Page 36 of Stay Awake
“I’m embarrassed to tell you. It sounds hokey.”
“Try me.” Lavelle stopped eating while he waited for her answer.
“When I was a kid, I guess around thirteen, I did a summer camp on law enforcement. One of the cops who mentored us was a homicide detective. He told us that homicide cops served a much more important purpose in society than just putting killers behind bars. ‘Homicide detectives,’ he said, ‘are what keep us civilized. We are the last line of defense against the barbarians,’” she quoted, pausing to take a sip of her drink. “I guess it stuck with me.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t expect the boring side of the job.”
“Like what?”
“Like the paperwork.”
It was a frequent gripe. They were required to record every aspect of their investigation in a log book. Nothing was too minor to be documented.
“To tell you the truth, there are days when I’m buried under so much paperwork that I wonder why I left the military.”
“How long did you serve for?”
“Almost six years.”
“What made you enlist?” Lavelle asked.
“It paid for my college education. I was in ROTC. Plus, I thought it would be a good way to get new experiences. You know. Make friends. Visit exotic places. The joke was on me. There is nothing exotic about three months on a military base in Helmand province.”
“Why did you leave?”
She sighed. “Let’s just say I did several tours of duty, the last couple in Afghanistan. I made friends. Some of them died. Others made it through, and then died. Like that friend I told you about who had his leg blown off and then decided there was nothing worth sticking around for. Not even his baby girl.”
“Sounds like you went through a tough time.”
Her jaw tightened. “At the end of my last tour, I decided not to push my luck, so I put in my papers. It turned out to be harder to adjust than I’d anticipated. It’s not something a person can understand until they’ve done it.”
“So you became a cop?” he asked.
“Not straightaway. There were job offers. Due to the nature of my service,” she said cryptically.
“CIA?” he asked.
“I can’t go into details. I turned them down. I wanted to be stateside and I wanted to be a civilian. No more taking orders,” she said.
“If you didn’t want to take orders, then how did you end up in this job?”
“Civilian life turned out to be harder than I thought. Starting from scratch. Building a network out of nothing. Getting recruiters to recognize that I wasn’t a traditional candidate but that I had plenty of other skills. Coming to terms with the idea that most of the jobs Iapplied for were about money, nothing more. No sense of service, or community. No greater good. To cut a long story short, a friend suggested I join the NYPD. I did and I’ve never looked back. I guess I like being in uniform.”
“Detectives don’t wear uniforms!”
“Sure we do. This is as much a uniform as any other.” She tugged at the lapel of her navy jacket. “Believe me, I wouldn’t wear a suit if I didn’t have to. I bet you wouldn’t either.” She smiled. “Enough about me. What brought you into this line of work, Detective?”
“Third-generation homicide detective,” Lavelle said. “My dad used to say working homicide is like malaria. Once it gets in your blood, you can’t get rid of it.”
“My dad sold insurance. I’m grateful that didn’t get into my blood!” Halliday scrunched up her wrapper and threw it in the trash. Her phone rang as they rose from the table.
“Detective Halliday,” she said.
“Darcy, this is Grace from the lab. I have preliminary results from the wine bottle you dropped off earlier as a rush job.”
Halliday followed Lavelle toward his car. “Go ahead.”
“We have a fourteen-point match to a print in the IAFIS database.”
