Chapter 14

It had been too late Thursday, when Cecelia and I untangled ourselves, for me to go see the new guard. It had, in fact, been too late by the time we started our discussion. If I'd been paying attention to the time I could have made it, but I got involved with my family and the time got away from me.

So I slept in Friday morning, and went over to Cinda's place after I munched on some of Cecelia's biscuits, with butter melted on them and honey dripping. It's cactus honey, dark and good, that we bring back every summer from our trip to Lanfair Valley. People swear by alfalfa honey, and I must admit that with its light clear color it's the prettiest, but I much prefer the taste of honey that comes from cactus blossoms. Maybe it's all in my head, but I think it tastes better.

I pulled into the slot in front of Cinda's apartment about 10:30, backing in cop fashion. If being a cop for two years taught me nothing else, it taught me how to back into a parking space, and to pull up driver's side to driver's side to talk to someone. I got out of the Blazer, with just a light jacket on in the September sun, and saw a woman I presumed was the new guard. She was in her fifties, it seemed, with gray hair in a single braid that lay over her right shoulder, and a seamed face that had clearly gotten a lot of outdoor living. She stayed behind the front of a battered Dodge pickup – and being sometimes paranoid myself, I knew that she was there in order to use the engine block as protection if necessary. I didn't look a thing like Jacob Bestwick, and off duty she'd probably be less careful, but she was working and it showed – and I approved.

My gun was under the front seat as usual, but she didn't know that. I kept my hands in sight, and stayed where I was. "I presume you're the warm body Rudy rounded up?" I raised my voice just slightly to cover the distance between us.

"Yes, sir. And you must be Darvin Carpenter."

"That I am." I grinned and moved. "How'd you guess?" I asked as I approached.

"Rudy told me that you look like a cowboy, and the hat especially is nearly unique." She stepped out from behind the hood of the pickup and stood waiting for me.

"I guess it is, at that." I was near enough, now, and stuck out my hand. "Glad to have you aboard."

"I'm pleased to be here. I'm Beth Martinson."

"Good to meet you. I'm a bit surprised you're here, though – Cinda ought to be at work. I had planned to just look around and then meet you at her office building."

"She hasn't gone. Straight called me to relieve him here – it seems Ms. Barelas has an upset stomach this morning."

"That ain't too cool." I hadn't meant to quote Jimi Hendrix – when I quote people, even accidently, they're not likely to be rockers – but there it was. "Have you talked to her?"

"Yes, sir. I knocked on the door about an hour ago just to see if there was anything I could do. She advised me that she'd taken some Alka-Seltzer and planned to rest all day."

"I won't disturb her, then. And you don't gotta call me 'sir' – my name's Darvin."

Beth grinned at me. She reminded me of some of the country women I've known, worn by hard work but not worn down by it, more full of life than any dozen teenagers. "I could no more call you by your name than I could my OIC or CO, Mr. Carpenter. I spent 30 years in the Air Force and old habits don't go away easily."

I leaned against the pickup, while she sat on the curb – her bright blue eyes, I noticed, periodically making circuits of the area. I approved; I do the same thing, for knowing what's where is essential in my line of work. "How long have you been retired?"

"Not quite a year."

"And you were in law enforcement your whole career?"

"Yes, sir, and security."

"How long were you in the Air Force?" I was interrogating her, but I needed to know what I was dealing with, and I trusted her to understand that.

"Thirty years."

As soon as she said it I realized she'd told me just a moment before. Sometimes I hear but don't hear – maybe I'm not so much like Holmes after all. I did the math in my head. She'd been retired for not quite a year, and had been in for 30 years, so she must have joined the Air Force in 1975. "I was 10 years old when you put on the blue suit, Ms. Martinson."

She smiled at me. "My name's Beth, Mr. Carpenter. And I had figured that I'm older than you are. I come by my hair color naturally – it's all mine."

"You're Beth and I'm Mr. Carpenter?" I chuckled. "That's gonna mess me up big time."

