Page 23 of No Man Left Behind

No kidding. “I’m going to guess this is one of the rooms you might want to renovate.”

Another laugh. “Definitely. I’ll call Falcon later and get him in here soon. But, now that I know I have the funding, I needed to get a look at it again.”

“The size of the room is great. Are you going to keep it for a kitchen and use it as a break room?”

He nodded and opened a door on the far side of the room. “There’s a combination laundry and powder room in here. Not huge, but convenient.”

“Laundry?” She hadn’t thought that would be a requirement of a police station.

“We don’t have a dry cleaner in town, so everything needs to be washable. You’d be surprised at the noxious substances that end up on my uniforms.”

And that brought to mind a couple of fun comics. Rescued animals. Scared kids. Potentially vomit, spit, and worse, but those wouldn’t make the cut for her comics. She preferred to keep the tone light. With a dramatic shudder, she pointed to the other opening. “Let’s leave the noxious substances behind and check out the rest.”

He took her hand and led her into the next room with a smile. “This is going to be the main squad room.”

His smile had her thinking all kinds of thoughts, but none of them were about the squad room.

She had it bad.

Chapter8

Phail Jail

Marcus watched Elina’s gaze rove the space that had recently held thousands of books but was now a mostly empty shell with a few shelves along the sides.

“You said this was once a telegraph office? It’s easy to imagine a counter here and the telegraph workers at desks behind it. Not that I have any actual idea what a telegraph office looked like, but it’s fun to imagine it.”

He loved her enthusiasm. “I wouldn’t mind finding some old telegraph equipment to showcase here. It’s part of Phail’s history, and it would be fun to see how it all worked.”

She nodded. “I wonder if anyone has old family photo albums that show people working in here?”

He hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe I’ll get Piper to put a request on the website. We could copy old photos and put them up.”

“Phail seems like the type of community where people might hang onto things like that. And I bet they’d love to share. You could also ask for any photos of law enforcement officers from the past.”

“Good idea. Although there wasn’t anyone before me, there may have been officers in the past. I never think about art or things on the wall, so you’re helping already.”

“I noticed you didn’t have any pictures in your office. I fully expected to see a picture of your team from overseas.” She walked to the front of the room and peeked across the hall into what he figured had originally been an office. “Tell me what kinds of spaces you need here and what you’re thinking.”

He hadn’t thought of decorating his office. It had always been meant to be a temporary space. He needed to get at least one photo of his team in his new space. “I want this room to be the squad room because it’s the largest. I’d like a counter near the front of the room to separate the space. We’d need a few chairs for a waiting space, but it doesn’t need to be large. I think the counter would help with privacy issues. There wouldn’t be any need for the officers to hide everything on their desks when someone walks in.”

“You have to do that now, don’t you? I think you should have an actual office. Is that room across the hall where you’d like to be?”

He nodded. “I’d like to be able to look out at the town, even though I doubt many criminals are going to break the law in full view of the window.”

She nodded. “You’re part of the heartbeat of this town. You should definitely have the front window. And there’s even a door that you can close when you need to.”

Her words filled him up.Part of the heartbeat of this town.Wow. He hoped that was true and hoped he could keep doing his part.

They walked through the main floor, debating where best to put desks and a conference table. Filing cabinets and at least one locked storage unit on the main floor.

“I’ll need a more secure locked room upstairs for more evidence. There are three rooms plus a bathroom up there. I’d like to keep the other rooms as bedrooms.”

She frowned. “Why? Are you planning to live here?”

“No. But I want to recruit good quality candidates. If I have a space where they can stay while they check out the town, it’ll be easier to talk them into coming for a visit.”

“That makes sense. You could have a trial period of a few weeks and see how it works for everyone.” She sent him a look he couldn’t interpret. “You haven’t mentioned a cell.”

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