I’m broke, but at least I’m not sleeping-behind-the-Walmart broke. I live in a one-bedroom apartment, have a working fridge, and a 2004 Chevy Impala that still turns over, at least when I ask nicely. A retired cop’s pension doesn’t stretch like it used to. My part-time job with Tri-State Security Group? They cut my hours in August. I keep close tabs on my checking account like I used to run a background check on suspects, always looking for the numbers to add up.

A few weeks ago, I drove to the Cape Walmart for sugar cookies from the bakery, icing thick enough to patch holes in drywall. Pink. Sometimes with red and blue sprinkles.

Ten fit inside the plastic clamshell. $3.97. I wanted something sweet and the cookies were cheap, less than a gallon of gas.

I called Ray from the parking lot. He and I rode together in a squad car for twenty years. Now that neither of us has anywhere to be, he always picks up after the first ring.

“Thought retirement was killing you, Cole.”

“Not today. But the day’s not over. I’m at Walmart.”

“Oooh. Big spender.”

She sat outside the door on an overturned five-gallon bucket, a small can of Folgers packed with birdseed in her lap. At her feet were scores of sparrows and a few pigeons, pecking at the seeds. A pink bottle of dollar-store bubbles stood by her right foot. Me and Ray? We both knew her. Birdseed Betty.

Twenty-six years as a cop and I still can’t walk past anybody without running them down in my head. Hands visible, both of them, wearing cheap brown fabric gloves with the fingers cut off. A shopping cart parked at her left hip, close enough that she could grab it. Coat zipped up about halfway. Her eyes watched the doors, tracking who came in and who left, just like Ray and I did from our squad car.

A young boy, probably elementary school age, same as Ray’s oldest granddaughter, dragged his soccer mom toward the entrance, a 7 Brew iced coffee drink in her left hand, her son’s in the other. Betty dipped the wand and sent a stream of bubbles in front of both of them. He shrieked, let go of Mom’s hand, and chased after them. Betty smiled. Mom slowed down and smiled too.

I was still holding the phone to my ear. “Betty’s working the bubbles,” I told Ray. “Kid stops. Mom stops. Then Mom opens her purse.”

Only Mom didn’t hand anything to Betty, unless you counted her smile.

“Oldest hustle there is, Cole,” Ray said. “Keep walking. Don’t look down at her.”

I did as he said and kept walking to the cookies.

I recalled the widow story from my Sunday school lessons as I picked up the clamshell package. The widow took her two little coins and threw them in the offering at the temple. Everyone else gave out of what was extra, but she gave all she had.

I shook the container, the cookies barely moving. “Ray, you remember the widow and her two coins?”

“Never much of a religious person, Cole. Why?”

“No reason.”

“You’re gonna give her something?”

“A cookie. Maybe I’ll give Birdseed Betty two, just because.”

“Dude. Don’t hand her loose cookies with your bare fingers. It’s flu season. Twenty-six years on the streets of Cape, and we hardly ever got sick. Remember why?”

“We didn’t touch anyone without gloves on.”

“And now you’re gonna get sick over sugar cookies? Or you got gloves on today?”

I paid at self-checkout, Ray still in my ear, as the automatic doors opened and let me out. Betty looked up, and a tiny sparrow landed on the edge of her coffee can.

“You hungry, ma’am?”

“Always, sugar.” Her voice was raspy.

I handed her the whole container.

She popped open the lid, broke a corner off the top cookie, and crumbled it for the birds. Pink icing stained her fingers.

The soccer mom came out, pushing a full cart, her son holding the handle. Betty took a few bites of the cookie, never once looking at the mom’s Dior purse. She grabbed the bubbles and blew another stream after the kid. We watched him outrun his mom all the way to her white Chevy Suburban.

I got back to my Impala, phone on my knee, Ray still on, switching to speaker.

“She never asked for a thing.”

“Long game,” Ray said.

“I guess. Bye, Ray.” I hung up and started the Impala.

Halfway down Kingshighway, I wanted my cookies back. I went home and ate leftover rotisserie chicken from Schnuck’s.

This week, I went back.

Betty was still there, perched on her bucket outside Walmart. Same birds. Same bubbles.

I did my part, I told myself. November’s rent? It’s not a sure thing.

I went inside without bothering to look down at Betty, bought a rotisserie chicken and a half-pound tub of potato salad, and forgot the dang reusable bag in the Impala. Again. I crossed the lot hugging the hot chicken to my chest like a football. The potato salad sweated cold in my other hand. I loaded it all in the passenger seat.

Then I remembered. I had a twenty, folded up in the front pocket of my jeans. My flat-tire, just-in-case-I-need-it, emergency cash.

I called Ray.

“Don’t,” he insisted. “You know where that twenty goes. Gas station on the corner. Scratch-offs. A pint. Hell, Cole, you wrote half those reports. I signed them.”

He wasn’t wrong.

So I ran her again before I turned the ignition.

From the car, I could see the entrance straight on. Ten-thirty in the morning, and her hands were steady on the bubble wand. No shakes. Clear eyes. No bottle anywhere near the bucket or the cart. The coffee can was full to the rim. Somebody bought that seed. I leaned toward the windshield like I was running a plate. A bottle of Dawn dishwashing soap and a jug of Karo corn syrup rode in the cart’s child seat.

“Ray.”

“What?”

“Hear me out. Here’s what I’ve got on her.”

He was quiet for a second.

“Steady hands. Clear eyes. Feeds the birds before herself.”

“She’s never panhandled. Not once while I watched.”

“So what do you want me to say, Cole? That our guts are wrong?”

“No. I’m just reading it back, dude.”

I pulled around to the front and rolled down the window.

“Hey, Betty!”

She looked up like nobody had said her name in a while. She pointed at herself, set the coffee can on the bucket, and shuffled over to my car.

“Sorry to make you walk.”

“I’m used to it, sugar. You’re the cookie man.”

I put the twenty in her hand, remembering a second too late what Ray said about germs.

She held it up to the sky and squinted through it, checking for the watermark.

“You’d be surprised,” she winked at me. “Church lady? She gave me a fake one last Easter. Jesus on the back and everything.”

Then she looked at me. “You a cop?”

“Used to be.”

“Thought so. You look at people like they is a math problem.”

She folded the bill into her coat. Then she unscrewed the bubble bottle and pushed the wand through my window.

“Here. You blow one.”

“No thanks. Besides, I don’t remember how.”

“Nobody does. Dish soap, water, and a little corn syrup. Just go slow. You’re blowing like you want to arrest it.”

My first one popped on the wand. Betty dunked it back in the solution, smiling at me. The second one came off whole and wobbled up over her cart, over the light poles, toward the road.

“Cole? Hey man. You still there?” Ray’s voice came from the passenger seat, where my phone sat.

“Did it pop?” I asked her.

“Not yet.” Betty smiled, pointing upward.