Bobby—quiet, plodding, and dependable as ever—was showing the new guy the ropes. Darcy James III barely topped five feet eight with his shoes on and Bobby loomed well over six feet. Bobby was slow and deliberate, where Darcy quickly and intuitively interpreted a situation. When pressed, Darcy was equally forthright with his opinions, while Bobby, after considerable deliberation, usually offered a more politic answer.
Then there was Taquito. Frank sighed quietly. Lou Diego had been doubly wounded, first by his partner's alleged treachery, then Frank's refusal to stand by one of her own men. He blamed her for Ike's death. He refused to talk about it and would leave the room whenever Zabbo's name was mentioned. In his own time, with his own logic, Diego was dealing with the reality of Ike's betrayal and the position he'd put the whole squad in. Frank didn't push him. He was a good cop and she didn't want to lose him, but she wondered if she already had. She accommodated his unspoken rage, hoping time and latitude would help him come around.
Even Foubarelle seemed to have calmed down. He was still an asshole, but after four years the captain was learning to stay out of Frank's way and let her do what she did best, which was produce stats for him. Bottom line, that was all Fubar wanted. He wasn't a people man, nor committed to an ideal. He just wanted to see how far his star could climb. Frank enjoyed high clearance rates for a different reason. Her motivation was unconscious, but every murder solved was a vindication of her past. Frank needed homicide as badly as the captain needed numbers.
Tossing some of the memos in the trash, she filed others, and took the rest out to the bulletin board. She was pinning them up when Jill and Johnnie walked in with a suspect. He spit, protesting weakly while Johnnie sat him down, and Jill told Frank, "Now this is the damnedest thing. Darcy came up to me this morning and asked if KD here worked in a restaurant. I said, no, the lazy bastard doesn't work at all. He just mooches off his girlfriend like an overgrown tick. So Darcy asked where the girlfriend worked and I told him she was the night manager at the Jack in the Box on Florence.
He said we might want to check the refrigerators over there. I didn't think much about it, but I had to ask the girlfriend something anyway, so we went over. She didn't want us looking around but she finally consented, and look what we got."
Jill held up a .44 in a plastic bag.
Frank frowned.
"In the fridge?"
"Right where Darcy said. Pretty freaky, huh?"
"How'd he know to look there?"
"Beats the hell out of me." Jill bunched her shoulder. "I just hope the ballistics match."
Twelve hours later Frank had another cleared case for the captain's stat sheet. Darcy James had a note on his desk to see Frank.
5
Jill rushed in ten minutes later than her usual ten minutes late. Bobby finished his meticulous briefing, while her colleagues watched her scramble for notes and a cup of coffee.
"Anything from you?" Frank asked Darcy.
In his basso profundo, he rumbled, "What my partner didn't cover would fit on the end of a gnat's ass."
Bobby and Darcy were both quiet men, but where Bobby's voice was as soft as a spring breeze, Darcy's sounded like a V-8 at a red light. Jill pulled a chair up, waiting expectantly for Frank to continue. Frank was silent for a few uncomfortable beats.
"Nice of you to join us, Detective Simmons. When we're done, get with Bobby and Diego. Find out what you missed. Maybe tomorrow you could try for your usual six-ten. What have you got?"
Jill looked imploringly at Johnnie but he was picking his fingernails. She flipped through pages in her notebook, stalling. "Let's see-ee."
"Want me to get another box of doughnuts?" Noah asked. "Or maybe I should just go ahead and order lunch."
"Okay, okay. Hang on. Let's see. We followed up on the names Cheryl gave us."
Jill was the only one who used Lewis's first name, and Frank thought it was good the two women had a chance to work together.
"Porfiero Hernandez was one of them. By his own admission was friends with the vie. Last time he saw him was around two PM the day vie died. He said"—she paused to decipher her own handwriting—"He said ... vie was going to go by his aunt's and then after that he'd meet him—Hernandez—at Brenda's Pool Hall. That was supposed to be around eight. Vic never showed. Hernandez played a few games, watched a few, left around ten."
She paused and Johnnie added, "We'll take his picture over and see if anyone can put him there."
"Was he with anybody else?"
Johnnie supplied a name from memory and Frank was pleased to see him on the ball this morning. Today he'd shaved with no cuts, and was fidgeting restlessly like the old Johnnie. He was a couple dozen pounds overweight but his clothes were clean, and amazingly enough, pressed.
"Yeah, and get this," Johnnie said in his gravelly smoker's rasp. "This guy lives right in front of where we found your Colonel. He was parked right in this guy's driveway."
Flipping through a folder, Lewis asked, "What was that name again?"
Johnnie repeated it impatiently, spelling it for Lewis like she was brain-dead.
"Booyah," she said, holding up a rap sheet. "Tito Carrillo. That's one of the names Danny Duncan's sister gave me."
Frank glanced at Noah, who almost imperceptibly shook his head. Pointing to the rap sheet, he asked his partner, "When'd you get all that?"
"Last night," she replied smugly.
"Did you plan on telling me about it sometime?"
"Well, I tried tellin' you this morning but you and your home-boy"—she sniffed at Johnnie—"were too busy playing which yo' paper dolls."
Johnnie laughed and Noah looked as innocent as a choirboy. Lewis's position on the LAPD women's soccer team had inspired the boys to high artistry. They'd gotten a picture of Brandi Chastain's famous pose and pasted a Polaroid of Lewis's face over Chastain's. Then they'd cut a bullet-proof vest out of a catalogue, clipped it into the shape of a bra and glued it over Chastain's infamous sports bra. They'd even added a tiny shield with Lewis's name printed on it and a full gun belt on her waist.
When Frank had come out of her office for a second cup of coffee, Lewis had been glaring at the masterpiece hanging on the bulletin board. Frank had nonchalantly filled her cup, thinking that the line between sexual harassment and kidding around was easily crossed. This was where knowing her crew as well as she did enabled her to make the distinction between true malevolence and ritual razzings. Before returning to her office, she'd clapped Lewis on the back and deadpanned, "Need to work on that farmer's tan."
Pulling her detectives back on track, Frank commented, "Glad to see somebody actually working around here. What else you got?"
Still unaccustomed to her role as primary detective, Lewis shifted a little nervously, if not proudly.
"Well, this guy Carrillo? He's got a rap sheet from here to Orange County. Mostly all drug charges. Most of them dismissed or settled. His homey, Hernandez, was busted with him twice, in January, and last June. Both on felony possession charges."
Waving another rap sheet, Lewis continued, "I checked on the other homes Duncan's sister told me about. Alejandro Echevarria. Known associates." Lewis paused dramatically, then said, "Carrillo and Hernandez. They've all three of 'em got a bucket of aliases, they've all been busted for felony drug possession or narcotics trafficking, and all three of 'em Nicaraguan."
"Ollie North in there?" Noah cracked.
Lewis ignored him. Her eyes sparkled as she leaned toward Frank.
"I'm thinking maybe little Danny Duncan was trying to get out from under his auntie's skirt and get some action going on his own, know what I mean? Maybe auntie"—Lewis said "aunt" like "haunt"—"didn't like junior straying so far and decided to show her boy what was up."