Read Online Deep Pockets by Linda Barnes - Free Book Online

the way — which means that fewer people hate me at the Cambridge cop house. They know me mainly as a PI, and most don’t want to get too close, due to the natural antipathy between those who like to keep secrets and those who want to know the details.
    I stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts and got a dozen to go, half glazed, half chocolate. I’d just eaten a healthy breakfast, sure, but I’d only eat the doughnuts if Officer Danny Burkett wasn’t interested, and the number of cops uninterested in doughnuts is minimal.
    I held the fragrant white box against my right hip and paced the corner of River and Green, across the street from the main entrance, waiting for Burkett to make an appearance. I sniffed the breeze and caught spices from the Indian place down the block. Kevin had described Burkett as a rookie and a hotshot, and I could see that from the way he walked, the bold stride, the purposeful gait. He was close to six feet, fresh-faced and eager. He wouldn’t want to damage his rep being seen with a private eye. On the other hand, Kevin outranked him, and he’d want to do his sergeant a favor. So he was in a bind. I watched him as he glanced around. Probably Kev had said tall redhead and left it at that.
    “Officer Burkett?”
    He made the connection and a faint blush tinted his cheeks.
    “Shea didn’t mention I was a woman?”
    “Just said private heat. Carlyle?”
    “Carlotta. Doughnut?”
    He glanced at me with speculative eyes. Sometimes I tend to read too much into expressions, but I thought he was probably wondering whether I was sleeping with Kevin Shea. Mostly, it’s just how cops think. I repeated the doughnut offer.
    “I dunno. I eat that, I’ll have to spend an extra hour at the gym.”
    “We’ll walk while we eat. One cancels the other.”
    He nodded. “What you got?”
    He took glazed and so did I, just to keep him company. It’s not like a doughnut’s a bribe; it’s more of a relaxer. It helps to eat while you talk, loosens up the speaker.
    We walked half a block, each getting used to the other’s pace. He was shorter than I was, but he kept up. His boots were polished, his uniform starched and pressed. A man with long dreadlocks gave us a wide berth, and I remembered how it was when you walked around in uniform.
    “That guy looks like a fucking drug bust on the hoof,” the rookie offered.
    “Yeah. Works the high school.”
    “Yeah?”
    “My sister’s at Rindge.”
    “Kids won’t fucking tell you the time of day.”
    Rookies have to hold their own, and one way they do it is with their mouths.
Fucking this, fucking that. I’m a tough guy and don’t you forget it
. I remembered the drill. Hell, I used to talk the talk.
    I said, “Kevin tell you what I’m interested in?”
    “Kevin never asked me to cooperate with private heat before. You special or something?”
    “Bet your ass I am. April third, you caught a fire.”
    “That boathouse shit.” He chewed his doughnut and admired his reflection in the CVS window.
    “You remember the call?”
    “Thing is, why should I tell you about it?”
    “Kevin Shea’s a good guy to work for, you think?”
    We walked for a while. I didn’t want to interrupt his internal debate. It wasn’t an easy call. Sure, Shea may have told him to cooperate, but did he mean it? Was it some kind of test? Would the whole business come back and bite the rookie in the ass?
    “You like working private?” he asked.
    “Sure. Best part’s the pension,” I said with a straight face. “You gonna tell me about it, or am I wasting my time?”
    “It’s old,” he said.
    “Yeah.”
    “You work for fucking Harvard?”
    “No.”
    “Nobody’s saying anything’s fucking wrong with how the department handled it, right?”
    “Right.”
    He stared at me, like he was trying to decide how big a lie I was attempting to put over on him. “I brought my incident book.”
    “We can get to that later if you need to check details, but I’d rather just hear what you