Extracurricular Activities Read Online Free PDF Page A

pink slip of paper with a name and number written on it. “Dr. Ray Stark, he said. Wants to set up a date to talk about that statement you asked for. Sounded dramatic,” Champy said, rolling his eyes.
    Crawford took the slip from Champy and shoved it into his pants pocket. Dealing with Ray Stark’s “dramatic” situation, as Champy had dubbed it, was not high on his priority list.
    He turned when he heard Danny Concannon, the Homicide Division’s lieutenant, open his office door and emerge.
    Concannon was fifteen years past retirement—he had put in his requisite twenty years, but was a “lifer.” Mandatory retirement at sixty-two was what he was striving for, and at age fifty-eight, what he would eventually attain. He was a big and blustery man and Crawford loved working with him. He was the kind of guy who started every fourth or so sentence with “If they can put a man on the moon, then…” but he was honest and forthright and treated all of his cops with respect. Crawford knew that it could be very different from his own experience on the PD. Danny scanned the detectives’ bullpen and saw that only Champy and Crawford were at their desks.
    â€œMoran! Crawford! Body parts in Van Cortlandt Park. Right by the stables. Patrol’s got hands and feet. Nothing else. Get over there.”
    Champy pushed his chair back from his desk. “How do we know it’s a homicide?” He stood. “Maybe we’ve got some John Doe running around…excuse me…hobbling around with no hands and feet.”
    Concannon stood in front of Champy’s desk, staring at him in disbelief. “Moran, get your ass out of here and go look at the hands and feet.” He started back to his office, muttering, “If they can put a man on the moon, they can give me a cop who can figure out that a vic without hands and feet IS DEAD.” He slammed the door to his office.
    Crawford stood. “Let’s go.” His night with Champy had begun. They would work through the night in a desolate park. They didn’t call it the graveyard shift for nothing.

Chapter 3
    As I’ve learned from the other murder investigation I was involved in, nothing screws up your weekend like finding a dead body.
    â€œRay?” I managed to squeak out, knowing instinctively that he was not going to answer me. I edged closer to the table and tentatively touched his shoulder, succeeding in making him list to the side. Fortunately, the wall prevented him from sliding off his chair.
    His eyes were open and he stared at me, unseeing. I, however, stared at him for far longer than I should have. I don’t know how much time passed but I felt as if I were glued to the floor. Finally, my flight instinct took over and I backed out of the kitchen, first slowly, and then gaining speed as I crossed over the threshold of the back door.
    I stumbled backwards out of the house, going ass over tea kettle when I hit the wrought-iron table on the patio. The racket brought my neighbor to the left, Florence, out of her house in record time. I have to carry her recyclables out every week because of her sciatica or lumbago or whatever her disease of the week is, but once I hit that table, she flew out of the house like an Olympic sprinter. From now on, she was carrying out her own goddamned recyclables. Florence loves a good drama; she had watched, with rapturous glee, my marriage unravel from between the vertical blinds in her kitchen. Trixie set up a howl that was ear piercing. It crossed my mind that a man had been murdered inside my house and nobody raised an eyebrow; I, however, fall over a picnic table and the National Guard practically appears.
    Florence got a look at the body, and pronounced Ray officially “dead.” She was then so kind as to call 911. I sat on the grass with my head between my knees rocking back and forth and hoping that I would wake up and realize that it had all been just a