JAKE ROSEN CALLED and woke me up at eight the next morning.
“Too early,” I said.
“You know how New York is supposed to be the city that never sleeps?” he said. “Well, last night it was Boston.”
“Do tell.”
“Somebody took a shot at your pal Gabriel Jabari around five hours ago,” Rosen said. “Sadly, they missed.”
“Where?” I said.
“Getting out of his car near where he lives,” he said. “Franklin and Broad.”
“I know where he lives,” I said.
“Anyway,” Rosen said, “the big Russian guy who drives him around and acts as his body man—”
“Gled,” I said.
“You gonna let me tell this?”
“Sorry,” I said. “My manners aren’t fully awake.”
“So Gled the Russian guy gets out on his side and walks around to Jabari’s side. Shooter steps out from behind a couple of cars parked in front of the Vintage. Somehow the Russian guy spots the shooter, shoves Jabari back into the car. Takes one to the shoulder, but still manages to fire off a couple of rounds himself before the guy takes off. He’s gonna live. The Russian. Doesn’t know whether he shot the shooter or not.”
“And you wanted me to be the first one to know,” I said.
“Well, the first one who happens to be the one who found Lisa Morneau’s body,” he said.
“I take it you’d like to talk further about this?” I said.
“I’m at headquarters,” he said. “But could come to you.”
“No,” I said.
“If you’re worried about being alone with me,” he said, “remember you’ve got that attack dog to protect you.”
“Let me get ready for the day, and then meet me at George Washington in an hour,” I said. “I could use exercise, and some air.”
We met at the statue of George Washington in the Public Garden at a little after nine on a sun-splashed morning trending far more toward spring than winter. Jake Rosen was dressed as always. It was impossible to imagine him wearing anything other than his bomber jacket, even if we met here in a heat wave on the Fourth of July.
“How come you didn’t bring your dog?” he said.
“She hates you,” I said.
“She’s a girl dog, right?”
“She is.”
“Then she couldn’t possibly hate me,” he said. “She just doesn’t know me well enough yet.”
We headed for the bridge from which you could stand and watch the swan boats in summer. Rosen was wearing aviator sunglasses today. They looked cool on him. He had one of those day-old growths of beard that looked exactly the same as the day-old growth he’d had the last time we had been in each other’s presence. I wondered if people passing us as we made our way toward Charles Street and the Common thought us a couple.
“Gotta be Tony,” Rosen said.
“As if wishing could make it so,” I said.
“Hell yeah,” Jake Rosen said, and gave me the lopsided grin.
“I’m sure you know that Darcy thinks Jabari is starting to traffic in young girls,” I said. “He could have other enemies other than Tony. As Tony has far more than just him.”
“Come on,” he said. “Tony’s the enemy whose girlfriend got shot dead two nights ago. What I’m trying to figure is why Tony would think Jabari had something to do with it.” He turned to look at me while we waited for the light at Charles. “Got any theories on that?”
“They both wanted me to find her,” I said. “If Tony didn’t kill Lisa, maybe he thinks the only one who could have is Jabari. As you can imagine, Tony’s big on street justice.”
“Who isn’t?” Rosen said.
“Aren’t you sworn to enforce the law?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Mine.”
We crossed Charles and angled toward the playground tucked up near the corner of Boylston and Tremont. My father used to take me here as a child, when we would have one of our father-daughter days in the city, when the whole city felt like a playground to me. But inevitably we would spend time in this part of the park.
“I have to find out what finally got her shot,” I said.
Rosen said, “Maybe it’s better that whatever secrets she had, she died with them.”
“I need to know,” I said.
“You know what I don’t need right now?” he said. He ran a distracted hand through his wavy hair. “A shooting war with these assholes, not when I’ve been slowly picking them off left and right.”
“You still haven’t picked off Tony.”
He grinned again. “Getting there.”
We were underneath the monkey bars by now. I pictured myself jumping up and grabbing hold of one of the bars and making my way from one end to the other as quickly and effortlessly as I had when I was ten, wondering if Jake Rosen would be impressed.
He pushed his sunglasses to the end of his nose and looked over them at me with amazingly blue eyes.
“There’s shit you’re not telling me,” he said.
“You should actually be flattered.”
“How do you figure?”
“Usually I have to know a cop much longer than I’ve known you before I hold shit back,” I said.
I smiled at him.
“Maybe Tony thinks Lisa might have told Jabari something damaging about him before he killed her.”
“Got any theories about what it might be?”
“Nope,” I said.
“Would you tell me if you did?”
“I will tell you this,” I said. “I’m going to find out everybody’s goddamn secrets before I’m through. Somebody broke into my house already. I already pulled a gun on a guy following me.”
“What guy?” he said.
“Almost doesn’t matter,” I said. “What mattered was the threat. I’m going to tell you something I never say out loud, because it sounds like I’m trying too hard to be a tough guy. But you don’t run me off by threatening me. You better come at me with something better than that.”
“I believe you,” he said.
“I’m going to find out who killed her,” I said. “This all happened on my watch. I’m going to find out who killed her and who killed Callie Harden.”
“You’re a tough goddamn out.”
I told him that I usually didn’t care much for baseball analogies, but that he happened to be right this time.
I was a tough goddamn out.