32. Cass
Cass
ANDY
The Women's Correctional Center was a twenty-minute drive north of the city.
I checked in at the front desk and surrendered my firearm. The officer at the checkpoint inspected the folder I'd brought, flipped through the pages, and waved me through the metal detector.
The waiting area was a row of plastic chairs against a cinder block wall.
A woman sat at the far end with a child on her lap, whispering something into her hair.
I sat down and opened the folder on my knee.
I had read it so many times over the past year that I could have recited the pages, and I opened it anyway, every time, because closing it felt like leaving her alone in there.
Sydney Alistair. Twenty-three. Hospitality worker.
We found her in a park off Fremont. She was dressed in layers with dirt on her face.
At first glance, it read as an unattended death.
Probable overdose. No ID, no next of kin, no reason to look closer.
But the dirt was wrong. Too even, too deliberate.
Underneath it her skin was clear, her nails maintained.
The clothes weren't hers. Everything about her said she'd been looked after until she wasn't. I recommended a sexual assault kit.
The responding detective passed on it. She went into the system as a Jane Doe, and I didn't say another word about it.
"Detective Walsh?" A guard stood at the door. "We're ready for you."
I closed the folder and followed her through two sets of doors. The visiting area had white walls, bolted tables, and chairs that didn't move. She pointed me to a table near the back.
Daphne was already sitting there.
She looked better than the last time I'd seen her. The hollowness was gone from her face. Her hair was shorter, her posture straighter. She stood when she saw me.
"Daphne."
I hugged her before I sat down. She held on for a second longer than I expected. We sat across from each other.
"How are you doing?"
"Better." She folded her hands on the table. "I've been sleeping more. I made a friend. She's young. She reminds me of Sydney sometimes."
I listened to her talk about a friend, about sleeping more, about someone who reminded her of her sister in a way that didn't break her. She was healing. Even in here, she was finding her way back.
"I'm glad you have someone."
Daphne smoothed her hands across the table. "How is everyone? The bar, the crew, Selena?"
"Everyone's good. They miss you." I smiled. "Selena asked me to tell you she said hello."
Daphne looked down at the table and smiled. Her fingers curled around each other on the surface.
"I came because there's something I wanted you to know." I set the folder between us. "We arrested Armand McCarthy."
Daphne's head came up.
"It took a while, but we got him."
Daphne looked through the file, turning pages, reading names and dates she already knew by heart. Then her chin dipped and her eyes filled.
"Thank you, Andy."
I reached across the table and held her hand.
"There's something else I wanted to tell you." I shifted in my chair. "I'm starting an initiative within the department. An investigation unit for women who've experienced sexual violence. It's going to carry Sydney's name."
Daphne pressed her free hand to her mouth.
"It's not perfect," I said. "It's a start. But it means that the next time someone walks into a precinct to report a missing sister, their case gets worked. Properly. By someone who will listen."
Daphne squeezed my hand and the tears spilled over.
"I know this is all too late." My voice was steady but the edges of it were thin. "And I really wish I had pushed harder for Sydney back when we found her. I'm sorry, Daphne."
She held my hand with both of hers.
"Thank you," she said. "For coming here and telling me."
We talked about her friend, about the routine Daphne was building, about the books she was reading in the prison library. When the guard told us time was up, Daphne stood and hugged me again. She pressed her face into my shoulder.
"Take care of yourself," I said.
"You too, Detective."
I walked back through the two sets of doors and out into the parking lot. The sun was bright and the air was dry. I sat in my car for a full minute before I started the engine.
Every thread of Sydney's case was closed. Five men accounted for. One sister who finally knew the truth. A program that meant the next Sydney wouldn't disappear into a file number.
I pulled out of the lot and drove to the precinct.
Zeus was at his desk when I got back. He waved me in before I knocked.
"Walsh. Good work on McCarthy. That was clean police work."
"Thank you, Sir. I can't take all the credit. Jeremy Murray did most of the legwork."
"Still. The case started with you. It ended with you." He leaned back in his chair. "Good work."
I thanked him again and turned to leave. But then I stopped.
"May I ask you something, Sir?"
"What is it?"
I'd been carrying this question for a long time. I never had the standing to ask it, and I never had the moment. I had both now.
