Maureen sat in the office chair before his desk. She crossed her legs, folded her hands in her lap. She uncrossed her legs, settled her arms on the arms of the chair. She had to pee. She cursed herself for the agitated fidgeting. She hated herself for wearing her hair down, for playing at being a girl. Skinner moved papers around on his desk. She’d been so much calmer following a strange man down a dark street. A man, she thought, who didn’t know she was there, who wasn’t looking right at her. A man with no power over her.
“A month and a half off with pay,” Skinner said, rocking back in his big leather chair, “and without a damn thing to do. Not a lot of people would consider that punishment.”
What Maureen wanted to say was You have no idea. What she wanted to tell him was Having not a damn thing to do made me fucking crazy. Another two weeks, she thought, and y’all would’ve been coming to get me, blue lights blazing.
What she said was “I’d rather have been on the job, sir. Earning my pay. I’m not a fan of the sidelines.” Her mouth was bone-dry. She licked her lips. “Though I certainly understand why things had to happen the way they did.”
“What’s happened over the past month and a half took a lot of thought, and a lot of planning. The final decision was not unanimous.” He came forward in his chair, his feet on the floor. “I handpicked you for the Sixth District out of the academy. Made a big deal of it. Both the Eighth and the Second wanted you, too, but I got you, because I’m the senior man. You remember that?”
“I do, sir,” Maureen said. “Preacher made sure I knew. And I’m grateful.”
“I bragged about you. Academy valedictorian. First place in the hand-to-hand combat competition. Smart, tough, and female. Everything that makes me and my district look good. How you think it looks if my supergirl implodes after three months on the job?”
“You look like Mickey Loomis wasting a first-round draft pick, sir.”
He grinned in spite of himself. He knew she was kissing his ass with the football bullshit, Maureen realized. She could tell he appreciated the effort.
“And that is a thing that Mr. Loomis does not like to do, is it, Coughlin?”
“I’d imagine not, sir.”
“The reason I say these things, Coughlin, is this. What you do on the job, in our uniform, affects a lot more people than you—like the next woman who shines coming through the academy, for instance. Three DCs don’t chase her for their districts like we did you if you blow it, Coughlin.”
He slid open a desk drawer, removed something from it. Her badge and her ID. Maureen felt her eyes widen. She tried to stop her reaction, and failed.
The DC set the badge in the center of his desk. “I want you to have this. A lot of people around here want you to have it.” He paused. “And there are some that don’t. Quinn was a cop in this city a long time. He stayed for the storm. He stayed after.”
Maureen leaned forward to speak. Before she could say anything, Skinner raised his hand to stop her.
“The fact that you’re even here,” Skinner said, “should tell you that you’ve been heard on the Quinn matter. I’m not telling you what’s right. We’re not here discussing principles. I’m telling you how some of the people you work with think. What they know Quinn did, what they saw, will always count more with them than the things you said he did.”
Don’t reach across the desk for that badge, she told herself, don’t reach for it until he offers. Skinner noticed her staring. She couldn’t hide it.
“I want you to keep it,” Skinner said. “You’ll outlast this bullshit. You’re already most of the way there. I want you to sit in this chair someday. Or the next chair up. Or as head of Homicide.”
And you’ll be there to take credit for it, Maureen thought, and to brag to your buddies. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate your confidence.”
“You can be a hell of a cop, Coughlin, if you can just get your shit together.” He picked up the badge and held it out to her. “And keep it together.”
When Maureen leaned forward and reached for her badge and ID, he pulled it back.
She froze, her rear end half a foot off the chair. “Sir?”
“There’s one thing you have to do for me,” the commander said.
Shake that ass for me, Maureen thought. One more time. She settled back into her chair. Here it comes, she thought, the deal with the FBI. In her excitement, she’d forgotten about it. The reason she was here. “I’m all ears.”
“You have to promise me,” Skinner said, “that you will consider seeing someone, talking to someone about what you’ve been through.”
For a fleeting moment of high panic, Maureen thought he meant the silver-haired man. How could he possibly know?
Or did Staten Island have nothing to do with it? Had her recent night work in New Orleans come to light? That was more likely.
Wouldn’t make sense, though, she thought, to be giving her back her badge if he knew she’d been out at night playing vigilante.