A day in my life? I’m a cop. A day in my life usually means it’s the last day of someone else’s.

I’m Detective Harriet Foster. I work homicide for the Chicago Police Department. My partner Det. Vera Li and I were called out early this morning to a parking garage a block from City Hall because one of the attendants discovered an idling car with a dead woman in the driver’s seat.

She had been found shot in the head; the gun sitting in her right hand. It appears the wound was self-inflicted, but it’s far too early to tell.

The wrinkle, the complication, the thing that’s going to have the bosses sitting on our shoulders and dogging our every step is the fact that the victim is Alderwoman Deanna Leonard. A real firebrand. A progressive from the South Side. A mouthy fixture in the city’s raucous City Council. If we’re looking at suicide, our work is done right here in the garage. An unfortunate end, but not police business. If we’re not, well, then other things have to happen.

As I stand here, my hands buried in my pockets, trying to warm up, the techs are going over the car and the body inside. We give them a wide berth. They have to do their thing, before we can do ours.

It’s February. Chicago isn’t so great in February. I’m afraid the below-zero temps will prevent the techs from giving us an accurate time of death. I’m also already thinking about motive if it comes to that. Local politician? City this size? Lots of enemies. Lots of beefs. Or it could be personal. You’re more likely to be murdered by someone you know, someone who even lives in your house, than by a stranger.

Nice car. Top of the line Mercedes. City aldermen make, what, $100,000 a year? Not counting the other revenue they manage to acquire? Chicago is not Mayberry. Corruption is baked into the bricks here.

Stress, maybe. Too many balls in the air for Leonard to juggle. Or a hit. I’m already thinking four steps ahead. Family notification will be the most unpleasant. No cop wants to be the bearer of the worst news of your life, trust me.

Then there’ll be the eyes. The mayor, the City Council, the press. All that heat will get express delivered to my boss’s boss, then to my boss, who will then shove it down the chain to the rest of us. It’ll be a circus.

For now, though, it’s the quiet before the storm. This is my life 24/7. Case after case. Notification by notification. Lead by lead, witness by witness, and lie by lie. I haven’t time for much else. That’s not true. I could find time for a life outside this one, but I lack the will. Profound loss does that to a person.

I glance over at Li as she chats with a couple of rookies. Li likes to chat. I do not. She knows this and chats more when we’re in the car. Still, I’d follow her into a burning building, no questions asked.

Rosales, the ME’s tech, stands and takes a step away from the driver’s side door of Leonard’s car. Then he turns and waves us over, but I’m already moving.

This is it. I take a deep breath to brace myself for the next thing. This is my day.

One way or the other, suicide or homicide, I feel a pang of sympathy for Leonard. A dirty concrete garage is a lonely place to die.

Fall, A Detective Harriet Foster Mystery Book #2
Genre: Police Procedural
Release: December 2023
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

In the second book in the Detective Harriet Foster thriller series, author Tracy Clark weaves a twisted journey into the underbelly of Chicago as Harriet and her team work to unmask a serial killer stalking the city’s aldermen.

The Chicago PD is on high alert when two city aldermen are found dead: one by apparent suicide, one brutally stabbed in his office, and both with thirty dimes left on their bodies—a betrayer’s payment. With no other clues, the question is, Who else has a debt to pay?

Detective Harriet Foster is on the case before the killer can strike again. But even with the help of her partner, Detective Vera Li, and the rest of their team, Harriet has little to go on and a lot at risk. There’s no telling who the killer’s next target is or how many will come next.

To stop another murder, Harriet and her officers will have to examine what the victims had going on behind the scenes to determine who could be tangled up in this web of betrayal…and who could be out for revenge.

About the author
Tracy Clark is the author of the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series and the Detective Harriet Foster series. A multi-nominated Anthony, Lefty, Edgar, Macavity, and Shamus Award finalist, Tracy is also the 2020 and 2022 winner of the G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award and the 2022 Sara Paretsky Award. She is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime and is a Bouchercon National Board member and a board member of the Midwest Mystery Conference. The Cass Raines and Detective Foster series grew out of her desire to see capable, competent, African American females on the page as major players in their own stories.