Nora Roberts - Sacred Sins

“You don’t know anything about me, my life, or my work.” She walked over to her desk, leaning her palms on it, but still didn’t regain control. “Do you see these files, these papers, these tapes? There’s a fourteen-year-old boy’s life there. A boy who’s already an alcoholic, a boy who needs someone who can open him up enough to see his own worth, his own place.” She whirled back again, eyes dark and impassioned. “You know what it is to try to save a life, don’t you, Detective? You know how it hurts, how it frightens? Maybe I don’t use a gun, but that’s just what I’m trying to do. I’ve spent ten years of my life trying to learn how. Maybe, with enough time, enough skill, enough luck, I’ll be able to help him. Damn.” She stopped, realizing how far she’d allowed herself to be pushed by a few words. “I don’t have to justify anything to you.”

“No, you don’t.” As he spoke, he crushed out his cigarette in the little china dish. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

Her breath came out with two hitches as she struggled to bring herself back. “What is it about what I do that makes you so bitter?”

He wasn’t ready to tell her, to bring that old, fleshed-over scar out in the open for inspection and analysis. Instead he pressed his fingers to his own tired eyes. “It’s not you. It’s the whole business. Makes me feel like I’m walking a very thin wire over a very long drop.”

“I guess I can accept that.” Though it wasn’t the whole answer, or the one she’d wanted. “It’s hard to stay objective right now.”

“Let’s take a step back for a minute. I don’t think much of what you do, and I guess you don’t think much of what I do.”

She waited a minute, then nodded. “Agreed.”

“We’re stuck with it.” He walked over to her desk and picked up her half cup of coffee. “Got any of this hot?”

“No. I could make some.”

“Never mind.” He brought his hand up to knead at the tension just above his eyebrows. “Look, I am sorry. It seems like we’ve been running on this treadmill, and the only progress we’ve made is a leak to the press.”

“I know. You might not be able to understand, but I’m as involved as you are now, and I feel as responsible.” She paused again, but this time she felt an affinity, an empathy. “That’s the hard part, isn’t it? Feeling responsible.”

She was too damn good at her job, Ben thought as he leaned back against her desk. “I’ve got this feeling I can’t shake that he’s about through waiting to hit again. We’re no closer to finding him, Doc. We can bullshit the press some tomorrow, but what we have to swallow is that we’re no closer. You telling me why he’s killing isn’t going to help the next woman he homes in on.”

“I can only tell you what he looks like inside, Ben.”

“And I have to tell you I don’t give a damn.” He turned away from her desk to face her. She was calm again. He could see it just by looking at her eyes. “When we get him, and we will, they’re going to take this psychiatric profile of yours. They’re going to get other ones done, then they’re going to put you or some other psychiatrist on the stand, and he’s going to get off.”

“He’ll be confined to a mental hospital. That’s not a picnic, Ben.”

“Until a team of doctors diagnose him cured.”

“It’s not as simple as that. You know the law better.” She dragged a hand through her hair. He was right, and so was she. That only made things more difficult. “You don’t lock someone up because he has cancer, because he can’t control the disintegration of his own body. How can you punish someone without taking into consideration the disintegration of his mind? Ben, schizophrenia alone disables more people for a longer time than cancer. Hundreds of thousands of people are confined to hospitals. We can’t turn our backs on them or burn them as witches because of a chemical imbalance in the brain.”

He wasn’t interested in statistics, in reasons, only in results. “You said it once, Doc-insanity’s a legal term. Crazy or not, he’s got his civil rights and he’ll be entitled to a lawyer, and his lawyer will use that legal term. I’d like to see you sit down with those three families after it’s done and talk about chemical imbalances. See if you can convince them they’ve gotten justice.”

She had counseled victims’ families before, knew too well the sense of betrayal and bitter helplessness. It was a helplessness that without control could spill over to the healer. “You’re the one with the sword, Ben, not me. I only have words.”

“Yeah.” He’d had them, too, and he’d used them in a way he wasn’t proud of. He had to get out, get home. He wished he had a brandy and a woman waiting for him. “I’m setting up an appointment with Monsignor Logan tomorrow. You’ll want to be there.”

“Yes.” She crossed her arms and wondered why a bout of temper always left her so depressed. “I have appointments all day, but I can cancel my four o’clock.”

“Not too crazy?”

Because he’d made the effort, so did she, and smiled. “We’ll let that pass.”

“I’ll see if I can schedule for four-thirty. Somebody will call you and set it up.”

“Fine.” There seemed to be nothing left to say, and perhaps more to say than either of them could deal with. “Are you sure you don’t want that coffee?”

He did, and more than that, wanted to sit with her and talk about anything other than what was bringing them together. “No, I’ve got to go. The streets are a mess already.”

“Oh?” She glanced toward the window and noticed the sleet.

“Working too hard, Doc, when you don’t see what’s out your own window.” He walked to the door. “You haven’t gotten that dead bolt.”

“No, I haven’t.”

He turned with his hand on the knob. He wanted to stay with her more than he wanted that brandy and imaginary woman. “Bogart was okay the other night?”

“Yes, Bogart was fine.”

“Maybe we should do it again sometime.”

“Maybe.”

“See you, Doc. Put on the chain.”

He pulled the door closed, but waited until he heard the rattle of the chain lock being fastened.

Ed tooled down sixteenth Street at a sedate pace. He enjoyed cruising as much-well, nearly as much-as he enjoyed sending the tires screaming. For a simple, relatively easygoing man, racing the streets in hot pursuit was a small vice.

Beside him, Ben sat in silence. Normally Ben would have had a few smart remarks to make about Ed’s driving, which was a departmental joke. The fact that Ben said nothing about it, or the Tanya Tucker tape Ed was playing, were signs that his thoughts were elsewhere. It didn’t take a mind as methodical as Ed’s to figure out where.

“Got papered on the Borelli case.” Ed listened to Tanya wail about lying and cheating, and was content.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, got mine too.”

“Looks like a couple of days in court next month. D.A. ought to nail him pretty quick.”

“He’d better. We worked our asses off to get the evidence.”

Silence trickled back like thin rain. Ed hummed along with Tanya, sang a few bars of the chorus, then hummed again. “Hear about Lowenstein’s kitchen? Her husband flooded it. Disposal went out again.”

“That’s what happens when you let an accountant go around with a wrench in his hand.” Ben took the window down an inch so the smoke would trail out when he lit a cigarette.

“That’s fifteen,” Ed said mildly. “You ain’t gonna get anywhere if you keep stewing about that press conference.”

“I’m not stewing about anything. I like to smoke.” As proof he drew deep, but resisted blowing the smoke in Ed’s direction. “It’s one of the few great pleasures of mankind.”