The state seal still had the scratch from Interstate 70.
His granddaughter Lily, eleven, found him examining it at the kitchen table.
“You should get it fixed.”
“It’s metal.”
“Polish it.”
“The scratch is deep.”
“Then get a new one.”
Elias closed the leather fold.
“No.”
“Why?”
He considered telling her the entire story.
She already knew the simplified family version: Grandpa got stopped by bad police officers and helped an investigation.
“The scratch reminds me what this is worth.”
Lily frowned.
“A badge?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it worth?”
“Less than people think.”
She looked confused.
Elias opened the case again.
“When I carried it for work, it gave me authority to do certain things because the law and my agency allowed it.”
“Like arrest bad guys?”
“Sometimes.”
“Cool.”
“Usually paperwork.”
“Less cool.”
He smiled.
“But the badge never made me right.”
Lily looked at the scratched seal.
“Then why have one?”
“So people know who has authority.”
“That sounds important.”
“It is.”
Elias nodded.
“That’s why using it honestly matters.”
He put the credential away.
The one thousand dollars was eventually returned through the criminal restitution process.
By then Harold McNally had sold the lathe to someone else.
Elias called him after the case ended.
“Still looking?” Harold asked.
“Always.”
“I’ve got a Logan eleven-inch coming available.”
“How much?”
“Twelve hundred.”
Elias groaned.
“Crime is inflationary.”
Harold laughed.
Two months later Elias drove back onto Interstate 70 with twelve hundred dollars in an envelope.
Mara learned about it and called him before he left.
“You are not carrying cash down that highway again.”
“I am sixty-nine years old.”
“That isn't a legal argument.”
“The seller doesn't use electronic payments.”
“Take a cashier’s check.”
“He wants cash.”
“Take someone with you.”
Elias looked toward the passenger seat.
Lily was sitting there with headphones and three snacks she had packed for a two-hour trip.
“I have backup.”
Mara sighed.
“Your granddaughter does not count as backup.”
Lily heard her through the speaker.
“I absolutely count.”
Elias smiled.
They made the trip without incident.
No patrol lights.
No search.
No missing money.
Harold’s friend helped load the Logan lathe into Elias’s trailer using an engine hoist. Lily complained it was the ugliest machine she had ever seen.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s gray.”
“Exactly.”
“That isn't a color that makes things beautiful.”
“You're young.”
On the drive home, they passed mile marker 147.
Elias noticed before he meant to.
His hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel.
Lily looked up.
“Is this where it happened?”
“Yes.”
“Where they took your money?”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the shoulder.
Nothing remained.
Traffic.
Grass.
Guardrail.
An ordinary piece of highway.
“Do you hate them?”
Elias thought.
“Kessler?”
“And the other one.”
“Vardon.”
“Yeah.”
“I hated what they did.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He smiled.
“You sound like Mara.”
“Who's Mara?”
“Trouble.”
Lily waited.
Elias finally said, “No. I don't spend enough time thinking about them to hate them.”
“But they robbed you.”
“Yes.”
“And threw your badge.”
“Yes.”
“And lied.”
“Yes.”
“How are you not mad?”
“I was.”
“You're weird.”
“Also true.”
He looked toward the road.
“The useful part of being angry is what you do before it makes you stupid.”
Lily considered that.
“That sounds like Grandpa advice.”
“I’m literally your grandfather.”
“Exactly.”
Years later, Elias was invited to speak at a state police academy class about integrity investigations.
He almost declined.
Retirement had finally begun feeling like retirement.
Mara bribed him with lunch.
He stood before forty recruits and wrote one sentence on a whiteboard.
A REPORT IS A CLAIM WITH A UNIFORM ON IT.
They stared.
Elias continued.