Color Blind by Jonathan Santlofer

about?”

    The doctor’s explanations escaped Kate’s twelve-year-old mind, something about the complication of the psyche, though fragments of his description of her mother’s treatment—“heart rate monitored, anesthetic administered, electric current is fast, seizure lasts approximately twenty seconds, afterward, a headache, then relief…”—were burned into her memory.

    The idea of it—that they were electrocuting her mother—terrified and haunted her for years. But she also recalled her mother’s last words, which she’d never forgotten.

    “Remember one thing, Katie.”

    “Yes, Mama?”

    “That…that you can do…anything.” Her mother rested her cold slender fingers on Kate’s arm. “What was I saying, sweetie?”

    “That I could do anything.”

    “That’s right. Anything. But you are the one who will have to do it. No one will take care of you as well as you can take care of yourself, and…”

    Kate could see her mother straining to focus, to hold on to the thought.

    “And…no one will care about the things you care about as much as you care. Do you understand?”

    She had nodded, though she wasn’t quite sure.

    “You can do anything, my sweet strong girl.”

    Now, as Kate continued to stare at the clock on Brown’s wall, she recalled those words and knew her mother had been right, had seen it proved over and over again. If you wanted something done, you had better do it yourself.

    You can do anything, Katie. But you are the one who will have to do it.

    “I can do this,” said Kate, focusing on Brown, trying hard to appear in control and unemotional. “You know I can. And I spoke with Tapell about it. She agrees.”

    Brown knew about Kate’s public relationship with New York City’s chief of police, a quid pro quo friendship that went all the way back to Kate’s days as an Astoria cop, when Clare Tapell was Kate’s superior.

    But did he know the rest? Kate wondered.

    Brown drummed his fingers along the edge of his steel desk. “From my point of view it’s not a good idea to work a spouse’s case.”

    Kate leveled Brown with a hard stare. “What would you do if your wife was brutally murdered?”

    “I honestly don’t know.”

    “Bullshit! You’d hunt the little scumbag down and rip his fucking heart out!”

    Brown almost smiled. The language, so incongruous with the perfectly put together uptown lady, had always surprised and amused him. “Well, I guess if my chief is willing to give you consultant status, I don’t exactly have a choice, but”—he sat forward—“you gotta play by the book.”

    Kate sat up straighter. “Don’t I always?”

    “Spare me,” said Brown. “But you’d better. FBI Manhattan is already coming in on this.”

    “So soon?”

    Brown averted his eyes, said, “Your husband was a high-profile victim, McKinnon—and if all three murders are related, then we’re looking at a serial and no way the Bureau is not going to come in.”

    Kate listened almost too carefully as her brain registered Brown’s words: Your husband was a high-profile victim.

    “Remember Mitch Freeman?”

    Kate remembered him all right, good-looking, decent. “FBI shrink. Not a bad guy.”

    “Well, he’s in. But it’s not him I’m worried about. It’s the special agent in charge they’re sending in. Guy named Grange, Marty Grange. Not a fun guy.” He gave her a somber look. “I worked with Grange a few years back. He’s a stickler. Doesn’t take any crap and reports everything back to his FBI cronies.”

    “Do you think we could somehow use Liz Jacobs as a consultant? She’s going to be in town, and she was very helpful with the Death Artist case.”

    “Unlikely. I’m sure Grange knows you two are amigos. Nothing those guys don’t know. And he’ll want to run his own show.”

    Kate straightened herself in the chair. “So what’s happened with the cases so far?”

    “Not enough,” said Brown. “Your basic door-to-door in the Bronx.