The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(68)

There was nothing but spam to distract me. I opened the junk mail folder and imagined no more snoring, considered an urgent request for money to get my friend safely back from Europe, and imagined a trip to the Bahamas for only $77 a night, all expenses included.

The Bahamas. If only.

I dropped my phone back into my bag and watched a school bus stop on the opposite side of the street to pick up a kiddo, who dashed off his front steps and climbed up into the big yellow bus. Then the bus was on the move, and as it passed me, I put my car in gear and drove up the street to the intersection at Union.

I slowed for the stop sign and came to a full stop. I watched an old man clipping his doorstep hedges. A calico cat trotted across the street, and when it was safely home, I revved my engine.

I was running away. This was not my usual style and I knew that I was being crazy. I had to go to see the doc. I drummed my fingers on the wheel.

Not going. Going. Not going.

A car honked behind me and I put my foot on the gas. My hands spun the wheel to the right and I turned onto Union, then I took another right onto Divisadero. I took two more right turns in this pretty neighborhood that looked as though it had been ripped from a storybook tale ending with “And they lived happily ever after.”

Having circled Doc Arpino’s block, I parked again beside the pansy-painted mailbox.

I sighed. I dragged myself out of my car and put one foot in front of the other until I’d reached the top of the doctor’s front steps.

I rang the bell and opened the door.





CHAPTER 100


I PUT THE doctor’s office in my rearview and drove to the Hall on autopilot.

I parked on Harriet Street under the rumbling roof of Interstate 80, and in a few minutes Brady crossed the alley and got into my passenger seat. He looked at me, did a double take, and said, “You’re scaring me, Boxer.”

I nodded as if I knew what I was going to say or do.

One option was to go for the weekly B12 shots and, at the same time, go to work as usual and hope for the best. That meant no all-night stakeouts, firefights, or hand-to-hand combat with insane gunmen. In other words, I could not safely do what I called my job.

Or I could get the weekly shots and take a medical leave, as directed by my doctor. During that time Conklin would get a new partner, and I would lose my place in Homicide. I just hated that thought. It was roughly equivalent to closing my eyes and jumping into a sinkhole.

I said, “Brady, my condition is … how can I say this? It’s serious. I have something called pernicious anemia.”

“You’re saying you’re anemic?”

“It’s a form of anemia. The causes are various and so are the symptoms, but it has to do with my blood being unable to absorb vitamin B12. If I don’t deal with this situation pronto, it could damage organs and nerves, or could become something worse. Years back I had aplastic anemia, and that really could have killed me.”

Brady kept his eyes fixed on me. He was reading me.

“This pernicious kind. You’re heading it off right now, right? And so you say it’s treatable? Reversible?”

“I’ve got a good doctor. I need shots every week for a while. And Doc wants me to take time off.”

“Please, Boxer. Do what you’re supposed to do. Take whatever time you need.”

“He says a couple of months. He said I have to do a whole mind and body reset. Sleep, you know, whatever that is. Meditation would be good. See him on schedule. Get better.”

Brady smiled. “You. Lying around the house.”

I tried to smile back, then I shook my head. Brady put his hand on my arm.

“Be a good girl, will you, Boxer?”

“Yes. I will. I have no choice.”

Brady said, “I might as well tell you something you’re going to hear soon anyway.”

“Shoot,” I said.

Brady checked his phone, sent someone a reply, then came back to me. He told me that Jacobi was being retired out, as a result of a case Conklin and I had worked about a year and a half ago involving a crew of dirty cops. After the fallout, the body count had been, all told, about nineteen guilty and innocent souls.

I said to Brady, “IAD is hanging it on Jacobi?”

“Accountability goes with the job,” he said.

I felt tears welling up. Not only was I at a personal low, I was taking this blame-Jacobi news personally.

“Who is replacing him?” I asked.

Brady shrugged. “To be decided.”

Then he said, “Go home, Lindsay. Fight this pernicious anemia. It’s something you have control over. Other than that, don’t worry about a thing. It’ll all work out somehow. You get better, and when you get a green light from your doctor, come back. Not a second before.”

He leaned over, kissed my cheek, said, “Love you, Linds. Be good to yourself. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Then he got out of my car. I sat there and watched him cross Harriet Street and disappear behind a line of parked cars on his way up to the squad room.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” he’d said.

What, me worry?

But he was right. I counseled myself to get a grip on the one thing I might be able to use to save myself. I had to stay home. Spend more time with Julie and Joe and Martha. It would be quite interesting to find out who I was when not working a homicide case.