"As I said, after 30 years in the Air Force calling a superior by his name is impossible – but for a superior to call me by mine is typical. I know neither of us is in the blue suit – that's what we call it sometimes too – but I was a chief master sergeant, and you're giving the orders here, so that makes you probably, given the size of this detail, a butter bar."

I raked through my brain, sorting through things my brother Memphis has told me here and there. He was an Air Force officer for eight years, but we've never been close, not since different relatives took us in when our parents died in 1969, and there's a lot probably that I could learn but haven't. "What's a butter bar?" I asked, not finding the answer in my head.

"A second lieutenant – the lowest commissioned rank. A chief master sergeant is the highest enlisted rank. I'm older and had more time in than any butter bar, but that commission imparts a world of difference."

"It's all beyond me," I said. "I was a cop, and police organization is paramilitary – or maybe pseudomilitary is a better word – but in the PD we were all officers. I started out as 'Officer Carpenter, ' and every promotion was just a higher form of officer ... or at least a better paycheck."

"What sort of insignia did you have?"

It was a fair question. As I understand it officer insignia is uniform across the military services, though the ranks might be different, but enlisted insignia can vary pretty greatly. Asking about a civilian police department's insignia would be natural – at least I thought it would be. "At the basic rank – Police Officer – you got one stripe. Above that were Police Officer 1 and Police Officer 2, with two and three stripes respectively. Then came Sergeant, with four stripes. Then there was Lieutenant, Captain, Deputy Chief, and Chief – it was a small department. It still is, for that matter. The higher ranks had, in turn, a silver bar, two silver bars, a silver oak leaf, and two stars as collar brass."

"What about detectives?"

"We kept our ranks, but got different shields, and wore civilian clothes. The shield for a detective said 'Investigator' rather than the rank, as the uniforms had. I was a PO1 – Police Officer 1 – when I made investigator, and just before I quit the department I made PO2."

Beth reached into her hip pocket and pulled out a badge holder. "Here's what an SP badge looks like." She handed me the holder. The bottom was round with points around the circumference, sort of like an NYPD detective's badge, and had the Department of the Air Force seal on it. Above that was an eagle with its wings spread, and a stylized cloud for background.

"All I can show you," I said, "is a PI badge I ordered a long time ago to impress the people who only see the buzzer and don't read what's on it. Sometimes it comes in useful, though I don't tin people very often." I could see that the cop terms weren't penetrating; no doubt she had terminology that I wouldn't understand, since she'd been military. "'Buzzer' is slang for badge, and when you 'tin' someone you flash your badge."

"May I see it anyway?"

I gave her points for using the correct verb. Cecelia's right when she tells me I talk like a hick, but I do it by choice or laziness, not out of ignorance; I know all the right words and how to use them. I pulled my badge holder out of my right hip pocket and handed it over. I knew what she saw – a big oval badge in the shape the LAPD's made famous. Instead of the Los Angeles City Hall there's just the rayed pattern that forms the background of an LAPD shield. The banner on top said "Investigator," while the lower banner had my name. Not having any bright ideas at the time as to what to put on the panel the LAPD uses for its officers' badge number, I'd had the badge company leave it blank, and later on had paid an engraver to put the California grizzly bear in the space. Beth looked at it for a moment, and handed it back without comment. Nor was there any reason to say anything; anyone with the money can order a badge. Without the power of a law enforcement agency behind it, all it can do is, as I'd said, impress the impressionable.

Beth didn't strike me as impressionable. Impressive was more like it. I don't know what doing law enforcement work is like in the military, since I was never in and even if Memphis had told me everything he ever knew about the Air Force, he wasn't in law enforcement. But she struck me as having seen at least some of what a regular cop sees. Probably Air Force people get drunk and disorderly, or beat on their spouses or children, or break the traffic laws, or use drugs, or whatever, about as often as non-military people do. They're people, after all, just as cops – no matter what everyone else might think or expect – are still human beings. I figured that Beth had been through some things in her 30 years.