There was a moment of silence, and then Matthews cleared his throat. “Does he have enough, Irene?” Cappuccio snapped the pencil she was holding. “With the right judge? Yeah” she said. “Probably.”

“The political climate is not good right now” Beasley said.

“Simeon can stir things up and make this stink. And we can't afford another stink right now.”

“All right then, people” Matthews said. “Let's batten down the hatches for the coming shit-storm. Lieutenant Stein, you've got your work cut out for you. Get something on my desk for the press ASAP —before noon.”

Stein nodded. “Right” he said.

Israel Salguero stood up and said, I have my work, too, Captain.

Internal Affairs will have to start a review of Sergeant Morgan's behavior right away.”

“All right, good” Matthews said, and then he looked at me.

“Morgan” he said, shaking his head. I wish you could have been a little more helpful.”

FOURTEEN

Sin determinar

FOURTEEN

So Alex Doncevic was out on the street long before Deborah was even awake. In fact, Doncevic was out of the detention center at 5.17 that afternoon, which was only an hour and twenty-four minutes after Deborah opened her eyes for the first time.

I knew about Deborah because Chutsky called me right away, as excited as if she had just swum the English Channel towing a piano. “She's gonna be okay, Dex” he said. “She opened her eyes and looked right at me.”

“Did she say anything?” I asked.

“No” he said. “But she squeezed my hand. She's gonna make it.” I was still not convinced that a wink and a squeeze were accurate signs that a complete recovery was at hand, but it was nice to know that she had made some progress. Especially since she would need to be fully conscious to face Israel Salguero and Internal Affairs.

I knew when Doncevic was released from the Detention center because in the time between the meeting in the conference room and Chutsky's call I had made a decision.

I have said before that I do not actually feel emotions. That's fine with me, since I have noticed that they are never particularly helpful to those who do feel them. But throughout that long and weary day I had noticed a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach that blossomed right after Matthews had called me unhelpful. The feeling grew throughout the rest of the morning, until it felt something like severe indigestion, although I am sure it had nothing to do with the Bavarian Creme doughnut I'd eaten, which had been quite good.

No, at the center of this new and unpleasant sensation was the thought that, for the first time ever, it bothered me that life was not fair.