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‘Martin Davis spent more than half his life with the police department—’
    The second woman lowered her voice, but went on. ‘Because it was freakin’ Bruce Lambert, that’s why! The only guy in the city who can
afford
the fine, and little Marty gets stars in his eyes and lets him skate.’
    ‘Shhh,’ the woman in the long coat said again, and they quieted. Theresa listened as an officer described as Marty’s best friend gave a long and rambling history of the man, from his youth as a budding criminal to his post-college-dropout epiphany when he realized that he could help send other people to jail or go there himself and resolved to turn his life around. His friends saw Marty as honest, humble and extremely hard-working, a thoroughly professional officer – this earned a snort from one of the women standing in front of Theresa, obviously still miffed about that broken nose – and a great loss to the police force, especially needed at this time when Cleveland found itself under attack. Listening between the lines, Theresa heard that the dead man had not been the brightest candle in the menorah, but he had been hearty and loyal.
    The thin agitated man had backed up into a copse of trees, completely outside the circle of cops, wiping his eyes with the cuff of his jacket.
    Next the bagpipes played – ‘Danny Boy’, of course, which some sadist had long ago dictated must be played at all police funerals – and Theresa wiped her own eyes. Tears threatened all the more when, once again, her mind returned to two facts: that she, who hadn’t even bothered to learn his name, had been the last friendly face Marty Davis had seen on this planet, and that if she had done one single thing differently that morning he might still be alive. She had no idea what that one thing might have been, but still it had to be, it stood to reason – if she had taken more or less time to get to the scene, if she had gone out to her car for equipment—
    And round and round.
    When she began to sniffle like Trench Coat, the man beside her seemed to draw closer but without actually moving, and she glanced at him again. Broad without being heavy, he had blue eyes and a smile like a shy boy’s. Quite tall, but the way he curved his back as if to apologize for it made her think he was not a cop. As the last of the bagpipes’ notes faded into the air, she asked in a whisper, ‘Were you a friend of Marty’s?’
    He hesitated before answering. ‘He was nice to me during my wife’s case.’
    As he had no wife with him, this seemed a daunting line of inquiry. Had the wife been assaulted? Forcibly committed? Killed? It had to be something serious to warrant coming to the funeral of the officer involved. It sounded as if Marty Davis had always worked patrol so how involved in any one case would he have become? Perhaps they lived in the same neighborhood, and it had been some ongoing thing. Or perhaps this guy was one of those weirdos who liked to go to funerals.
    He seemed to flush just a bit, and she realized she was staring. Then they both faced straight ahead as the chaplain made a few closing remarks.
    But he didn’t seem weird, and at least the umbrella had salvaged what was left of her hairstyle. A little make-up covered most of the bruises and scratches on her face, but she still probably looked as if she’d recently been caught in the path of a Peterbilt.
    The gathered officers all turned on their radios to go through the ghostly ‘last call’ procedure. An unseen dispatcher hailed Marty by his radio number three times, the numbers echoing unanswered, and the woman in the trench coat began to sob. Theresa felt like joining her. Her tissue no longer did any good at all and she fished a napkin out of another pocket, folding it in half to hide the cheery Wendy’s logo.
    The man touched Theresa’s elbow, as if to support her, but then he leaned down to her ear and said, ‘There’s a reporter heading for you. Do you want to talk to