Judgment in Death

"No." The humor was coming back. "I don't know what got into me."

"If you'd stuck with the streets instead of getting fat and happy behind a stupid desk, you wouldn't be lying here. And when you're on your feet, I'm going to put you right back in the hospital."

"That'll be fun. Give me something to look forward to. Did you get him? They won't tell me a damn thing in here."

"No. No, I didn't get him."

"Shit." He closed his eyes again. "That's on me."

"Oh, shut up." She stalked to the tiny window, fisted her hands on her hips, while she tried to calm down.

In her place, Roarke moved to the side of the bed. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

And that was all they needed to say on the subject.

"We got Ricker," Eve continued, as her anger abated. "Took him down last night."

"What? How?" Webster tried to sit up, couldn't even lift his head. And swore with as much energy as he could muster.

"It's a long story. I'll fill you in some other time. But we got him, solid, and have his lawyer on the hot seat for good measure, and a dozen of his men."

She turned back, walked to the bed. "He's going to stay in MD status by the looks of things, and we're going to take his organization apart, piece by piece."

"I can help. Do some of the data searches, run scans. Let me in on this. I'll go crazy in here with nothing to do."

"Stop, you're breaking my heart." Then she shrugged. "I'll think about it."

"Come on, you know you'll cave on it. You feel sorry for me." He managed a grin. "And I should tell you, both of you, so there's no baggage, I'm pretty much on the way to getting over you."

"That really adds to my peace of mind, Webster."

"It does a lot for mine. Only took getting sliced in half, more or less. Nothing like a good coma to give a guy the opportunity to put things in perspective."

His eyes drooped, nearly shut before he fought them open again. "Man, the meds just knock you out."

"So, get some sleep. Word gets out you're coming around, you'll have plenty of company. You'll need all the rest you can manage."

"Yeah, but wait." He was losing it, struggling to hold out another minute. "I gotta ask you a question. Did you come in before?"

"Before what?"

"Come on, Dallas. Before now. Did you come in and talk to me?"

"Maybe I dropped in to see what an idiot looked like. Why?"

" 'Cause I had this dream. Maybe a dream. You were standing over me. I was just floating and you were standing there, ragging my ass. Ever tell you how sexy you look when you're ragging ass?"

"Jesus."

"Sorry, a little re… residual lust. D'ya say you'd spit on my grave?"

"Yeah. I will, too, if you try to cash out again."

He gave a weak chuckle. "Who's the idiot? Not go

"Yeah, you go on." And because he was asleep, and Roarke would understand, she gave his hand a little pat. "He'll be okay."

"Yes, he'll be okay."

"I think he was glad you came along." She pushed a hand through her hair. "Return and burn. What a jerk. But I guess he's right. Graves are out of style, mostly. Except… Oh no." She whirled to Roarke. "I am such an idiot. Rich or religious. I know where he'll go, where he'll go to end it. You drive."

She was already out of the room, ru

"His son's grave."

"Yeah, yeah." She yanked out her PPC. "Where the hell is it? They'd have one. People who have religious statues in the living room want to bury their dead and put crosses up."

"I'll find it faster." He had his own unit out as they hit the elevator. "Call your backup."

"No, no backup, not yet. I have to find him first, to be sure. Son's name was Thad. Thadeus Clooney."

"I've got it. Three plots, Sunlight Memorial. New Rochelle."

"Near the house. Makes sense." She exchanged her PPC for her communicator as she strode across the lobby and out to the lot. "Peabody. Listen up."

"Sir? Dallas?"

"Wake up, get dressed. You're on call." She climbed into the car. "I want you to get a squad car, have it and an officer ready to transport you. I'm following a lead on Clooney. If it pans out, I'll contact you. I want you to move fast."

"Where? Where are you going?"

"Back to the dead," Eve said. "Push this thing," she added as Roarke headed out of the lot. "He could have heard about Ricker by now."

"Strap in," Roarke advised, and he punched the accelerator.

– =O=-***-=O=-

The dead rested in sunlight and dappled shade, in gentle green hills, with markers of soft white, soft gray. The rows of them, the crosses and curves, made Eve wonder how the living could find comfort there, faced with the unassailable proof of their own mortality.

But some must. For even in these days when few chose to go into the ground or could afford the real estate, many of the graves were splashed with flowers. That symbol of life given to the dead.

"Which way?"

Roarke had a diagram of the cemetery on his pocket screen. "To the left, over that rise."

They walked around the markers together. "The first time I spoke to you," she remembered, "we were in a graveyard. Kind of creepy, I guess."

"Apt." He laid a hand on her shoulder. "There he is. Your instincts are excellent."

She paused, taking a moment to study the man sitting on the tended grass beside a flower-strewn grave. And the marker was indeed a cross, pure and white.

"I need you to hang back."

"No."

Saying nothing, she crouched, pulled out her clinch piece. "I'm trusting you not to use this unless you have no choice." She handed it to him. "Trust me to do my job. I need to try to talk him in. I'm asking you to let me give him that chance. Compromise."

"All right."

"Thanks. Call Peabody. Tell her where to come. I need her here."

Alone, she walked down the gentle slope and through the graves. He knew she was coming. He was cop enough to hold his ground, to bide his time, but she saw from the slightest shift in his body, he knew.

Better that way, she thought. She preferred not to surprise him.

"Sergeant."

"Lieutenant." He still didn't look at her, didn't take his attention from the name carved in that perfect white cross. "I want you to know I'm carrying. I don't want to harm you."

"I appreciate that. You should know I'm carrying, and I don't want to harm you, either. I need to talk to you, Sergeant. Can I sit down here?"

He looked at her then. His eyes were dry, but she could see he'd been weeping. There were still tracks of the tears on his cheeks. And she saw, too, that his weapon, the same make and model as her own, was in the hand resting in his lap.

"You've come to take me in. I don't intend to go."

"Can I sit down?"

"Sure. Sit. It's a good spot for it. That's why we picked it. But I always thought that Thad would be the one to sit here, to sit and talk to me and his mother. Not that I would be the one to sit. He was the light of my life."

"I read his service record." She sat on the opposite side of the grave. "He was a good cop."

"Yeah, he was. Oh, I was proud of him. The way he carried himself, the way he took to the job like he was born to it. Maybe he was. I was always proud of him, though, from the first instant they put him in my arms and he was squalling and wriggling. All that life in one little package."

With his free hand, he brushed at the grass that grew over his son. "You don't have children as yet, do you, Lieutenant?"

"No."

"I'll tell you that whatever you feel for anyone, however much love's inside you, there's more of it when you have a child. You can't understand it until you've experienced it. And it doesn't change as they grow into men, into women. It just grows with them. It should be me in there, and not my boy. Not my Thad."