Niceville

nothing.
    Tig let it slide.
    Nick, ready to change the topic, said, “Anything for us on what happened yesterday?”
    Tig rubbed his cheeks with both hands, looking suddenly old.
    “You walked the site. What’d you think?”
    Nick told him.
    Tig nodded, having come to the same conclusion on his own. Cold-assed murder, plain and simple.
    “We getting a piece of anything?” Nick asked.
    “There’ll be one hell of a funeral, for one thing,” said Tig, looking out the window at the rain coming down. “There’ll be uniforms coming in to Cap City from all over the country, far away as Canada, England. Christ, four guys. Plus the two people in the Live Eye chopper.”
    “The hell with the people in the chopper. Media vultures.”
    Nick didn’t like the media. Tig, who felt the same way but had to work with them, liked to keep Nick far away from people with cameras and microphones. He changed the subject.
    “I’d really like you to go, if you would. Next Friday? For our unit? Maybe you could take Beau?”
    Nick looked down at his hands.
    “I’ve had it with military funerals, Tig.”
    “So have I,” said Tig, lowering his voice and leaning across his desk. “But I don’t want us represented by some of these here younger guys, God love ’em, none of them know how to wear dress blues. Don’t even know how to wear a business suit, for that. You do. And Beau will do whatever you tell him. He wants to be you when he grows up. Come on. I’m asking here.”
    Nick was quiet, remembering all the funerals he had been to, not all of them in crisp dress blues with taps playing, some of them just six guys in ragged BDUs standing around a smoking crater, shoveling gravel over what was left of a friend.
    “Okay. I’ll go. One of the guys was a friend of Reed’s, so he’s going. Kate’d like me to go too.”
    Nick’s mind went back to the bank robbery.
    “About Gracie, anybody looking at the rollover on the interstate?”
    “The eighteen-wheeler?”
    “Yeah. It bothers me. A full load of rebar, spreads it all over six lanesof traffic, spears a van full of church ladies. Two killed, but the driver walks.”
    Tig looked at Nick, thinking it over.
    “You’re thinking about the timing?”
    “I am. When’d it roll over?”
    Tig shuffled some papers, picked up a printout, riffled through it.
    “Fourteen forty-one hours.”
    “There you go. These people hit the bank in Gracie, what, forty minutes later? Worked out pretty good for them, didn’t it, since almost every available unit, ground and air, was tied up with the rollover? Anybody looking into the driver?”
    Tig shook his head.
    “Not that I know of.”
    “What’s his name?”
    Tig flipped up the edge of a printout, ran a finger down the paragraph.
    “Lyle Preston Crowder. Six years with Steiger Freightways. No criminal sheet and no record of DUI or anything else. Other than a lousy credit history, which nowadays who doesn’t have, he’s shiny as a new dime.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “He was banged up. Pretty hysterical. They’ve got him sedated and under guard at Sorrows down in Cap City.”
    “Guard? Guard from what?”
    “The people in the minivan had husbands and fathers. People around here like to settle their own beefs. There’s been some talk.”
    “Okay. I get that. Anyway, you might say something to Boonie.”
    Tig nodded, made a note on a yellow pad.
    “I will. So. Work. How’s your sheet?”
    Nick sat back, drained his cup.
    “I have a meet with Lacy Steinert, over in Tin Town. She says one of her clients wants to talk about the Rainey Teague case. Might know something.”
    “What client?”
    “Lemon Featherlight.”
    “Yeah. I heard he got flaked for ecstasy by the goddam DEA. What’s he want?”
    “A deal on the DEA bust, be my guess.”
    “You think Lemon’s worth looking at?”
    Nick shrugged.
    “Lacy’s good people. If she thinks there’s something in it, can’t hurt to go have a coffee. I’d like to clear that one.”
    “Yeah. So would I.”
    There was no need to say anything else. They felt the same way about the Rainey Teague thing, and they both knew it.
    “A year back, isn’t it?” said Tig, as if he wasn’t aware of that down to the hour.
    “To the day,” said Nick.
    “How’s the kid doing?”
    “Still at Lady Grace. Still in a coma.”
    “Rainey was adopted, if I remember? Kate still acting as guardian?”
    “She is. She’s related to Sylvia, and she knows family law. The original