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fattening candy known to man.  You got plans for
dinner tonight, Helen?  I’ve got about three billion pictures
I’d love to show you.  We can send the boys out to smoke
cigars or something and catch up on what I’ve missed last
week.”
    “ You know you’re welcome
to come over any time, Maya, but Johnny’s on his way to Montgomery
on official business for our beloved governor.”  I cast a
sidelong glance at Devlin as he navigated back to Beach
Cliffs.  “Johnny says he can’t tell me what’s going on, and
his minions are mum on the subject as well.”
    “ Oh shoot,” she
said.  “I was hoping we could all get together
tonight.”
    “ Does that mean you’re not
coming?”
    “ We’ll be there, but I
suppose there’s no point in asking someone to be on call for either
one of us.  You’d think we were gone a month the way everyone
acted this morning when we showed up to work.”
    “ It’s nice to be missed,”
I said.  A little of my early morning melancholy
returned.  Nobody missed me when I left the department. 
Life marched forward.  It was as if they forgot all about
me.  Well, except for my core supporters who were now working
for Johnny.  “So what time do you want to come
over?”
    “ Six-ish?”
    “ Sounds good.  I’ll
see you then.”
    Devlin smirked.  “So it looks like I
don’t have to worry about your dinner plans for one night. 
Johnny will be bummed that he missed the reunion.”
    “ Not so bummed that he
didn’t assign this case to Chris,” I said.  “Which I find
incredibly interesting, don’t you?  What could Collangelo
possibly have Johnny doing that he can’t trust his second in
command with?”
    “ You, my dear, for having
worked for the federal government, managed to remain unbelievably
sheltered from the political process,” he said.  “When I was
out in Montgomery, these sort of hush-hush investigations happened
all the time.  To be fair, I hated it at first too, but after
awhile, you get used to it.”
    “ Do I strike you in any
way as the kind of person that accepts being cut out of the line of
communication?”
    Devlin laughed softly.  “No, you strike
me as the type who’s most efficient at cutting everybody else out
of the loop.  It hasn’t been that long since we worked a case
together, Helen.  I know all your little tricks.  That
far off gaze you get when you figure something out is typically
followed by claims that you don’t know anything the rest of us
don’t know.”
    “ Suspecting something is
different than knowing it.  So I wasn’t eager to throw out all
of my wild theories until I had something concrete to back them
up.  Is that a crime?”
    “ No, but God help the
state if you ever decide to run for office.”
    I lapsed into silence.  If law
enforcement tempted me to kill those who were guilty and getting
away with their crimes, politics would push me over the edge in no
time at all.  Of course, Devlin wouldn’t know that. 
Johnny realized the tightrope I walked and had the wisdom to
intervene, even though I know he worries about my
boredom. 
    “ You’re very quiet all of
a sudden.”
    “ Mmm.  Wondering how
Celeste Datello is faring in the hospital.  At least that was
one mistake I never made,” I said.  “Just the thought of
perpetuating that gene pool about makes my skin crawl right off my
body.”
    “ It’s not the child’s
fault, Helen.  She can’t help who her parents are.”
    True enough.  Even though my father
ranked right up there with the worst criminals in the world, he was
a fabulous parent.  “I know.  It’s just a link between
the parents that nothing ever really severs,” I said.  “Think
about her life now.  What is she?  Twenty four?”
    “ Something like
that.”
    “ Her husband will probably
go to prison for the rest of his life, and she’s going to raise
this child alone, with a family that would just as soon kill her
and that baby to punish her husband as lift a finger