Cindy sailed into the back room with a big grin, a police scanner under her arm and a computer bag over her shoulder.
She scooted in next to me, put her radio on the table, and said, “Claire.” All she said was “Claire.”
“I’m gonna be fine,” said Claire. “That’s your headline and your bottom line, and I don’t know when I’m going back to work. Maybe when I get enough of being home all day with Edmund and Rosie.”
“Yahoo,” said Cindy. “All caps. Above the fold.”
Claire grinned.
Cindy had questions, of course, but when she was assured that Claire was on the right road, she linked her arm into mine. She said, “Damn it, Lindsay. That was awfully good of you.”
“To?”
“To hand me the finale on the Kill Shot series. Holy cow, I’ve been struggling to keep up, let alone get a good front-row seat on these killings, but that interview with Brady ahead of the FBI announcement gave me a seat on the stage.”
“Great, Cindy. I’m glad it turned out that way. And when Stempien’s back with the FBI, I think they’re going to shut down the whole Moving Targets operation.”
“It’s going to be hard,” Cindy said. “Killing drug dealers really caught fire with the populace. They liked it. They cheered every time a drug dealer bit the dust. But the good guys won. Oh. Before I forget, I got a raise.”
Yuki said, “And that means…”
“Dinner’s on me,” Cindy said.
We lifted our glasses and ordered our dinners, and I swear it was like starlight was beaming down on the four of us. And as our meals were served, Yuki had a few things to say.
“I picked this up on the ADA grapevine,” she said. “Lindsay, Joe was mentioned.”
“My Joe?”
“The very one.”
Yuki told us what she’d heard about Carolee Atkins, RN, who was some kind of angel of death.
“The DA’s office here will be prosecuting her. Two murders have been charged to her so far, but I have a feeling about this. More bodies are going to turn up. When old men with heart disease die in a hospital, nobody is alarmed. But I think the alarm has just sounded. I see autopsies in the near future looking for a medication that just plain stops your heart.”
Claire said to Yuki, “Last I heard you were trying a case of a kid wheelman in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Yuki said, “Sorry to say, I cannot tell you more, but that young man disappeared with his family, and we’re about to roll up a lot of drug dealers without firing a single shot.”
We ate with our fingers, got a little sauced, and reveled in our camaraderie. Before we refused to let Cindy take the check, she asked me to come with her to the ladies’ room.
“Hey. Linds. I’m sorry I was such a pill. I was wrong to push you where you couldn’t go.”
“You were doing your job, Cindy.”
“And you were doing yours, Sergeant. I really cannot express how much I admire you.”
I thought of the many times Cindy had been instrumental in solving crimes with her press card, by being the dogged bulldog she is. I remembered her taking a bullet and bringing down an armed killer on the block where I lived.
I said, “I feel the same way about you, Cin. You’re the best.”
Back at the table, we made a coffee toast to the Women’s Murder Club, and to how lucky we all were in our jobs, and our friendships.
Claire said, “I’m gonna add some heavy cream to that.”
She creamed her coffee, and then all of us, even those who hadn’t had real cream in years, dosed our java.
I looked around at my three friends and thought how we didn’t take our luck for granted. We never did.
We split the check and, soon after, went home to the men and children we loved.
May it always be so.