3rd Degree - James Patterson [8]
I took a thick Bell Western Yellow Pages off a shelf and tossed it with a loud thump on Cappy’s desk. “Here, start with N, for nannies.”
It was almost six o’clock on Sunday. We had a team down at X/L’s offices, but the best we could get was a corporate public relations flack who said we could meet with them tomorrow at 8 A.M. Sundays were shit crime-solving days.
Jacobi and Cappy knocked on my door. “Why don’t you go on home?” Cappy said. “We’ll handle it from here.”
“I was just gonna buzz Charlie Clapper.” His CSU team was still picking through the scene.
“I mean it, Lindsay. We got you covered. You look like shit, anyway,” Jacobi said.
Suddenly, I realized just how exhausted I was. It had been nine hours since the town house had blown. I was still in a sweatshirt and running gear. The grime of the blast was all over me.
“Hey, LT.” Cappy turned back. “Just one more thing. How did it go last night with Franklin Fratelli? Your big date?”
They were standing there, chewing on their grin like two oversize teenagers. “It didn’t,” I said. “Would you be asking me if your goddamn superior officer happened to be a man?”
“Damn right, I’d be askin’,” Cappy said. “And might I add, for my goddamn superior officer”—the big detective threw his bald head back—“you’re looking mighty fine here in those tights. That Fratelli brother, he must be quite a fool.”
“Noted.” I smiled. It had taken me a long time to feel in charge of these guys. Both of them had double my time on the force. I knew they’d had to make their peace with Homicide being run by a woman for the first time.
“Something you want to add to that, Warren?” I asked.
“Nope.” He rocked on his heels. “Only, we doin’ suits and ties tomorrow, or can I wear my tennis shorts and Nikes?”
I brushed past him, shaking my head. Then I heard my name one more time. “Lieutenant?”
I turned, piqued. “Warren?”
“You did good today.” He nodded. “The ones who matter know.”
Chapter 14
IT WAS ONLY a ten-minute drive out to Potrero, where I live in a two-bedroom walk-up. As I went through my door, Martha wagged up to me. One of the patrolmen at the scene had taken her home for me.
The message light was flashing. Jill’s voice: “Lindsay, I tried to call you at the office. I just heard….” Fratelli:
“Listen, Lindsay, if you’re free today…” I deleted it without even hearing what he had to say for himself.
I went into the bedroom and peeled off my tights and sweats. I didn’t want to talk to anyone tonight. I flicked on a CD. The Reverend Al Green. I stepped into the shower and took a swig of a beer I’d brought with me. I leaned back under the warming spray, the grit and soot and smell of ash chipping off my body, swirling at my feet. Something made me feel like crying.
I felt so alone.
I could’ve died today.
I wished I had someone’s arms to slide into.
Claire had Edmund to soothe her on a night like tonight, after she pieced three charred bodies together. Jill had Steve, whatever… Even Martha had someone—me!
I felt my thoughts drift to Chris for the first time in a while. It would be nice if he were here tonight. It had been eighteen months since he died. I was ready to put it behind me, to open myself to someone, if someone happened to be on the scene. No drumroll. No “Ladies and gentlemen, the envelope, please….” Just this little voice in my heart, my voice, telling me it was time.
Then I drifted back to the scene at the Marina. I saw myself on the street, holding Martha. The beautiful, calm morning; the stucco town house. The redheaded kid spinning his Razor. The flash of orange light.
Over and over I ran the reel, and it kept ending at the same point.
There’s something you’re not seeing. Something I had edited out.
The woman turning the corner just before the flash. I had seen only a glimpse of her back. Blond, ponytail. Something in her arms. But