"While I was a patrol officer, you always came straight to me at a scene even though Sergeant Handler was right there. Why?"
Zeus looked at me for a long time as though he was deciding where to start.
"You gave me accurate observations. Every time.
Other officers gave me the surface. What they saw, what dispatch told them.
You gave me what didn't fit. The detail that was wrong, the thing that shouldn't have been there.
I stopped going through Handler because I got better information going directly to you.
"I also didn't like Handler. I've been doing this a long time, Walsh.
You learn to spot the ones who are in it for the work and the ones who are in it for themselves.
Handler was rotten fruit. I knew it early.
" He paused. "I'm glad you didn't quit after everything that came out. A lot of people would have."
I smiled. "I worked too hard to get where I am to let Elliot Handler take it from me."
Zeus nodded and rubbed his chin.
"Cassandra Allison Walsh." He said it slowly. "Are you by any chance related to Thomas Andrew Walsh?"
My breath caught.
"He was my father, Sir."
"No wonder I thought you looked familiar.
" Zeus leaned forward. "Tom Walsh. I worked a few cases with your father back when we were both starting out as detectives.
Different precinct. We were young and green and he was the smartest person in every room.
" He looked down at his desk. "He had this habit of staying late to reread his own case files.
Said the answer was always in the details, you just had to look at them enough times. "
He looked up at me.
"I just know your father would have been very proud of you, Andy."
The tears came before I could stop them. I pressed my fingers to my eyes and breathed through it. Zeus waited.
"Thank you, Sir."
He nodded.
I walked back to my desk. My chest was full, my eyes still burning. I sat down in my chair and looked at the wall in front of me until the room stopped swimming.
My father never got to see the shield. He never got to see me at this desk, in this chair, doing the work he taught me to do by reading his books at his kitchen table.
"Detective Walsh?"
Jeremy was standing at my desk with a folder in his hand. "I just need your signature on the McCarthy file."
I signed it and handed it back.
"Jeremy?"
"Yes?"
I looked at him. I'd heard those words from Zeus just a few minutes ago and I could still feel what they did to me. The weight lifting and settling at the same time. The grief and the pride braided together so tightly I couldn't separate them.
Jeremy lost his father too. He came to this precinct because his father served here. He carried that weight every shift, same as me. He needed to hear it.
I put my hand on his shoulder. "Your dad would have been very proud of you."
Jeremy looked at me. His face went still. Then he smiled.
"Thanks, Andy."
He walked back to his desk. I watched him go.
I still kept my place.
After Gus died, I stopped going straight to Wyatt's after shift.
For a while I'd been skipping the rituals, leaving my house dark, walking across the street, falling into Wyatt and Birdie's evening like I hadn't spent the day seeing what people do to each other.
But after the bar, after holding Terrence on that floor, I couldn't do that anymore.
I needed to wash the day off before I walked through their door.
I needed to set the watch down, light the candles, and stand under the water until the job loosened its grip.
Then I could cross the street, hug Birdie, sit at the table, and be present in a way that was fair to both of them.
We were moving into my father's house after Christmas. The tenants had found a place out of state, so the house would be empty by the end of the year. Until then, I kept the duplex for the rituals and the nights that were just mine and Wyatt's.
I set my bag by the door, slipped off my boots, and walked to the bookshelf.
I unstrapped my father's watch and unclasped my mother's necklace. Set them in the trinket dish in front of the photo. Straightened the camellia pendant so the flower faced out.
"I'm home."
I stepped into the shower and let the hot water run over my shoulders, my neck, the tight spot between my shoulder blades. Then I ran the bath, lit the three vanilla candles on the ledge, and sank in. The day came off in layers. I dried off, changed into sweats, and walked across the street.
I let myself into Wyatt's house. Through the door, I could hear Birdie's giggles.
"Mommy Andy! Look!"
She came running down the hall in a police uniform. A plastic badge was pinned to her chest. The hat was too big and sitting at an angle on her head. She stopped in front of me and struck a pose with both hands on her hips.
"I'm you!"
My heart cracked open.
"Birdie. You look amazing."
"Barb got it for me!" She spun around. "It even has a belt!"