The Last Policeman (Last Policeman, #1)

by Ben H. Winters

Still, the conscientious detective is obliged to examine the question of motive in a new light, to place it within the matrix of our present unusual circumstance. The end of the world changes everything, from a law-enforcement perspective.

“What’s the problem, Henry?” he says. “There a ladybug in your eggs or something?” “Just not hungry, I guess. No offense.” “Well, you know, hate to waste the food,” says Maurice, a high-pitched giggle sneaking into his voice, and I look up, sensing a punch line coming. “But it’s not the end of the world!” Maurice dies laughing, stumbles back into the kitchen.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head slowly, look out the window at the parking lot, lift my cup of coffee for one final sip. “I feel like I wasn’t made for these times.” “I don’t know, kid,” she says. “I think maybe you’re the only person who was.”

“Okay then. So, your brother-in-law, Skeve? He’s a terrorist.” I laugh. “No. Skeve is not any kind of terrorist. He’s an idiot.” “The overlapping Venn-diagram section of those two categories, you will find, can be quite large.”

When Maia turned up, certain individuals convinced themselves that the DOD had embraced that dissent, and that these safe havens exist.” “Bases?” “Yes.” “On the Moon?” “Yes.” I squint into the gray sun, seeing Andreas plastered against the bus, slowly sliding down. IT IS SIMPLY TO PRAY. Secret government escape bases. People’s inability to face up to this thing is worse than the thing, it really is.

You tell a story like that, about your parents being killed, and people end up looking at you really closely, right in the eyes, advertising their empathy, when really what they’re doing is trying to peer into your soul, see what kind of marks and stains have been left on there. So I haven’t mentioned it to a new person in years—don’t mention it as a rule—I am not a fan of people having opinions about the whole thing—not a fan, generally, of people having opinions about me at all.

Naomi doesn’t laugh. She stands up. “No. No. Not you. You’re a policeman through and through, Hank,” she says. She looks at me, right up at my face, and I stoop a little and look right back, I’m suddenly thinking to myself, fiercely, painfully, that this is it. I will never fall in love again. This will be the last time. “You’ll be standing there when the asteroid comes down, with one hand out, yelling, Stop! Police!”

It’s exhausting. People hiding behind the asteroid, like it’s an excuse for poor conduct, for miserable and desperate and selfish behavior, everybody ducking in its comet-tail like children in mommy’s skirts.

“I was a student of applied mathematics,” he says, and very lightly inclines his head to indicate Harvard, across the street. He looks up, beaming. “But you know what they say,” he concludes and presents me my latte, which bears a perfect and symmetrical oak leaf in milk foam. “There’s no future in it.”