Lisa Gardner - Catch Me

Then she kissed him gently on his puckered forehead, tucked him into his bassinet, and grabbed herself a glass of water just in time for her cell to ring again.

She checked the display. Detective O. She answered it.

“Self-fulfilling prophecies,” D.D. stated by way of greeting. “First you labeled your own suspect feral, then you spooked her into bolting. Congratulations. Charlene came to work and didn’t bring her twenty-two.”

“Yes she did!” O’s voice came out triumphantly.

D.D. paused, took another sip of water, tried to figure out what she’d just missed. “How do you know?”

“I followed her.”

“You followed Charlene Grant?”

“Waited in the parking lot of the Grovesnor PD actually. That way, if they were able to confiscate her weapon, I could deliver it immediately for ballistics testing.”

“At eleven P.M. Friday night?”

“I made a call in advance, got Jon Cassir, the firearms expert, to agree to stay.”

D.D. frowned again. The heavy-handedness of O’s approach irked her, made her want to cut the younger investigator down to size. Then she had to catch herself. O had been smart to plan ahead. Nothing wrong with an aggressive strategy when pursuing a serial shooter. In fact, there had been a time when D.D. would’ve thought to do exactly that.

Instead of leaving HQ to return to her baby. And saying she’d be back after dinner, except Alex was clearly exhausted from the past few nights, and she’d been tired from her all-nighter, let alone her breakfast with her parents, and tending Jack had seemed a better idea than driving all the way back to Roxbury. She could work from home, then call her parents to smooth things over. Right.

“So I’m at the station,” O was saying, “and I saw Charlene walking down the street from the T stop. Then a patrol officer got out of his cruiser and approached her. I thought maybe he was a friend at first, but she dropped into a fighter’s stance and he had his hand on his sidearm. Looked like he was going to take her bag by force, and she wasn’t going to let him. Then, just as abruptly, he walked away. At which point, she took her semiauto out of her bag, wrapped it in a scarf, and buried it in a snowbank.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. So, naturally, the second Charlene disappeared into the station, I unburied her Taurus twenty-two and drove it straight to the lab. I’m here now. Cassir hopes to have results by morning.”

D.D. wasn’t sure what to make of this sudden turn in events. “We have six slugs recovered from three shootings. Are all six in good enough shape for matching?”

“No, but Cassir has usable slugs from the second and third shooting. The first shooting, Antholde, is trickier. Both slugs flattened out, ricocheting around the victim’s skull, so it’s probably inconclusive.”

“But we got the notes, tying all three shootings together. So if we can match the rifling on Charlene’s twenty-two with the markings on even one of the recovered slugs…” D.D. thought out loud.

“Exactly.”

D.D. nodded. O had done good work. And it was wrong of D.D. to feel resentful. At this stage of her life, her job was to be supportive, the experienced cop mentoring the less experienced cop. Passing the baton, so to speak. In other words, growing old.

“You interview the aunt?” D.D. asked.

“Not yet. Been a little busy outsmarting Charlie. But aren’t you glad I did?”

Busy, D.D. agreed with. The obsessive nature of O’s approach, on the other hand, worried her a little.

“You returning to Grovesnor PD?” D.D. probed now.

“Why?”

“You’ve already taken things this far.”

O didn’t reply, which D.D. took as answer enough.

“You want to see Charlie leave at the end of her shift, don’t you? Dig around in the snow, searching for her own weapon.”

O didn’t say anything.

“She believes she needs that gun for self-defense in a matter of hours,” D.D. stated. “What do you think she’ll do when it’s gone?”

“If she’s smart,” O said flatly. “She’ll turn herself in. We can protect her-we’ll throw her in jail. Trust me, whoever killed her BFFs will never think to look for her there.”

“Your first arrest?”

“Hardly.”

“Is it difficult, as a sex crimes detective, to consider arresting a citizen who may be doing some of the work for you?”

“Have more faith in the sex crimes unit. We can do our own work just fine.”

Given how many pedophiles D.D. hadn’t had sufficient evidence to arrest in her career, she wasn’t sure she agreed. But she finished her glass of water, then returned to the business at hand.

“Facebook posts?” she asked.

“Over a thousand friends,” O reported. “Lots of hits from Atlanta and Providence, family, friends of the victims. I can’t vet each poster-we’d need at least half a dozen bodies to manage that workload. So I’ve been skimming for odd posts, out-of-place comments. Only person of interest thus far has been Randi’s ex.”

“Isn’t he serving time in Club Fed?”

“Where apparently they have Internet access, because yes, he was one of the first friends. Posted RIP and the murder date.”

“Asshole.”

“I can stir the pot if you want…post ‘At least Randi is free from her rat bastard husband,’ something like that.”

“Do it. Be good to see what he says. Also, can you monitor any posts from Colorado?”

O wanted to know why. D.D. explained that Charlie had once worked in Arvada.

“When did the mother die again?” O asked excitedly.

“Eight years ago. Have to put together an exact time line and geography, but I believe that covers Charlene’s stint with the Arvada dispatch center.”

“How’d she die?”

“Coroner’s guess was natural causes, liver failure caused by long-term alcohol abuse, but the body had been lying in situ for some time before discovery. Makes establishing cause of death more art, less science.”

“Suffocation,” O said. “Pillow to the face, that’s what I would’ve done.”

“Kill the mom the same way she once murdered her babies? But coroner would be able to determine evidence of asphyxia: petechial hemorrhages.”

“Not if decomp was advanced enough. Like you said, more art, less science.”

“You think Charlene did it?” It was a genuine question. The coincidence of the mom dying in Colorado the same time Charlene worked there bothered D.D. And yet…“Charlie asked all the right questions when we interviewed her. Never assumed her mother was dead, asking about prison first, then a mental institute, then finally death. She even inquired about how her mother died, meaning, if Charlie did do it-tracked her mother down in Boulder, paid her a visit, pressed a pillow against her face for a full five minutes while her mother kicked and fought and struggled-she’s one hell of an actress.”

Detective O was quiet for a moment. “You still like her.”

“Like has nothing to do with it. I’m just thinking out loud. Good detectives argue. It’s the fun part of our job.”

“She grew up with a killer. Maybe watched her mother suffocate two babies. Maybe did it herself-”

“Big assumption.”

“Still, ritualistically abused. Think of the bonding that never took place. Lack of empathy. The free spirits of the world would have you believe a little bit of love eases all pain. Cops know better.”

“She claims to have loved Rosalind.”

“Didn’t make a difference. Maybe it was even baby Rosalind’s death that put her over the edge. She blew up. Fought violently with her mom, would’ve killed her if the mom hadn’t stabbed her first.”

“Another big assumption.”

“Mom exited stage right, Charlie went to the mountains of New Hampshire. New house, new rules, new stability. Maybe it worked for a bit. Until her friends scattered, and poor old Charlie was once more all alone. Maybe she decided to track her mother down, finish old business.”