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female-looking female ‘officer.’”
    Her blonde lashes swept her cheeks. “I loathe it myself. The only thing I loathe more is to be called Fuzzy. My name is Beth McKenna.”
    â€œAnother Irisher?” McCall shook his head. “Two-thirds of the women in this town seem to be Irish.”
    â€œOff base again,” Policewoman Beth McKenna said with a giggle. “My maiden name was Svensen. My late husband was the Irishman.”
    â€œLate? I’m sorry.” So he had been right.
    â€œIt was five years ago and the wound’s sort of healed,” she said lightly. “I can even talk about it now. He was a police lieutenant and he walked into a liquor store holdup while he was off duty. He and the bandit shot together, and they killed each other. And that was that.”
    â€œYou couldn’t have been married long.”
    â€œSeven months.”
    McCall shook his head. “I don’t want to keep you from your work. I’ll sit down over there—”
    â€œYou’re not keeping me from anything, Mr. McCall.”
    â€œWould it offend you if I asked you to make it Mike?”
    â€œOffend me? Heavens, no! I call half the men in the department by their Christian names.”
    Just in case I had any ideas, McCall grinned to himself. He liked her more and more.
    â€œIf you hate ‘officer,’ what shall I call you?”
    â€œThat shouldn’t be much of a problem,” she said; she had a dimple, too! “I’ve just told you my name.”
    â€œMrs. McKenna, or Beth?”
    â€œDepends.”
    â€œOn what?”
    She looked at him very steadily. “Make it Beth,” she said suddenly. “Incidentally, two-thirds of the women in this town are not Irish. About forty percent are Polish, Italian, or Bohemian, and maybe twenty-five percent are black. Where did you get your statistics?”
    â€œPersonal investigation. So far I’ve met three women, including you. One of the other two was a Maggie Kirkpatrick.” And the other one, he thought, Laurel Tate, I made a date with for tonight. Maybe I made a mistake …
    â€œThe newspaperwoman?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOh.” It was a most equivocal “oh.” “She’s very nice.”
    â€œThat sounds like the kiss of death.”
    â€œOh, no! I meant it.”
    â€œI bet. What’s wrong with her?”
    â€œDid I say anything was wrong with Miss Kirkpatrick?”
    â€œOf course you did.”
    â€œWell, I didn’t. I said she’s very nice, and she is.”
    It went that way for the fifteen minutes more that elapsed before Chief of Police Condon returned from his lunch. And just before the chief’s entrance McCall proposed, and Policewoman Beth McKenna accepted, a dinner date for the following evening.
    Chief Condon was a leather-tough, ramrod-backed citizen in his late fifties with a grim eye and a belligerent jaw. There was not a gray hair in his head. McCall was willing to bet that he could still take on any man in his department, regardless of youth.
    Policewoman McKenna introduced McCall, and informed the chief of the call from Communications. Condon grunted acknowledgment of LeRoy Rawlings’s arrest, offered McCall a regulation handshake, and pointedly led the way into his private office.
    The office was larger-than the mayor’s, and contained a larger desk. McCall hoped silently that this contrast did not reflect the relative importance the modern American attached to policing his community and governing it.
    â€œSit down, Mr. McCall,” the chief said. His high-backed swivel was bigger than Mayor Potter’s, too. And it was leather, not a synthetic. “What can I do for you?”
    â€œFor Governor Holland, Chief. I’m just his errand boy.”
    â€œA lot more than that, from what I hear,” Condon said dryly. “Look, Mr. McCall, I’m not going to debate you on tie law-and-order issue,