My father had been called in and he protected me as best as possible, even though I did not give him details of why the Lord of the manner had came after me, too. But, that night when I could not stop that man from killing his wife, I felt absolutely helpless and without defense for even myself. And with the facts, that no Delaney had ever gotten a scholarship and more than likely never will, we could not afford to go to college on our own with or without grants, even if we did always rank within the top 2% of our graduating class. That fateful night was the deciding factor for me on what I’d be doing for the rest of my life. I was going to enter the NOPD’s Academy upon graduation from high school. I have never regretted that decision, never, not even my most darkest of days.

Upon graduating from the Academy I was assigned my first partner and duty assignment. I was partnered with Dan, my best friend and whom I consider to be a brother, and we were horse-back officers my rookie year. Mardi’ Grad’ has been and always will be the most hellious time for any uniformed police officer. Not only did we have our usual 7 to 4 shifts but we were also required to pull doubles that extended well into the next morning all throughout the entire festivities, which were no less than a full 10 days. The next year we were assigned to the motorcade patrols and that always made the madness in February a little easier, as we did not have to wait until the parties each night were a virtual graveyard before calling it a night-we just had to wait for it to start dying down and cleared up enough to see from the center of one intersection to a block down for more than 2 seconds at a time. It was when that year was up that Dan took his detective test, aced it, and got moved up. While I got a rookie fresh out of the academy. Here I was 20 years old and just a 2-year veteran on the force before I got my first rookie. Dan was 24 and making a name for himself, which moved his career along steadily.