“Agent Donnelly,” Carter said, “what are you doing here?”
He ignored her, stared at Fitzgerald. “Who did you kill and why?”
She sighed again, unimpressed. She poured a little sugar in his coffee. “Have you met Officer Sanchez?” she said, gesturing to the uniform. “He has a problem with pronouns.”
“I don’t!” he protested. “I reported it exactly right. Just the way you told me …”
”I’m messin’ with you, sweetie.”
He stopped in mid-word, blushed.
“Now tell the nice man from the FBI that I didn’t kill anyone.”
“She didn’t,” Sanchez earnestly assured Donnelly. “She didn’t, Mrs. Antonucci confessed to her priest this morning …”
Donnelly held up one hand commandingly. “Stop. Just stop. I’ve already heard enough hysterical reporting for one morning.” He looked to Carter. “What’s going on here?”
“We were getting to that when you decided to make a federal case out of it,” Fusco grumbled.
Donnelly shot him a look that should have intimidated him. Fusco looked right back. Whoever this girl is to him, Carter thought, he’ll go to the wall to defend her.
But she didn’t seem to need it. “Okay, Junior,” Christine said encouragingly to Sanchez, “once more, from the top.”
“Try to get it right this time,” Donnelly snarled.
Carter generally liked Donnelly well enough, but he was on her last nerve already this morning. Where’s he get off talking to poor Sanchez that way? That’s our rookie, not his. She turned her shoulder, consciously moving closer to the young officer.
Sanchez took a deep breath, swallowed, and started over. “Early this morning Mrs. Antonucci ”“ he gestured to the old woman, “”went to her parish priest, Father Wendt, and told him, confessed to him, actually, that she had killed her husband last night. He brought her here …”
“Why?” Donnelly snapped.
“Sir?”
“Why did he bring her here?”
Sanchez spread his hands, confused. “Because … this is where you go, in this neighborhood. When you’re in trouble. You come here.”
Donnelly scowled at him.
“They have a pre-school at the church,” Christine supplied. “He wanted to get her out of there before the children started to arrive.”
“She released the priest to repeat this confession?” Fusco asked.
“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah.”
“Go on,” Carter said to Sanchez, before Donnelly could speak. It was probably the poor boy’s acne, she realized, that made her feel so protective of him.
“Right. So the priest brought her here and Scottie, um, Miss Fitzgerald, called the precinct and they sent us out, me and my training officer. He’s with the body now, waiting for the Crime Scene Unit.”
“Why did she kill him?” Donnelly asked.
The young officer shook his head. “He had severe Alzheimer’s.”
“And?”
“And … she has cancer. “
“You got a probable cause of death?” Fusco asked.
“She says she poisoned him. Overdosed him with her morphine.”
“That fit with what you saw?” Carter prompted.
Sanchez nodded. “I guess. I mean, he’s …” He shot a nervous look at Donnelly. “She cleaned him up, dressed him in his good suit, laid him out on the bed.” He glanced at the old woman, swallowed hard. “She combed his hair. She said … he was a little vain about it, that he still had a full head of hair, when all his brothers lost theirs early. Said he always wanted to have it nice. She was real worried about that, um, that we didn’t mess up his hair.”
There was a brief silence. Donnelly started to say something, and Carter cut him off. “Sanchez, why don’t you go keep an eye on Mrs. Antonucci?”
He looked around the little group again. His eyes were still too bright, and he seemed actually afraid of the FBI agent. He nodded and moved back to the table.
Donnelly sighed heavily. “All right,” he said to Fitzgerald, “what did he leave out?”
“He got the facts right,” Christine answered. “He’s just missing the background. Frank’s Alzheimer’s was diagnosed five, six years ago, but it’s gotten significantly worse this year. Six months ago he began to refuse to leave their apartment, and shortly after that he refused to let Rosa leave him. He would cry inconsolably any time she was out of his sight, even to shower.”
“And?”
“Three weeks ago she had a fall. The paramedics had to transport both of them, and they had to flat-back Frank the whole time they were at the hospital.”
“Flat-back?” Fusco asked. “Drug him unconscious?”
“Yeah.” Christine looked out at the woman. “Her cancer started in her lungs, but it’s everywhere. She’s dying. Soon.”
“How soon?” Donnelly asked.
“What time is it now?”
