Chapter 11
Delaney shutthe door to the evidence room. Jean and I squished together a little closer between the shelves and stacks of boxes. It had been awhile since we cleaned out the little storage room and there wasn’t a lot of open floor space left.
“Okay.” She leaned back on the shelf behind her. “We have some volunteers for reserve officer. I want to run them past you two before we do the actual interviews.”
“Is that how we do this?” Jean asked me.
“Since Ryder is the only reserve officer we’ve hired?” I shrugged. “We don’t really have a procedure. Who’ve we got?”
“Half-a-dozen people are interested, but I’ve narrowed it down to two.” She fished folders off the shelf behind her and handed one to me and one to Jean.
“No way,” Jean said, flipping through the pages quickly.
I glanced at the first page.
Kelby, one of the local giants. She was level-headed, hard to ruffle, and physically in great shape. She’d be terrific at the job. Especially since she already knew about the supernaturals and deities in town.
I quickly scanned through the recommendation letters from her boss, her teammates on the volleyball team, the basketball team, and the golf team, then finally got to the second applicant.
“Oh.” I read the applicant’s name twice. No, three times just to make sure I was seeing it right. “Death? As in the deity? The god of? Thanatos?”
“That’s him,” Delaney said. “You’ve met him, remember? Sort of uptight and formal. Likes kites. Has terrible fashion sense?”
I would smack her, but there just wasn’t any room. “When did he get back to town?”
“Around three o’clock this morning.” As if just the memory of it made her tired, Delaney yawned and rubbed at her forehead. “I already took his powers out to Frigg. Ryder went with me. Than is once again, officially, a citizen of Ordinary.”
“And he wants to do this?” I lifted his folder.
Jean handed her folder back to Delaney. “He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who was all that interested in law enforcement when he was last here.”
“I think he’s the kind of guy who’s interested in everything,” Delaney said.
“How did he know we were looking for more people?” I asked.
“It came up when we gave him a lift back to his house.”
“What about the kite shop?” Jean asked. “I thought he was all about selling those things.”
“He said he wants to broaden his human experience. He thinks he should try being underemployed while working two part-time jobs.”
I snorted, but he wasn’t wrong. Crime really wasn’t all that high in town, and we didn’t have the budget to pay any more officers. Working for us meant volunteering. For free.
“So you’re taking him seriously?” I asked.
“Yes,” Delaney said. “I am taking death seriously.”
“Shut up.” I opened the file again and read it more carefully. “I’m not against the idea of getting some fresh resources, and I agree with Jean. I think Kelby will be a terrific fit.”
“Plus, she’s a supernatural, and all the rest of us cops are humans. We need better representation of our citizens in the department,” Jean added.
“Right,” I agreed. “And it makes sense we let a deity try out law enforcement if that’s how they want to spend their vacation. But Death?”
Delaney shook her head. “Not Death. Just Than.”
“Death, Than, I vote for the scary guy,” Jean said.
“You think he’ll be a good cop?” I asked. “Really?”
