Blue Smoke

we can’t find any serious relationships for him. He can’t get into my head and know how I felt about the men I’ve been involved with, if I was serious. From the outside, my relationship with Luke looked serious. And yeah,” she said before John could speak, “he blew up his damn car, but he didn’t contact me. He didn’t start a dialogue.”
    “Maybe it’s the timing. The twenty-year thing. Anniversaries are milestones, after all. But finding his motive is going to help you work him. We want to shut him down before he gets tired of playing and comes after you. You know he will, Reena. You know how dangerous he is.”
    “I know he’s dangerous. I know he’s a violent sociopath with misogynistic tendencies. He’ll never let any slight—actual or perceived—gounpunished. But he won’t come after me, not for a while. This is too exciting for him, makes him important. He could, however, come after people I love. That scares me boneless, John. I’m afraid for my family, for you, for Bo.”
    “Playing into his hands again.”
    “I know that, too. I’m a good cop. Am I a good cop, John?”
    “You’re a good cop.”
    “Most of my time on the job’s been concentrated on arson investigation. The puzzle of it. Working the evidence, details, observation, psychology, physiology. I’m not a street cop.” She drew in a breath. “I can count the times I’ve had to draw my weapon in the line. I’ve never once had to fire it. I’ve subdued suspects, but only once have I ever had to subdue an armed suspect. Last month. And my hands were shaking the whole time. I had a nine millimeter, he had a pissant knife, and for God’s sake, John, my hands were shaking.”
    “Did you subdue the suspect?”
    “Yes.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “Yes I did.” She closed her eyes. “Okay.”
    S he spent the day dealing with the myriad and headachy chores of the job. Reading reports, writing them, making calls, waiting for them.
    The legwork took her back to her own neighborhood to question one of Joey’s old friends.
    Tony Borelli had been a skinny, sulky-faced boy, a year ahead of her in school. His mother, she recalled, had been a screamer. The sort of woman who stood on her steps or the sidewalk, screeching at her kids, the neighbors, her husband. The occasional total stranger.
    She’d died from complications due to a stroke at the age of forty-eight.
    Tony had had his share of dustups. Shoplifting, joyriding, possession, and had done a short stretch in his early twenties for his involvement in a chop-shop organization in South Baltimore.

    He was still skinny, a bag of bones in grease-stained jeans and a faded red T-shirt. His hair was topped by a gray gimme cap with the name Stenson’s Auto Repair scrolled across it.
    He had a Honda Accord on a lift, and wiped oil off his hands with a bandanna that might, once, have been blue.
    “Joey Pastorelli? Jesus, haven’t seen him since we were kids.”
    “You and he were pretty tight back in the day, Tony.”
    “Kids.” He shrugged, continued to drain oil from the Honda. “Sure, we ran together awhile. Thought we were badasses.”
    “You were.”
    Tony flicked a glance over, nearly smiled. “Guess we were. That was a long time ago, Reena.” His eyes tracked over to O’Donnell, who loitered near a workbench as if fascinated by the display of parts and tools. “Gotta grow up sometime.”
    “I’m still friends with a lot of the kids I ran with back then. Even the ones who left the neighborhood. We keep in touch.”
    “Girls are different, maybe. Joey went off to New York when we were, what, twelve? Long time ago.”
    He continued to work, she noted, just as he continued to give O’Donnell nervous looks.
    “You had some trouble along the way, Tony.”
    “Yeah, I had some trouble. Did some time. Once you do, some people, they never figure you can clean it up. I got a wife now, I got a kid. I got a job here. I’m a good mechanic.”
    “A skill that helped you get a job chopping cars.”
    “I was twenty, for Chrissake. Paid my debt to society. What do you want from me?”
    “I want to know the last time you saw or spoke to Joey Pastorelli. He’s made some trips back to Baltimore, Tony. A guy comes back to the neighborhood, he’s bound to touch base with his old friends. You’re holding back on me, and you keep doing it, I can make trouble for you. I wouldn’t like doing it, but I would.”
    “This all goes back to when he knocked you