The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club 17)

I said, “Brady, my condition is … how can I say this? It’s serious. I have something called pernicious anemia.”

“You’re saying you’re anemic?”

“It’s a form of anemia. The causes are various and so are the symptoms, but it has to do with my blood being unable to absorb vitamin B12. If I don’t deal with this situation pronto, it could damage organs and nerves, or could become something worse. Years back I had aplastic anemia, and that really could have killed me.”

Brady kept his eyes fixed on me. He was reading me.

“This pernicious kind. You’re heading it off right now, right? And so you say it’s treatable? Reversible?”

“I’ve got a good doctor. I need shots every week for a while. And Doc wants me to take time off.”

“Please, Boxer. Do what you’re supposed to do. Take whatever time you need.”

“He says a couple of months. He said I have to do a whole mind and body reset. Sleep, you know, whatever that is. Meditation would be good. See him on schedule. Get better.”

Brady smiled. “You. Lying around the house.”

I tried to smile back, then I shook my head. Brady put his hand on my arm.

“Be a good girl, will you, Boxer?”

“Yes. I will. I have no choice.”

Brady said, “I might as well tell you something you’re going to hear soon anyway.”

“Shoot,” I said.

Brady checked his phone, sent someone a reply, then came back to me. He told me that Jacobi was being retired out, as a result of a case Conklin and I had worked about a year and a half ago involving a crew of dirty cops. After the fallout, the body count had been, all told, about nineteen guilty and innocent souls.

I said to Brady, “IAD is hanging it on Jacobi?”

“Accountability goes with the job,” he said.

I felt tears welling up. Not only was I at a personal low, I was taking this blame-Jacobi news personally.

“Who is replacing him?” I asked.

Brady shrugged. “To be decided.”

Then he said, “Go home, Lindsay. Fight this pernicious anemia. It’s something you have control over. Other than that, don’t worry about a thing. It’ll all work out somehow. You get better, and when you get a green light from your doctor, come back. Not a second before.”

He leaned over, kissed my cheek, said, “Love you, Linds. Be good to yourself. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Then he got out of my car. I sat there and watched him cross Harriet Street and disappear behind a line of parked cars on his way up to the squad room.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” he’d said.

What, me worry?

But he was right. I counseled myself to get a grip on the one thing I might be able to use to save myself. I had to stay home. Spend more time with Julie and Joe and Martha. It would be quite interesting to find out who I was when not working a homicide case.

I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to go home and give Joe the news.

CHAPTER 101

I HADN’T SEEN Jacobi since the hammer came down, but I’d called him the day after he walked out of the Hall for the last time to ask how he was doing.

“You know how it is, Boxer. Sometimes you’re the dog. Sometimes you’re the tree.”