Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(12)

D.D. won the honors; it wasn’t a big surprise, but she still felt compelled to offer a small acceptance speech: “On behalf of myself and my entire squad, I graciously accept your faith in our efforts—”

Some hooting from the back of the room, a few tossed pieces of balled-up paper. She picked up the ammo that landed closest and lobbed it back.

“Of course, we fully expect to have this wrapped by morning—”

A fresh round of catcalls, then one wiseass’s observation that morning would be six minutes from now. D.D. retrieved a fresh ball of crumpled paper, and nailed that detective between the eyes.

“So you all can go back to protecting the fine citizens of Boston,” she concluded over the growing din. “We got this one covered.”

The deputy superintendent rolled his eyes when she sat down, but didn’t say a word. It had been a long night in a bad scene; the detectives were entitled to blow off some steam.

“Gotta do a press conference,” was all the boss had to say.

“First thing in the morning,” D.D. assured him.

“What’s the party line?”

“Don’t know.” She grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair, then gestured to her squadmate, Phil, that it was time to motor. “Ask me when we get back from the hospital.”



Patrick Harrington, former father of three, had been recovering from brain surgery for the past three hours when D.D. and Phil arrived at the hospital. According to the charge nurse, he was in no condition to talk.

“Let us be the judge of that,” D.D. informed the nurse as she and Phil flashed their credentials.

The nurse wasn’t impressed. “Sweetheart, the man is in a drug-induced coma with a manometer attached to his skull to measure intracranial pressure. I don’t care if you’re packing a pass to the Pearly Gates; man can’t talk yet, because the man can’t talk.”

That stole some of D.D.’s thunder. “When do you think he’ll come around?”

The nurse looked D.D. up and down. D.D. returned the scrutiny. Hospitals had policies concerning a patient’s right to privacy. For that matter, the legal system had scribbled a line or two on the subject. But take it from a detective—at the end of the day, the world remained a human system. Some head nurses were bulldogs when it came to protecting their patients. Others were willing to consider the big picture, if things were presented in the right manner.

The charge nurse picked up a chart, glanced at the notes. “In my professional opinion,” she offered up, “hell if I know.”

“How did the surgery go?” Phil interjected. The nurse glanced at him, noted the ketchup stain on his white shirt, and smiled a little.

“Surgeon removed the foreign body. That should help matters.”

D.D. leaned against the nurses’ station. Now that the nurse’s body language had relaxed slightly, it was time to press the advantage. She glanced at the woman’s name tag. “So, Terri, did you hear what Patrick did to his family?”

“Some kind of domestic incident.” Nurse Terri regarded them seriously. “Maybe he didn’t like his wife’s cooking. If you ask me, we see too much of that around here. More men need to start liking burnt food.”

“Ah, but there was a bit more to it than a spat with the missus. Kids were involved. Three kids. He got ’em all.”

Nurse Terri hesitated, showed the first glimmer of interest. “He killed his own kids?”

“Nine, twelve, and fourteen. All dead.”

“Oh Blessed Mary…”

“That’s what we think happened. It would be a good thing to know, however. I mean, there’s a little difference between four people slaughtered by a family member than, say, by a deranged maniac who’s possibly still wandering free. Really, it would be good to dot our ‘i’s and cross our ‘t’s here. As Patrick’s the lone survivor…”

Nurse Terri sighed heavily, seemed to finally relent. “Look, I can’t make the unconscious conscious, not even for Boston’s finest. I can see, however, if Dr. Poor is still around. He was the admitting doc in the ER. He might have something to offer.”

“Perfect.”

“Might as well make yourselves comfortable. Doctors answer only to God, not charge nurses, so this could take a while.”

“Somehow, I bet you have your ways of making a doctor hustle.”

“Honey, don’t I wish.”



D.D. and Phil grabbed coffee from the basement cafeteria and made themselves at home. The waiting room chairs were low slung, the kind that were tempting to position three across as a makeshift bed. D.D. focused on her coffee. She’d slept well last night. Apparently, that would be it for a while.

She thought briefly of Chip, felt a pang of longing for the great sex she still wasn’t going to have, then returned to the matters at hand.

“What did you think of Professor Alex?” she asked Phil.

“You mean my new shadow?” Phil shrugged. “Seems all right. Smart, keeps out of the way, speaks mostly when he has something useful to say. So far, that puts him ahead of half our unit.”

D.D. smiled. “Have you looked him up?”

“I’ll make some calls in the morning.”

“Okay.”