Page 51 of Rest In Pink

“‘Boinking’?” Rain repeated. “What are you? Twelve? Speaking of boinking, how are things with Danger?”

“Fair to middling.”

“That good, huh.”

“Can you send me the packet?”

“I can send you what the task force will allow me to send,” Rain said. “And you’re evading.”

“Things are really good with Liz.”

“‘Good’? What does that mean, Vince? First, she was only going to be in town a couple of days. Now she owns your ass. She living in the Big Chef yet?”

I looked out the window and thought for the first time about Liz living in the Big Chef. It wasn’t as bad an idea as it should have been. The place was small, though. I was beginning to find it constricting, and I’d talked to Will about that, and Patsy was working on a solution for me.

But Liz was leaving in September, so I answered honestly. “No.”

Rain tried waiting me out to get more, but I’d done interrogations and knew exactly what she was doing. Finally, she gave up. “All right. Listen. The captain from OCI who runs the organized crime task force perked up when I asked about the Wolves. He called my boss.”

“Sorry I got you in trouble, Rain. I—“

She cut me off with her usual diplomacy. “Shut up, dipshit. If you need help, CPD has given me latitude to assist the Burney PD. That’s if George is all right with it. I think there’s more going on with the Iron Wolves behind the scenes. OCI has been investigating the Wolves for years. My boss in CPD is talking to the OCI, which doesn’t happen often. You know, different jurisdictions actually speaking to each other. Something’s up.”

Cops were like soldiers. They loved their acronyms. In the Army I’d heard complete sentences that would make no sense to an outsider. I was relatively new to Ohio but I knew OCI was the state police’s Office of Criminal Investigation. As high as you could go in law enforcement inside the state before you got to the Feds. Considering the Wolves crossed states, I’m sure there was someone at that level who was also keep tabs. Great. That was all we needed. State and Fed dweebs messing with Barney Fife in Burney. What could go wrong? The good news was Rain was on call. Officially. Which meant we could keep things at the local level and not call in the County Sheriff.

This weekend was starting off interestingly. First a night with Liz, good food, and now Rain coming on board to work at my side. “I’m sure George will greatly appreciate your help. I’ll give him a heads up. I appreciate it.”

“All right,” she said. “Hey, I tried tracking down any family Dave might have had. To give them the flag.”

“Nobody showed for the funeral,” I said, which was obvious since Rain had been standing next to me and received the folded flag that had been covering the coffin from a confused lieutenant as she was the only woman there.

“There’s a cousin in California,” Rain said.

“And?”

“I thought maybe I should send her the flag.”

“Dave ever mention her?” I asked.

“No.”

“Fuck that,” I said. “Dave would have wanted you to have it. That worked out the way it was supposed to, at least.”

“Yeah,” she said, and I realized she just wanted to talk about him, something, anything. But what more was there to say?

“He went out under his own terms,” I said. “Listen. Dave explained it best one time. He said combat, hell, life, is like standing with ten guys waiting for a chopper and someone with a clipboard reads it and says, you eight get on the bird and you two? You’re dead. No rhyme or reason. Doesn’t matter how well trained or prepared you are. We both know how random and brutal it is. Dave was killed over there, it just took a while. He didn’t deserve it. It was fate. But he chose his final moment. That’s more than most of us can expect.”

“I know.” Her voice was low. Almost a whisper. “I just miss him. I even miss visiting him in hospice and I hated that place.”

“We all miss him,” I said.

“You know, Vince, you can say it once in a while.”

“I miss him.”

“Good,” she said. “Gotta go. Watch your overhead cover.”

“Rangers lead the way.”

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