Phil rolled his eyes. “Oh, good Lord—”
“He says I’m too young,” Neil burst out. “He says I’m too green. I gotta go…sow wild oats or some such bullshit.”
“Become a man?” D.D. suggested.
“Fuck you!”
“Won’t solve your problem. You are young, you are green. You’re also a very promising detective who spends way too much time hiding behind his partners. You want to grow up?”
“Maybe.”
D.D. gave him a look.
He straightened his spine. “Yes!”
“Then let’s get you to the National Academy. It’ll get you more training and experience. Plus, being a smart guy with some promising detective skills, you might even like it.”
“When?”
“You’re gonna have to make some calls to figure that out. Preferably, before Phil and I are driven to beat you.”
“Horgan will agree?”
Cal Horgan was the deputy superintendent of homicide, who’d have to nominate Neil for the academy, as well as authorize the funds should Neil then be invited.
“I’d use your nice voice,” D.D. advised.
Neil pursed his lips, tapped on the tabletop a few times with his hand. “Okay.”
D.D.’s turn to roll her eyes. “You’re welcome. Now, as long as you’re learning new skills, why don’t you accompany Phil to interview the family of the shooting victim.”
They’d finally gotten an ID on their sixteen-year-old shooting victim/child molester. Barry Epsom. Formerly of Back Bay. Rich kid, one of four, they were told. Father a bigwig with Hancock Insurance, mother known to be a patron of the arts. Private school, where he hadn’t necessarily shined academically but also wasn’t known for causing trouble. Ironically enough, he had a reputation as a computer whiz kid.
Family had already lawyered up. They were grieving, admitting nothing, and the mid-morning interview was doomed to be the kind of long, dragged out, dramatic affair that yielded no useful information but killed the rest of the day. Better to let the rookies cut their teeth on it.
“Goal,” she informed Neil, and to a lesser extent Phil, because he knew his business, “is to be sympathetic, accuse their son of nothing, and get your hands on his electronics.” She eyed Phil, their own computer whiz, on the last part. “Smartphone was seized at the scene last night, but that still leaves computers, iPad, iPod, gaming systems—you’d be amazed where perverts hide their electronic data these days. Search warrant is broad and I want you to use it. We’ll let the forensic wizards manage this one—see if they can’t dig out exactly what Barry was doing online and, even better, how our vigilante shooter might have tracked him.”
“Sixteen. Couldn’t be a registered sex offender,” Neil spoke up, frowning.
“No record,” D.D. confirmed. “Not even a sealed juvie file.”
“Then how’d the shooter know—”
“Charlene Grant,” O repeated promptly, “knew about his behavior because she’d already taken calls from his victims. Further proof our shooter has insider knowledge, say from her job as a comm officer with a local police department.”
“Or our shooter baited him online,” Phil said neutrally. “Reached out to various registered users on the animal website. First one that sent her porn became the next target.”
“Which is why your goal,” D.D. said to Neil and Phil, “is to seize all electronics. Our sixteen-year-old victim has several key differences from our first two victims. Young, not yet in the criminal justice system, etc., etc. Connect him to the first two victims, and we’ll finally answer some questions.”
“Analyze his cell phone,” O said dryly. “Search the call log for the last time he called nine-one-one.”
D.D. rolled her eyes at the sex crime detective’s one-track mind. “Which brings us to the next matter at hand—how to wrap up our current homicide investigation, by trapping Charlene Grant.”