barbecued ribs south of the Mason- Dixon line,” Richards said, watching the interplay between her partner and the bald little chef. “I personally think Diaz is addicted.”
From the look of the line of folks waiting for carryout, Diaz was not alone. Trailing into the street was a line of people from white-shirted office workers to overall-clad laborers patiently waiting their turn at a card table where cash was being exchanged for Styrofoam containers of ribs.
Richards and I sat in silence. She had taken a seat opposite me at the table. I wasn’t good at small talk with women. I thought we were both watching Diaz, but when I turned to her, she was focused on something beyond me. I looked back over my shoulder and in the distance across the street, children were playing on a school playground. They were climbing on big orange and blue plastic jungle gyms and chasing each other in a field of green grass. Now that I was watching, I could pick up the high-pitched ringing of their shouts and laughter like the sound of a neighbor’s wind chime in an easy breeze. They didn’t seem to mind the heat. They didn’t seem to mind anything but getting to the top of the slide, catching the kid with the floppy red shirt, or pumping their skinny legs to get the swing higher and higher. They were true innocents.
“So, how long have you been down here?”
Richard’s voice snapped my head around. She was now watching me, hands folded on the table.
“Uh. Over a year now.”
“And you’ve been living in that place on the river the whole time?”
“Yeah. Most of it. I did stay with Billy, uh, Manchester, for a while when I first came.”
“Your attorney?”
“Yeah.”
“No family?”
“No. I’m alone.”
Her eyes, now more green than gray, made me nervous. I watched her hands instead, fingertips moving slightly across her own skin. Her nails were cut short and polished a neutral color. She touched the simple gold wedding band on her left ring finger once.
“You were street patrol up there, mostly?”
“Yeah. Probably more than most.”
“But I saw in your file that you worked the detective bureau for a little while. Didn’t like it?”
“Not too much,” I said, swinging my left leg up over the bench and under the table to fully face her.
“Too much hurry up to close cases. Not enough time to spend thinking about them, being sure. I wasn’t very, uh, efficient.”
I was looking into her eyes this time.
“You like going out? On cases I mean,” I said quickly.
She let a smile slip and I grabbed it like it was real.
“I mean, you look like you’re pretty good at it.”
“It’s been OK. Except for this case. But I probably liked the road better too.”
“How long you been with Diaz?”
She half shook her head, the smile went into a wry grin.
“I’ve been in Hammonds’ group for about twelve months. Since my husband died. They thought it would be better for me.” She was looking past me again, off into the playground.
“Your husband was a cop?”
“Road patrol. Answered a silent alarm at a convenience store late at night. One of those you know is going to be a false alarm. When he got there three kids in jackets in the middle of summer were walking backwards out of the place and when they saw the squad car they bolted.”
A strand of hair fell across her cheek, but she ignored it.
“His partner ran after the two older ones and left Jimmy chasing the little one. The kid went down a blind alley and got trapped by a construction fence.”
Her eyes did not look down. She was re-creating the scene behind them.
“They found Jimmy lying six feet from the fence. Two shots from a half-assed .22-caliber. One hit him in the vest but the other went straight into his eye and tumbled. He never even took his gun out of his holster. They got him to the hospital, but he never regained consciousness.”
My fingers had gone quietly to the spot on my neck.
“Sorry,” I said. “They get the kid?”
She nodded, looking out at the playground behind me again.
“Middle-schooler. Eleven years old.”
Diaz had walked up while we were both caught in our own silence, staring past each other. He sat three square Styrofoam containers on the table.
“What?” he said, looking from her to me and back.
“You bring an extra side of sauce?” Richards said, as if we’d been discussing the weather.
“Of course. The reverend with the magic sauce,” Diaz said, climbing into