Burial of the Dead

SEASONAL COLDS - Officer Talmadge

OFFICER TALMADGE

Officer Talmadge enters the squad room with rumpled trench coat, hat, cigar, carrying a box with a cake. He sets the box down on Moraski’s desk and lifts out the cake. The frosting’s white and there’s a turkey cast in brown icing with orange triangles for eyes, mouth and feathers.

Talmadge tries to light small candles with the tip of his cigar. Detective LaPorta walks by. “It ain’t his birthday,” LaPorta says, as he takes a lighter from his pocket and lights the candles. “And what’s with the turkey?”

“Thanksgiving,” Talmadge says.

“Thanksgiving?”

“The guy screwed up, so I took what I could get,” Talmadge says, and he tosses the empty box and makes sure the cake is centered on the desk. The other detectives gather around and ask what’s keeping Moraski. “It’s a fucking exit interview,” one of them says. “You tell the Captain he’s a genius and get the fuck out.”

Then Moraski leaves the Captain’s office, carrying a cardboard box filled with personal items.

The guys start singing something that sounds like a cross between “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” and “We Three Kings Of Orient Are.” Moraski stops and fumbles with the carton. The surprise isn’t total, but it’s not wholly expected. Moraski knows he never connected with the other detectives during his tenure. He figures they’re happy to see him go.

Moraski’s wrong, though, and Talmadge is about to tell him so: “I want to say a few words,” Talmadge says. The guys make noise and laugh a little and Talmadge tries to get their attention. “Okay, okay,” he says, “I know I’m not the best one to be standing here doing this kind of thing for our in-house lawyer and former Marine. After all, it’s no secret I did just about everything possible to get assigned someplace else last year when the Captain told me what he wanted me to do. No offense, Mark, but you had one hell of a reputation before you even showed up here. Like one of those Elliot Ness boy scouts that nobody wants to get saddled with.”

LaPorta calls out: “Now a girl scout, that might be another story.”

“Shut up, newcomer.” Talmadge calls out.

“Who you calling a newcomer?” LaPorta asks.

“You ya’ stupid ….”

“ Don’t say it,” one of the old guys says, and everybody laughs.

“I might be a newcomer,” La Porta says, “but you’re not even official yet.”

“I’m as official as I want to be, Louie-the-Door, so shut the hell up so I can say what I want to say here before I forget it all.”

The guys settle to silence, and Talmadge moves away from Moraski’s desk. He’s a little hunched over, looking up from under his eyebrows in his “curmudgeon with a warm heart” way. He says: “Mark, I’m serious here now. I’ve got to say that anybody who questions you or what you’re about just doesn’t know you at all, because you’re a fine detective, a good cop and as good a human being as I’ve had the privilege to work with. Now, we’re all pretty jaded around here. I don’t think a person can do what we do, see what we see every day and not get a little jaded, and after too many years on the force this job can become nothing more than a race to the finish line without getting yourself killed. Thing is, I watched you out there, and I’m here to say you’re a rare bird because you actually give a shit. I mean it, fellas, this guy actually gives a shit. So from all of us to all of you, Attorney Moraski, we wish you good luck, and when you’re making a million dollars a year don’t forget who drove you around for the last year and a half.”