Sandra Brown: Ricochet

“Thank you for remembering that.”

“I’m talking as your friend. I’m only saying this for your own good. Your zeal is admirable, but you’ve got to keep a rein on your temper.”

Feeling not at all zealous, he stared moodily through the windshield. Savannah was baking under a fierce sun. The air was laden with moisture. Everything looked limp, wilted, as weary as he felt. The air conditioner in DeeDee’s car was fighting a losing battle against the humidity. Already the back of his shirt was damp.

He wiped drops of sweat off his forehead. “I got a shower this morning, but I still stink like jail.”

“Was it terrible?”

“Not too bad, but I don’t want to go back any time soon.”

“Gerard is unhappy with you,” she said, speaking of Lieutenant Bill Gerard, their immediate supervisor.

“Judge Laird gives Savich a walk and Gerard is unhappy with me?”

DeeDee stopped at a traffic light and looked over at him. “Don’t get pissed at what I’m about to say.”

“I thought the lecture was over.”

“You really gave the judge no choice.” In the two years since DeeDee had been bumped up to homicide and made his partner, he’d never seen one iota of maternal instinct in her nature. Her expression now came close. “After the things you said, Judge Laird was practically duty-bound to hold you in contempt.”

“Then His Honor and I have something in common. I feel bound to hold him in contempt, too.”

“I think he got the message. As for Gerard, he has to toe the company line. He can’t have his detectives telling off superior court judges.”

“Okay, okay, I acknowledge the error of my ways. I served my time. At Savich’s next trial, I promise to be a perfect gentleman, meek as a lamb, so long as Judge Laird, in turn, will cut us some slack. After the other day, he owes us.”

“Uh, Duncan.”

“Uh, what?”

“Mike Nelson called this afternoon.” She hesitated, sighed. “The DA’s position is that we didn’t have enough on Savich-”

“I don’t want to hear this, do I?”

“He said this trial was a long shot to start with, that we probably wouldn’t have got a conviction anyway, and that he’s not going to try the case again. Not unless we turn up something rock solid that places Savich at the scene.”

Duncan had feared as much, but hearing it was worse than the dread of hearing it. He laid his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. “I don’t know why I give a damn about Savich or any other scumbag. Nobody else does. The DA is probably more upset with me than he is with the Neanderthal who killed his wife last night over a tough pork chop. He was in the cell next to mine. If he told me once, he told me a dozen times that the bitch had it coming.”

Sighing, he rolled his head to gaze out the window at the venerable live oaks along the boulevard. The clumps of Spanish moss dangling from their branches looked bedraggled in the oppressive heat.

“I mean, why do we bother?” he asked rhetorically. “If Savich pops a meth maker like Freddy Morris every now and then, he’s performing a public service, isn’t he?”

“No, because before that meth maker’s body is cold, Savich will have his replacement set up for business.”

“So, I repeat, what’s the point? I’m all out of that zeal you referenced. I don’t give a shit. Not anymore.”

DeeDee rolled her eyes.

“Do you know how old I am?” he asked.

“Thirty-seven.”

“Eight. And in twenty years I’ll be fifty-eight. I’ll have an enlarged prostate and a shrunken dick. My hair will be thinner, my waistline thicker.”

“Your outlook gloomier.”

“You’re goddamn right,” he said angrily, sitting up suddenly and jabbing the dashboard with his index finger as he enumerated his points. “Because I will have put in twenty more years of futility. There’ll be more Saviches killing people. What will it all have been for?”

She pulled to the curb and braked. It hadn’t registered with him until then that she’d driven him home, not to the parking lot where his car had been abandoned at the judicial center when he was taken into custody and marched from the courtroom.

DeeDee leaned back against her seat and turned to him. “Granted, we’ve had a setback. Tomorrow-”

“Setback? Setback? We’re as dead as poor Freddy Morris. His execution scared the hell out of any other mule who has ever even remotely considered striking a deal with us or the Feds. Savich used Freddy to send a message, and it went out loud and clear. You talk, you die, and you die ugly. Nobody will talk,” he said, enunciating the last three words.

He slammed his fist into his palm. “I cannot believe that slick son of a bitch got off again. How does he do it? Nobody’s that supernaturally lucky. Or that smart. Somewhere along his body-strewn path, he must’ve struck a deal with the devil. All the demons in hell must be working for his side. But I swear this to you, DeeDee. If it’s the last thing I do-” Noticing her smile, he broke off. “What?”

“Don’t look now, Duncan, but you sound full of zeal again.”

He grumbled a swear word or two, undid his seat belt, and pushed open the car door. “Thanks for the lift.”

“I’m coming in.” Before getting out, she reached into the backseat for the dry cleaner’s bag that had been hanging on the hook on the door.

“What’s that?”

“The suit I’m wearing tonight. I’m going to change here, save myself the drive all the way home and then back downtown.”

“What’s tonight?”

“The awards dinner.” She looked at him with consternation. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

He raked his fingers through his unruly hair. “Yeah, I did. Sorry, partner, but I’m just not up for that tonight.”

He didn’t want to be around cops tonight. He didn’t want to face Bill Gerard in a semi-social setting, knowing that first thing tomorrow morning, he’d be called into his office for a good old-fashioned ass-chewing. Which he deserved for losing his cool in court. His outrage was justified, but he’d been wrong to express it then and there. What DeeDee had said was right-he’d hurt their cause, not helped it. And that must have given Savich a lot of satisfaction.

She bent down to pick up two editions of the newspaper from the sidewalk and swatted him in the stomach with them. “You’re going to that dinner,” she said and started up the brick steps to the front door of his town house.

Once the door was unlocked and they were inside, he made a beeline for the wall thermostat and adjusted the AC.

“How come your alarm wasn’t set?” DeeDee asked.

“I keep forgetting the code.”

“You never forget anything. You’re just lazy. It’s stupid not to set it, Duncan. Especially now.”

“Why especially now?”

“Savich. His parting ‘I’ll see you. Soon,’ resonated like a threat.”

“I wish he would come after me. It would give me an excuse.”

“To…?”

“To do whatever was necessary.” He flung his sport jacket onto a chair and made his way down the hallway toward the kitchen at the back of the house. “You know where the guest bedroom and bath are,” he said, indicating the staircase. “Help yourself.”

DeeDee was right on his heels. “You’re going to that dinner with me, Duncan.”

“No, what I’m going to do is have a beer, a shower, a ham sandwich with mustard hot enough to make my eyes water, and-”

“Play the piano?”

“I don’t play the piano.”

“Right,” she said drolly.

“What I was going to say is that maybe I’ll catch a ball game on TV before turning in early. Can’t tell you how much I look forward to sleeping in my own bed after two nights on a jail cot. But what I am not going to do is get dressed up and go to that dinner.”