End of Watch

'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be. Like your dad was to you, my mother was to me.'

'How old were you when your dad died?'

'Ten.'

'Well, that I'm sorry for.'

Frank nodded. 'Here we are anyway. Despite the odds. Two old broads carrying guns and badges.'

Annie smiled. 'We done all right, huh?'

'Pretty good. I wonder if we'd be here without them. Our pops, I mean.'

Annie dropped another look on Frank. She shrugged, resuming her scan. 'Maybe better, huh?'

'Who knows?' Frank used her hands to weigh her words.

'Good guy, bad guy? For a while, it coulda gone either way for me.

'You serious?'

'Yeah. The bad guy was quick, immediate gratification. But I saw who always got to go home at the end of the day and kept my sights on that. There were times, though, I wavered.'

Passing Tomkins Square Park, Annie pointed out the corner of 11th Street. 'Back in the Seventies—I think it was 'seventy-two— BLA ambushed two cops there. Foster and Laurie. Both of 'em not even twenty-five yet. Foster was black, Laurie was white, but both of 'em was blue.'

'I know. Word spread around the projects faster than fire in a meth lab. I kited a bus up after school the next day. Kinda morbid, I know, but I wanted to see where it happened. I remember how quiet it was. Too quiet. Only people on the street were junkies lookin' to score. Everyone else was inside lookin' out.'

Annie was incredulous. 'You're from around here?'

Frank found her answer out the window. 'Spent some time here.'

'Whereabouts?'

'Started off in the East Village, then after my dad died we moved to the Lower East Side. We were in the Towers when Foster and Laurie got killed.'

'The projects, huh? That musta been tough for a white girl.'

Frank shrugged. 'I did all right. My dad taught me how to take care of myself.'

After squinting at a couple parked cars, Annie asked, 'Any other white kids there with you?'

Frank grinned. 'There were a couple of us. We stood out like maggots in a shit pile, but I was the only blonde. They used to call me 'Yella.' It wasn't so bad.'

Frank squirmed. The projects weren't physically bad. She got knocked around a time or two, frightened sometimes, but nothing terrible happened. The bad part was what had happened to her on the inside. The projects taught her to rely on herself and herself only, to trust or care for no one. But as they passed two kids skipping hand in hand with their mother she remembered that wasn't completely true. She'd gotten a lot of bloody noses defending kids who couldn't defend themselves. She hated the way the strong preyed on the weak, the trickle-down economics of the ghetto where the father beat the mother, the mother beat the kids, and the kids took it out on anyone smaller. Frank wasn't always bigger than her adversaries but she was always angry and her anger found outlet in perceived injustices. Injustices she could control.

A shriveled man hunched on a stoop brought Frank back to the present. 'So your case with the little girl. Where'd you catch her father?'

'That's a helluva note.' Annie rooted in her purse for a pack of coffee beans. 'A unit picked him up on the sidewalk. He knew we had the other perp and he was on his way home to blow his brains out. Poor bastard.'

'I had a case like that. Couple years ago. Perp raped an eight-year-old so hard he killed her. Internal bleeding. The girl's father found him before we did. Tied him up in the machine shop where he worked and sliced the bastard's dick off. Choked him with it. Felt kinda bad cuffin' him.'

'Yeah, I know, huh?'

The women continued swapping stories, making the drive to Canarsie cheerful despite traffic and brooding clouds. They found a parking spot on Remsen and headed for the cemetery office.

'Good morning,' Annie greeted the man inside, flashing her badge. 'NYPD Homicide. I'm Detective Silvester, and this is Detective Franco.'

The man bowed his head nervously. 'Good morning,' he answered in a rich Indian accent. 'What can I do for you?'

'We need to talk to your groundskeepers. It won't take long,' Annie assured.

'Yes, yes.' He nodded. 'I get them for you.'

He darted from the office and the women looked around.

Annie asked, 'You thought about this yet?'

'About what?'

'You know.' Her hand circled the room. 'What you're gonna do.'

'Not really.' Frank frowned. 'I think I got a little time left.'

'Ain't you the cocky one? How do you know some mope ain't gonna whack you tomorrow? Or God forbid'— she crossed herself—'we get in a car wreck on the parkway? You of all people,' she chided.

'Why me of all people?'

'Bein' a homicide cop, for Pete's sake. Seein' what you seen. Of all people you should know there ain't no guarantees.'

Frank had shaken hands with her mortality half a dozen times but had never considered what would happen next. 'What are you gonna do?'

'Buried,' Annie proclaimed, jabbing a finger at the ground. 'Mahogany coffin, the works. I'm goin' out like a Viking, you know. In the most comfortable ship I can find, only not on fire.'

Frank smiled. 'You're somethin', Detective.'

'Ya got that right, cookie.'

The man returned, apologizing that the groundskeepers would be just a minute.

'No problem,' Annie soothed. 'Thank you.'

'May I ask what you're investigating?'

'An old case. Thirty-six years old. See, the NYPD nevuh quits.' She winked.

'Manny and Robert.' He bobbed his head. 'They will help you, yes? Please sit. They'll be soon here.'

'Thank you.' Annie was effusive in her praise, her charm wooing wits and perps alike.

They sat on the couch and Frank gave her an elbow. 'You're good.'

'You noticed.' Annie sniffed.

Two men, one Hispanic, one Asian, both in work clothes, entered the office. Annie made the introductions, then they followed Frank to her father's plot.

Weaving around headstones Annie asked, 'How often do you clean up the flowers left on graves?'

Manny, the Hispanic male, shrugged. 'Depends.'

'Depends on what?'

'On how bad they look,' Robert answered. 'When they start gettin' brown we throw 'em away.'

Annie looked around. 'I can see the place is very clean, very professional. I should be so lucky to be buried here.'

From her comment about 'the works' and Viking funerals it sounded more like Annie had Forest Lawn in mind. Frank murmured, 'On a cop's salary you should be so lucky.'

'Amen. So tell me, Robert.' She interrupted herself. 'May I call you, Robert?'

'Sure.'

They were standing at Frank's father's grave. There were no flowers, no candles. Just two headstones maintained by indifferent strangers. Frank concentrated on Annie and the groundskeepers.

'All right, Robert. So tell me, how often do you throw away flowers from this grave?'

He hefted his shoulder. 'Not that much. Someone comes and changes them. There's usually fresh flowers. I don't know, about every two weeks?' He appealed to his colleague.

Manny dragged on his cigarette with self-importance. The detectives indulged him. He nodded. 'Something like that.'

'You say someone. Who's the someone? Male? Female? White? Black?'

'I don't know.' Robert shrugged again. 'They must come durin' the weekend. We don't work