They gave Felton an honor guard. It was ironic, really, because they hadn't given Crosetti one, but then again, the circumstances were different. Crosetti had killed himself. Felton had been murdered in the lines of duty. I could see where the brass would have felt justified in making the decision they did, but it still bothered me. Hardly made a difference, though. Even if they hadn't, we'd probably have just done what Pembleton had done when we lost Crosetti.
It was, however, of some small comfort that they'd given us this one last chance to honor a fallen brother-in-arms. The odd part about it, though, was that Felton's wife wanted nothing to do with anything. Not the funeral, not the burial…nothing. Russert and Howard pretty much took care of the whole thing. That was another thing that was ironic about the whole thing. Howard and Felton had been butting heads up until the time we found out he'd been murdered…Russert, well…she knew he was married, but she didn't care. Guess that's just one more show of what love can do to a person.
We were all there at the funeral, everyone from Gee to Falsone, who had first come into our squad room accusing Felton of being a dirty cop. Howard was madder than hell about that: she might not have been on the best terms with Felton when he left, but damned if she was gonna let anyone talk about him that way. She'd been closer to him than the rest of us, probably even more so than Russert, because they'd been partners. That's just the way it went with us.
So there we were, sitting side by side at his funeral, all of us feeling guiltier than we'd ever felt before, because we'd never really given Felton the impression that we gave a damn about him. The church was a sea of blue…uniform blue, that was. Guys from Internal Affairs were there, and Auto Theft, and Robbery, and Vice…The lot of us from Homicide, we exchanged glances but said nothing. We knew how it was: they 'd make appearances to make themselves and/or their units look good. Most of 'em had probably never really known Felton, and if they had, they'd probably treated him the same way we did. It was something that no man deserved, and yet something that every man got at one point or another.
Howard was one of the pallbearers. There were five of us other than her: me, Bayliss, Pembleton, Lewis and Gee. When the funeral ended, we walked forward, lifted his casket onto our shoulders and left the church. The expressions on our faces were unreadable, or so we would have liked to think. But we were all hurting inside. I know for sure that Howard was, what with her relationship with Felton and all. I saw Russert in the crowd, wiping at her eyes, but only for a split second. The next thing I knew, I was still walking forward, but instead of seeing good old Charm City laid out before me, I was seeing scenes from the squad room…and all of them had Felton in 'em.
It hurt. He and I had never really particularly gotten along, which was why I was surprised when he asked me to be a pallbearer if something ever happened to him. It was one of the more morbid things we used to talk about those times we took the night run from the second shift, either because it really was our turn, or because they were raising hell about having to be on it. I'd agreed, of course, which was why I found myself standing across from Pembleton with a casket on my shoulders, but it still surprised me. It was one of those things that I'd least expected to hear from him, but one of the first things he'd asked that night.
I heard sniffling behind me and turned for a few seconds only to find Howard glaring up at me, daring me to say anything. I didn't. I knew full well why she was so upset. The rest of us, well, we were just as upset as she was, but we were guys, and we weren't about to start crying there in the middle of the streets. We probably would later on, when the loss really hit us, when our guilt finally got us to the point where we couldn't sleep for staring up at the ceiling at the shadows and wishing we could take everything back.
It wasn't until we'd buried him that it started to rain. The lot of us from those first years in Homicide, we stayed where we were, just staring at the headstone that marked the grave of a man who'd once been our colleague. Everyone else…they left. But we stayed, for what seemed like an eternity, just staring. Soon, all of us were soaking wet, and it was only then that we turned to walk away, grateful for the raindrops that hid our tears. Howard leaned against me as we walked, and as I looked down at her, I realized something.
Some might refer to being depressed as 'having the blues', but this…this was a different sort of depression. It was one of those things that we could have for a few days, but would go away as soon as a new case landed in our laps. One of those things that hit very rarely. But there was always getting over it. After all, there were things to do, a city to save, blood flowing through the streets and through our veins.
It only came once in a while, but when it did, it hit us hard, and fast and without warning. But there was one thing we knew for sure: it took a while, but there was always some way to get over these so-called 'uniform blues'.