Why did I become a cop? On a day like today, I really don’t know. Today is hard. Today, I have to look down into the face of a dead mother, a young woman with a baby just months old. God, she looks so young, so innocent. I don’t want to do this today. I don’t want to do this ever.

I glance over at my partner, Det. Harriet Foster, and I can tell by her stony expression that this one hits hard, too. We’re both mothers. My young son, just three, is home – happy, healthy, safe. Harri lost her only son to violence, and I know that every case like this one, every last one involving mothers and sons, children, is like a punch to her stomach, another cut added to a thousand others. But will she show it? Will I? Not yet. I’ll cry at home when I hold my baby close and think of this dead woman’s son.

I don’t want to do this today. I want to do something normal like sell shoes or slice bologna at the deli counter at Jewels. My badge weighs heavy on my hip; the gun too feels as leaden as a ship’s anchor.

It looks like some kind of overdose, but it’s far too soon to draw conclusions. Intentional? Accidental? I glance around the small, neat room. Nothing fancy, these are not wealthy people. Normal. I make my way into the bathroom to check the medicine cabinet. There’s nothing out of the ordinary there either, nothing you wouldn’t expect to find. Everything in the apartment appears typical for hardworking people just trying to make it through. I move back to the bed, orbiting the crime scene photographers, my partner, and the ME tech. All these people, one small room, one tiny body.

Other people, civilians, get to turn away from the bed, but I don’t. Most days I can do the job, detach, do what needs to be done, but the woman is so young, and she has left a baby son behind, and all I can think about at this scene, is my son, and my partner’s lost boy.

I can hear the baby fussing in the front room. We left him there, his stunned father cradling him in his arms. The boy has no idea he’s just lost his mother, that his entire world had changed in an instant. We’ll talk to the father next, but right now the bed and what’s in it, or was, is the priority. I work for the dead, for those who cannot speak for themselves. But today? Today, I don’t want to be here.

I block my personal feelings, straighten my back and move closer to the bed. Work. Badge. Do it.

Some kind of drug? No visible needle marks or wounds on the body that I can see, but I’m standing behind the ME tech. He’s the expert. She looks to be of normal weight and size. If it’s drugs, she likely wasn’t a junkie. Toxicology will likely take weeks, of course, but initially, I can see nothing on the bed or around it to explain how the woman died. Her husband says he found her this way. He told us he couldn’t reach her all night while he worked his overnight shift and got worried something had happened, so he rushed home. There was no forced entry into the apartment, the husband didn’t think there was anything missing or stolen.

Square one. At this point a death investigation. By the book.

I look over at Harri, suddenly weary. I can tell she’s avoiding looking back at me. I know the two of us can’t be mothers right now, we have to be cops. But neither of us is made of stone, neither of us can ignore the baby and the grieving husband up front.

My mother wanted me to go to medical school instead of the police academy. She wanted me to be a successful doctor and to marry a successful doctor and live a successful doctor’s life. I disappointed her, but only halfway. I married a doctor, at least. And then there’s the grandson I gave her. I’ve earned my stripes, in my opinion. I say I think because all my mother’s guilt trips are delivered in rapid-fire Mandarin, and I don’t speak the language.

The baby cries, but there’s no longer a mother to comfort him. Sometimes this world just bites. I check the dead woman’s closet just to be thorough, to make sure I’m not missing anything. Step by step. By the book. The job. Because I’ve chosen to do it. Because it needs to be done.

I’ll cry later. I’ll hug my kid longer tonight. And then tomorrow, I’ll start it all over again.

EDGE – A “Detective Harriet Foster” Mystery, Book 4
Genre: Police Procedural
Release: December 2025
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

When a tainted drug starts claiming lives across the city, Detective Harriet Foster and her team race to track down the source…before it takes one of their own.

Chicago’s finest are scouring the city for a tainted new opioid making the rounds, but they’re coming up empty. With five people already dead—a college kid, a new mother, and three poker players—all they really know is the drug’s name: Edge. Where it’s coming from is still anyone’s guess.

Detective Harriet Foster doesn’t have time for guessing games. She needs answers. And when the next overdose hits Homicide where it hurts most, Harri is determined to get what she wants. But keeping her eyes squarely on the prize proves harder than expected.

Still reeling from her last case (and the stain of suspicion it left on her career), Harri finds herself at a tipping point. The drug isn’t the only edge she needs to worry about. If she can’t come back from her own, there’s no telling whether this investigation will lead to a satisfying conclusion…or her own demise.

About the author
Tracy Clark, author of the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series and the Det. Harriet Foster series, is a multi-nominated Anthony, International Thriller Writers, Shamus, Edgar, Macavity, and Lefty Award finalist. She is the winner of the 2020 and 2022 G.P Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award, the 2022 Sara Paretsky Award, the 2024 Lefty Award for Best Mystery Novel and the 2024 and 2025 Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original. She is a proud member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America and Crime Writers of Color and sits on the board of the Midwest Mystery Conference. Learn more about Tracy at www.tracyclarkbooks.com.