4th of July (Women's Murder Club 4)

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Jacobi slid into the booth, and we all shoved over one seat to make room for him. The waiter brought chilled Dom Perignon—thanks, Jacobi—and when our flutes were full, my friends new and old toasted my return.

“To Lindsay. Welcome home!”

Epilogue

Chapter 146

THE FIRST WEEK BACK on the job blew around me like a Category 5 hurricane.

The phone rang nonstop, and cops were at my door every few minutes bringing me up to speed on several dozen active cases. Everything was a red alert.

But the overarching problem was clearer to me than ever before. The department’s average of solved cases hovered around 50 percent, which put us very close to the bottom of large-city homicide squads.

It wasn’t that we weren’t good; we were simply undermanned and overwhelmed, and the squad was burning out. In fact, people had been calling in sick all week.

When Jacobi knocked on the glass door that Friday morning, I told him to come in.

“Lieutenant, shots were fired in Ocean Beach, two men down. One car is on the scene, one on the way, and the officers are still requesting backup. The witnesses are panicky and starting to scatter.”

“Where’s your partner?”

“Taking lost time.”

I could see everyone in the squad through the glass walls of my office. The only cop without a stack of active cases on his or her desk was me. I grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair.

“I guess we’re catching,” I said to my former partner. “Tell me what you know.”

“Two gangs from Daly City and Oakland had it out in the parking lot near the beach,” Jacobi told me.

We hustled down the stairs, and once we were outside on McAllister, Jacobi unlocked the car and took the wheel.

“It started with knives, then a gun came out. Two vics dead at the scene, one wounded. Two perps are in custody. One of the perps waded out into the surf and buried the gun in the sand.”

I was already imagining the scene of the crime, looking ahead to putting the puzzle pieces together. “We’ll need divers,” I said, gripping the dash as we took the corner at Polk.

Jacobi gave me a rare grin.

“What’s that for, Jacobi?”

“Pardon me, Lieutenant,” he said over the sound of the siren. “I was thinking.”

“Yes?”

“I still like working with you, Boxer. It’s good to have you back in the saddle again.”