Hello, Little Sparrow by Jordan Jones (the reading list .TXT) 📕

Abraham was lying still in the casket, his face made up to cover the obvious trauma to his face and neck. The mortician had cleverly dressed him in an undershirt with a protruding collar to mask the hole in his throat.

It was a blank stare behind his closed eyelids, one that I knew would reach inside of me and grab my soul, begging for me to turn and rush in as backup.

I wanted to see the last face his eyes had seen only three short nights ago, marking a permanent imprint etched into his pupils. Blood circled around his dying body as the man who shot him, and others before him, had tried so desperately to save his life.

He was just doing his job, after all.

Such a callous stance to take, turning to shoot aimlessly at a hog-tied Philip Maise on his way out. He’d just broke his own rules in killing DeAngelo, but saw no harm in finishing what he’d come there for in the first place. Killing those he deemed as undesirable could’ve been something respected, but he had taken it much too far.

“He looks at peace,” Harlow said, standing beside me. We both stood in silence, gazing the remains of the Lincolnshire detective up and down.

“He looks tired,” I responded.

“That, too. He was always going above and beyond.” Harlow placed her hand on my shoulder.

“One too many times, it seems,” I said, wiping my eyes with a handkerchief. “I’m not sure where to go from here, Kris.”

“Just take it one day at a time. Let yourself grieve this.”

“I mean, with this case. He’s still out there and who knows what he’s doing. I haven’t got the slightest idea what to do next, and this town…New England as a whole is watching us. And, I have no answers to give them right now.”

Harlow wiped something from her eye as well and rubbed my back in a circular motion. “What would DeAngelo tell you to do? Better yet, what would your dad tell you to do?”

I sighed a half-hearted sigh of relief.

“My dad is still in that psych facility. He’s not getting out. Last time I visited him, he was out of his mind. Meds weren’t working, or something.”

“No…John. What would he have told you back then? Right when you were promoted to detective?”

A small pocket watch was placed between DeAngelo’s hands, though I didn’t know the significance. I’d spent some quality time with him outside of work hours, but didn’t know too much about him personally, other than he liked flirting with the ladies as we barhopped.

“He would have told me to go back to the evidence,” I finally said. “He would’ve told me that, unless new evidence presented itself, to go back through the old stuff until something that didn’t make sense, finally does.”

“There you go,” she said, laying her head down on my shoulder.

“Goodbye, good friend,” I said, placing my hand on his chest. On it, I placed a police ribbon for valor that was given to all Maine city, county, and state police officers that were killed in the line of duty. LT Anderson thought I was most appropriate to give it to him.

“Goodbye, good friend,” Harlow repeated.

We took a step back and other officers from around the precinct took their turns in paying respect to their fallen ally.

The preacher stood and told us about salvation, and what we could expect in the afterlife. He stood in front of DeAngelo’s service picture, with him sitting in front of the American flag. The seriousness on his face clashed with his personable personality.

After the preacher was done, three members of the Lincolnshire police force played Taps, and the trumpets made their presence felt; brass instruments exhibiting their powerful, yet poetic noise throughout the large room of the funeral home.

Sobbing, incoherent breaths made by likely family members filled the rest of the service, and we all stood up by row, and exited the building.

A light rain poured down, sending little chilled specks of water down on us.

“Listen, Trotter,” LT said outside on the sidewalk. “This was a bad deal for all of us. Especially you. I want you to take any time off you need. I thought when I saw you in the office yesterday that you were back in it, but if you just want to be at the cabin until you’re mentally back in it, by all means.”

“No, sir…I’m good to go. I’d just be going stir-crazy in there, anyway. It would be worse than when I was rehabbing my shoulder.”

“Then, we’ll see you in the office tomorrow, bright and early,” he said, with a slight smile creeping over his face. He was a difficult person to read, but I knew when he was in a sympathetic mood as opposed to an indifferent one.

“Yes, sir.”

“By the way, Trotter. Harlow is your new partner. Welker will be manning the desk for the life of this case, which hopefully isn’t too much longer.”

Though she wasn’t paying attention, I saw a certain determination on her face. She wanted revenge for Abraham’s death and so did I. LT Anderson told me not to let it cloud my investigation, but who was I kidding?

Nothing would stop me from catching The Sparrow. Nothing was going to keep me from deciphering the evidence.

Harlow gave the person she was talking to a flirtatious smile and walked back over to me.

“Meeting new friends at a funeral of a cop, I see,” I said, giving her a friendly nudge. The weight of the situation was physically holding me down, but I had to make light where there was none.

“He’s an ex, but we are still on good terms. Former state cop. I’ll never date a state cop again, if it’s any consolation.”

“Not really,” I said. I looked back to the funeral