In Death 11 - Judgment in Death

was the light of my life."
    "I read his service record." She sat on the opposite side of the grave. "He was a good cop."
    "Yeah, he was. Oh, I was proud of him. The way he carried himself, the way he took to the job like he was born to it. Maybe he was. I was always proud of him, though, from the first instant they put him in my arms and he was squalling and wriggling. All that life in one little package."
    With his free hand, he brushed at the grass that grew over his son. "You don't have children as yet, do you, Lieutenant?"
    "No."
    "I'll tell you that whatever you feel for anyone, however much love's inside you, there's more of it when you have a child. You can't understand it until you've experienced it. And it doesn't change as they grow into men, into women. It just grows with them. It should be me in there, and not my boy. Not my Thad."
    "We took Ricker." She said it quickly, because she'd seen his hand tighten on his weapon.
    "I know it." And relax again. "I heard it on-screen in the little room where I've been staying. My hidey-hole. We all need our hidey-holes, don't we?"
    "He's going down for your son, Sergeant."
    She used his rank, and would use it, again and again, to remind him what he was.
    "I want you to know that. Conspiracy to commit murder. The murder of a police officer. And he'll go down for the others, the same way. With everything else we'll nail on, he'll never get out of a cage. He'll die there."
    "It's some comfort. I never thought you were part of it. Not in my gut. I can't say I've been clear in my mind for the last bit of time. After Taj..."
    "Sergeant -- "
    "I took that boy's life, a life as innocent as my son's. Made a widow of his sweet wife, and took away a good father from those babies. I'll carry that regret, that shame, that horror to my own grave."
    "Don't." She said it quietly, urgently, as he lifted his weapon and placed it to the pulse at his throat. It would be lethal there. And on maximum setting would end it instantly. "Wait. Is that the way you honor your son, by taking another life on his grave? Is that what Thad would want? Is that what he'd expect from his father?"
    He was so tired. It showed in his face now, in his voice. "What else is there?"
    "I'm asking you to listen to me. If you're set on this, I can't stop you. But you owe me some time."
    "Maybe I do. The boy who was with you when you came to my door, when I knew you knew. I panicked. Panicked," he said again like an oath. "I don't even know who he was."
    "His name's Webster. Lieutenant Don Webster. He's alive, Sergeant. He's going to be okay."
    "I'm glad of that. One less stone to carry."
    "Sergeant..." She fumbled for the words. "I'm a murder cop," she began. "You ever work Homicide?" She knew he hadn't. She knew it all.
    "No, not as such. But you deal with it wherever you are if you're a cop. And you deal with it too much if you've been one as long as me."
    "I work for the dead. I can't count the number of them I've stood over. I don't think I could stand to try. But I dream of them. All those lost faces, those stolen lives. It's hard."
    She was surprised she was telling him this, surprised it seemed the way. "Sometimes it's so hard to see those faces in your sleep, you wake up hurting. But I can't do anything else. I've wanted to be a cop as long as I can remember. It was my one clear vision, and it's all I can do."
    "Are you a good cop?" The tears were overflowing again. In sympathy or despair, she couldn't tell. "Eve. Your name's Eve, isn't it? Are you a good cop, Eve?"
    "Yeah. I'm a damn good cop."
    Now he wept, and she felt her eyes tear up in concert. "Thad, he wanted the same as you. The one clear vision. I like that. Yeah, his one clear vision. They let him bleed to death. They let him die. And for what? For what? Money. It rips my heart."
    "They've paid, Sergeant. I can't tell you what you did was right, or what the judgment on you will be in the end of things. But they've paid for what they did to your boy, for what they did to their badge. Ricker's going to pay, too, I swear it to you, here on the grave of this good cop. He'll pay for playing them all like puppets. He played you, too. Played on your love for your son. Your grief. Your pride. Will you let him keep pulling your strings? Will you dishonor yourself and your son by letting him win?"
    "What can I do?" Tears streamed down his cheeks. "I've lost. I'm lost."
    "You can do what Thad would expect of you. You can face it."
    "I'm shamed," he