“Yeah, well, you’re not too shabby yourself,” Colin said. “I couldn’t’ve done it without you, you know, not when it mattered most.” Ellis had led the team that arrested Darren Pitcavage for dealing drugs, setting up (though they didn’t know it) Mike Pitcavage’s suicide—and unmasking.
“You were the one who got the lead,” Rodney said. He squeezed Colin’s hand and let him go.
This time, Colin actually managed to get to the coffee, and to drink one sip from his cup. Then Gabe Sanchez waylaid him. “Had to wait till the brothers got through with you,” Gabe said in mock-indignant tones.
“I just figured a wetback like you was too lazy to come over first,” Colin said. Cops woofed on cops as automatically, and often as thoughtlessly, as they breathed.
“Didn’t see any paddies ahead of me in line,” Gabe shot back. “Man, it won’t be the same without you, and that’s a fact.”
“You’ll have to do the grumpy-old-man number for me from now on,” Colin said.
“Who’s old?” Sanchez pulled a hair from his mustache. It was white. He let it fall to the industrial carpeting. “Oh. Guess I am.”
Colin patted his own gray top cover where it stuck out from under the cap. “Happens to most people. All you’ve got to do is live long enough.”
“Uh-huh. I—” Gabe broke off. If he could have done double takes that good on cue, he would have wasted his time at police work. “Holy crap! Is that Caroline Pitcavage who just walked in?”
“Yup.” Colin’s voice went thoroughly grim. “Haven’t seen her since… since we busted Darren.” She had apologized to him after it came out that she’d spent her whole adult life married to the South Bay Strangler. Hardly anyone had seen her since then. Colin couldn’t very well blame her for that.
Since she’d come here now, though, he had to go over and say something to her. How’ve you been since your husband snuffed himself instead of a little old lady? popped into his head. That might not do, no matter what the capering devil inside him thought.
He managed a nod as he walked over to her. “Thanks for coming, Caroline,” he said. “I’m glad to see you.”
“I heard about this, and I thought I ought to,” she replied. She was closer to his age than to Kelly’s, but still had the trim look of someone who’d been a high-school cheerleader. Her eyes, though, her eyes told of the hard times she’d seen lately. After a moment, she went on, “I’m sorry you got hurt. I’m sorry… I’m sorry about all kinds of things. These lemons make crappy lemonade, if you know what I mean.”
“I guess.” Colin figured that for the giant economy-size understatement. “Do you ever, uh, hear from Darren?”
“Once in a while a phone call. Once in a while a card.” She sighed. Her son had got eight years. If he kept his nose clean, he’d likely serve about half of it. “I hope he gets his shit together when he comes out. I hope he doesn’t go institutional and decide life in there is easier than it is on the outside.”
“Me, too. I think he’s got a decent chance.” Colin meant that. As a police chief’s son, Darren would be kept away from the general run of inmates for his own safety. He’d stay isolated most of the time. No prison camaraderie for him. You’d have to be a nutcase to want to go back to that. Colin had long thought Darren Pitcavage was a nasty prick. A nutcase? No, or not that kind, anyhow.
“Like I said, I hope. That’s about what I can do these days.” Caroline sounded bleak. Well, she had her reasons. “Enjoy your retirement, Colin. Enjoy your life. It’s nice somebody gets to.”
People stared as she went over to pick up a Danish and get some coffee. She seemed to move in a bubble of wide eyes and quiet. Then Malik Williams walked up and made small talk with her. Colin admired the chief for that. It took moral courage. He wasn’t sure he could have done it if he were in Williams’ shoes and not his own.
A city councilman came up and pumped his hand. Charlie Yamada had run the Honda dealership at the corner of Hesperus and Reynoso Drive till the supervolcano killed that business. He still sold Hondas these days: Honda motor scooters. He also sold Segways and bikes and trikes. IF IT’S GOT WHEELS, WE’LL DEAL! was his current slogan.
“You did the city a great service, Captain,” he said. “You deserve to be proud of yourself for it.”
“Thanks.” Colin left it right there. Yamada was a friendly blowhard, but he was a blowhard all the same. A service? Colin hadn’t known Mike Pitcavage was the South Bay Strangler when he set up Darren’s arrest. If he’d had even a small suspicion, he would have gone after the chief years earlier. Anyone would have.
Kelly was talking with Lucy Chen. Not for the first time, Colin thought the two of them might have been sisters, even if one was fair and Jewish, the other almond-eyed and black-haired. Regardless of looks, they shared the same straight-ahead style and drive to get to the bottom of things. If Kelly had told him to take a flying leap that morning in Yellowstone all these years ago now, he wondered if he would have been smart enough to ask Lucy out. He could have done worse—he was sure of that. Whether she would have been dumb enough to say yes was a different question altogether. Luckily for him, it wasn’t one he had to worry about any more.
“Excuse me,” he told Councilman Yamada—any excuse to get away seemed a good one. He refilled his own coffee cup, then went over to his wife and the DNA technician. Raising the cup in salute, he said, “Here’s to the two women who saved my bacon.”
“Phooey,” Kelly said.
“You did what you were supposed to do, and the truth came out because of that.” Lucy might think she didn’t know him well enough to throw Phooey in his face, but what she did say amounted to the same thing.
“Thanks to you,” he said—he wasn’t going to let her get away with that.
He might have gone on, but Eugene Cervus chose that moment to stride confidently to the lectern. The mayor of San Atanasio wore a suit elegant enough that even Mike Pitcavage might not have disdained it. He tapped at the mike to see if it was live. When he found it was, he leaned forward and said, “Ladies and gentlemen…” That got people’s attention. After a moment, Mayor Cervus went on, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re here today to celebrate the career of Captain Colin Ferguson, who’s done his best for the city of San Atanasio since well before the turn of the millennium.”
The assembled cops and dignitaries clapped. Colin thought the mayor should have stuck with turn of the century. The other made you think when you should have been just listening. Cervus continued, “Captain Ferguson saved his finest work for last. His investigations led to the end of the South Bay Strangler’s reign of terror over this whole region. And, after that, he labored valiantly to restore the unity and the pride of the San Atanasio Police Department.” More applause, this time mostly from the cops. That made Colin feel good. The mayor finished, “Here to speak more on that is Malik Williams, chief of the San Atanasio PD. Chief Williams!”
Colin joined in the hand the chief got as he replaced the mayor behind the lectern. Williams deserved it, as far as he was concerned. “When I got here, they told me Colin Ferguson was a cop’s cop. They were right,” Malik Williams said. People clapped some more. He continued, “They didn’t tell me he was a smart cop, but I found that out pretty darn quick. I’ve been finding out how smart he is ever since. We’ll be using his ideas about how to go low-tech when we have to, and how to mix low tech and high, for years to come. So will police departments up and down California. I’m sorrier than I know how to tell you that his injury is making him retire earlier than he would have, because he’s a good man—a terrific man—at your back. And here he is. Give it up for Captain… Colin… Ferguson!”