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The squad car’s wailing siren cut through the stillness of the summer night like the sound of someone screaming in the throes of a nightmare. From far off it came, ever rising and falling pitch bringing it closer to the Valley Farms home of Kate and Lucy Barrett. It was eleven past four in the morning when the call came in from Mrs. Barrett, according to the precinct records, and twenty-two past when the patrol car screeched to a halt in front of their rambling brick home. The two officers, one white and one black, jumped from the car almost before it had stopped moving, guns drawn, eyes searching the nearby hedges and trees for the sign of movement that might mean the difference between finishing their shift alive or going home in a rubber bag. Crime in this Washington, D.C. suburb was no laughing matter. Not that anyone would have laughed anyway — taxes had soared in recent years to meet the costs of bigger and better police forces. And insurance premiums, when you were lucky enough to get it all, were double what they were five years ago. Most residents did without, absorbing the loss themselves when they awoke to find their car looted or their television missing when they returned from work. Or in some cases, the whole house, rugs, drapes, furniture, everything!
Fictional reading for entertainment purposes only.