Free Scavenger Hunt by Robert Ferrigno Page A

twins?” Holt made it sound like good times in the squad room, but she knew that the other detectives lionized Jimmy only to humiliate her. “What
is
it, this thing men have about twins? Is it the challenge?”
    “More like a death wish.” Jimmy tried to keep up. “I need your help, Jane.”
    “You have to let Helen Katz work the case. You don’t even know if it’s a homicide or not.”
    “Walsh was murdered.”
    “It’s only been four days. Wait until the coroner’s report is released,
then
you’ll know.” Holt started running again, increasing her pace, forcing him to push himself to keep up with her. She was tan and fit, in her mid-thirties, crow’s-feet starting at the corners of her eyes, and some serious vertical lines in her forehead from thinking too much about things that thinking couldn’t do anything about. They had been together almost a year now. Jimmy liked her wrinkles, but a couple of weeks ago she had looked in the mirror and actually started thinking about getting botox injections.
Jane, you’ve been living too
long in southern California.
She could hear Jimmy a couple of steps behind her, breathing hard. She ran faster.
    A Rhode Island WASP with breeding and a law degree, Holt had intended to become a prosecutor, entering the police academy more for the training, an adjunct to her legal career rather than an end in itself, but after graduating second in her class, she gave up all thoughts of the courtroom. Being a prosecutor was all about making deals and taking long lunches with boring people, she had told Jimmy. If she wanted that, she would have gone to work at her father’s hedge fund. Holt was a detective now, a by-the-book cop with a designer wardrobe and the best arrest-to-conviction ratio in the department.
    “If it was an accident, what happened to the screenplay?” said Jimmy.
    “I don’t know. Neither do you.”
    “I know Walsh was killed for it,
that’s
what I know.”
    “Walsh could have hidden the script where it wouldn’t be found. He could have given it to someone else to read, someone he thought could help him more than you.” Holt’s explanations made perfect sense, but she knew that Jimmy wasn’t going to give up. He never quit—it was one of the things about him that she was attracted to.
    The thing about her job that never ceased to amaze her was the look of relief on so many suspects’ faces when she arrested them. Some of them actually sighed when she read them their rights. There was no real pleasure in arresting them. Other suspects though, smart ones with plenty of career options, rich ones, thought the law was their servant, something to keep the little people in check and ensure that no one stole their Porsche. The smart ones were always shocked when she arrested them; they insisted that she had made a mistake, politely at first, then threatening her with lawsuits and calls to the mayor, then finally, when they realized it was really happening, happening to
them,
the fear took over. She enjoyed that.
    Jimmy’s brother, Jonathan
—he
had been a special case. Smarter than anyone else Holt had ever arrested, a successful plastic surgeon, handsome, urbane—and a serial killer who called himself the Eggman. He had written Jimmy an anonymous letter at SLAP, taking credit for his kills, taunting him. A police task force had concluded that the Eggman was a hoax, but Jimmy wouldn’t be dissuaded. Those instincts of his again, those lovely instincts. Jonathan had been startled when she arrested him, but it hadn’t lasted long. As she snapped on the handcuffs, he had looked at her with contempt, as though he knew something she didn’t. Maybe he did. He should have gotten life without parole, minimum, but after a hung jury at his first trial, Jonathan had pled guilty to one count of homicide,
second degree
nonetheless, and was sentenced to an indeterminate stay at a facility for the criminally insane. A “facility”—that was how the judge referred to