Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(87)

“Sixteen. Couldn’t be a registered sex offender,” Neil spoke up, frowning.

“No record,” D.D. confirmed. “Not even a sealed juvie file.”

“Then how’d the shooter know—”

“Charlene Grant,” O repeated promptly, “knew about his behavior because she’d already taken calls from his victims. Further proof our shooter has insider knowledge, say from her job as a comm officer with a local police department.”

“Or our shooter baited him online,” Phil said neutrally. “Reached out to various registered users on the animal website. First one that sent her porn became the next target.”

“Which is why your goal,” D.D. said to Neil and Phil, “is to seize all electronics. Our sixteen-year-old victim has several key differences from our first two victims. Young, not yet in the criminal justice system, etc., etc. Connect him to the first two victims, and we’ll finally answer some questions.”

“Analyze his cell phone,” O said dryly. “Search the call log for the last time he called nine-one-one.”

D.D. rolled her eyes at the sex crime detective’s one-track mind. “Which brings us to the next matter at hand—how to wrap up our current homicide investigation, by trapping Charlene Grant.”

“Finally!”

“Here’s the deal.” D.D. regarded Neil and O. “You’re both right: We’re dealing with a suspect who’s half-feral and probably will bolt at the first hint of suspicion. Which is why we have to proceed with caution. For example, we could request a warrant to seize her twenty-two on the grounds that she matches the general description of our shooter. Which, as O pointed out, would probably gain us the murder weapon but lose us the murderer as Charlene heads for the hills. Or, we can wait for her to show up for her eleven P.M. shift tonight at the Grovesnor PD, at which point they’ll seize it for us.”

Detective O frowned, clearly trying to follow this logic. “She had her gun on her yesterday,” the detective murmured slowly, “when you called her in from work. Meaning, she must carry it with her at all times. Which would be—”

“Against department policy,” D.D. finished for her. “Grovesnor PD has the right to seize her weapon, not to mention then authorize any tests they’d like, such as a ballistics test, to see if the rifling on Charlene’s Taurus matches the rifling on the six slugs recovered from three separate shootings.”

“She’ll fight that,” O warned. “She believes she needs the gun for the twenty-first…which would be tomorrow.”

D.D. shrugged. “Then she needs to spend more time reading her employer’s rules and regs. Her mistake, our opportunity.”

O nodded. “Smart,” she said finally, which D.D. would’ve taken as more of a compliment if the beautiful young detective hadn’t sounded so surprised.

“Gee thanks.” D.D. pulled together her notes, rapped them into one eight-and-a-half-by-eleven stack, then rose to standing. “Now you just have to keep it our little secret while speaking to her this afternoon.”

“We’re speaking to her this afternoon? Why?” O looked puzzled. “We don’t have any developments from the Facebook page yet. People are just starting to friend it. Frankly, I’m not sure eight P.M. tomorrow night is enough time, even by the viral standards of the Web.”

“It’s not about the Facebook page. I have news for her, however. Worth her paying us a visit.”

Neil had also risen to standing. “You know who killed her friends?” he asked.

“Nope. I found her mother.”


DID ALL DAUGHTERS FEAR THEIR MOTHERS? It was food for thought, after D.D.’s own breakfast with her parents. Even now, three hours later, she couldn’t decide which moment was the most humiliating. Maybe when she’d first showed up in the lobby of the Weston Hotel in Waltham, and her mother had pointedly asked, “Isn’t that the same outfit you were wearing last night, dear?”

D.D. hadn’t even thought about it, given that she pulled a lot of all-nighters on the job and wardrobe change was generally the least of her concerns. She’d brought that up. Her father might have even appeared sympathetic. Then they’d sat at the table. Her mother had wanted to know where Alex and Jack were. D.D. had answered that Alex had to teach today at the academy, so Jack was at day care.

Her mother had gotten that look again. Like she was sucking on lemons. Which had pissed D.D. off, because if memory served, her mother hadn’t exactly played house when D.D. was a baby. Her mother had gone back to teaching, too close to tenure to give up now. D.D. had gone to day care. Hell, D.D. remembered loving day care. There were other kids who rolled and tumbled and got dirty and laughed hard. Day care was nirvana. Home was all “Sit still, don’t make that face, for God’s sake can’t you stop fidgeting for just one minute?”

No was the general answer. D.D. couldn’t be patient, couldn’t sit still, couldn’t stay in one place. Even now, she was forty-one, and within the first two minutes of breakfast she was compulsively folding and unfolding her napkin on her lap. It was either that or scream.

Her mother had ordered a bowl of fruit. Her father had asked for toast. D.D. had gone for eggs Benedict with extra béarnaise sauce.

Her mother had arched a brow. Fat, cholesterol—should D.D. really be eating such things at her age?