Chapter 20

It was time for Harry to go home when Darlia and I left the station, but as we walked out of his office he called my name. "I forgot something, Darvin, in the midst of everything else. I got the file from the City today."

"Okay, cool," I said. "I'll look it over tomorrow; if you could put it in my box I'd appreciate it." And we went.

At the motel Darlia hopped out of the car and ran to our room. She was knocking on the door as I got out, and by the time I had the car door closed she was inside jabbering away. There is nothing so excited as an excited child, and Darlia was certainly excited.

I walked across the blacktop and into the room. Cecelia was sitting at the table, her current book – a volume of Federico García Lorca in the original Spanish, I saw – face down and open beside her. Darlia was in her lap, telling her about patrolling with me that afternoon. She rattled it off with hardly a breath that I could detect, and then she reached into her hip pocket – she had on a pair of jeans – and pulled out the shield Harry had given her. "And Mommy," she said, the rasp in her voice especially prominent in her excitement, "Chief Thomas gave me this. It's a real police badge, and he wants me to think about being a police officer – see, I said it right! – and I'm going to. Maybe I won't be one when I grow up, but I'm gonna think about it like he said."

Cecelia took the shield in her hand, weighing it on her palm. "I do not necessarily wish you to embark on a law enforcement career, Darlia," she said, "but it certainly cannot hurt to ponder the notion. And if that is the course you choose to pursue, I will support you fully; it is, however jeopardous in potential, a worthy occupation." She paused, looking intently into Darlia's face. "Do you understand how important it is that Chief Thomas gave this to you?"

"Maybe not everything, Mommy, but I know that it's a real police badge, and he wouldn't give it to me unless it meant something for him to do it. I'll probably understand more when I'm grown up, and while I'm still a kid I'll take very, very good care of the badge."

"That's sufficient for now, Darlia; I sometimes do, I think, expect more of you than is consistent with your age." She smiled at our daughter. "I think that my own extensive vocabulary sometimes leads my mind into discourse with you that would be more appropriate were I speaking with your father."

"But Daddy talks like a ig-nor-a-mus!"

"Darlia, where did you get that word?"

"From you, Mommy – I've heard you tell Daddy that's what he sounds like."

Cecelia smiled at me; she has indeed made that charge – and it is, as a matter of fact, frequently accurate. I know the words and the grammar, but often speak as though I don't. "Yes, I have told him that, and I suppose it ought not to surprise me that you have heard me when I've done so. And I shan't become upset at you for repeating it; I cannot take umbrage when you simply follow my lead."

Darlia's face had become serious. "Was I wrong to say what I said?"

"No, honey, you weren't wrong. You were correct in your statement, and merely imitative in your construction. And your father is not upset; he is, in fact, experiencing considerable amusement at my expense just now." It was true; I was grinning like someone who'd just inhaled a tank of laughing gas. "It was not, however, diplomatic; honesty is always right, but there are times when you must temper your honesty with a little bit of charm."

"I'm not sure I understand, Mommy."

I was keeping out of it; I could say all that Cecelia would say, and were I in the instructor's position I probably wouldn't diverge materially from where she was going. But barging into their conversation wouldn't do any good, and I thought that I saw something coming which might even benefit me, for I am emphatically not a diplomat.

Cecelia glanced over at me. "Darvin, could you please hand me my Bible – or at least a Bible; I think yours may be closer."

Mine indeed was closer. I picked it up and handed to my wife, resuming my seat across the table. Cecelia flipped through it, and when she found the place she wanted she handed it to Darlia. "Would you please read these two verses, honey?"

"'As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ' ... the sentence goes on, Mommy, but that's the two verses."

"Now, please read this portion here again."

"'Speaking the truth in love... '"

"You see, Darlia, we must always speak the truth – but we must speak it in love. It's not merely that we must never employ the truth as weapon to hurt others, but that we must consider, as best we can, all the effects the truth might have on someone. To speak the truth in love means that even when speaking to me or your father, you must be careful to speak in such a way that you will not injure our feelings. And we, of course, bear the same obligation; we must strive never to hurt each other, or you." I was right; I could learn from this.

Darlia was thinking. "So even if Daddy does talk like a ig-nor-a-mus, I shouldn't say it?"

"You may say it; I have done so, and I can hardly forbid the utterance to you – unless I abandon it myself, and I think I shall retain it. However, you must never say it seriously, for however poor your father's English is at times, he is in fact a very articulate man, and not an ignoramus at all. What he sounds like at times, and what he is, are not synonymous. And it would be best if you did not make the statement except when we are among ourselves; others might misunderstand, and either think ill of your father's intellect, or of your respect."

"Okay, Mommy. But what is a ig-nor-a-mus?" Darlia knows some double-barreled words, but at nine she still sometimes has trouble pronouncing them, and is consequently very careful with them.

"Someone who knows little or nothing."

"Daddy's not that!"

"Indeed he isn't, Darlia – but he often speaks as though he is."

I could see the light bulb going on – if not over Darlia's head, then in her mind. "I get it now. Thank you, Mommy."

"You're welcome, Darlia. And now do you understand that the way I speak is appropriate for conversing with your father?"

"Yes, Mommy – because he's not a ig-nor-a-mus!"

"Exactly. And neither are you; your head is, in fact, rather full of knowledge, though at your age there is much you've not yet learned. And it is because you are nine, and not 41, that the way I speak without even thinking about it may often be inappropriate for you."

"That's okay, Mommy – when I don't understand you I just ask, and I like it that you talk to me like I'm smart."

Cecelia grinned. "You are smart, Darlia – and before we're done, you just may surpass me in the use of words your father pretends he's never encountered."

I found the package from OKC on top of my box when I went in the next morning. I was reluctant to open it. I didn't like Stryker. He'd leaned on me, and worse, he'd leaned on my wife, and worse yet he'd done it when my daughter was in the car. It was just as well that he was suspended, for if I'd encountered him I'd probably have told him what I thought of him, and though I've learned little wisdom over the years, I have learned that usually in such situations I later regret what I said. But disliking Stryker didn't mean that I wanted to find out he was dirty. I'd much rather think he was just full of himself. I can forgive someone who thinks God reports to him a lot quicker than I can forgive a dirty cop – though that's probably not as Christian an attitude as I ought to have.

Not wanting to open the package didn't help me any, though, nor did sitting there thinking about it. So I opened it up, and started reading. It appeared that in Oklahoma City Stryker had been an average officer. He'd done patrol, and he'd had about the usual number of traffic stops and domestics and arrests and all the other statistics that PDs track. He'd been at the scene of one officer-involved shooting, when he'd been backup at a standoff between the cops and an armed robber. Stryker had drawn his weapon on that occasion but hadn't fired, and his testimony had helped produce a finding that the officer who did fire did so within policy.

It wasn't till I got to the paperwork associated with his departure from OKC that I found anything anomalous. It wasn't what I found, but what I didn't find. Instead of either glowing recommendations or outright discommendations, everything relating to his leaving the force was vague. No one, it seemed from what I was reading, was willing to state definitely why Stryker had quit the OKC police department – least of all Stryker himself. His letter of resignation simply said that he was leaving "for the good of the department." That could mean anything – that he was fed up with the place, that he was tired of police work, that it was quit or get fired, that someone had caught him cheating at solitaire. Some possibilities were, of course, less likely than others, but the very fact that there wasn't anything definite in the paperwork made it seem likely that behind the paperwork there was in fact something.