"For the house fire."
"Chief, I do not."
"You witnessed it."
"Chief."
"From the cabin road. At four in the morning. Driving home from a wellness check at the chief's residence." She does not look at me. "You called it in at four-oh-six. You arrived on scene at four-twenty-one in your personal vehicle. You assisted in the rescue of a civilian from the upper window. You provided initial witness statements on scene to Captain Doyle. You provided a follow-up statement to Detective Warren on Wednesday. You will now complete the long-form incident report for the file."
I sit.
"Long form," she says. "Every form. Every page. Every signature line. Witness narrative. Timeline. Apparatus deployment. Civilian rescue. Medical handoff. Chain of custody on the civilian's effects. Your hand-written statement on the supplementary page. All of it."
I look at the stack.
It is six inches.
"Chief, this is a week of paperwork."
"You have until midnight."
I look up.
She is looking at me for the first time today.
Her face is the chief's face. Her face is the chief's face the way it was at the chopping block last night with the two fingers against my jaw, and her face is the chief's face the way it was at the academy in 2007 when she pulled me out of the broken-nose drill in week three and put a wet towel on my face and saidyou are mine now, kid, and her face is the chief's face the way it has been every Christmas at her house often just me and her. Sometimes another woman. And recently with Lena, and her face is the chief's face, and her face is the chief's face, and she is looking at me today, and her eyes are the colour of slate.
"You will sit at this desk," she says, "and you will fill out every page of this report, and every page will be correct, and everypage will be on my desk before midnight, and you will not leave this office until it is."
"Chief."
"You will not be at the cabin tonight."
I do not say anything.
"You will be at this desk."
"Chief."
"And I will be down the hall at my desk, and I will be checking your work."
"Chief."
"And tomorrow at oh-six-hundred you will be on the line, and we will go through the same drills, and you will run them clean, and you will not look up at the window, and you will do this until I tell you to stop."
I look at the stack of forms.
I look at the chief.
I look back at the stack.
"Yes, Chief."
She picks up her pen.
She uncaps it.
She writes the next line on her legal pad.
