Southern Lights

“Something new? Or should I say someone new?”

“Just a friend. We’re going out with a bunch of people. There’s a game in Riverdale we all want to see. It’s no big deal. I can finish the application this weekend.”

“You have exactly two weeks to finish all of them,” Alexa said sternly. She and Sava

“Then maybe I’ll just have to take a year off from school before college,” Sava

“If you take a year off, maybe I’ll do it with you. I’ve had a run of crappy cases for the last month. The holidays bring out the worst in everyone. I think I’ve had every Park Avenue housewife shoplifter in town to prosecute since Thanksgiving,” she complained as they left the apartment together, and got in the elevator. Sava

“Why don’t we take a trip when I graduate in June? By the way, Daddy’s taking me to Vermont for ski week,” Sava

Sava

“You know he’ll probably cancel at the last minute, don’t you?” Alexa said, looking irritated. She hated it when Tom disappointed their daughter, and he so often did. Sava

“Mom,” Sava

“I’m sorry,” Alexa said with a sigh and kissed her. It wasn’t so bad now, at seventeen, but Alexa had been furious when Sava

“We won’t have to. He promised he’d be there,” Sava

She saw Jack, the detective, and one of his young assistants heading for Joe McCarthy’s office, just as she strode toward it herself.

“Early meeting?” Jack asked easily. He had worked with her often over the past seven years, and he liked her a lot. He would have liked to ask her for a date, but she seemed too young to him. She knew her stuff, and was a no-nonsense kind of person, and he knew the DA thought the world of her. Jack had worked with her on the big rape case three months before. They had gotten a conviction. Alexa always did.

“Yeah, Joe sent me a text last night. He’s probably just catching up on all the two-bit cases I’ve had lately. I’ve had every shoplifter in New York,” Alexa said with a grin.

“Nice,” he laughed, and introduced her to Charlie, who said hello, but nothing after that. He looked distracted, as though he was thinking about something else. “Good holidays?” Jack asked as they reached the DA’s office, and he told Charlie to wait outside.

“Quiet. My daughter and I stayed home, and I took a week off. College applications. This is her last year at home.” She said it sadly, and he smiled. She talked about her daughter frequently. He was divorced, but had no kids, and an ex-wife he would have been happy to forget. She had married his partner twenty years before, after cheating on him for two years. Jack never wanted to get married again. He always suspected that Alexa felt the same way. She wasn’t a bitter person, but she was all business, and he didn’t know a single soul in the police department who had ever dated her. He thought she had gone out with one of the assistant DAs five years before, but mostly she kept to herself and never talked about her personal life-except about her daughter.

Alexa had noticed that the cop with him looked young and intense. The earnest look on his face made her smile. Young cops always looked like that to her.

Jack and Alexa walked into Joe McCarthy’s office at the same time, while Charlie waited outside. The DA looked happy to see them both. He was a good-looking man, of Irish origins, with a thick mane of white hair that was always a little too long. He said he’d had white hair since he was in college. It suited him. He was wearing jeans and cowboy boots and a worn-out old tweed jacket and a cowboy shirt. He was known for wearing western gear, even at meetings with the mayor.

“Did you two talk on the way in?” the DA asked, looking at Jack, who shook his head. He didn’t want to steal the DA’s thunder and knew better than that.

“Do we have a new case?” Alexa asked with interest.

“Yeah, I figured we’d keep it out of the paper for another day, until we get everything nailed down,” he said as they sat down. “It’ll probably leak by this afternoon, and then all hell will break loose.”

“What kind of case?” Alexa’s face lit up as she asked him. “Not another shoplifter, I hope. I hate the holidays,” she said, looking disgusted. “I don’t know why they don’t just give them the stuff and forget it. It costs the taxpayers a hell of a lot more than it’s worth to prosecute.”

“I think we’ll be putting the taxpayers’ money to good use on this one. Rape and murder one. Times four.” Joe McCarthy smiled at Jack as he said it.

“Times four?” Alexa looked intrigued.