Deborah hissed, long and loud.
“I’m coming up,” she said, and hung up the phone.
I hung up, too, and went back to sit beside Jackie. “It’s Kathy,” I said.
“Oh, dear God,” Jackie said. She hugged herself, and then she began to shake, and then she was crying. “Oh, my God,” she said. For a few moments she cried and rocked, arms locked tight around herself. Then she took a long and ragged breath, and leaned forward over her knees. “Oh, Jesus, oh, shit,” she said. “This is my fault; it’s all my fault.” And she put her hands over her face and, after a moment, her shoulders began to shake again.
As I have mentioned, I don’t really understand most of human behavior, but I do know a standard cue when I see one, and when a woman hides her face in her hands and cries, any man seated next to her is supposed to provide comfort and support. So I did that, putting one arm around Jackie and patting her shoulder gently with my hand.
“It’s not your fault,” I said, which was true enough to be obvious. “You didn’t ask for a psychotic stalker.”
She sniveled loudly, the first unattractive thing I had seen her do. “I should have told them,” she said. “I should have … So selfish, and now Kathy is dead.”
“There’s no way you could have known he would do this,” I said. “It’s really not your fault.” And it might not be completely flattering to me, but I was actually feeling very proud of the way I kept finding appropriate things to say to her. After all, most of my brainpower was devoted to trying to figure out who had killed Kathy, since I was pretty sure it wasn’t Patrick.
“It is. It is my fault,” she insisted. “If I hadn’t been so concerned with my own stupid career—and now Kathy is dead for a stupid TV show I don’t even like!” Her shoulders shook harder, and then she gave a wail, combined with a snuffle, and she turned to me, shoving her face against my chest, and as she did I became very aware that her nightgown was really quite thin, and I was still dressed for sleep—which is to say, bare chested and wearing only a pair of battered boxer shorts. My other arm went around her reflexively and I held her, feeling tears and other things sliding down my side and wondering why I didn’t mind.
Because I didn’t mind; in fact, I was rather enjoying myself. I stopped patting her and instead began to rub her shoulder, in a way I hoped was as soothing to her as it was to me. Her skin was warm and dry and very soft, and I could still smell a faint tang of perfume coming off it, and I began to imagine all kinds of unthinkable things that really didn’t fit the mood of recent murder.
Luckily for all of us, an authoritative pounding sounded on the door to the suite, and I pried myself away from Jackie and went to the door. “Who is it?” I said, rather unnecessarily.
“Who the fuck do you think it is?” snarled somebody who could only be Deborah. “Open the fucking door!”
I opened the fucking door and Deborah shoved furiously past me and into the room. She stopped when she saw Jackie slumped on the couch, red eyed and runny nosed and, it must be admitted, not really looking her very best. Debs turned back to me, and for the first time seemed to notice that my attire was somewhat informal. She shook her head, still clearly smoldering about things in general and looking for something to scorch. As usual, it turned out to be me.
“Nice panties,” she said, glancing pointedly at my boxers. “You plan to chase this guy like that?”
I truly wanted to tell Deborah that I wasn’t going to be chasing this guy at all, not without a scuba tank—but I couldn’t. Debs knows what I am, and in her limited way she almost approves—but Jackie did not, could not, and that would have made the conversation very awkward. And I was still closing my mouth when that tiny, mean-spirited uncertainty crept back in, the completely ridiculous, illogical thought that I might have killed the wrong person. So instead I simply said, “Does it really look like the same killer?”
Deborah glared at me. “How many of these freaks you think we got running around?” she said, and I had a very uncomfortable moment before she added, “I haven’t seen the body yet, but it sounds the same.”
“Oh,” I said, with a small flutter of hope. Jackie snuffled loudly, and I remembered why. “Do they have a positive ID?”
“The driver’s license picture matches up,” Deborah said. “It’s her, no doubt. Kathy Podrowski.” And she looked at Jackie and said, rather unnecessarily, “Your assistant.”
Jackie made a sound somewhere between a moan and a retch, and Deborah turned back to me. “We both know what this means,” she said. “And we both know what we have to do about it.”
“Yes,” I said. “You have to tell the officer in charge what we’ve been sitting on.”
“That’s right,” she snarled.
“Um,” I said. “Who has the lead?”
Deborah’s face got even angrier, which was impressive. “Anderson,” she spat.
I blinked. “But that’s …” I said, but Debs shook her head bitterly.
“Two drive-bys this week, plus a ritual beheading, and the cannibal thing in the Grove,” she said. “So Anderson comes up in the rotation again, because I am busy covering up this psycho bullshit and when Captain Matthews finds out I’ll be lucky if I only get busted down to Code Enforcement and— Shit, Dexter!”
There was a faint sound of throat clearing from the couch, and we both turned to Jackie. She was sitting up very straight, knees together, one hand held at her throat. Her eyes were red rimmed, but she had stopped sniffling and was clearly trying to control her emotions. “If it could hurt your career …” she said tentatively.
“Don’t even say it,” Deborah snapped.
Jackie looked puzzled, then shocked. She shook her head. “Oh, no,” she said. “I was just … I was going to say, I can tell them it was my fault. Which it is, because your orders were to do what I asked, and …” She raised a hand, then dropped it to the couch beside her. “I just … I don’t want anybody else to get hurt,” she finished weakly. She met Deborah’s glare for a moment without blinking, and then she glanced away. “It’s my fault,” she said, and she looked so small and vulnerable that I wanted to kill things for her.
Deborah didn’t seem to feel the same way. “It doesn’t matter what you tell them,” she said harshly. “I’m a sworn officer and I am supposed to know better.” She stared at Jackie, but Jackie didn’t look up, and after a moment Deborah’s look softened just a bit and she said, “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who— I do know better than this, and I did it anyway.” Deborah straightened up like she was getting ready to face a firing squad—which she was, administratively speaking. “I fucked up. I had the responsibility, so I take the heat,” she said. She took a deep breath, turned away, and headed for the door with such a precise march step that I could almost hear “Colonel Bogey” playing.
“Deborah,” I said. She looked at me bleakly with one hand on the doorknob, but I couldn’t think of anything to say to make it better. “Um … good night …?”