O’Halloran spoke before Larkin could open his mouth. “Millett, this is the Grim Reaper.”

Millett flashed O’Halloran an irritated expression.

Larkin squared his shoulders, shook Millett’s hand, and corrected, “Everett Larkin.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” O’Halloran interjected with feigned innocence.

“Cold Case Squad,” Larkin added.

“Cold Case?” Millett echoed. “They let you guys outside?”

“I believe the department is ethically obligated to allow us to see the sun once a quarter,” Larkin said, although the joke was delivered so dryly, it came across as gravely serious.

But a smile crossed Millett’s face as he gestured to the washed-out park. “You picked a good day.”

A sudden clap of thunder sounded overhead, so powerful that it seemed to reverberate in Larkin’s chest like a rhythm, a beat, stuck on repeat in the back of his mind like the irritating melody of a child’s windup toy. He tightened his grip on the handle of his umbrella. “Why am I here,” he asked, once again directing the question to O’Halloran.

“Isn’t this what you do, Grim?” O’Halloran countered. “Knock down the door to Homicide, treat us like a bunch of rookies holding our dicks in both hands, steal our cases, then take credit for closing them?”

“We’re on the same team,” Larkin said.

“The fuck we are.” O’Halloran was smiling, but his mouth was a razor’s edge. “That’s why your squad gets the funding, the press conferences. Hell, I bet your lieutenant got a chub just seeing my number on the caller ID this morning.”

“Chill out, O’Halloran—” Millett began.

“Shut the fuck up and go bag and tag some goddamn dirt, faggot.”

Larkin’s vision blurred, like an optometrist switching lenses on a phoropter.

Better, one?

He snapped his umbrella shut, held it in both hands as he spun so as to be face-to-face with O’Halloran, and slammed the length of the impromptu weapon against O’Halloran’s sternum. The older detective dropped his own umbrella out of reflex, stumbled backward into the rain, and landed flat on his ass in a puddle the size of a small lake.

Better, two?

Larkin stepped under the tent and turned to stare at O’Halloran as he adjusted the cuff link on his shirt.

“What the fuck?” O’Halloran roared.

“He must have slipped,” Larkin concluded in his same even tone. And when thunder boomed a second time, he clenched his jaw so hard that he thought, briefly, he might crack a molar.

Millett was humming in agreement as the rumbles died down. They both watched O’Halloran climb to his feet, now soaking wet and plastered with pink blossoms. “You trip or something, O’Halloran?” Millett called over the rain.

“Fuck you!” O’Halloran snapped.

With no inflection in his tone, Larkin asked, “Is this case mine now.”