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something wrong?”
    “I flunked the evidence handling test,” she said. “Sergeant Pettit just told me if I screw up again, I’m out. I can’t lose this chance,” she sobbed. “I can’t.”
    When she finally managed to push open the door to her room, Ali followed her inside uninvited. Donnatelle heaved herself down on the bed, still weeping. Looking around, Ali noticed that, unlike the comfortable messiness of her own room, this one was eerily neat. Nothing was out of place. The only personalization consisted of a framed photo on the small study desk—a picture of Donnatelle flanked by three smiling youngsters, two boys and a girl. The girl, clearly the youngest, was missing her two front teeth.
    “Are these your kids?” Ali asked.
    Donnatelle nodded but didn’t answer.
    “Who takes care of them while you’re here?”
    “My mom,” Donnatelle said.
    Ali didn’t ask about the children’s father. He wasn’t in the photo, and he probably wasn’t in the picture anywhere else either.
    “What did you do before you came to the academy?” Ali asked.
    Sniffling, Donnatelle sat up. “I was a maid, in a hotel,” she said. “But I wanted to do more. I wanted to do something that would make my kids proud of me—something besides making other people’s beds. So I went back to school and got my GED. The sheriff said he’d give me a chance, but I’m not good at taking tests, I’m scared of guns, and Sergeant Pettit has it in for me.”
    School had always been easy for Ali. She aced written exams at the academy in the same way she had aced exams in high school and college. And she had come here with a more than nodding acquaintance with her own handgun and how to use it. Her notable failure with Jose Reyes was the first real black mark on her academy record.
    Donnatelle, on the other hand, had come to the academy with a school record that was less than exemplary, but Ali found her determination to improve herself for the sake of her children nothing short of inspiring.
    “That may be true,” Ali said ruefully, “but I seem to remember you were fine in the hip toss. You threw your guy down and you don’t have a black eye either. Besides I think Sergeant Pettit has a problem with women—any women.”
    Donnatelle sat up and gave Ali a halfhearted smile. “But my guy wasn’t as big or as tough as yours was.”
    “Are you going home this weekend?” Ali asked.
    Donnatelle shook her head. “It’s too far. I’m going to stay here and work on the evidence handling material. They’re going to let me retake the exam next week. As for the gun thing?” She shrugged hopelessly. “I don’t know what to do about that.”
    “Had you ever handled a gun before you got here?”
    Donnatelle shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not ever.”
    “You need to practice,” Ali said. “Spend as much time on the range this weekend as you can.”
    “I was going to, but now I can’t,” Donnatelle said. “They told me the range here is going to be closed because it’s a holiday.”
    “Use a private one then,” Ali said. “Go practice somewhere else.”
    “But where?”
    “Just a minute,” Ali said. She returned to her room and woke up her iPhone. She returned to Donnatelle’s room a few minutes later with a list of five shooting ranges in the nearby area.
    “Try one of these,” she said. “And next week, when I get back, maybe I can help you with some of the written material.”
    “You’d do that?” Donnatelle asked.
    “Absolutely,” Ali told her with a smile. “After all, the girls on the thin blue line have to stick together, don’t we?”
    Rising from the bed, Donnatelle went into the bathroom and washed her face. Then rushing to keep from being late, they hurried to their next class. When the recruits were finally dismissed at four o’clock on that scorching Friday afternoon, Ali joined what seemed like most of Peoria in migrating north on I-17 in hopes of escaping the valley’s crushing heat. On