But there's no mirror in the room. Frank lights another cigarette, carrying on with the illusion that she's human. She sucks smoke in and mouths it toward the ceiling in fat doughnuts. She feels nothing. Absolutely nothing, and that's the way she wants it.
The Pryce kids whisper to her like smack whispers to a junkie. Frank swings her feet to the floor and opens the thick books. She spends her night in the mind of a man who binds a boy's wrists, hands and mouth with duct tape, them makes him watch and listen while he rapes the boy's sister, front and back, then chokes her to death. Frank spends her night in the head of a man like that and feels nothing.
It's almost one in the morning before she thinks to look at a clock. She crashes on the couch and is thickheaded the next day. She leaves work promptly at two. At home, she changes into shorts and starts working out. She's contemplating dinner, and a couple beers, when Bobby calls.
"We got a kid shot while he was waiting for the bus, and there are reporters everywhere."
"Sure there are. Kids get shot in South Central every day but this one's a story because it's four o'clock on a slow news day. I'll be there as soon I can."
Frank hangs up and gets back into the suit she took off less than an hour ago. She repacks her pockets and belt. The holster gets cinched back under her arm.
"Christ, I do not need this," she mutters, slamming the front door behind her.
Traffic is excruciating and she bangs the dashboard, more in time with frustration than the hip-hop booming from her abused speakers. News vans and police cars are still clogging the scene when she arrives. The paramedics are long gone, but the coroner's people have beaten her to the site. It's a routine cap and they've already released the body. An SID technician is collecting a through-and-through in a scrawl of blood beside the boy. A man weeps behind the tape, encircled by anguished faces trying to comfort him. His nightmare is just beginning, but for Frank the scene is comfortably routine.
"S'up?" she asks Darcy.
"Sixteen-year-old black male. Vic's name is Clyde Payson. He was waiting for the bus with his friends when a male black approached him. They started arguing, got into a fight, and the suspect fired on him. A forty-four. The friends recognized the shooter. Harlan Miller."
"Sweet. Let's get this wrapped with a ribbon. Early Christmas present for the chief, and it'll get these bastards"—she tosses her head at the reporters—"off our backs. Who's the guy crying over there?"
"The kid's father. He was a couple blocks away at the car wash."
"Talk to him yet?"
"Not too much. He usually gives the kid a ride home from school, but he and his friends were taking the bus to the mall."
"Affiliation?"
When Darcy shakes his head, Frank realizes how long his hair is.
"Doesn't appear to be a banger."
"Darcy, am I your fucking mother? Can't you get ever get a haircut without me telling you to?"
Darcy stares at Frank. Then he spits tobacco just far enough from Frank's feet to keep it from splattering on her very expensive shoes. He's not supposed to be chewing at a crime scene.
"Sure," he answers without taking his eyes from hers.
Frank wants to bitch-slap him but has sense enough to know she's already stepped out of line. She also knows her team's been carrying her lately. And because they're good at what they do, she usually cuts them slack. Her job is to field the heat from upstairs so her detectives can do their job, not ride them about chickenshit details like haircuts and chew.
"Jesus on a fucking pony," she relents. "What about the suspect? Does he claim?"
"Rollin' Forties."
"Okay, what else?"
"According to the kid's friends, the shooter's seventeen. Goes to school at Crenshaw, lives near there."
"Okay."
Frank nods and steps to the tape. She gives the reporters a brief rundown, withholding specifics about the shooter and ending with the assurance that there will be more details issued from the Media Relations Section. Done with that, she tracks down the rest of the nine-three squad and calls them in. Lewis and Diego are assigned to run Miller through the databases. Johnnie and Jill help Darcy and Bobby collect statements while memories are fresh.
At 8:00 pm, Frank and her two primaries sit in Clyde Payson's living room. His family is gathered around. They can't understand this. Clyde is a straight-A student at Crenshaw High. He's already prepping to get into UCLA, where his mother went. He's not a banger. He's a star on the basketball team. He wants to play for the NBA. He has a cell phone and uses it to let his parents know where he is, what he's doing and when he'll be home. He was just going to the mall to get new clothes for a trip to Georgia. The family is leaving in less than a week to visit relatives Clyde's never met. He and his youngest sister haven't flown before and can't wait to get on the plane. Now Clyde's on a refrigerated tray in the coroner's office. The family's going to a funeral instead of Atlanta. They did everything right. They don't understand why Clyde was killed.
Frank's been doing this almost twenty years and still doesn't understand. She knows the family never will either. Sense can't be made of the nonsensical. Like a triage surgeon, all she can do is stem the blood flow, one suspect at a time. Frank and her crew work through the night and into the morning. Harlan Miller is in the wind but Payson's murder snaps the community from its apathy.
Almost twenty-four hours after Clyde Payson is gunned down, an anonymous caller drops a dime on Miller, a.k.a. BKilla. The tipster says he's at the home of another Rollin' 40s member. Frank organizes backup and they converge on an apartment complex in Crip turf. They bust in on a startled Miller and two homes dripping forty-ouncers at a kitchen table. The three of them scatter like roaches under a light. Given their positions when they walked in, Frank is the first to peel after Miller. Gun drawn, she chases him down a hall into a shaded bedroom. Miller is crawling halfway through a window and Frank yanks him back by his waistband. He thrashes against the windowsill. Afraid she'll lose him if he slips out of his pants, she holsters the Beretta and wrestles him back through the window. Bobby and Darcy catch up and grab Miller on either side. Panting, Frank lets her boys have him. Miller curses and struggles as they cuff him. While the detectives are catching their breath, he hawks a spitball at Frank. It lands on her leg.
"Oh, that wasn't nice," she says, pulling her trouser leg away from her shin and examining the wad. "Or smart. That's assaulting an officer, you crab asshole."
"Kiss my blue Crip ass," he challenges. Then adds, "Bulldyke bitch."
"Oh-h-h. That wasn't smart either," Frank says.
"Whachu gonna do?" he snarls, dancing from foot to foot. "Hit me? Pull out your big sticks and beat on me?"
"Don't tempt me," Frank says. "Let's go."
She starts to clear a path through a cluster of women who have gathered in the bedroom. They chatter like magpies for the cops to leave their house, and Miller calls over their angry voices, "Suck my Crip dick, fucking five-oh cunt."
Frank hears the commotion and turns in time to see Darcy shove Miller against the wall. She should have turned around and kept walking out of the room. Instead she joins Darcy. Flapping a hand at the women, she tells Bobby, "Get 'em outta here."
"Aw, come on, Frank. Let's just go."
She whirls on Bobby, ordering. "I said get 'em out!"
Her vehemence surprises him as much as it does her. Frank is stepping over a line and knows it, but it feels too good to stop. She's a runaway train gathering steam. Crossing the room, she plants herself in front of Miller.