Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [72]
D.D. set down the report. “Mrs. Groves can’t imagine Rochelle harming anyone, though she had nothing good to say about the parents. ‘Uninvolved,’ ‘uninterested,’ and ‘unloving’ were just a few of her choice adjectives. She viewed Rochelle as essentially raising herself, and doing a decent job of it, all things considered.”
“Shit,” Alex said.
“Agreed.”
“What about the two youngest?”
“Not in school yet,” D.D. reported. “Which leaves us with the statements from the neighbors—”
“Let me guess: They ‘don’t know nothin’ ’bout no one.’”
“How’d you know?”
“I think the neighborhood was Hermes’s customer base, and most of them are pissed off they didn’t get to that back shed before we did.”
“True. And now their bitterness makes it difficult for them to cooperate with the fine local cops who did get to the shed first. Jealousy, plain and simple.”
“The younger girl was covered in some pretty nasty cuts,” Alex said quietly. “I saw scarring, too. Arms, legs, and around her face.”
“I’m assuming Phil will have some info from child services.” D.D. didn’t like thinking of the four-year-old either. There was something too pitiful—that poor scarred body, curled up on a dog bed. It made her pinch the bridge of her nose, as if that would wipe the image away.
“Holding up?” Alex asked quietly.
“Always.”
“Not offending, just offering.”
D.D. looked at him. “I’m good at my job.” It was important to her that he know that.
“I’ve noticed.”
“Don’t need a man to fix me. Don’t need a man to save me.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She grimaced. “I hate my fucking pager.”
He smiled. “I love working at the Academy.”
“Not gonna give it up for all this glamour?” She spread her hands over their piles of notes and reports.
“No. Visiting the field is good. Don’t need to live here. ’Course, it helps me to be more understanding of a fellow investigator’s crazy schedule.”
“Nothing regular about this job,” D.D. agreed.
“Plans get made and unmade. Dinners could be prepared that sadly grow cold.”
“Very sadly,” she assured him.
“I’m good at my job,” he said.
“I’ve noticed.”
“Don’t need a woman to wait on me. Don’t need a woman to stroke my ego.”
“I’ve noticed.” She paused, regarding him more seriously. “So what do you want?”
“Let’s start with dinner.”
“Really?” She didn’t mean to sound disappointed.
“But I’m open to all possibilities,” he added hastily.
“Because I saw this ad—” D.D. realized what she was about to say, and broke off, mortified.
Alex grinned. “‘Cool chills, warm thrills’?”
She leaned closer. “I’m dying to know,” she admitted.
He leaned closer. “I’m dying to be of service.”
They both sighed. Heavily. Then leaned back, and returned to work.
“So,” D.D. said after a minute, clearing her throat, forcing herself to sound brisk. “Where are we at? We got a drug dealer, a welfare mom, a truant teen, a brainy preteen, and two unknowns. High-risk lifestyle. Isolated mother and kids. What are the odds that Hermes smoked too much dope, tried a new product, and went postal on his own family?”
“Don’t like the knife,” Alex remarked. “If he starts with the knife, he should end with the knife.”
“Maybe stabbing Audi was the impulse part. They got into a fight in the kitchen, he took it too far. Ishy saw him, started to run, and Hermes realized he’d better do damage control real quick. Hermes gets out his handgun and goes to town.”
“Then, once he realizes what he’s done …”
“Decides to finish it all. Suffocates his own baby, then lies down on the sofa and blows out his brains.”
“You’re wrong.”
D.D. and Alex looked up sharply. Neil had appeared in the doorway,