He slowly put down his fork. “Think about it. You know you can’t do anything but sit there and watch as other people suffer in the most terrible ways, and you don’t have any way to stop it. You have absolutely no way to get the word out that this unidentified person needs help, and you’re just supposed to watch it, like it’s a movie or something. Who the hell wants that shit?”
“Yeah, I was pondering that the other night, wondering how you can remain sane with all that going on.”
“Who says I’m sane?” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
She rolled her eyes at him. “I already know that you’re half crocked, but apparently we’re half crocked together,” she said, with a sigh.
“So tell me,” he wanted to know, “how come you had to go for such a hard workout tonight?”
“This shitty case at work. It’s out of our jurisdiction likely but borders on another of our cases. We’re stretched kind of thin, what with missing three team members—or at least two for sure.” She took a bite, pointing with her fork as she chewed and swallowed. “Although we sort of have an analyst and two assistants, it never seems to be enough. So you know what that means.” She sighed.
“Yeah, everybody wants their time. The VPD needs more staff, more detectives, in my opinion, just from watching you putting in the long hours, working on your supposed days off. And this city is big, and you have how many murders on a regular basis?”
“I think there’s been, like, what? Twenty-nine already this year.” She shook her head. “You’d think we were Chicago or something.”
He smiled. “I get that this is probably more than you’re used to, but is there anything you can do about these cases, any leads to follow?”
“If I can prove that they’re murders, then maybe, and I’ve got a witness who said these bullies were involved in something that went terribly wrong. She thinks that the person died, but I don’t have any proof of it, and neither does she.”
“So it’s all hearsay?”
“Even worse, it’s hearsay from somebody who’s now basically turning on her own group.”
“So she’s trying to defend herself.”
“I think she’s trying to protect herself. She says she didn’t do anything terrible, but she did do something bad enough, and she’s now suffering from the guilt of it.”
“I just love the human condition.”
“Right.” She tilted her head. “We’re all so screwed up.”
“Hey, speak for yourself,” he said.
She smiled. “If you’re not screwed up, neither am I, but I’m pretty sure the rest of the world would definitely consider both of us well over the mark.”
He shrugged. “No, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. So there’s no hope for us whatever then.”
She smiled. “They’re attacking people on the campus, innocent and already disadvantaged people. And they’re not so much directly attacking, they’re more subtle, making it look like anaccident,” she said, with a strong emphasis on the word.
“So what are they doing?”
“Knocking them down. One apparently sent somebody down a set of stairs, and she broke her leg.”
“That’s pretty shitty.”
“Hearsay though, and I’m not even sure who that person is. The campus is saying that nobody ever came forward to report or to complain about that, and I don’t know if that’s because of being pressured or because these guys are so good at making it all look accidental. You know? Like, it wasn’t really them, or the suspicion is there but no proof, so it becomes a case of, ‘Gee, I must have tripped and fallen.’ She was apparently on crutches already because she had some injury, but I don’t even know what that was.” She raised both hands in frustration. “It sucks. So this one female was supposed to be part of the group…”
By the time she finished telling him the rest, he stared at her in shock.
She nodded. “And, on top of that, I’m looking at this death at the intersection, where this one young woman on a bicycle dies in what appears to be anaccident, except evidence shows some projectile in her head. The autopsy is in progress, but nothing showed up on the scans.”
“Wow.” Simon sat back, staring at her, as he munched on his dinner. “I’d forgotten what an interesting life you have.”
She glared at him. “If it involves standing knee-deep in blood and gore and motives and hate and revenge and shitty people, yeah, it’sinterestingall right.”
“It’s complicatedandinteresting. I deal with a lot of that too, but in a way that you probably wouldn’t expect.”
“You’ve never told me much about what you are involved in.” She studied him. “I get that you’re rehabbing buildings, but that’s all I know about it.”