Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(25)

“He’ll call us back in twenty to thirty minutes,” Alex explained to D.D., sliding the piece of paper back into its plastic cover. “Of course, for a more thorough analysis you’ll want to submit the note to the crime lab in order to fingerprint the paper and run tests on paper and ink type.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Jack was awake now. She sat with him on the sofa, where she had him sprawled on her lap. He peered up at her with wide blue eyes. When Alex came over to join them, Jack turned to his father and waved a pudgy fist.

“Look at that,” D.D. declared triumphantly. “He can already wave hello. Knew he’d be smart.”

“He gets that from me,” Alex said, settling onto the sofa, his right arm around her shoulders. “I’ve always had dynamite greeting skills. Wipe the globe, wipe the globe.” He used his left hand to demonstrate his best Miss America wave. Jack responded by kicking his feet.

“Soccer star,” D.D. said immediately. “Check out the muscle on him!”

“Soccer? Hmm, that must be from you. Given my own coordination skills, I make it a point never to walk and chew gum.”

“My parents were teachers,” D.D. said absently. “College profs before they retired.”

“Then Jack definitely better watch that whole walking and chewing gum thing.” Alex touched her cheek. “They still coming this weekend?”

She finally looked up at him. “It’s not too late to run away,” she said seriously. “Or I could just tell them I buried your body in the backyard. They’ll believe me.”

He grinned, but she could see the gentleness in his eyes. It bothered her that he seemed to think she needed such a look. It bothered her even more that he was probably right, that she had become a woman who required patient smiles and tender glances. Sleep deprivation, she tried to tell herself, but wondered if it wasn’t one of those children-change-you changes, meaning she was doomed to forever be a frazzled, domesticated, slightly more inept version of herself.

“I don’t hate them,” she heard herself say. “I know I don’t have the same relationship with my parents that you have with yours. But I don’t hate them.”

Alex fingered a curly lock of her short blond hair. “How do you feel about them?”

She shrugged, fidgeting with Jack’s tiny fingers in much the same way Alex played with her hair. “I respect them. They’re two intelligent, well-meaning adults leading their own busy lives. They do their thing. I do mine. We’re happy.”

“You didn’t want your mom in the delivery room,” he said quietly.

D.D. shook her head vehemently. “God no. That would’ve been terrible!”

“How come?”

“Because.” She shrugged again, looked down at her plump little baby who smiled back up at her with a big, toothless grin. He had her blue eyes, she thought, but would most likely end up with his father’s dark hair.

“I love him,” she said suddenly. “I love…everything about him. The way he smells, the way he feels, the way he smiles. He is the most perfect baby in the whole entire world. And I can tell you for a fact, my mother never felt that way about me.

“I was an afterthought. A late-in-life oops that happened to two very cerebral people who’d never planned on having kids. And after all that, I wasn’t even a quiet, well-behaved bookish kid. I was a total hellion who climbed trees and crashed bikes and once hit Mikey Davis so hard he lost a tooth.”

“You punched a boy?” Alex asked.

“I was seven,” D.D. said, as if that explained everything. “Split my knuckle, too. My first thought was that I needed boxing lessons. My mother’s first thought was that I should be grounded for the rest of my natural life. We haven’t moved much beyond those positions since.”

“They don’t like you being a detective?” Alex ventured.

“Detective isn’t so bad,” D.D. granted. “Detectives, even in my parents’ universe, command some respect. But when I first became a cop…I believe my mother was just relieved I was on this side of the judicial system.”

Alex smiled at her. “A comment I’ve thought about many of my associates in uniform. Nervous?” he asked evenly.

She looked at him. “Nobody makes me feel as ugly and stupid as my mother does,” she said simply.

“Then we will keep their visit short and focused on Jack. Maybe your mother has never appreciated your right hook, but how can she argue with him, sweetheart?” Alex gestured down to their kicking, gurgling baby. “How can anyone argue with him?”


THE PHONE RANG TEN MINUTES LATER. D.D. put Jack in his bassinet, where he’d hopefully sleep for a bit, then it would be time for his next feeding. She dug out her spiral notepad and minirecorder as she put Alex’s teacher friend on the speaker phone.

“Professor Dembowski? Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren. Thanks for calling me.”

“Ray. Please, call me Ray.”

Dembowski had a pleasant voice. Deep, smooth, maybe fifty to sixty years of age, D.D. thought. She settled in at the kitchen table, the note in its clear plastic sheathing before her.

Everyone has to die sometime.

Be brave.

Alex sat across from her with a fresh glass of wine.

“So my first question,” the forensic expert spoke up, “is do you have more samples? In my line of work, I’m generally comparing an exhibit against several exemplars. This note would be the exhibit. But where are the exemplars?”