Feather in my cap.

It was a case that came to me originally because I could not live with it getting thrown away. The others called 10-8 when we couldn't find the suspect vehicle, but just shrugging my shoulders and moving on didn't sit right. I went in, did a little talking and walked out with a felony investigation, surveillance video, license plate, serial numbers and a fire in my belly.

I dug deep into my bag of tricks and came up with an address and a lead. The phone numbers were dead ends so I enlisted the help of another PD and when I came back to work I had eight messages full of anxiety and apprehension. The lion circled her prey and she could not help but taste the ripeness of the hunt on her tongue.

And in the middle of the investigation was the meeting, the letter, the death and a lifetime's worth of heart ache.

They came on station and asked if they were going to be arrested on the spot. I had to hide victory's smile behind a furrowed brow and a feigned detachment. I recited Miranda like a reading from the old testament and went to work. I watched the body language and analyzed the stuttered speech, checking off the cues as if I had a liar's checklist. The statement in written word was more than I had hoped for and as I escorted them out I could not help but nod to the ghost of my grandfather. We few, we happy few. There is nothing in the world like this job.

Made a photo line-up with my other suspect's visage and typed up the story to be kept forever. To be immortalized in the guts of the department's records, even if its author's tenure is on the downward slope of time.

Hit the streets, 10-8, like a fucking cowboy, awestruck by how much of this life is a gift. Every day is your resume, he tells me, and a day like today I can't help but feel like I've done the name proud.

And when I think about it, that's all that I really want. A chance to ply my trade and leave my mark for whatever jurisdiction will have me. I hope and pray and beat my chest that in the future it will be the same supervisors who sign my reports. But I do not pretend to know what God has in store for me -- my hypocrisy goes only so far. All I know is that if this was my last felony case in that uniform, that I did it proud and left constantly climbing without slowing down.

A toast to my forebears. And to the job, my calling. If nothing else I know what I was built for. And that is so much more than so many will ever have.

St. Michael, I am at your feet.