IT TOOK D.D. SEVERAL WEEKS, not to mention several favors, to get the report she desired. When she finally had it, read it, processed it, she nodded in satisfaction. And then, because it didn’t mean much, couldn’t mean much, she locked it away in a file and went home to her two favorite men.
“You look happy,” Alex said, when she walked through the door.
“Because I was right.”
“Ah. Generally does the trick.”
“Got back a ballistics report. Confirmed what I had suspected: Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant might not have shot those three pedophiles, but she did commit a murder.”
Alex spooned pale mush into Jack’s mouth. They were trying out baby’s first food: rice cereal. So far, it looked very attractive on Jack’s ruddy cheeks.
“When will you arrest her?”
“Not anytime soon.”
Alex tried an airplane noise. Jack wasn’t buying it, so D.D. took over. She still wore one of her favorite tailored black suit jackets but was feeling lucky.
Alex sat back, eyed her curiously. He’d had the day off, spending it with Jack. Hence the new food, splattered kitchen, general state of disaster.
“Not arresting people generally doesn’t make you happy,” he said now.
D.D. sucked in her cheeks, making a fishy face. Jack imitated, puckering his little lips into an O, and she got the first spoonful of white mush successfully delivered. Like a pro, she thought, and went for mouthful number two. “Legal standing of ballistics report is highly debatable. Did I really have probable cause to test a legally registered firearm owned by someone who wasn’t a suspect in that particular case? Not to mention, said firearm was seized from the apartment of a cop, who turned out to be a murderer who’d already tried to frame Charlie for three other shootings. Meaning my chain of custody is crap, meaning my report is crap.”
She made a giant happy O. Jack giggled. Spoonful number two. She shoots, she scores.
“And yet you’re happy?”
“Because I knew it. When O and I interviewed Charlie the first time, the girl looked guilty as hell. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t because she was running around Boston shooting pedophiles. But I knew she’d been running around the city doing something.”
“What was the something?”
“Having a shoot-out with a lovely gentleman named Stan Miller. Known as the neighborhood bully. Security guard, wife beater, allegedly had a thing for hammers. He was found impaled on a collapsed fire escape about seven weeks ago. Quite dead, apartment shot to pieces, wife and two kids nowhere to be found. Still missing, as a matter of fact. I’d look harder, but based on neighborhood scuttlebutt, their disappearance is probably in their own best interest.”
“But he died of fire escape, not GSW.”
“Another tricky detail should I pursue a case. Can only prove a person with Charlie Grant’s gun shot at Stan Miller, not that a person with Charlie Grant’s gun killed Stan Miller.”
“And yet you’re happy.”
Baby Jack was giggly. Baby Jack blew rice cereal all over the high chair and half of D.D.’s face. And yet she was still happy. She sat back, stirring rice cereal, waiting for the next chance to use it.
She eyed her partner.
“I like knowing things. I like knowing what Charlie Grant did, and it’s possible I dropped her a note, because I like letting her know that I know what she did. Girl’s a vigilante. She should know a Boston homicide cop is staring over her shoulder. It’s good for her.”
“Ah. You’re torturing her. Now I see why you’re happy.”
“I’m monitoring her. Will help keep her honest, and I like to think at least some part of her will appreciate that.”
Baby Jack stopped blowing zerberts. D.D. reverted to more fishy faces and scored, in rapid succession, two more bites of rice cereal.
“So, I’m thinking September,” she said casually.