“Between what you went through with Quinn,” Skinner said, “and what happened at your house, those things are tough on anyone. To be honest, you look considerably frayed. Even after the time off. I expected better.” He paused, waiting for Maureen to consent to his assessment. “Maybe too much booze and not enough sleep,” Skinner said. He paused again.
Maureen blinked at him. Wow. It was that bad. Her hand went to her mouth. As if her breath were the only thing that might give her away. She wanted to crawl out of the room.
“I’ve been around cops a long time,” Skinner said. “I was here during Katrina, and for after. I have a pretty good eye for what a particularly stressed officer looks like.”
Maureen straightened in her chair. “I’m in the best shape of my life. My doctor says I have the resting heart rate of a professional athlete.”
“You don’t have to see a department shrink.” If Skinner was impressed with her physical conditioning, she thought, he hid it well. “Or any shrink. But collect yourself. Smarten up.” He touched his finger to his chest. “I’m sending you out on the street with a gun. Me.”
“I will take care of it,” Maureen said.
“I have your word?”
She swallowed. She remembered that being a cop meant she would now spend a lot of time around people who read others as well as or better than she did. Skinner didn’t get where he was by being easily fooled. “You do.”
Skinner reached her badge across the desk. Maureen took it, the badge warm from being held in the DC’s hand. Her hand shook. She didn’t care if he saw. She slipped the badge into her jacket pocket. She felt a foot taller with the weight of it against her breast.
“Becoming a cop is one thing,” the DC said. “Staying one, that’s another thing entirely. And surviving New Orleans, that’s its own thing again. Nothing wrong with getting help. Even Drew Brees has coaches. Going back to our talk of Mr. Loomis, you got drafted, and you made the cut at training camp.” He waited for her to finish the story. She wasn’t sure what was supposed to come next.
“Sir?”
“The easy part is over, rookie. The academy, the training. The coddling, the encouragement, that’s done. Time to do real work starts now if you want to stay on the team. These are the times that separate the men from the, well”—he smiled—“you know what I mean.”
“I do, I’m ready,” Maureen said. “I’m good to go. Who dat.”
“Good, that’s what I like to hear.” He studied her, thinking. “The department has looked out for you. It’s time to start paying back the favors.”
“Name it, sir,” Maureen said. This was it, she thought. She was ready.
“The FBI has reached out to us in the Sixth District,” Skinner said, “about the Clayton Gage homicide. The father of the victim has come to town asking questions. The FBI wants you to talk to him. You feel up to the task?”
“I don’t know a whole lot about what happened,” Maureen said.
“If what you want to tell the man,” Skinner said, “is what you don’t know, that’s fine with me. I was asked to ask you to take the meeting.”
“I’ll meet him. Of course. What do I do? I don’t know how these interagency things work.”
Skinner shrugged. “They work however the feds want them to work. I was told someone from the FBI will reach out to you, sometime today. He’ll have the details. He’ll probably coach you up a bit, too.”
“So this is part of a bigger investigation?” Maureen asked.
“Like I said, I was asked to ask you if you would take the phone call and the meeting. That’s as far as I go in this.”
“Yeah, tell the agent to call me. Absolutely, sir.”
“I don’t have to tell you,” Skinner said, “that pleasing the feds—FBI, DOJ, feds of any stripe—is good for the department. Part of the reason I recruited you for the Sixth was to make me look good. Here’s a big chance for you to contribute.”
“Happy to have it, sir,” Maureen said. “I won’t let you down.”
“You’re on night shift tomorrow,” Skinner said. He stood, extended his hand across the desk. “Welcome back, Officer Coughlin. What is it the kids on the street call you?”
Maureen shot up from her seat and reached for his hand. She shook it hard. She had her badge in her pocket. Tomorrow night she’d be back in uniform. Everything was right with the world. “OC, sir. They call me OC. Some of the other officers, too. You know, for Officer Coughlin.”
“Now, please,” Skinner said, checking his watch, “let’s get back to what we call normal around here.” He sat back down behind his big desk. “Don’t let me see you in here again unless it’s for a commendation or a promotion.”
9
That afternoon, groggy from a long nap and pain pills, Maureen sat on her front porch wrapped in a Mexican blanket, her legs folded beneath her. She clutched a steaming cup of fresh coffee. In an ashtray on the table beside her a cigarette burned. The sky over the Irish Channel was the color of her ashes and the air was cold and damp. The warmth in her palms from the coffee mug helped push back the chill.