Catch Me

“’Kay,” he said.

“’Kay.”

I went to fetch my dog. When I returned outside with Tulip, J.T. was gone and only the scent of gunpowder lingered in the air.

“He’s not good at good-bye,” his wife, Tess, murmured behind me. She’d come out onto the covered front porch, arms crossed over her black-and-gray plaid shirt for warmth. She was younger than J.T., closer to fifty than sixty, with silver strands liberally sprinkling her pale blond hair. In faded jeans and fleece-lined slippers, with her hair pulled loosely back to reveal a delicately boned face, she wasn’t a beautiful woman, but striking. She had a way of looking at me that reminded me of J.T. They didn’t just look, they saw, and they trusted in their ability to handle what they’d seen. The two of them fit each other perfectly.

I peered out at the empty shooting range. “I know how he feels,” I said.

Tess came to stand beside me. “I told him he should stay with you, on Saturday the twenty-first. Just in case.”

“No.”

“And he said that’s what you would say.”

“Have you ever been hit?” I asked her abruptly.

“Yes.”

“Did you take it, or did you fight back?”

“Both. People change. Kids grow up.”

“J.T. says I have to get my mother out of my head.”

“He’s smart like that.”

“But I don’t know how.”

“Do you hate her?” Tess sounded genuinely curious.

I had to think about it. “I don’t know. I avoid her. Don’t think, don’t remember. Then, I don’t have to feel.”

“That’s your problem then.”

“Denial? But it’s a personal strength of mine.”

“If you believe you’re honestly going to die on Saturday, Charlie, if you believe you’re honestly going to have to fight for your life, you should feel something about that.”

“I’m pissed off,” I offered.

“It’s a start. There’s no right answer. I forgave my father. J.T., on the other hand, will probably never stop hating his.”

That surprised me, but I didn’t say anything.

“I don’t like to hate,” Tess said simply. “Not my father, not my ex-husband. I held on to the rage as long as I needed it to do what I needed to do. Then, I let it go. I look at my children. I feel how much I love them. I feel how much they love me. And that makes me feel better instead.”

“I love my dog,” I said, automatically bending to pat Tulip’s head. “And she’s not even my dog.”

“Sounds like a country-western song. You’re welcome to stay here, Charlie, for as long as you need.”

I nodded, then straightened, adjusting my messenger bag, fiddling with my grip on Tulip’s leash. “Good-bye, Tess,” I said.

She wasn’t surprised. “Good-bye, Charlie.”

Tulip and I stepped off the front porch, and even though Tulip whined a little, neither of us looked back.

IT TOOK TULIP AND ME twenty minutes to walk through the light snowfall to an area busy enough to hail a cab. Then another twenty minutes for the cab to deliver us to the BPD headquarters in Roxbury. The driver wasn’t happy to transport a dog, so I had to tip him five bucks extra, and that quickly, I was broke.

Let me tell you, a girl doesn’t work police dispatch for the money.

I thought of Officer Mackereth, felt myself flush, and reminded myself sternly I didn’t work at police dispatch for that either.

To enter HQ, I had to go through security. The first officer, a mountain of a black man, got a little excited about my. 22. I showed my license to carry, but he remained skeptical. Leave it to Massachusetts to create a gun policy so paranoid that even when you took the proper legal steps no one believed you.

Of course, I’m not sure what legal steps were taken to secure my gun permit. J.T. had done it for me, given the stringent standards. Probably called in a few favors. I never asked, unanswered questions being the whole key to my relationships.

“What do you do for a living?” the BPD officer asked me now.

“Comm officer, Grovesnor PD.”

“Oh.” His massive shoulders came down. He gave me a grudging measure of respect. Officers liked dispatch operators. We took care of them, and they knew it.

He kept my gun, handing me a tag. “You can claim it on your way out. Same with the dog.”

“You can’t take my dog.”

Officer Beefy got puffy again. “Honey, my house, my rules.” He jerked his thumb toward the glass door. “Dog goes outside; say pretty please, and I’ll keep an eye on it.”

Having now gone twenty-four hours without sleep, I didn’t take this news well.

“Look, your detective invited me here,” I informed him, beyond caring if he was three times my height and four times my weight. “This is my dog, and I’m not tying her outside in this weather or in this neighborhood. If Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren wants to see me, then she gets both of us. That’s the deal.”

“Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren?” The officer’s dark face broke into a broad grin. “Ha, good luck with that.” He motioned to the desk sergeant, sitting on the other side of the security scanner, “Got a visitor, with dog, for Detective Warren.”

“With dog?” the desk sergeant called back.

“She sniffs out doughnuts,” I informed the sergeant. “Took years of training.”

“Sounds like a Detective Warren dog,” the sergeant drawled. Tulip and I were finally allowed into the lobby, where we roamed the enormous glass-and-steel space while waiting for our date to arrive.

Urban police stations should be dingy, with yellow-stained drop ceilings and tiny barred windows, I thought crabbily. Not modern art monstrosities, boasting cavernous lobbies filled with glass and gray winter sky, let alone the wafting odor of coffee and fresh baked goods. Rather helplessly, Tulip and I followed the tempting scents to the open doors of the building’s cafeteria. I hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, and neither had Tulip, but being out of cash limited our options. As it was, Tulip and I would have to muscle our way onto the T if we wanted to get home.

D. D. Warren finally appeared at the other end of the lobby. I recognized her by the bounce in her curly blond hair and the laserlike quality of her crystalline blue eyes. She spotted me, then Tulip, and zeroed in.

“What happened to you?” she demanded. Guess I was starting to bruise.

“Boxing.”

“Aren’t you supposed to wear gloves?” She pointed to my hands, where the knuckles on both pinky fingers had turned bright purple.

“I will remind my attacker of that on the twenty-first,” I assured her.

“And the bruises around your neck?”

“Hey, you should see the other guy.”

“Legally speaking, I’m not sure you want that.”

“True.”

She stared at me a minute longer, as if trying to figure out just what kind of crazy she was dealing with today.

Then she surprised me. “Nice dog.” She held out her hand for Tulip. “I like dogs for women. One of the best lines of self-defense. Better than guns. Guns can be taken and used against you. Not a good dog.”

I shook my head. Should’ve known the detective would have a point.

“I don’t plan on having Tulip around on the twenty-first,” I informed D.D. “I’m sending her to live with my aunt.”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

“I prefer the term responsible adult.”

“Martyr.”

“Considerate friend.”