Brutality Read Online Free

mouth.
    “I don’t like the sound of that,” Cristian said.
    “I can’t win with you.”
    “What are you up to?”
    “Well, I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Bobbi Barone has hired me to investigate her daughter’s attack.”
    There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Why?”
    “Not because she thinks you’re incompetent,” Fina rushed to explain, “but because she’s worried that you guys can’t devote the necessary time to the case. Why are you on the case, anyway? You usually do more high-profile stuff.”
    “This is high profile. The mayor recently launched his Home Safe Initiative, and less than thirty days in, a woman gets clobbered in her kitchen—her kitchen in her family-friendly neighborhood.”
    “Got it. I think Bobbi just wants to feel like she’s doing something, and hiring me fits the bill.”
    “You should just join the BPD,” Cristian suggested. “Then you and I and Pitney could work together officially. Oh, wait. That’s right. They’d never let you in.”
    Fina laughed. “That’s me, harboring a fantasy to work for the man.”
    “So what do you want from me?” he asked.
    “This really was a courtesy call, but now that you mention it, if you have anything to give me, I would be most appreciative.”
    “I don’t.”
    “I’m sure I could give you something in return,” Fina said.
    They were quiet as they mulled over the options. Sexual favors were out given Cristian’s current interest in a speech pathologist named Cindy. Fina had recently suggested that Cristian find a hobby other than obsessing about his ex-wife’s love life. Bolstering his own love life, however, was not what she’d had in mind.
    “How about Bruins tickets for you and Matteo?” she asked. The Ludlows had boxes at Fenway, Gillette Stadium, and the Boston Garden—she didn’t care what anyone said, it would always be the Boston Garden to her even if some new corporate sponsor bought it tomorrow—and distributed tickets as thank-you gifts and bribes.
    “He’s three and a half. I don’t want to take him to a hockey game.” Cristian murmured thanks to someone.
    “Well, how about Disney on Ice ? That show is like a bad penny; it keeps turning up,” she said.
    “Admit it. You loved it when we took him last summer.”
    Fina had scored tickets months earlier and accompanied them to a show that was heavy on Beauty and the Beast . She spent most of the performance worrying about the physics related to the Beast’s enormous head and those skinny blades.
    “That show was beyond ridiculous, but I did like watching Teo have a good time,” Fina said.
    “Well, get on the horn to Goofy,” he said, “and I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”
    “And you’ll soften the blow with Pitney?”
    Cristian scoffed. “I’ll do my best.”
    “That’s all I can ask,” Fina replied.
    Fina sent an e-mail to Scotty’s secretary—for some reason Carl’s assistant wasn’t very helpful, perhaps because Fina paid no attention to her—inquiring about Disney dates at the Garden.
    She dropped the empty takeout container in the kitchen trash and grabbed a spoon and the Karamel Sutra. Back on the couch, she typed “Liz Barone” into a search engine. There was nothing revelatory in the results. The most recent links were related to the attack, and the handful of others referenced her work at an NEU lab or her involvement in soccer. Fina narrowed her focus; there was a lot you could find out online if you knew where to look. After an hour, Fina had determined that Liz had never been arrested nor had she ever been involved in a civil suit. Her driving record was clean, and she and her husband had purchased their Hyde Park house seven years earlier.
    Fina had to wonder: If Liz Barone was such an upstanding citizen and a contributing member of society, why would someone shove her head into a kitchen counter?
    —
    F ina wanted to speak with Jamie and Bobbi again before diving