She said, “I had nothing to do with any bombs, Sergeant. And you can’t prove anything. In fact, our attorneys are going to call this ‘reasonable doubt.’
“Problem solved, right?”
She winked, then called out toward the barred door.
“Bubbleen, get your fat ass in here. Sergeant Boxer and I are done.”
My husband is a modest guy, and he’s almost always right. He’d said to me after the first bombs, “Sooner or later, the bomber is going to take credit.”
Well. Hadn’t happened yet.
As soon as I got out onto the street, I called Jacobi.
When he answered, I shouted into my phone, “Jacobi. Timko admitted nothing, but bombs are gonna go off. Call the FBI. Call the mayor. Get Chuck’s closed! Every last Chuckburger has to be recalled so no one else dies.”
Jacobi snuck in a few words edgewise.
“Exactly right,” I said. “We nail them on hindering prosecution, interfering with a police officer, reckless endangerment, everything else we’ve got. We buy time. We buy time and find the one forgotten thing. We find the thing that proves that she and Walter made those damned dirty bombs.”
Part Five. High Noon
Chapter 103
Joe called out to me from the foyer, “I’ll be back in an hour, Blondie. And that’s a promise, more or less.”
“Godspeed,” I called back.
I was in a hurry, closing the snaps on Julie’s pastel-striped onesie and looking for her knitted hat with the daisy in front, when the phone rang. I’d ducked her calls too often.
“Cindy—hey.”
“Tell me everything,” she said.
I was glad to hear her voice. It had been a while.
“Joe’s picking up Martha from the vet and I’m using my lunch hour to take Julie to the park.”
Cindy laughed, said, “That’s fascinating, but I meant, tell me everything about Brady and Yuki.”
I only had time to give her the Twitter version, so no need to go off the record. I told her that Brady had made an appearance at the squad this morning and was going to be back on the job as soon as he was able to pull a full day.
“Lost part of his ear,” I told her. “An earlobe. Four broken ribs, too, but he’s going to be fine.”
“Whoaaa. And Yuki?”
“Yuki is down to about two-thirds her fighting weight, which means she couldn’t go one round with a chicken. But she seems pretty good, all things considered. She’s going to take off work for a couple weeks.”
“Sure. She probably needs to sleep with both eyes closed.”
“She said the ground is still moving under her feet.”
Julie was fussing, gearing up for a tantrum. I picked her up while keeping the phone between my ear and shoulder. I unfolded the stroller with one hand and said to Cindy, “How are you? Just the headlines.”
“Everything is good, well, except for.” Cindy’s voice dropped. “Morales.”
I looked at the time. I had a meeting with Jacobi in forty-eight minutes and I hadn’t left the house.
Cindy was saying, “I still worry, you know. That she’s got it in for you.”
I said, “Please don’t worry about me, Cindy. Please? I’m a cop. I carry a gun. And now I’ve got a playdate with my bossy baby girl.”
We said good-bye and I strapped my precious daughter into her stroller.
“Wow, you look amazing with that hat,” I said. “Hold it.”
I got my phone. I took Julie’s picture and sent it to Joe.
“Are you ready?” I asked Julie.
And then I said her lines, too.
“‘Ready? It’s about time you got off the danged phone. I certainly am ready to go to the park, Mom.’
“All right, baby girl. Let’s go.”
Chapter 104
The sunlight was soft and the air was scented with eucalyptus. In fact, I could almost smell the ocean, too, as I walked Julie’s stroller through my neighborhood, its diversity reflected in the restaurants and shops.
I wanted to enjoy this unexpected quality time with Julie.
All I had to do was kick Donna Timko out of my head, put my faith in the powers that be to recall every last Chuckburger on earth, and—relax.
“Mommy helped shut down a multimillion-dollar hamburger chain, baby girl,” I said. “I hope so, anyway.”
I unbuttoned my jacket, took the band out of my hair, and shook out my pony. Julie babbled happily as we turned west on Lake and took a left onto 12th, heading into the seven-block-long straightaway to the park.
I said, “So, the dog run, right, Julie? Or you want to see the birdies in Stow Lake? I’m pretty sure you got your eyes and your hair from dear old dad, but when it comes to dogs, you take after—”
Julie interrupted me with a long string of baby foolery, beating the air with her hands—soooo cute—making me laugh. I stopped to kiss her face and then we pushed along the eclectic residential block to the intersection at California, where I paused for the light.
I tried to imagine having a day like this every day. And the idea held some appeal. Sunshine, baby and me, and if I actually wasn’t working, we would go home in a bit, have Gerber mixed veggies and turkey, and then take a nap.
The light changed and we crossed the road and headed toward Clement, entering the business section of the Richmond District. Traffic was congested. Car horns and radios blared and—holy crap! I saw something I just didn’t like.
Gripping the handlebar of the stroller, I started to run.
I used the crowded sidewalk as a buffer, looking ahead of me and on both sides all at the same time. All I cared about was Julie. Getting her out of sight.
I stepped on a crack in the sidewalk, turning my ankle, but I recovered my balance before I dropped. Julie wasn’t aware that I’d almost gone down, because I kept the stroller steady. A clot of teens were taking up the breadth of the sidewalk, smoking cigarettes, texting, and joking around.
I screamed at them to get the fuck out of my way.
They yelled back, but they made way for me, and I kept going, running fast and furious.
Between 12th and 11th, I turned onto Clement and stayed on the south side, which was lined with a wall-to-wall row of shops.
There was an alcove halfway up the block, an entrance to a Chinese restaurant. I shoved the stroller down the stone steps and stumbled behind it, hiding behind the alcove to the shuttered Wing Ho’s Happy Eating.
Julie was wailing now, and I stood between her carriage and the street, semi-protected by the wings of the alcove and pretty much out of plain sight.
I watched, and when I felt it was safe, I grabbed my child and held her over my shoulder. I picked up the stroller with my free hand, took the stairs up to the sidewalk, and ducked into the boutique next door, Rosalie’s Fanfare.
I found a shopgirl at the back of the store. She was wearing a black tunic, tight pants, and black leather boots to her knees. She froze and stared at me with huge black-ringed eyes.
I tucked my baby into the stroller and said, “I’m a cop. On a case.”
I opened my jacket, showed her the badge pinned inside and my gun on my hip. Then I touched Julie’s head and said, “Honey. I’ll be right back.”
The shopgirl said, “No, no, you can’t leave her here.”
I said, “You. Watch. Her.”
The baby’s cries followed me as I went back toward the front of the store. I bumped hard into a woman coming out of a dressing room. She fell back against a bunch of cartons that tumbled like a stack of blocks.
The sound of the customer’s curses mingled with Julie’s screams as I made for the shop’s front door.
The weight of a human female heart is about nine ounces. Every bit of mine was with my baby, as if that small pounding muscle could protect her.
Chapter 105