Lisa Gardner - Catch Me

“Motive, means, opportunity!” Detective O threw her hands up in the air. “Come on, I can’t be the only one who thinks Charlie’s guilty!”

O had exchanged last night’s little black dress for a more sedate light blue Brooks Brothers button-up shirt. It was expertly tailored, perfect for the up-and-coming young detective. Would also look good on TV, D.D. thought, should camera crews catch her making a major arrest.

“It’s not a matter of what we think,” D.D. said, less patient, more curt. “It’s a matter of what we can prove.”

Neil spoke up. “I think we should arrest her.” He had a sullen look on his face, his carrot top mane uncustomarily smoothed down, his lanky shoulders rounded. He’d barely spoken since the meeting started, opting to stare at a fixed spot on the table instead.

O pounced, having finally found an ally. “She’s a flight risk. If we spend too much time getting our ducks in a row, she’s bound to fly the coop.”

“Which is why we generally don’t share our investigative strategies with our prime suspects,” Phil muttered.

“How is she not going to figure it out?” O exclaimed. She pointed a finger at D.D. “She wants to call her in for a lineup. Think that won’t give our game away?”

“I didn’t say call her in for a lineup,” D.D. corrected. “I said that’s all a matching physical description can do for us. Now, put that finger away before you hurt someone.”

O glared at her, hand falling to her side. “What’s the alternative? Request a warrant to search her room or seize her twenty-two? Sure, we’ll gain some evidence. And boo hoo, she’ll be in Canada before we can snap on the handcuffs.”

D.D. sighed. She looked at O, she looked at Neil. Finally, she turned to Phil. “Kids these days,” she murmured.

The father of four nodded in agreement. He’d gotten to sleep last night, which thus far had made him the only sane person in the room. D.D. took a fortifying sip of coffee, and got to it.

“Neil,” she announced, “when were you going to tell us you broke up with Ben?” Ben being the medical examiner, whom Neil would’ve encountered last night when accompanying the latest shooting victim to the morgue.

“No one’s business,” her red-haired colleague mumbled.

“Oh, but it is. Maybe your relationship wasn’t dipping the pen in the company’s well, but it was dipping in the company’s brother’s well. We work with the ME’s office. The end of your relationship has on-the-job consequences and you know it. So dish. What happened?”

“We’re on a break.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “Oh, good Lord-”

“He says I’m too young,” Neil burst out. “He says I’m too green. I gotta go…sow wild oats or some such bullshit.”

“Become a man?” D.D. suggested.

“Fuck you!”

“Won’t solve your problem. You are young, you are green. You’re also a very promising detective who spends way too much time hiding behind his partners. You want to grow up?”

“Maybe.”

D.D. gave him a look.

He straightened his spine. “Yes!”

“Then let’s get you to the National Academy. It’ll get you more training and experience. Plus, being a smart guy with some promising detective skills, you might even like it.”

“When?”

“You’re gonna have to make some calls to figure that out. Preferably, before Phil and I are driven to beat you.”

“Horgan will agree?”

Cal Horgan was the deputy superintendent of homicide, who’d have to nominate Neil for the academy, as well as authorize the funds should Neil then be invited.

“I’d use your nice voice,” D.D. advised.

Neil pursed his lips, tapped on the tabletop a few times with his hand. “Okay.”

D.D.’s turn to roll her eyes. “You’re welcome. Now, as long as you’re learning new skills, why don’t you accompany Phil to interview the family of the shooting victim.”

They’d finally gotten an ID on their sixteen-year-old shooting victim/child molester. Barry Epsom. Formerly of Back Bay. Rich kid, one of four, they were told. Father a bigwig with Hancock Insurance, mother known to be a patron of the arts. Private school, where he hadn’t necessarily shined academically but also wasn’t known for causing trouble. Ironically enough, he had a reputation as a computer whiz kid.

Family had already lawyered up. They were grieving, admitting nothing, and the mid-morning interview was doomed to be the kind of long, dragged out, dramatic affair that yielded no useful information but killed the rest of the day. Better to let the rookies cut their teeth on it.

“Goal,” she informed Neil, and to a lesser extent Phil, because he knew his business, “is to be sympathetic, accuse their son of nothing, and get your hands on his electronics.” She eyed Phil, their own computer whiz, on the last part. “Smartphone was seized at the scene last night, but that still leaves computers, iPad, iPod, gaming systems-you’d be amazed where perverts hide their electronic data these days. Search warrant is broad and I want you to use it. We’ll let the forensic wizards manage this one-see if they can’t dig out exactly what Barry was doing online and, even better, how our vigilante shooter might have tracked him.”

“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.”