LUKE STAYED UP with Woody and the other Long Beach officers for a little bit before heading to bed. They talked about the funeral and what to expect. It would be huge and emotional. Luke wished he were riding with Abby but understood how important it was to her to show solidarity in uniform.

The next day they all shared a light breakfast at the hotel and then he watched the uniformed officers climb into their black-and-whites. The out-of-state officers were from Utah and Nevada. Four patrol cars left from the hotel lot that morning. Luke was sorry to see Abby go. She looked awesome in the dress uniform, and he’d have been proud to stand next to her. The uniformed officers would march into the church in formation. Both Abby and Woody had attended police funerals before, and Luke knew that on a certain level they were grieving right along with the San Luis cops.

“Cuts a chunk out of your heart with a dull knife and no anesthesia when a fellow officer falls like this,” Woody had said.

“It could have been anyone,” Abby had said at breakfast. “We’ve all made traffic stops; we know how vulnerable you are at the moment you approach the driver. You don’t know what he or she was doing before you saw them. The driver of the stopped vehicle has every advantage.”

Luke understood what she meant. The officer who’d been killed had pulled over a man for running a stop sign, little knowing the man had just killed his wife. That fact wasn’t discovered until long after the officer had died. The shooter had nothing to lose and came out of the car firing a handgun. It made Luke ill to realize how easy it was for anyone to kill a cop, if that was what he’d determined to do. He was glad that Abby worked out of uniform most of the time, and in a position where he’d be able to help her and hopefully keep her safe.

Abby hated funerals, especially cop funerals. This was her third, and they were always so tragic, so hard. There were hundreds of cops from all over the country in attendance. The guys she’d ridden with were all younger than her, but they completely understood the solemnity. The other cops staying at the hotel, the ones from Utah and Nevada, were seasoned guys, and like Abby, they’d been to funerals before.

“Too many funerals,” one had said, and Abby agreed —way too many.

They arrived at the police station, or rather a couple of blocks away, as there were already several dozen police cars lined up. They took a position in line and waited for the signal to move. Besides black-and-whites, there were blue-and-whites, solid blues, solid whites, and green-and-whites. It was quite a collection of different-style patrol cars.

When the procession began moving, it was a four-mile trek through town to the church. Abby had read that the service would be held at the largest church in town, picked to handle the crowd expected. There were fire trucks parked along the route, and at one point a ladder truck had raised its ladder to hold a huge billowing American flag. There were also citizens along the route, waving, holding signs for the deceased officer saying, RIP and God Bless.

When they arrived at the church, they filed into the parking lot with all the other cop cars, then walked to the side of the sanctuary, where they were asked to line up in formation. Abby hadn’t marched in formation since the last funeral. But since they’d done a lot of formation work in the academy, she was not clueless about it.

While they waited for the official order to begin to march in, she looked around at the diverse crowd. Of course Morro Bay PD was represented, and she saw J. P. Winnen. He didn’t see her right away, but when he did, he scowled and then looked away.

Abby let it go as the order to attention was barked out and then the order to march was given. They marched into the church solemnly and smartly. The next hour was emotional and draining. The large framed photo of the grinning man, child in each arm, broke Abby’s heart. The eulogies for a young cop cut down in the prime of life, leaving a wife and two small children, were heart-wrenching. The bagpipes playing “Amazing Grace” were haunting and profoundly sad. Abby cried openly, as did many around her. It was, as Woody had said, like having a piece of your heart cut out.

She also caught Winnen watching her once or twice and wondered what was up with that. The funeral was no place to pull him aside and question him, but she wished she could do just that.

When it was over and they left the church, Abby found Luke and Woody. The other Long Beach guys were going to attend the graveside service and then head home to Long Beach, so she caught a return ride to the hotel with her partners. It was quiet in the car and for that Abby was thankful. She wanted to change and take a shower and pray for the hurting widow and her children and ask God to keep her fellow officers safe in a crazy, dangerous world.

About an hour after the service, when they were back in the conference room looking over the Ciara case, Luke’s phone buzzed. “It’s Orson. I e-mailed him a summary of our progress earlier.” He put it on speakerphone. But it wasn’t Orson; it was Faye. For some reason Luke felt his face redden and hoped Abby didn’t see.

“Hello, Luke. Orson gave me the summary to review. It looks like you’ve made some good progress, but you might be rapidly approaching an impasse on this one.”

“You’re on speaker, Faye.”

“Hi, Faye,” Woody said.

Abby echoed the greeting, then added, “We just got started. I’m not conceding impasse.”

Luke saw the stubborn set of her jaw. Or was that irritation?

“I’m not trying to blunt your enthusiasm. We have faith in you. And I know you’ll keep digging. I also know that you weren’t planning on coming home for the weekend until Saturday. Orson wonders if you’d mind coming back tomorrow and consider taking on another case unofficially, one you’d be working on in the same general area. He has studied everything Luke sent him and thinks you can work both cases at the same time without too much trouble. In fact, the first one might help you work the second one.”

“Okay by me,” Woody said. Luke knew he was anxious to get home to Zena.

“What’s the case?” Luke asked.

“A guy who murdered his family and has been a fugitive for fifteen years. He’s on the FBI’s ten most wanted list.”

Abby piped up. “That’s not in the guidelines for our cases. Technically, the case isn’t cold —they know who did it, and he’s in the wind. If he’s fled and a warrant is issued because he fled prosecution, isn’t that FBI or US marshals’ responsibility?”

“FBI, but this is a special case. Orson wants it clear —this would be unofficial. Basically you’ll be doing some knock-and-talks asking questions. And the reason he wants you all back in Long Beach tomorrow is to meet the victim.”

“All of us?” Abby asked.

“Yes. He thinks it’s important for you to meet the victim face-to-face, hear her story, and listen to her thoughts. In either event, whether you take this on or not, you’ll be free to head back up on Monday. If you do decide to help with this case, you can kill two birds with one stone, to use a famous cliché.”

“Will you e-mail us information on the case?” Luke asked.

“Uh, no, Orson wants you to meet the victim and commit to the case before giving you all the information. She’s here. She came into the building looking for Orson because she’d read about the Barone case and the good job you and Woody did there. This is not a normal case and not a normal intake, but we bet you’ll agree when you meet her that it is a case worth looking at. I hope asking you to be here a little early is not a problem. I know that Luke at least will want to touch base at home before returning next Monday.”

“True enough on Luke’s account,” Woody said. “But I’ve got a pretty lady waiting for me at home as well.”

Luke and Abby snickered at that.

“Oh, great.” Abby threw her hands up. “That must mean that I’m the only one without a life.”

They agreed to head back to Long Beach a day early. Faye rang off and the three of them sat around the conference table discussing this new wrinkle.

“She said it may help us with this case,” Abby said. “I wonder how on earth it would do that.”