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“Yeah. Did you?”
Across the room he contemplated the wine selection, made his choice for both of them. “I wouldn’t have missed it. I thought she did brilliantly.”
“She didn’t screw up.”
He laughed, opened the bottle. “High praise, Lieutenant. It’s you who trained her. The last thing she said. It’s you who trained her to stand for the dead, no matter who they were in life.”
“I trained her to work a case. She was already a cop.”
“As you were, when Feeney trained you. So it trickles down.” He walked back to hand her a glass of wine. “It’s a kind of inheritance, isn’t it?” With his own wine, he sat on the corner of her desk. “Now, about that eye.”
He listened, by turns amused and fascinated. “How old is this Tiko?”
“I don’t know. Seven, maybe eight. Short.”
“He must be very persuasive as well as short and seven.”
“He digs in, that’s for sure. It wasn’t much of a detour anyway.” She shrugged. “And you had to admire his logic, pretty much down the line. They’re stealing from potential customers, which cuts into his business. I’m a cop.”
“Top bitch cop.”
“Bet your ass. So as such I’m supposed to fix it.”
“As you did.” He brushed a finger over her cheek. “With minimal damage, I suppose.”
“Guy had skinny arms, but they were as long as a gorilla’s. Anyway, I figure the kid’s got a flop—he’s too clean and warmly dressed for street—probably with his gray market supplier. Couldn’t’ve been further off there. Little apartment off Times Square with a granny cooking his supper. Great-grandmother,” she added. “I ran them on the way home.”
“Of course you did.”
“Neither’s been in any trouble. The same can’t be said of Tiko’s mother. Illegals busts, solicitation without a license, shoplifting that upped to petty theft that upped to grand larceny. Last couple busts were down in Florida. The granny’s been guardian since he was about a year old.”
“The father?”
“Unknown. She was afraid I was going to call Child Services. Afraid I was going to call them in, and she could lose the kid.”
“Another cop might have.”
“Then another cop would’ve been wrong. Kid’s got a decent roof over his head, warm clothes on his back, food in his belly, and somebody who loves him. It’s…”
“More than we had,” Roarke finished.
“Yeah. I thought about that. There’s no fear in this kid, and that’s about all that was in me at his age. No meanness either, and you had plenty of that running your Dublin alleys. Had to have plenty of it. He’s got the chance of a good life ahead of him because someone cares enough.”
“From what you’ve said, he sounds like the kind who’ll make the most of that chance.”
“That’s my take. And I thought about Anders. He wasn’t afraid, and from everything I find, he wasn’t big on the mean. But his chance at life was taken. Because someone cared enough to end him.”
“Cared enough. Interesting choice of words.”
“Yeah.” She looked over at her murder board, looked at Ava Anders’s ID photo. “I think it fits. Listen, I couldn’t get by the lab to browbeat Dickhead into running a voice print. I’ve got a couple samples here. It probably wouldn’t take you long.”
“It probably wouldn’t.” He considered it over a sip of wine. “I might do that for you, if you fixed my supper.”
It seemed a fair trade. And if she went for one of her own personal faves—spaghetti and meatballs—he hadn’t specified a choice. She continued her run on Ava Anders first, left another message on Dirk Bronson’s—the first husband’s—voice mail. Then she wandered into the kitchen to program the meal.
She’d only set the plates on her desk when Roarke came back in. She wondered why she even bothered with the lab.
“Good news is, it didn’t take long. Bad news, from your standpoint anyway, they’re a match.”
