“That I’m glad I don’t have a shit job like that,” Ruiz said, checking her hair in the mirror on the back of the sun visor. It was frizzing from the humidity.
“So now we know where the suspect works,” she said. “But he’s not going back there anytime soon. We know where he gets his mail, but we don’t know where he lives. There’s nothing to make much of.”
Parker made the rude sound of a game-show buzzer. “Wrong. First of all, we could have his prints on the job ap. We know his name, or an aka at least. We can kick up his sheet if he has one. Scrutinize his prior bad acts. And there’s a good chance he has priors. He keeps to himself, gets paid in cash, mail goes to a box; no address, no phone. He operates like a crook.”
“Maybe he’s homeless,” Ruiz pointed out. “And what if he doesn’t have a sheet?”
“If Latent can pull a clear print off the job ap, and if they can match it to a print on the murder weapon, we’ll have that. And the dispatcher knows more than she’s saying.”
“Yeah, but she’s not saying it.”
“She’s got a conscience, she doesn’t like breaking rules. But she’s protective of her messengers. They’re like a family, and she’s the mom. We’ll give her a little time to think about it, then go back to her. I think she wants to do the right thing.”
“I think she’s a bitch,” Ruiz grumbled.
“You can’t take it personally. You make it personal, you lose your perspective. It worked well in this situation to play her off you. You make a good bad cop, Ruiz,” he said. “You’ve got good tools. You have to learn not to throw the whole box at the head of every witness or perp you run into.”
From the corner of his eye he could see her watching him. She didn’t know what to make of him. She bristled at his suggestions, and didn’t trust his compliments. Good. She needed to be kept off balance. She had to learn how to read people and how to adapt. She should have learned it day one in a uniform.
“Jesus,” he mumbled. “I sound like a teacher.”
“You are a teacher. Allegedly.”
Parker didn’t say anything. His mood had turned south. Most of the time he tried to keep a narrow focus on his goal in the department. He didn’t think of himself as a teacher. He was waiting for the chance to make a comeback.
He could have quit. He didn’t need the money or the hassle. The job he had on the side had paid off his debts, bought him his Jag and his wardrobe. But he was too stubborn to quit. And every time a case took hold of him, and he felt the old adrenaline rush, he was reminded that he loved what he did. He was old-fashioned enough to be proud that he carried a badge and did a public service.
And every time a case took hold, and he felt that adrenaline rush, he was reminded that somewhere deep inside him he still believed this could be the case that turned it all around. This could be the case where he proved himself, redeemed himself, regained the respect of his peers and his enemies.
But if this was the kind of case with the potential to turn his career around, Robbery-Homicide was sure to muscle in and take it away from him.
He turned the car into the tiny parking lot of a little strip mall with a collection of food shops: Noah’s Bagels, Jamba Juice, Starbucks. The driver picked the radio station, the passenger picked the restaurant. Parker usually chose a cop hangout for breakfast, not because he liked too many cops, but because he liked to eavesdrop, pick up the mood of things on the street, catch a scrap of gossip that might be useful. Ruiz picked Starbucks. Her order was always long and complicated, and if it didn’t turn out exactly to her liking, she made the barista do it over, sometimes by making a scene, sometimes by batting eyelashes. Bipolar, that girl.
Parker went into Jamba Juice and got a fruit smoothie loaded with protein and wheatgrass, then went into Starbucks and commandeered a table in the back with a clear view of the door, took the corner chair, and picked up a section of the Times a previous customer had abandoned.
He kept thinking about the fact that Robbery-Homicide had come sniffing around his crime scene. There had to be something to that. They were front-page guys working front-page cases. Lenny Lowell had not made the front page. The Times probably wouldn’t waste any ink on him at all.
“Watching your girlish figure?” Ruiz asked as she joined him.
Parker kept his attention on the newpaper. “My body is a temple, baby. Come worship.”
He hadn’t seen or spoken with anyone at the scene resembling a reporter, and he was the detective of record . . .
. . . but there it was, a couple of sentences stuck in a lower corner on a left-hand page beside an ad for a sale on tires. ATTORNEY FOUND DEAD.
Leonard Lowell, the victim of an apparent homicide, found by his daughter, Abigail Lowell (twenty-three, a student at Southwestern Law), bludgeoned to death in his office, blah, blah, blah.
Parker stopped breathing for a moment as he called up his memory of the night before. Abby Lowell arriving on the scene, carefully controlled. Jimmy Chew had said the call had been phoned in by an anonymous citizen. Abby Lowell said she’d received a call from an LAPD officer notifying her of her father’s death while she was waiting for him at Cicada.
It was too early to call the restaurant to check her alibi.
The byline on the story was “Staff Reporter.”
Ruiz was paying no attention, too busy sipping her extra-hot double venti half-caf no-whip vanilla mocha with one pink and one blue sweetener, and making eyes at the hunky barista.
“Ruiz.” Parker leaned across the table and snapped his fingers at her. “Did you get a name for that phone number I gave you to check out? The number from Abby Lowell’s cell phone call list?”
“Not yet.”
“Do it. Now.”
She started to object. Parker slid the paper across the table and tapped a finger on the piece. He got up from his chair, dug his phone out of his pocket, and scrolled through the address book as he went out the side door into the damp cold.
“Kelly.” Andi Kelly, investigative reporter for the LA Times. A fireball in a small red-haired package. Tenacious, wry, and a lover of single malt scotch.
“Andi. Kev Parker.”
There was a heavy silence. He pictured confusion then recognition dawning on her face.
“Wow,” she said at last. “I used to know a Kev Parker.”
“Back when I was good for a headline,” Parker remarked dryly. “Now you never call, you never write. I feel so used.”
“You changed your phone number, and I don’t know where you live. I thought maybe you’d gone to live in a commune in Idaho with Mark Fuhrman. What happened? They didn’t approve of your smoking, drinking, womanizing, arrogant ways?”
“I repented, gave all that up, joined the priesthood.”
“No way. Cool Kev Parker? Next you’ll be telling me you’ve taken up yoga.”
“Tai chi.”
“Fuck me. Where have all the icons gone?”
“This one crumbled a while ago.”
“Yeah,” Kelly said soberly. “I read that in the papers.”
Nothing like a public flameout to win friends and influence people. The cocky, arrogant Robbery-Homicide hotshot Parker had been made the whipping boy by an equally cocky, arrogant defense attorney in a high-profile murder trial.
The DA’s case had been good, not watertight, but good, solid. A mountain of circumstantial evidence had been gathered against a wealthy, preppie UCLA med student accused of the brutal murder of a young female undergrad.
Parker was second on the team of detectives sent to the crime scene, second lead in the investigation. He had a reputation for shooting his mouth off, for riding the edge of the rules, loving the spotlight, but he was a damn good detective. That was the truth he had held on to during the trial while the big-bucks defense team shredded his character with half-truths, irrelevant facts, and outright lies. They had impugned his integrity, accused him of tampering with evidence. They couldn’t prove any of it, but they didn’t need to. People were always eager to believe the worst.