Page 28 of Cold, Cold Bones

“Attacking the jungle my landlord calls a backyard.”

“I was thinking a bit longer range.”

I waited for the blast. It didn’t come.

“I’m considering a few things.”

“At one point you talked about nursing school.”

Katy shelved a mug. It said:Don’t make me use my Army voice.

“I saw a lot of nasty shit in Afghanistan. Abused women. Dead babies. Legless civvies. Raped schoolgirls. Had they beenallowedto attend school, which they weren’t before we got there.”

She unwrapped another mug.All American Shitkicker.

“Everywhere, masses of people with no place to go. No homes. Hell, no villages. Some of that was our fault, some of it wasn’t.”

More mugs went onto the shelf.

“I met a few bad actors while in service, but any joe in my unit would have taken a bullet for me.”

She paused, perhaps thinking of someone who had.

“What I mean is, someone always had my six. We were a team. Then these guys return stateside. To what? I’m lucky. I have you and dad. And, thanks to Gran, and Coop, I can afford this place.”

A little backstory. My almost octogenarian mother, Katherine Daesee “Daisy” Lee Brennan, had the foresight to provide my daughter, Katy, and my sister Harry’s son, Kit, with modest but respectable trust funds. Katy’s postcollege love, Aaron “Coop” Cooperton, had the lack of foresight to drive over an IED while en route home from a Peace Corps mission in Kabul. To his family’s shock, Coop left all his earthly wealth to Katy. That wealth turned out to be substantial.

I’ve always suspected that Coop’s death was the impetus for Katy’s joining the army. And the motivator for her volunteering for duty in Afghanistan. Twice.

“—and now we just pack up and haul ass. And how does our government thank its troops for their service?” Katy was still on a roll. “They end up jobless and homeless. I’m not sayingallof them. But way too many.”

I didn’t interrupt.

“Do you have any idea how many homeless we have in this country?”

I waited for her to answer her own question.

“Over half a million. Roughly nine thousand right here in North Carolina. Around forty thousand of that national number are vets.”

“That’s deplorable.” I meant it.

“You remember the passerby we ambushed to help get the chair through the door?”

“A fond moment.”

“His name is Calvin Winkard. Goes by Winky.”

“Of course, he does.”

Katy gave me The Face. “Winky served in the Gulf War. Got a purple heart for taking a bullet in the leg. Now he sleeps in a tent on the grounds of the Roof Above Day Services Center. Do you know the shelter?”

“It’s just outside the beltway, right?”

“Yeah. Mustn’t have the unwashed and unkept mingling with our Armani and Chanel-spritzed uptowners.”

I knew Roof Above from personal experience. Due to the COVID pandemic, and requirements for restricted indoor occupancy, a small tent city had grown up outside one of its two buildings. When a tenter died and someone finally noticed the odor, I was tasked with accompanying Hawkins to make sure none of the decomposed corpse was left behind.

“They deserve better. All the homeless, not just vets. I want to do something!”