It happened in an instant. I'd had no idea what Kai was up to when she sat across from me at my conspicuously absent partner's desk. She had a balloon with her, one that from the looks of it had been filled with helium. The string was long enough for her to hold it down with her foot, and she did, shoving her glasses back up onto her nose as she leaned forward and grabbed a pen off my desk.
"What are you doing?" I asked, knowing that I'd given her pocket change to go and get herself a soda from across the street. Apparently, she'd decided that this balloon was a better idea.
"Nothing," she replied, taking a notecard from Stan's desk and proceeding to write on it. I bit back the desire to snort. "Nothing" from a seven year old usually meant that something was up. Given Kai's penchant for getting herself into things that she couldn't always get herself out of, I was tempted to demand a straight answer, something that I rarely ever did. But something told me not to, so I didn't.
"Why's the department brass made up of idiots?" The question startled me. I glanced over at my little daughter then and shook my head; it was obvious that she'd listened to first shift chatter more often than I thought she did.
"What do you mean?" I asked. Kai continued writing for a second and then looked over at me.
"Why won't they let anyone wear uniform to Crosetti's funeral?"
I paused in answering this. Kai knew that Steve had committed suicide, but as to why the department would not allow dress uniforms…I leaned back in my seat and sighed as she reached for a hole punch.
"They don't want to make it look like they condone suicide," I said finally.
"But he's a murder police regardless," said Kai. "He should have an honor guard." She was pulling the balloon string through the hole in the notecard. I watched her, but made no comment other than to answer her earlier statement.
"Yes," I said, "He should." No answer came. Kai finished tying off the balloon and looked over at me again.
"Time to go yet?" she asked. I nodded ,and we rose to our feet, and left the squad room.
The funeral was quiet. Kai sat beside me, still holding on to that balloon, and I watched her, waiting to see what would happen. Nothing did. So I turned forward again, and waited until the service was over.
It was when we went past headquarters and saw Frank on the stairs in his dress uniform, saluting, that Kai really took notice of what was going on. I looked at her as we walked, only to find her wiping at her eyes. She reached for my hand with her free one, the one that wasn't holding the balloon, and with the other, let the balloon go. It was then that I decided to ask what it was for, and she shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but it didn't work.
"He wanted to know how I did on that stupid project I was working on," she said, in that innocent way that all seven year olds had. "I figured that was the best way to let him know."