Summer ended and settled into a grim fall … the Soames case Captain Lee and his lieutenants in the cold case division in Big Loft, VA had broken had eventuated in a hitman's rage and the setting of the Ridgeline Fire, whose final death toll had reached 12,140, the greatest disaster in Lofton County's history. The undercounting of the Big Loft police of the 12,020 servants who had perished (as opposed to only 120 homeowners in three of Big Loft's most elite neighborhoods) had enraged the 42 percent of Lofton County that was Black and Latino in origin.
Then, as fall had progressed, the death of J. Oscar Rett had brought to light Tinyville's own field of blood … the spot of a massacre of 55 Black people that Tinyville wanted to make an amusement park. Captain Hamilton's investigative skills had brought that matter to a close in a way that had pleased absolutely no one … and the grimness of the fall continued, with everyone taking what victory they could into the increasingly dark and cold remainder of the year … a cold that felt brittle and dangerous to Captain Hamilton. Anarchy had been unleashed in July, when those who should have upheld the law chose to be the lawless. By the end of November, things were calm again … but he could sense the calm was brittle, all too easily broken like thin ice.
But, there was still that one bright spot of having a part in the Good Neighbors Fellowship, right on down to December 2, 2019, the first Monday of the month.
Often Captain Hamilton came home with groceries in time for lunch on Monday, and found solace in that hour at home, serving his wife and children and those from roundabout. Mrs. Hamilton saw the pain still very much in him from the summer collapse of Roadside, but it was always eased in his eyes, in his voice, as he worked on, and as he cleaned up the kitchen while his wife and daughters and eldest son at home made to-go bags of dried fruit from Fruitland Memorial Park for the extra little ones that had come to lunch.
“We'll never get rich doing all this, but then again, we already are,” he said to his wife as they waved goodbye to the day's lunch batch of smiling, full children through the kitchen window.
Photo by Vincent Foret on Unsplash