborhoods I patrolled. I was, in some ways, more social worker than police officer. I think, though, I have made more of a difference than social workers. When a social worker comes to a house, she’s the enemy, a meddler. When I visited—usually because of reports of drunken or loutish behavior—the mothers welcomed me, secretly. They knew I understood, that I cared. But I had to put their children first, always.

They called me “Lady Law.” I did like that, especially the first part. I pride myself on my manners, my gentility. In the 1950s, when I supervised several younger women, I stressed the importance of good manners, a civilized appearance. There was no reason that our work had to make us masculine or rough. Sometimes, I had to be the strict schoolmarm, if you will. I would catch the young boys sneaking into the movies, cutting school. I’d tell them that I could take them home or to Cheltenham, it was their choice. They always chose home.

I suppose they think that I should be considering retirement. I will be sixty-nine this fall. Perhaps this party was a hint. But I don’t take hints, don’t worry about odd looks, muttered criticisms that I may or may not be meant to hear. If someone has something to say to me, he can say it to my face. I am not ready to go. I have not planned my funeral. Not even staring into the barrel of a gun, as I did with that man who pretended to be a messenger of God but was just a procurer of young women—not even that moment prompted me to plan for my funeral. Why would I do it now? I intend to live a good long while. My legacy will be much more than simply being first.

That’s what I was trying to explain to that reporter, so very tentative for someone well into her thirties. (One thing about white people, it’s very easy to fix their ages. Their skin tells their age as surely as a tree’s rings reveal its age.) Ah, well, I was new on this job when I was forty. I suppose it’s never too late to start a career. Maybe I’ll start a third one when I leave here. I would be a good preacher, I think. But I prefer doing, as opposed to exhorting others to do. Maybe there’s a business or a charity I can start, based on my annual practice of assembling holiday baskets. But I won’t use the Lady Law name. That would be undignified. The name will retire with me.

The next day, when the afternoon paper comes out, my photo is inside, only a few paragraphs attached, and the girl has misquoted me in spots. But one of the Northwest patrol officers, Ferdinand Platt, stops me in the hall, asks me questions, rather frivolous ones to my mind. What did I think of the article? Was I pleased with it? I told him the truth, that I was not much interested in articles about myself, that there had been many over the years. Why, my name was appearing in print long before I was a police officer, for my work with Woman’s Christian Temperance Union chapters nationwide. In my opinion, alcohol is one of the great evils of our age. Drugs, too, of course, but alcohol is legal. When I drive past the Carling plant on the Beltway, I smell more than scorched hops. That is the odor of destroyed, broken families. I have testified before the Kefauver Committee about the danger of narcotics, but alcohol is even worse, in terms of the costs it exacts. Yes, I understand the paradox of prohibition. I was an adult woman then. I saw what happened. But I’m not sure making it legal was the solution.

That young Ferdinand probably thinks it a grand thing to be in a newspaper. He is a handsome man, a little too handsome for his own good. According to talk, he also is too cozy with certain men in our community, a particular bad man who tries to hide behind good men. Shell Gordon is a disgrace. He owns the place on Pennsylvania Avenue, the second-rate establishment where the girls are forced to wear those terrible outfits. Ferdie Platt goes there, according to the talk I hear, knows the people who frequent it. A small vice, relative to the other sins of this department.

Besides, it might even be the mark of a good policeman. The Shell Gordons of the world, criminals though they may be, have a rooting interest in maintaining order. Mayhem and criminality are their purview, theirs to pursue and organize, and they will not tolerate freelancers. I know the people at the club tried, in the early days of the investigation, to help police figure out what happened to Cleo Sherwood. Her parents are good people. I don’t know how the girl turned out the way she did. It’s my understanding that she began running wild when she was a teenager. Some girls are simply too pretty for their own good and they don’t know what to do with it. I was never a pretty woman, but I do not think it is vanity to say that I am attractive enough. Well turned out, with a good complexion. Mr. Whyte has never complained.

It’s a shame I never met young Cleo. I’m sure I could have helped her find the right path.