City of the Dead (Alex Delaware, #37)(74)

Milo threw up a hand. “I think it’s insane, John.”

“I’m thinking she pleads out,” said Nguyen, as if the last comment hadn’t registered. “Bloomfield asks for time served, I say no way and demand a serious sentence, he whittles, I whittle, eventually we reach a meeting of the minds. Like voluntary manslaughter.”

“What’s the sentence gonna be?”

“I’m a prophet? Last time there was anything remotely like this we got a tenderhearted judge who called it at four years and half of that suspended.”

“Jesus.”

Nguyen said, “Jesus was into forgiveness. Bloomfield applied for her bail this morning, I’m figuring not to argue but we’ll put an ankle bracelet on her.”

“What about the twins?”

“Even iffier prosecution-wise. Their parents are rich, called from the cruise ship to engage Harvey DiPaolo who does not work pro bono. He called me, laid on a whole thing about them being mentally challenged and he can prove it with as many shrinks as he needs. On top of that, Montag’s not disputing their account. She planned it, recruited them, didn’t let on what she had in mind, and they never directly hurt the victim.”

“Binding and gagging isn’t hurting.”

“She did the gagging. I’m figuring accessory before the fact, couple of months in jail, then time served and they can go back to getting inappropriately strong.”

“Law and order,” said Milo.

“Mostly order, dude,” said Nguyen. “We both know all that bullshit about every victim counting the same is just that. The way I see it, we lucked out. Neither of us will have to prep and go to court and the city’s down one anger-issue murderer. Maybe a mass murderer if he did your other two. Maybe it’s not hopeless, you do have probable offender blood.”

“Still waiting on DNA, John. I’ll ask Basia to do an ABO but the offender blood’s O positive, the most common type. It differed from Victim Delage’s O positive but the offender’s was the most common pattern.”

“Hoffgarden matches, it means nothing, got it. On the other hand, it doesn’t eliminate him. What’s the ETA on the DNA?”

“Twelve to twenty weeks,” said Milo.

“Not bad, I’ve had worse.”

“Glad you’re so buoyant, John.”

“One life, why ruin it with worrying?”

“Yeah, right. Can you put in a rush for analysis?”

“See what I can do. Though the justification isn’t much. The only link between Hoffgarden and Gannett and Delage is he’s a likely prior offender. So you’ll probably need to wait in line.”

“Just try, John.”

“Sure, but Yoda won’t approve.”

“What?”

“There is no try, only do.”

“Then do.”

Still no fatigue in Nguyen’s voice but he yawned dramatically. “Okay?”

Milo said, “I can’t believe Montag’s gonna get off so easy.”

“Couple of years in jail is worse than it sounds,” said Nguyen. “Especially for someone who’s never been in the system.”

“She committed premeditated murder!”

“Of a bad guy,” said Nguyen.

“Unbelievable. Talk to you later.”

“Hey,” said Nguyen. “Did I ever tell you about my sister in the bathroom?”

“Must’ve missed that one.”

“Then catch it now. Back when my folks were living in Hanoi and the commies took over the whole country, there was no currency. Literally. No money, everything was chits like in an arcade, you had to hoard them and wait hours to get food. People tried to raise their own food, we’re not talking gluten sensitivity, there was a serious risk of starvation. Anyway, my sister Anne, she’s the older one, she wants to play with a friend. We’re living in a shit-ass hovel but her friend’s father was a petty dignitary for the commies so she lives in one of those soulless commie high-rises. Anne goes there, eventually she has to use the john, there’s no electricity, it’s pitch dark. She gropes around, is about to squat over the hole when she hears this god-awful grunt then a squeal. Turns out they’re raising a pig in the john—not for fun, for pork chops—and Anne just sat on it and pigs are total wimps, they make noise about everything. The fucking piece of lard started butting her around. She was eight, almost died of shock.”

“Great story, John,” said Milo. “The point being?”

“She went back there, anyway. To play with her friend. And if she needed to pee, she went to the john knowing what was in there. And not knowing if more had been added to the farm. Like snakes or toads or scorpions, ’cause they were being raised for food, too. Everything that moved was. She’s a neurosurgeon now, raking it in big-time. She learned to live with uncertainty and unpleasantness and grew from it and so did the rest of us. So why not you?”





CHAPTER


    33


I left Milo in his office, glum and silent but for a muttered, “Thanks. Onward. Wherever.”

Humans are programmed to detest uncertainty, and nothing ruins a detective’s life more than too many question marks. My friend was great at what he did, with a near-perfect close rate, but the murders of Cordi Gannett and Caspian Delage were looking like the exception.