A Burglary on Quarry Lane

Abstract

Rashmini was so preoccupied that she only notices the flashing lights after she had showered and put on her pajamas. The lights were reflecting off the shadowy living room walls. She balanced on the sofa springs and reached through the window bars to push against the cloudy pane. The window creaked open, inch by inch, to reveal a hub-bub in the yard. The slumlord’s back porch light was on. A polic officer was taking pictures with a small camera, and another was combing the mulberry bushes with a hockey stick. Two more officers were talking on the porch steps. A police car was parked on Quarry Lane, in front of the slumlords’house. Rashmini could only see the car’s front end between the side of the houe and the boxwood hedge, but there was no mistaking the blue and red light streaming from it.