As they turned onto the fourth floor a woman opened an apartment door. She had short golden-blond hair with spikes tipped in Christmas green. She wore a mustard-colored uniform and thick-soled white shoes.
“You the cops?” she said, then went stiff as she got a good look at Eve. “Ah, shit. Shit, this can’t be good.”
“Ms. Tobias?”
“Yeah. I know who you are. What did he do? What did Mason do?”
“What do you think he did?”
“Hell, I don’t know.” She closed her eyes a moment, and when she opened them again they held resignation. “But whatever he did, he thought he was doing the right thing. He’s a good boy, he really is. He just has a hard time sticking in what’s real. You can’t arrest him—I mean you. If you were to do it, I don’t think he’d ever get over it
.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, he worships you, doesn’t he? You’re everything he wants to be. Everything he wishes his old man had been. His father was a cop. Knocked us both around plenty, until I cut loose. Knocked us around a time or two after till his partner finally broke ranks and put the fear of God in him. After that he mostly ignored us at best, made sure Mason knew he thought he was nothing at worst. Then you took him down.”
“I took who down?”
“My ex. Mason’s father. That whole thing—almost two years back now. Officer Roland Tobias—he was under Captain Roth. He was on the take.”
So had been too many others, Eve remembered. And a good cop had died at the hands of dirty ones. But she didn’t remember Tobias, specifically.
“Offed himself the summer after it came down. I’m not going to say I’m sorry he’s dead. But that’s when Mason started talking about you, and then writing to you, and all the rest . . .”
She glanced behind her, and nerves showed as she twisted the chain with its little winged fairy she wore around her neck.
“I know he’s a grown man, Lieutenant, but inside he’s still a kid who got the shit kicked out of him for not being the tough guy his old man wanted.”
“We just want to talk to him.”
“I don’t know how he’s going to handle it.” She stepped back in, rubbed the back of her neck. “Mason? Come on out. Somebody’s here to see you.”
“Me?”
He sort of lumbered out of a short hallway. The right height, Eve judged. Solid build, and that could fit. Short, almost military-buzz-cut hair shades lighter than his mother’s, a round, not quite homely face.
His eyes, big and brown, stared into Eve’s as he nodded. “I’ve been waiting. You’re really busy, so I had to wait. You must’ve heard about it.”
“Heard about what?”
“How I arrested that guy last night.”
“Oh, Mason,” his mother began.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I gotta do the work, and somebody had to stop the bad guy.”
Eve slipped her hand inside her coat, rested it lightly on the butt of her weapon. “How’d you stop the bad guy, Mason?”
“I had to chase him a ways, then knock him down pretty hard. Then I had to punch him. You’re not supposed to hit,” he said when his mother just sat down, cradled her head in her hands. “But he was resisting, and I was making a citizen’s arrest. I can do that. I read how I can. He was hurting that lady, and he was making her cry and yell.”
Eve flicked Peabody a glance.
“Can we sit down?” Peabody asked easily. “Why don’t we sit down, and you can tell us the details? For the report.”
“I talked to the policemen last night.”
“That’s good, but this is for the official report.”