Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(101)

D.D. couldn’t argue with that; the death of Charlie’s mom did appear to be justice done. And she certainly hoped everyone on the Internet left tracks. She’d talked to Phil right before dinner, and he and Neil had seized eight separate electronic items from Barry’s bedroom. They now hoped the techies found lots of tracks, including ones that tied Barry to two other pedophiles, as well as revealing how one blue-eyed “demon,” in the words of their witness, tracked him down.

“So, Charlene Grant killed her own mother,” D.D. filled in now, “and liked the feeling so much, she decided to wait eight years, then systematically hunt down Boston sex offenders for more righteous kills?”

“Maybe she didn’t wait eight years. Maybe there are other dead sex offenders in other jurisdictions. We just know the three on our watch. Not to mention, stress is a major trigger for killers, and you can tell just by looking that Charlene Grant’s a little stressed out right now.”

“She’s a good girl, until her stress level rises too high, then she loads a gun and lets off a little steam?”

“Why not? Worse reasons to kill sex predators.”

“More big assumptions.”

“Which is why,” Detective O replied curtly, “I followed her tonight, got my hands on her twenty-two, and delivered it to the lab. Tomorrow, f*ck assumptions. We’ll have a ballistics report.”

“Hope so,” D.D. murmured, “seeing as we just seized a potential murder victim’s legally registered means of self-defense, on the eve of the big day.”

“Forget the other murders,” O shot back, sounding almost irritated. “This is all about Charlene. What happened when she was a kid, to her and her siblings. I doubt she’s even a target tomorrow. I bet she’s the instigator. I mean lots of people are abused as kids, and they still manage to grow up remembering such a minor detail as being stabbed by their own mother. Then there’s Charlene, who claims she forgot it all. I think that’s her first lie.”

“I thought you said she was Sybil, which accounts for her lack of memory; Charlie wasn’t stabbed by her mother but her ‘victim personality’…Rosalind…was, meaning Charlie really didn’t know any such thing. And Charlene’s not really running around shooting sex offenders, some ‘protector personality’ Abigail is.”

“Bunch of hooey.”

“You started it.”

“Just to argue with you. Most fun part of the job, right?”

D.D. shook her head at the detective’s quick change of heart. “Fine. At least we agree on one thing—we need the ballistics report. Good work seizing the gun and making arrangements at the lab, Detective.”

For a moment, D.D. could almost feel O’s discomfort over the line, and she couldn’t help but think of another detective she knew that was always more comfortable with criticism than praise—herself.

“Detective,” D.D. said briskly.

“Yes?”

“Go home. Get some sleep. We have approximately seven hours until Charlene gets off work and Jon Cassir has results from the ballistics test. Meaning, most likely, tomorrow will be a big day. And…” D.D. hesitated, “being the anniversary date of two murders, maybe even a longer night.”

“Not a problem,” O said immediately. “We’ll have Charlene arrested by eleven, processed by one, and tucked safely in jail by three. Meaning, if any killer wants her, he’ll have to tunnel through cinder blocks to get her.”





Chapter 33




HELLO. My name is Abigail.

Don’t worry, we’ve met.

Are you afraid of me? Or are you afraid for me?

Trust me, and I will take care of you.

Don’t you trust me?

Hello. My name is Abigail.





Chapter 34


SATURDAY. 7 A.M. Thirteen hours and counting.

Maybe less? Maybe more?

What did I know? My shift was due to end, but my replacement hadn’t appeared, leaving me trapped at a desk, comm lines still ringing with various Boston citizens in various states of panic.

I’d arrived to a slew of motor vehicle incidents. Car versus cat. Motorcycle versus telephone pole. Drunk teenager A versus drunk teenager B.

By 2 A.M., the bars had closed and the phone lines heated up. Tina Limmer from 375 Markham Street called to report that her boyfriend was an *. Guess she caught him balling her best friend. Sadly, being an * was not yet a prosecutable offense, so I’d been forced to end the call. Just in time for Cherry Weiss from 896 Concord Avenue to report the smell of smoke in the stairwell of her apartment building. Two officers were dispatched, not to mention the fire department. Officers arrested two drunken seventy-year-old men who were trying valiantly to prove that you could light a fart on fire. Fire department laughed, took in the show.

Which brought me to Vinnie Pearl of 95 Wentworth Way. He wanted to report that he’d lost his nose. With a bit of searching (I managed to direct him to the bathroom of his own apartment), he located said nose in the mirror. Turned out, Vinnie had spent most of Friday brewing homemade limoncello. Which explained his call back ten minutes later to report he’d lost his lips, couldn’t feel them anymore, his entire mouth was gone.

I ordered Vinny to take four aspirin, drink three glasses of water, and good luck in the morning.