Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(62)

Tulip had left me for the warmth of J.T.’s house and the comfort of his wife’s company. J.T. was still shooting. He had a 150-yard target he liked to play with. Sometimes, he’d shoot happy faces, or a five-point star, maybe a heart for his wife on Valentine’s Day. I guess we all have our talents.

When my phone rang, I ignored it at first, then remembered Michael, the prepaid cell I’d slipped into the boy’s pocket on the bus, and quickly checked the display.

Not Michael, but I recognized the number. I hit answer and brought Detective D. D. Warren to my ear.

“Work last night?” she asked me.

“Yes.”

“Sleep this morning?”

“No.”

“Same as the rest of us then. Come on down. We got a plan.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m your new best friend. Literally. Meet me at police headquarters, thirty minutes. We got something to show you.”

The detective hung up. I looked up to find J.T. watching me.

“Gotta go?” he asked.

“Guess so.”

“’Kay,” he said.

“’Kay.”

I went to fetch my dog. When I returned outside with Tulip, J.T. was gone and only the scent of gunpowder lingered in the air.

“He’s not good at good-bye,” his wife, Tess, murmured behind me. She’d come out onto the covered front porch, arms crossed over her black-and-gray plaid shirt for warmth. She was younger than J.T., closer to fifty than sixty, with silver strands liberally sprinkling her pale blond hair. In faded jeans and fleece-lined slippers, with her hair pulled loosely back to reveal a delicately boned face, she wasn’t a beautiful woman, but striking. She had a way of looking at me that reminded me of J.T. They didn’t just look, they saw, and they trusted in their ability to handle what they’d seen. The two of them fit each other perfectly.

I peered out at the empty shooting range. “I know how he feels,” I said.

Tess came to stand beside me. “I told him he should stay with you, on Saturday the twenty-first. Just in case.”

“No.”

“And he said that’s what you would say.”

“Have you ever been hit?” I asked her abruptly.

“Yes.”

“Did you take it, or did you fight back?”

“Both. People change. Kids grow up.”

“J.T. says I have to get my mother out of my head.”

“He’s smart like that.”

“But I don’t know how.”

“Do you hate her?” Tess sounded genuinely curious.

I had to think about it. “I don’t know. I avoid her. Don’t think, don’t remember. Then, I don’t have to feel.”

“That’s your problem then.”

“Denial? But it’s a personal strength of mine.”

“If you believe you’re honestly going to die on Saturday, Charlie, if you believe you’re honestly going to have to fight for your life, you should feel something about that.”

“I’m pissed off,” I offered.

“It’s a start. There’s no right answer. I forgave my father. J.T., on the other hand, will probably never stop hating his.”

That surprised me, but I didn’t say anything.

“I don’t like to hate,” Tess said simply. “Not my father, not my ex-husband. I held on to the rage as long as I needed it to do what I needed to do. Then, I let it go. I look at my children. I feel how much I love them. I feel how much they love me. And that makes me feel better instead.”

“I love my dog,” I said, automatically bending to pat Tulip’s head. “And she’s not even my dog.”

“Sounds like a country-western song. You’re welcome to stay here, Charlie, for as long as you need.”

I nodded, then straightened, adjusting my messenger bag, fiddling with my grip on Tulip’s leash. “Good-bye, Tess,” I said.

She wasn’t surprised. “Good-bye, Charlie.”

Tulip and I stepped off the front porch, and even though Tulip whined a little, neither of us looked back.


IT TOOK TULIP AND ME twenty minutes to walk through the light snowfall to an area busy enough to hail a cab. Then another twenty minutes for the cab to deliver us to the BPD headquarters in Roxbury. The driver wasn’t happy to transport a dog, so I had to tip him five bucks extra, and that quickly, I was broke.

Let me tell you, a girl doesn’t work police dispatch for the money.

I thought of Officer Mackereth, felt myself flush, and reminded myself sternly I didn’t work at police dispatch for that either.

To enter HQ, I had to go through security. The first officer, a mountain of a black man, got a little excited about my. 22. I showed my license to carry, but he remained skeptical. Leave it to Massachusetts to create a gun policy so paranoid that even when you took the proper legal steps no one believed you.

Of course, I’m not sure what legal steps were taken to secure my gun permit. J.T. had done it for me, given the stringent standards. Probably called in a few favors. I never asked, unanswered questions being the whole key to my relationships.

“What do you do for a living?” the BPD officer asked me now.

“Comm officer, Grovesnor PD.”