Page 129 of Fire and Bones

“I’m here about a fire that took place in the Foggy Bottom area of Washington, DC,” Deery began, voice flat.

Lipsey took a deep drag. Exhaled slowly. Focused on the pale gray cone she’d sent into the air.

Why the hostility? I wondered. Did the old woman’s animosity stem from a general distrust of law enforcement? Or, like her grandsons, was Susan Lipsey hiding something?

“When?” she asked, rheumy eyes fixed on the cloud disintegrating in front of her face.

“When what?” Like the smoke, Deery’s patience was disappearing fast.

“When do you know when you’ve had enough? Done enough?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t understand.”

“Is it just before you succeed? Just after?”

“I’d like—” Deery started.

“Ask me. It’s right before the reaper takes to eyeballing your ass. And lately, I feel his crosshairs on mine.”

Lipsey flicked the remains of her cigarette toward the fern’s catch basin. The butt hit the water with a soft hiss.

“So. It’s your lucky day, detective. I’m gonna give it to you straight.”

What followed shocked me to the core.

CHAPTER 29

In looking back, I’m never certain of the exact sequence of events that morning.

But I’ll never forget that old woman’s voice.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t get my fair share in life,” she began. “I didn’t get crapola.”

Deery said nothing.

“After Ma died, we were on our own.”

“You and Sally.”

“No. Me and Eleanor Roosevelt.”

“I understand relatives took you in,” Deery said, ignoring Lipsey’s sarcasm.

“You talkin’ Aunt Laura and Uncle Clarence? Nice job pokin’ down that rat hole. If you’ve done proper detecting, detective, you know they weren’t no kin at all.”

“Seems an act of kindness to assume responsibility for two young girls.”

“Kindness. Yeah. We can go with that.”

The rheumy eyes clouded with something unreadable. Then it was gone.

Sadness?

Resentment?

Hatred?

“I been on my own since Jesus did his little Lazarus act.”