So a little salad, then on to some thinly sliced rare roast beef. Now the unthinking schmuck inevitably dished up potatoes to accompany her meat. Never! Better to chase it with cracker-crusted broiled haddock, maybe three or four clams casino, and of course chilled shrimp. Then one had to consider the sautéed vegetables, or perhaps some of that green bean casserole with the crunchy fried onions on top. Now, that was a meal.

Dessert, of course, was a very important part of the buffet process. Cheesecake fell into the same category as potatoes and pasta—a rookie mistake, don’t do it! Better to start with puddings or fruit crisps. And, as the saying went, there was always room for Jell-O. Or for that matter, chocolate mousse. And crème brûlée. Topped with raspberries, dynamite.

Yeah, she could go with some crème brûlée.

Which made it kind of sad that it was only seven in the morning, and the closest thing to food she had in her North End loft was a bag of flour.

D.D. rolled over in bed, felt her stomach rumble, and tried to pretend that was the only part of her that was hungry.

Outside the bank of windows, the morning looked gray. Another cold and frosty morning in March. Normally she’d be up and heading for HQ by now, but yesterday, she’d wrapped up an intensive two-month investigation into a drive-by shooting that had taken out an up-and-coming drug dealer, as well as a mother walking her two young children. The shooting had occurred a mere three blocks from Boston PD’s Roxbury headquarters, adding yet more insult to injury.

The press had gone nuts. The locals had staged daily pickets, demanding safer streets.

And the superintendent had promptly formed a massive task-force, headed, of course, by D.D., because somehow, a pretty blonde white chick wouldn’t get nearly the same flack as yet another stuffed suit.

D.D. hadn’t minded. Hell, she lived for this. Flashing cameras, hysterical citizens, red-faced politicians. Bring it on. She took the public flogging, then retreated behind closed doors to whip her team into a proper investigative frenzy. Some asshole thought he could massacre an entire family on her watch? No fucking way.

They’d made a list of likely suspects and started to squeeze. And sure enough, six weeks later, they busted down the doors of a condemned warehouse near the waterfront, and dragged their man from the dark recesses into the harsh sunlight, cameras rolling.

She and her team would get to be heroes for twenty-four hours or so, then the next idiot would come along and the whole pattern would repeat. The way of the world. Shit, wipe, flush. Shit again.