epilogue

“Death?” Wren said. “I think it’s done now.”

He slid out from under his Jeep, parked in her driveway. Wren sat on the porch steps, Lucy at her feet and Thomas watching from the newel post with a bored expression as she fought with the crank of an old-fashioned wooden ice cream freezer.

He wiped his hands carefully on an old rag, went over and easily spun the handle a couple of times.

“It’s not frozen yet?” she despaired. “Remind me again why I got this thing instead of a nice electric one that does the turning for you?”

“You thought it was quaint,” he grinned.

“Quaint, right.” She groaned. “Listen, next time I think something silly like that you—” She broke off and he turned to follow her gaze. A strange car had pulled up to the curb in front of the house.

While they watched, a man got out of the car. Death registered his uniform first and, even after ten months, pain stabbed through him like a knife to the heart.

Wren must have read something in his body language. She turned to him with worry in her blue eyes.

“It’s okay.” He released the crank from the freezer lid, lifted the lid and took the ice cream out of the slushy mixture of half-melted ice and rock salt inside. “I was only teasing you. This is done. You can put it in the freezer and it’ll be just fine.”

“But that man … ?”

“I know. I need to talk to him. You go on. We’ll be in in a minute.”

Wren took the ice cream and went inside and Death stood and walked down to meet the stranger, who had been watching them from the sidewalk. He was a thin, middle-aged black man and he stood almost at attention, holding a briefcase. He offered Death his hand.

“Sergeant Bogart? I’m Captain Jonathan Cairn, of the St. Louis Fire Department.”

“Cap. I know.” Death took his hand in a firm grip. “Randy told me a lot about you.”

“And he told us a lot about you. I’d wanted to meet with you earlier,” the captain said. “I know how close the two of you were. This must all have been incredibly hard on you. I haven’t had any way to get hold of you, though.”

“Yeah, things have been pretty messed up. I actually thought about looking you up a couple of times, but I didn’t know what I’d say. Would you like to come in?”

They went in the house and settled in the living room. Wren was in the kitchen, pretending she hadn’t been peeking out the front window, and she came out to say hello.

“Honey, this is Captain Cairn. He was my brother’s commanding officer. Captain—”

“Call me Cap. Everyone does.”

Death shot him a faint grin. “Cap, this is my girlfriend, Wren Morgan.”

“Miss Morgan, a pleasure to meet you.”

“And you. Would you like some coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

They settled around the coffee table and Cap set his briefcase on the table and opened it. “One reason I needed to see you is because we still have to settle your brother’s estate.”

Death was surprised. “It’s not already settled?”

“No. You didn’t know?”

“By the time I woke up in Germany, it seemed like everything was already done. I just figured my ex-wife got any money and spent it while I was overseas.”

“I see.” Cap rustled some papers. “Actually there was a complication. The day before Bogie—Randy—”

“It’s okay,” Death said with a wry grin. “I was Bogie in the Marine Corps, too.”

“Right.” Cap spared him a brief smile. “The day before Bogie died he got word that you’d been killed in action. Glad that turned out not to be true, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Death nodded.

“Anyway, that morning he got a call from, ah, your ex-wife?”

“Madeline.”

“Madeline. Right. They had a bit of an altercation and the upshot was that he re-wrote his will at the last minute. He left everything to the fire station—I don’t think he could think of anyone else right then and he was determined that, if anything happened to him, Madeline wasn’t going to profit by it. After he died and you were found alive, Madeline filed to contest the will, arguing that he wouldn’t have written you out of it if he knew you were still alive. Frankly, we agree, and there shouldn’t be any problem with having that will thrown out and his previous will reinstated. However, we can’t just do it on our own.”

Death sighed and looked down at the floor between his feet.

Cap’s voice softened. “Are you alright talking about this, son?”

“Yeah, I guess. It just … feels kinda like blood money, you know?”

“I know, but your brother would have wanted you to have it. I tried contacting you through Madeline, but after you divorced I wasn’t able to get in touch with her. I just happened to see your name in the news and the police chief here knew where to find you. Anyway, I’ve got some papers here for you, so we can finally get this taken care of. Also,” He reached into his briefcase. “I thought that maybe you’d like to have this.”

He pulled out a silver shield, set against red velvet in a burnished silver frame. He offered it to Death, who took it with a puzzled frown.

“It’s your brother’s badge,” Cap said.

“Yeah, I know but … did he have two? Because I already have one the coroner sent me.”

He got up and went to a curio cabinet. Though he slept at his own apartment, Wren’s place was quickly becoming home. His pictures and his few mementos sat on the shelves and hung on the walls beside hers now. He came back with a small box containing a copy of the badge in Cap’s hand.

Cap took it with a frown. “Did the coroner say where he got this?”

“He said he took it off the body.”

“That’s impossible. The morning he died, Bogie snapped the back off his badge. We got called out before he had time to fix it. When he went into that fire, his shield was lying on my desk.”

the end