“So that’s how Teun was able to start up her own business in a prohibitively expensive city like New York,” I figure.
“Exactly,” Lucy says. “And it’s why I’m not going to fight ATF, or at least one good reason. If I do battle with them, then the truth about what I’ve been up to on my own time would probably come out. Internal Affairs, the Inspector General’s Office, everyone would dig. They’d find more nails to drive into my reputation as they hang me on their bureaucratic, bullshit cross. Why the hell would I want to do that to myself?”
“If you don’t fight injustice, others will suffer from it, Lucy. And maybe those people won’t have millions of dollars, a helicopter and a company in New York to fall back on as
they try to start a new life.”
“That’s exactly what The Last Precinct is all about,” she replies. “Fighting injustice. I’ll fight it in my own way.”
“Legally, your moonlighting is not within the scope of the case it appears ATF is making against you, Lucy,” the lawyer in me speaks.
“Making money on the side speaks to my veracity, supposedly, though, doesn’t it?” She plays the other side.
“Has ATF accused you of lacking veracity? Have they called you dishonest?”
“Well, no. That won’t be in any letter from them. For sure. But truth is, Aunt Kay, I broke the rules. You aren’t supposed to make money from another source while you’re employed by ATF, the FBI or any other federal law enforcement agency. I don’t agree with that prohibition. It’s not fair. Cops get to moonlight. We don’t. Maybe I’ve always known my days with the feds are numbered.” She gets up from the table. “So I took care of my future. Maybe I was just sick of everything. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life taking orders from other peo-pie.”
“If you want to leave ATF, make it your choice, not theirs.”
“It is my choice,” she says with a trace of anger. “Guess I’d better get to the store.”
I walk her to the door, arm in arm. “Thank you,” I tell her. “It means everything to me that you let me know.”
“I’m going to teach you how to fly helicopters.” She puts on her coat.
“May as well,” I say. “I’ve been in a lot of unfamiliar airspace today. I guess a little more isn’t going to matter.”[“_Toc37098908”]
CHAPTER 6
THE RUDE JOKE FOR YEARS HAS BEEN THAT VIR-ginians go to New York for art and New Yorkers come to Virginia for garbage. Mayor Giuliani almost started another civil war when he made that snipe during his much-publicized war with Jim Gilmore, Virginia’s governor at the time, over Manhattan’s right to ship megatons of northern trash to our southern landfills. I can only imagine the reaction when word gets out that now we have to go to New York for justice, too. As long as I have been the chief medical examiner of Virginia, Jaime Berger has been the head of the sex crimes unit for the district attorney’s office in Manhattan. Although we have never met, we are often mentioned together. It is said that I am the most famous female forensic pathologist in the country and she is the most famous female prosecutor. Until now, the only reaction I might have had to such a claim is that I don’t want to be famous and don’t trust people who are, and female should not be an adjective. Nobody talks about successful men in terms of a male doctor or male president or male CEO.
Over the past few days, I have spent hours on Anna’s computer researching Berger on the Internet. I resisted being impressed but can’t help it. I didn’t know, for example, that she is a Rhodes scholar or that after Clinton was elected she was short-listed for attorney general and, according to Time magazine, was privately relieved when Janet Reno was appointed instead. Berger didn’t want to give up prosecuting cases. Supposedly, she has turned down judgeships and staggering offers from private law firms for the same reason, and is so admired by her peers that they established a public service scholarship in her name at Harvard, where she spent her undergraduate years. Strangely, very little is said about her personal life except that she plays tennisextremely well, of course. She works out with a trainer three mornings a week at a New York athletic club and runs three or four miles a day. Her favorite restaurant is Primola. I take some comfort in the fact that she likes Italian food.