He looked at her. It was an odd look, one that Carter wasn’t sure how to interpret. “You’re saying she mercy killed her husband?” she prompted.
Christine nodded. “In the best and truest sense of the word.”
“It’s still murder,” Donnelly said quietly.
“They were married for sixty-two years. He might have lived another ten, maybe twenty. And every waking moment of all those years he would have cried for her. He couldn’t have understood where she was or why she’d left him.”
“You sound like you approve,” Donnelly challenged, but his voice remained soft, without an edge.
She nodded. “I’m sure you don’t, Ellis. But I get this. It makes perfect sense to me.”
Ellis? Carter thought. They’re on a first-name basis? Does John know that? “Why didn’t she kill herself, too?” she wondered aloud.
“Suicides go to hell,” Fusco answered immediately. “She can be granted absolution for murder, but not for suicide.” He made a face, evidently a little embarrassed by his instant recall of his childhood catechism. “So now what do we do with her?”
“You take her into custody,” Donnelly stated simply.
“Uhhh … I don’t think they want to do that,” Fitzgerald offered.
“She murdered her husband. What do you want them to do? Drive her home and make her a nice cup of tea?”
“I already made her a nice cup of tea,” she answered calmly. “But if she’s in custody, the city may be on the hook for her medical bills and final expenses.”
The agent stared at her like she’d lost her mind.
Way to throw his smug ass off balance, Carter thought with satisfaction. And mostly because she knew it would irritate him even more, she asked her, “What do you suggest?”
“Take her to the hospital for evaluation,” Christine supplied readily. “They’ll keep her for observation and pain management. You can request an administrative hold, if it’ll make Agent Donnelly happy, but it’s really not necessary.” She shrugged. “She’ll be gone by morning.”
“Gone where?” Fusco asked. “You think she’s gonna run?”
“Gone home to Jesus,” Carter corrected softly. She looked toward the old woman again. Then she looked back to Christine. “Are you sure?”
“Aren’t you? She’s got ‘I’m done here’ written all over her. She might stay for one more sunrise. Maybe.”
Donnelly shifted, mulling it over. “All right.”
“Actually, Agent Donnelly,” Carter pointed out, “I don’t see where the FBI has any say in this case.”
He looked at her for a long moment. Then he shrugged. “You’re absolutely right, of course.” He looked back to Christine. “The Man in the Suit. Have you seen him?”
“Nope.” From her tone, they’d had this snippet of conversation many times.
He nodded, unsurprised. More gently, he asked, “You alright?”
“I’m fine,” she promised.
“Good.” He drained his mug. “Thanks for the coffee.” He put two dollars on the bar. Christine rolled her eyes, but she didn’t argue.
“Hey, Ellis,” she said, before he could leave. “Office Clearasil over there? He’d never seen a dead body before this morning.”
His eyes narrowed. “So?”
“So he’s rattled and you’re a big authority figure.” She waited; he pretended he didn’t get it. “So don’t be a dick.”
Cheeky, Carter thought. I like it. She watched Donnelly closely. She guessed he wasn’t used to dealing with people being cheeky at him. He stared at her for a long moment. Christine stared right back.
Finally a very small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “First kittens, now rookies. What next, Miss Fitzgerald?”
She smiled back. “This is Chaos, Agent Donnelly. Anything can happen and usually does.”
He sighed, grumbled, but he stopped at the table on his way out and took Officer Sanchez aside for what Carter assumed was an encouraging word.
The detective couldn’t help herself. As soon as he was out of earshot, she wheeled back to the young hacker. “Ellis?”
“Yeah,” Fusco joined in, “what the hell is up with that?”
“Ellis,” Christine repeated serenely. “His grandfather named him. After the island.”
“How do you even know something like that?” Fusco demanded.
She shrugged. “I asked.”
“Why would you ask?”
“Details. I love details.” She looked past them to make sure Donnelly was out the door. “And speaking of which, here.” She reached under the bar, brought out a white envelope and a flash drive, and slid them both across the bar.
“What’s this?” Carter asked.
“This,” she tapped the envelope, “has copies of Mrs. Antonucci’s advanced directive and DNR. The hospital should have them, but take it along, just to be on the safe side.” She touched the flash drive. “These are your reports. They’re about ninety percent complete. You’ll need to fill in the details tomorrow, dates and times and ME report numbers and such.”
“You … filled out our police reports.”
“I got anxious.”
