Brazen Virtue

built, layer by logical layer, fact by detailed fact. Emotions had to be controlled—or better, avoided altogether. It was a fine line he’d learned to walk, the line between involvement and calculation. If a cop stepped over the edge on either side, he was useless.

    His mother hadn’t wanted him to be a cop. She’d wanted him to join his uncle in the construction business. You’ve got good hands, she’d told him. You’ve got a strong back. You’d make union wage. Even now, years later, she was still waiting for him to turn in his badge for a hard hat.
    He had never been able to explain to her why he couldn’t, why he was in for the duration. It wasn’t the excitement. Stakeouts, cold coffee or, as in his case, tepid tea, and reports in triplicate weren’t exciting. And he certainly wasn’t in it for the pay.
    It was the feeling. Not the feeling when you shouldered on your gun. Never the feeling when you were forced to draw it. It was the feeling you took to bed with you at night, sometimes, only sometimes, that made you realize you’d done something right. If he were in a philosophical mood, he would talk of the law as the finest and most important invention of mankind. But in the gut, he knew it was more elemental than that.
    You were the good guy. Maybe, just maybe, it was that simple.
    Then there were times like this, times when you ended your day by looking down at a body and knew you had to be a part of finding the one who’d caused it … and bringing him in. You enforced the law and depended on the courts to remember the heart of it.
    Justice. It was Ben who talked of justice. Ed pared it down to right and wrong.
    “Thanks for waiting.”
    He turned to see Grace standing in the doorway. If possible, she was more pale. Her eyes were dark and huge, her hair disheveled as if she had dragged her hands through it again and again.
    “You okay?”
    “I guess I just realized that no matter what happens in my life, no matter what, I’ll never have to do anything more painful than what I just did.” She pulled a cigarette out of a crumpled pack and lit it. “My parents are getting the first flight out in the morning. I lied and told them I’d called a priest. It was important to them.”

    “You can call one tomorrow.”
    “Jonathan needs to be contacted.”
    “That’ll be taken care of.”
    She nodded. Her hands were beginning to shake again. Grace took a long drag from her cigarette as she struggled to keep them steady. “I—I don’t know who to call about arrangements. The funeral. I know Kath would want something subdued.” She felt the hitch in her chest and filled her lungs with smoke. “We’ll have to have a Mass. My parents will need that. Faith cushions despair. I think I wrote that once.” She took a pull on the cigarette again until the tip was a hard red ball. “I want to have as much taken care of as possible before they come. I have to call the school.”
    He recognized the signs of emotions thawing. Her movements were jerky, her voice wavering between taut and trembling. “Tomorrow, Grace. Why don’t you sit down?”
    “I was angry with her when I left, when I came next door. I was upset with her, frustrated. The hell with it, I thought. The hell with her.” She took another shaky drag. “I keep thinking if I’d just been able to get through, if I’d just been willing to push hard enough and stay to have it out with her, then—”
    “It’s a mistake, it’s always a mistake to take on things that you don’t have any control over.” He reached for her arm, but she moved aside, shaking her head.
    “I could have had control. Don’t you understand? Nobody manipulates like I do. It was just with Kath that I couldn’t find the right buttons. We were always edgy around each other. I didn’t even know enough about her life to name six people she had contact with. If I did, I might know. Oh, I’d ask.” Grace gave a quick, breathless laugh. “Kath would put me off and I wouldn’t push. It was easier that way. Just tonight I found out she was an addict—prescription drugs.”

    She hadn’t told them that, Grace realized. She hadn’t intended to tell the police that. Letting out a shaky breath, she realized she wasn’t talking to a cop anymore but to Ed, the guy next door. It was too late to back up; even though he said nothing, it was too late to back up and remember he wasn’t just a nice man with kind eyes.
    “There were three goddamn bottles of