THE OLD ADAGE was that crime didn’t pay. Pops thought that even though that probably wasn’t true, there was something to be said for maintaining the illusion. He parked the patrol car a block down from Judge Boscke’s enormous house in Kirribilli, thinking that while he was saving the judge the embarrassment of being seen to be hosting a police officer in the early evening, he was probably loading that same embarrassment on some politician or actress or another. As he switched off the ignition, a reminder pinged on his phone. Pops opened his internet app and found the live feed of the press conference without trouble. A dark-haired woman was on the screen, reading from a piece of paper at a lectern. Cameras flashed in front of her. The paper in her hand was shaking, as was her voice.
“My name is Annie Parish. Doctor Samantha Parish was my sister,” the woman said. “She was a warm, clever, funny person. She was a gifted medical professional, and a good mother to my beautiful niece Isobel, who was also taken. I’ve lost two members of my family to Regan Banks.”
Pops turned the sound up on his phone, glancing outside the car.
“It is my understanding,” the woman continued, wiping at a tear with a trembling hand, “that there is a police officer, Detective Harriet Blue, who is missing out there somewhere. A reward is being offered for information on her whereabouts. I would like to speak directly to Harriet Blue, if she is listening.”
Pops winced, realizing he had chewed his thumbnail down to the tender flesh beneath. The woman on the screen looked at the cameras, letting the hand that held her written speech settle on the lectern’s surface.
“Detective Blue,” Ms. Parish said, “I encourage you to find that son of a bitch Regan Banks, and kill him.”
Pops’s mouth fell open, as did those of the men and women at the edges of the screen, standing behind Ms. Parish. Someone strode forward, a family member maybe, and put a hand on Ms. Parish’s shoulders. Tears were streaming down the woman’s face.
“Make him suffer,” she said, her blazing eyes looking right down the camera. “Make him suffer the way my sister and my niece suffered.”
The crowd of reporters burst into questions, yelling, microphones rising out of the gathering below the stage. Pops watched as the news program cut back to the anchors, and then he shut his phone.
So much for the two-pronged plan.