“Just a simple large Band-Aid, please.”
“Okay. Why not?”
“Thank you.”
“You mind if I ask a couple of questions, Sherlock?”
“Shoot.”
“Why were you jumping over a fence?”
“I was chasing a guy who drove a stolen car through a red light and clobbered a family in a minivan.”
“You get him?”
Matt nodded.
“Good for you.”
“You said two questions.”
“Why did the cops stand around with their thumbs up their ass while that girl was being raped and murdered?”
Matt’s gluteus maximus began to ache as he got on the Roundhouse elevator. The doctor had said that both the tetanus booster and the antibiotic would probably cause “mild discomfort.”
The mild discomfort left his mind when he walked into Homicide and found that Detective Lassiter had already reported for duty. She was sitting at a desk with a telephone to her ear.
She was wearing a skirt and a double sweater. It didn’t matter. Her naked form was engraved forever in Matt’s mind.
She looked at him, then away.
“Already at it, Mother?” he said.
She looked at him, nodded, and then quickly looked away again.
“Captain wants to see you, Sergeant,” Detective Alonzo Kramer, a stocky, ruddy-faced, forty-three-year-old, said, pointing to Captain Quaire’s office.
Matt could see through the glass enclosure that Lieutenant Gerry McGuire, the commanding officer of Dignitary Protection, was with Quaire.
I wonder what that’s about?
Oh, shit! Stan Colt! I forgot all about that!
Quaire saw Matt coming and waved him into his office. “Good morning,” Matt said, politely.
“What happened to your face?” Quaire asked.
“I took a slide on a concrete driveway last night chasing a guy.”
Quaire gestured give me more with both hands.
“I almost had Lassiter home…”
“From where?” Quaire asked, smiling.
“From Liberties. Lieutenant Washington had us meet him there. And afterward, I took her home. She had to give her unmarked back to Northwest.”
“And what happened? Detective Lassiter didn’t do that to your face, did she, Sergeant?” Captain Quaire asked, mock seriously. He looked to see if Lieutenant McGuire shared his sense of humor. From his smile, it was obvious that he did.