Read Online Don't Call Me Hero by Eliza Lentzski - Free Book Online

City Hall and the police department. Chief Hart showed me around the building and introduced me to a handful of people whose names and job titles I promptly forgot. In the afternoon, I met up with David Addams for a ride along to get the layout of town.
    It didn’t take long to make the rounds. Main Street was a four-mile long stretch with businesses lining either side of the road. The residential areas branched off from the central drag, and a school that housed preschool through high school was situated near the town’s eastern border.
    There were no stoplights in Embarrass. The two four-way stops at either side of the downtown strip were by far the busiest intersections within the city limits, forming a junction point for county highways.
    “So what’s your story, Miller?” David Addams asked as we crawled down Main Street.
    “Not much to tell,” I said.
    “How does a Twin Cities cop end up taking a job up here in the boonies?”
    “Just looking for a change.”
    I stared out the window of the police car. People stopped for pedestrians at crosswalks and they shared the road with bicycles. If I’d thought I’d stumbled into a time warp at the Embarrass Bed & Breakfast, it had expanded to the rest of the town as well.
    “You okay over there?”
    I turned my head away from the view beyond the window. “Yeah. Sure. Of course,” I insisted.
    “Sorry.” David chuckled as we turned down a street that looked like every other residential street in town. “You just had this look on your face like you’d bitten off more than you could chew. I’ve seen that look before.”
    I stared out the side window again. “I’m fine.”
    I had to continually remind myself that this was what I wanted. I didn’t want to sit behind a desk in Minneapolis; I wanted to be an active duty officer again. But driving around the largely vacant streets of Embarrass was making me realize that I might actually see more action behind a desk in Minneapolis than what I’d experience in a town so tiny I could probably chuck a rock from one border to the other.
    I pulled myself out of discouraging thoughts. “Do you patrol town your entire shift?”
    “A good portion of it,” David confirmed. “I try to maintain a visible presence in town. I’m sure Chief told you, but we don’t have a lot of crime around here. We’re basically on call until the shit hits the fan. You can hang out at the station or drive around town; it’s up to you. Just make sure you’re available when your phone rings.”
    “How does that work? Who’ll be calling me?”
    “During regular business hours, Lori works the desk, so she fields all the non-emergency calls. Since you’ll be working third shift, however, local calls to the station will be redirected to your cell phone. Most people know enough to call 911 if it’s a real emergency, but sometimes, especially among the senior community, they’ll call you directly, regardless.”
    “Who answers the emergency calls?” I asked.
    “We’ve got a contract with the county dispatch center. When people call 911, the call goes there first. The dispatcher then determines what kind of assistance the caller needs: fire, ambulance, police, or a combination of those. If the police are needed, you’ll hear about it on your police radio.”
    A grizzled old man who’d been walking along the side of the street crossed in front of the police car with no warning. I braced myself against the dashboard and slammed my right foot down on an imaginary break while David hit the real breaks just in time.
    The man looked unfazed and continued to walk, swinging a green five-gallon bucket in one hand, as if he hadn’t noticed he’d almost been run over.
    “He’s harmless,” David said as if reading my thoughts.
    I pushed hair out of my face that had fallen from my ponytail. “What’s his deal?” My heart continued to pump with adrenaline.
    “His name is Henry James. People in town call him Crazy Hank. “He collects