Unlike her partner, Deputy Sheriff Bradford ‘Brad’ Counter, q.v., Woman Deputy Alice Fayde had entered the Rockabye County Sheriff’s Office by the conventional means. Prior to having ‘caught her star’, she had served for seven years as a member of the Gusher City Police Department’s Bureau of Women Officers. Rising through the ranks, from walking a beat to becoming a sergeant in the Detective Bureau, she had gained experience by working out of such diverse Divisions as Evans Hill—the low rent area known to the local law enforcement agencies and its residents as ‘the Bad Bit’—and the elite, high rent, Upton Heights. On winning her promotion to the Detective Bureau, she had added to her practical knowledge by serving with various specialist departments such as Traffic, Juvenile, Vice & Gambling and Narcotics.
Joining Brad to help bring to justice the professional killers who had murdered her uncle, Deputy Sheriff Thomas Cord, Alice had become the permanent partner of the blond giant. Without in any way affecting their ability to function as a team, their association became much closer as time went by. xlv By virtue of her greater length of service and practical ‘street’ experience, she was the senior member of the team and Brad had not the slightest objection to the arrangement.
Alice possessed a sound knowledge of self defense, being well able to protect herself when necessary in bare handed combat against other women. xlvi In addition, she was skilled in the use of firearms and her ability with a handgun had given her a classification of Expert, for which she received an increment of eight dollars a week to her salary. xlvii Although at the time of this narrative she was carrying a Colt Cobra .38 Special revolver with a two and a half inch barrel, having seen a demonstration of its lack of penetrative powers, she later changed to a Colt Commander .45 automatic pistol—a lightweight version of the Colt Government Model of 1911—which was vastly more potent than her previous choice. xlviii