“Not that we can figure.”
“Doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know.”
“She was such a happy person,” Stone said. “Didn’t matter if I was having a grumpy day; she just took it in stride. Always managed to cheer me up.”
“She was a nice lady,” Dino said. “I always liked her.”
They sat quietly for a while, watching the garden grow dark and the lights come on in the other houses in Turtle Bay, all of which backed up onto the same garden.
“Stone,” Dino said finally.
“Yeah?”
“You see any possible connection between these two killings?”
“I thought about that; the only connection is me.”
“I thought about that, too,” Dino said. “Think for a minute: Is there somebody out there who hates you enough to want to kill people you know?”
“I thought about that, too; couldn’t think of anybody.”
“Neither could I.”
“They can’t be connected,” Stone said. “It’s just an awful coincidence.”
“I think you’re right; I just had to explore the other possibility.”
“I know.”
“When you’re a cop, or when you’ve been a cop, it’s always hanging over your head.”
“What is?”
Dino sighed. “The other possibility. The idea that somebody you’ve busted and sent up will come back to haunt you, to get even. I think that, after getting killed in the line of duty, it’s every cop’s worst fear.”
“I never thought about it until this minute.”
“Stone, what did you and Susan Bean talk about last night? We never got into that.”
“Just first-date chitchat,” Stone said. “What do you do? Where are you from? Like that. She didn’t seem to be happy in her job.”
“How so?”
“She said she was thinking of leaving the DA’s Office.”
“From what Martin Brougham told me last night, she was on her way up.”
“She said that, but it didn’t seem to matter. I think she was just disillusioned with the system; she didn’t like the way she had to do her job.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know; it was just something she said. We never had time to go into it. You know how it is, Dino; a lot of idealistic people don’t like an up-close view of how the justice system works. It takes a pretty thick skin to live with it every day.”
“Yeah; I had a hard time with it at first, too.”
“You? I’m surprised.”