DETECTIVE BURKELY

“Burkely!” Margie, the chief's secretary, yells behind the door to my office.

“It's open.”

I glance up from the stack of files I'd been studying when the door doesn't open.

“I know it is, I’m just sick of seeing your face!” She yells from behind the door.

“What'd you want Margery?”

I call her by her full name, knowing how much it aggravates her.

“What's wrong with your intercom?! Don't tell me you didn't place it back on the receiver and now it's dead.”

I quietly place the telephone back in its receiver.

“You tell me, since you've got it all figured out, Detective Marge,” I tease.

“Screw you, Burke!”

“I love you too, Margery.”

“Fuck off, The chief wants you in his office. NOW!”

I hear her retreating footsteps and bend the framed picture of Margery, my wife, and me on my wedding day downwards on my desk.

Marge and I met as first-year students in the police academy and back then she held a special place for me in her heart. She introduced me to my now dead wife who’d been