“Police reports are like score cards?” Fusco asked, as if he knew what she was talking about.
“Aren’t they?”
“Where’d you get the forms?” Carter pursued. Then she changed the question. “How’d you get into the data base?”
Christine raised one eyebrow. “Like it’s hard? I only hacked in once, I promise. Then I assigned myself a user name and password.”
Carter rubbed her eyes. “You know, if Donnelly knew that, he’d never let you out of his sight.”
“I know.”
The detective shook her head, looked toward the old woman again. “We should call a bus.”
“She’d rather go out on her own feet,” Christine supplied. To Carter’s look, she quickly added, “But it’s your call.”
“Thanks a lot.” She thought about it. “All right. Fusco, why don’t you go look at the body? I’ll take Mrs. Antonucci to the hospital.” She looked to Christine. “You want to ride along?”
“I’m sure she’d rather have the priest.”
“Okay.” Carter drained her own coffee. It was very good. She’d have to come back some time when she could actually enjoy it. She eyed Donnelly’s dollars on the bar. Technically speaking they weren’t supposed to accept gratuities, even coffee.
But there was a difference between having a good moral compass and just having a stick up your ass.
She tucked the white envelope into her pocket and palmed the flash drive. She was going to take the free coffee, and though she’d look it over carefully, she was going to let a civilian do her paperwork, too. And she was going to do those things just because they would make Ellis Donnelly pitch a fit if he ever found out.
***
John Reese surveyed the empty warehouse calmly before he went in. There were a dozen homeless men and women moving around quietly. None of them looked familiar, but he hadn’t paid much attention to faces while he was living here. And thankfully, they hadn’t paid much attention to his.
But Joan was there, balling up old newspapers to drop into the fire barrel. The daytime weather was mild and the fire was out, but after sundown they’d need it again. He smiled and moved toward her. “Good morning, Joan.”
She turned and smiled back. “John! It’s good to see you.”
“I brought you coffee cake.” He held the bakery box out to her.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Sweets for the sweet.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but she took the box, took out a slice, and then handed it off to another man. She took a bite. “Ohhh, that’s delicious.”
“Moist,” John agreed. “I need your help.”
“Anything.”
“I’m looking for this boy.” Reese drew two pictures out of his pocket, Clay’s high school photo and the one Finch had Photoshopped for him. “His name is Edward Clay. He may be a pickpocket, petty thief, something like that.”
Joan looked at the pictures closely. “I don’t think I’ve seen him. Where does he stay?”
“The last address he gave was St. Herman’s. I know it burned down. Do you know where the residents went?”
“I do, some of them. But a boy that age wouldn’t have been staying there. St. Herman’s was all old men. They wouldn’t have let him in. They would have been afraid of him.” She took another bite of the coffee cake, chewed slowly. “Although, if he gave that address … there was a little camp just up the hill from there. Under the bridge. Lot of young ones there. The priest who ran St. Herman’s would feed them, when he had extra.”
“That sounds like a place to look, then. Do you know where I’d find the priest?”
“He’s dead.”
Reese looked at her. “In the fire?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. He was quite elderly himself. The shelter was his whole life. When it burned down his heart just broke.” She finished the coffee cake. “Literally. He had a heart attack three days later.”
“Okay. I’ll start at the camp, then.”
John’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He grabbed it and clicked it off without looking at it.
“There’s someone who might be able to help you, though,” Joan continued. “He’s an ex-convict who helped at St. Herman’s. He’s a good, good man, a golden heart. I think he’s working with Street Reach now. If your boy was in the camp, William might know where to find him.”
“Where do I find William?” John asked.
Joan tore off a corner of a newspaper, held her hand out for John’s pen. She wrote an address quickly. “This is where he works,” she said. She wrote a second one. “This is a soup kitchen. He serves there some evenings. He’s a good man, a nice man. William Robinson, his name is.”
John looked up sharply. “William Robinson?”
“Do you know him?”
“I’ve met him once or twice. You’re right, he’s a good man.”
“So are you, John.” She patted his arm. “You doin’ okay?”
Reese nodded. “I’m okay. Had a little … close call a few weeks back, but I’m okay now.”
“This boy you’re looking for. He’s in trouble?”
“Yes.” Or about to cause some, Reese thought.
“You find him, then. You get him straight.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You always do. Thanks for the coffee cake.” She patted his arm again and moved to pick up more papers.
***
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