Page 4 of Never Flinch

“Something else about this letter. You know who Bill Wilson was, right?”

“Rings a faint bell, but why wouldn’t it? Maybe not as common as Joe Smith or Dick Jones, but not exactly Zbigniew Brzezinski, either.”

“The Bill Wilson I’m thinking of was the founder of AA. Maybe this guy goes to AA and he’s tipping us to that.”

“Like he wants to be caught?”

Izzy shrugs, sending him ano opinionvibe.

“I’ll send the letter to forensics, much good it’ll do. They’re going to say no fingerprints, computer font, common form of printer paper.”

“Send me a photo of it.”

“I can do that.”

Izzy gets up to go. Lewis asks, “Have you signed up for the game yet?”

“What game?”

“Don’t play dumb. Guns and Hoses. Next month. I’m going to captain the PD team.”

“Gee, I haven’t got around to that, boss.” Nor does she mean to.

“The FD has won three in a row. Going to be a real grudge match this year, after what happened last time. Crutchfield’s broken leg?”

“Who’s Crutchfield?”

“Emil Crutchfield. Motor patrolman, mostly works on the east side.”

“Oh,” Izzy says, thinking,Boys and their games.

“Didn’t you used to play? At that college you went to?”

Izzy laughs. “Yeah. Back when dinosaurs walked the earth.”

“You should sign up. Think about it.”

“I will,” Izzy says.

She won’t.

2

Holly Gibney raises her face into the sun. “T.S. Eliot said April is the cruelest month, but this doesn’t seem very cruel to me.”

“Poetry,” Izzy says dismissively. “What are you having?”

“Fish tacos, I think.”

“Youalwayshave fish tacos.”

“Not always, but mostly. I’m a creature of habit.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Soon one of them will get up and join the line at Frankie’s Fabulous Fish Wagon, but for the time being they just sit quietly at their picnic table, enjoying the warmth of the sun.

Izzy and Holly have not always been particularly close, but that changed after they had dealings with a pair of elderly academics, Rodney and Emily Harris. The Harrises were insane and extremely dangerous. It could be argued that Holly got the worst of it, having to deal with them face to face, but it was Detective Isabelle Jaynes who had to inform many of the loved ones of those who had been victims of the Harrises. She also had to tell those loved ones what the Harrises had done, and that was no night at the opera, either. Both women bore scars, and when Izzy called Holly after the newspaper coverage (national as well as local) died down, asking if she wanted to do lunch, Holly agreed.

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