"Hope so," Frank said. "This is a goddamn who-done-it, and no matter how bad the boys want to clear six names, I still don't think it's Luis."
"It's that rogue cop," Gail winked.
"I'm starting to think you're right, Detective Lawless. Let's eat."
Frank had cleared the dining room table of all its junk. They ate on linens and china arranged around the flowers Frank still brought home every Friday night. After the steaks, they lingered over tiramisu and coffee. Frank poured grappa, but after Gail's first sip she made a face and pushed the glass away.
"Yuk. It tastes like kerosene."
Frank smiled.
"Let me run some ideas by you. See what you think."
She started by explaining that buses were often the primary transportation for south-central residents, so she hadn't thought much of it when she'd pulled the bus schedules out of Placa's backpack. Then she'd been thinking about them on her way into the office that afternoon. Placa had been riding these buses all her life; where would she be going that she didn't already know routes and times?
When she'd gotten to Figueroa, Frank had pulled the four schedules out of Placa's pack again. They were worn and greasy from use. She unfolded one to see dates, times, and circled stops, in red pen, blue pen, black ink, pencil. One in green crayon. She opened the other schedules. Same thing. Frank felt like she'd found treasure maps and the first thing she'd done was make copies of them.
Drugs immediately sprang to mind; Placa must have been serving all over LA. Why else would she have been in Westwood, Brentwood, Bel Aire? Even Pasadena. All nice places, places where there was money. And maybe some cop was pimping her, finding the clients and sending Placa off to them.
Then Frank remembered Placa'd had sex with a man only hours before she died. Maybe some cop was literally pimping her. Maybe that was why she'd come home — to change clothes from a trick. That might explain why she wasn't strapped and why she didn't tell anyone where she was going that day. Placa was smart enough to pull it off, ambitious enough too. She wanted to go to college. Maybe this was her tuition. But they hadn't found any clothes that would support the theory. Frank couldn't see Placa tricking, and certainly not for chump change. She'd make them pay and Frank doubted there was a big market for men aroused by girls in shapeless T-shirts and baggies.
Gail had been listening carefully, but now she interrupted.
"Well, I'm not a detective, but lam a doctor. Let me shoot some holes in that story before you go any further."
Bending a finger for each point, Gail said, "She appeared to be reproductively able, but she wasn't using an obvious form of birth control. There was no abortion scarring, no sign of STDs. No apparent vaginal or anal traumas. Unless she just started turning tricks yesterday, I'd expect to see some evidence that she was promiscuous, and there is none."
The doc was right. Given the age of the bus schedules, Placa had been at this for quite a while.
"All right, so here's another idea. Let's say she was pimping Ocho's girl."
"That's disgusting," Gail shuddered, and Frank was thrown off track, charmed once again by the ME's naivete.
"Happens all the time," Frank continued. "Women don't have a lot of options, or protection in the 'hood. Drugs, religion, children, death. That's about it. And Placa was too smart for any of that. So let's say she wouldn't hook herself, but how about she gets Lydia on her side? Like I said, not a lot of options in the 'hood. Placa was a ghetto star, maybe burning brighter than Ruiz, I don't know. Gang girls try and hook their wagons to whichever star's rising. They don't want to crash and burn when their men do."
Trying to hide a yawn, Gail said, "You're saying Lydia hitched her wagon to Placa's star? Don't you think that's a little implausible?"
"Not really. Placa was a charmer when she wanted to be. And smart. Throw in a hope-to-die OG and I can see her getting a huge kick out of pimping her rival's girlfriend. I can see her laughing now."
"What would be in it for Lydia?"
"Protection, money, maybe affection. I don't think Placa would have tattooed Lydia's name under her twat unless she cared about her."
Gail grimaced at the rough noun and Frank said, "Sorry."
"Why would Placa have sperm on her if Lydia was the hooker?"
"Good point," Frank said swirling the clear brandy. None of this speculation tied in to the shooter being a cop, but Frank played with the ideas anyway. It was mental gamesmanship and Frank enjoyed toying with even the weakest of leads; playing with ideas either strengthened or eliminated them. Despite the obvious weaknesses, she didn't want to overlook any possibilities. She'd already done that when she'd assumed Ruiz was the shooter and that had put the case back to square one. And while the idea of a cop's involvement was intriguing, it was also disturbing. There'd be hell itself to pay if a cop was the shooter. Before committing herself to that disquieting tack, Frank wanted to make damn sure she'd exhausted every other option, no matter how ridiculous it might seem.
"Maybe Placa wasn't above cutting off a slice now and then."
"Do you ever hear yourself?" Gail asked in amazement.
"What?"
"The way you talk. You sound like some of those wife-beaters."
"Sorry. Guess I'm not known for my sensitivity."
"I guess not. You're so cold-blooded sometimes."
"Comes with the territory. Murder's a pretty cold-blooded business."
Balancing her hands like full scales, Gail said, "The tender Frank, the brutal Frank. The warm Frank, the frosty Frank. Sometimes it's difficult to reconcile your two personalities."
Frank joked, "You should try living with them."
"Hey, I'm sorry. I know what you put up with every day. I see the results of it on my tables. I know you have to find a way to deal with that, but I hate to see your finer qualities subsumed by the heartlessness of your work."
Gail paused, seeing a grin start on Frank's face. "What?"
"Nothing. That just sounded so . .. Shakespearean."
"Well see? You talk like a wife-beater and I talk like a British Lit professor. Maybe brutal's better."
"No," Frank corrected, "I love the way you talk. It's like listening to Mah-stuh-piece Thee-uh-tuh."
Gail laughed, and Frank felt uncharacteristically self-conscious under the doc's scrutiny.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Already told you what L.A. stands for."
"I know," Gail smiled. "I was thinking of something else."
"Shoot."
"The stuff you said you were working through. Can I ask what it is or would I be prying?"
Playing with her snifter, Frank considered, then said, "You'd be prying. And I can tell you. Be good for me. Make my shrink proud."
Gail's brow crunched in disbelief.
"You have a shrink?"
"Richard Clay. At Behavioral Sciences. They're mostly a bunch of quacks over there, but Clay's a good guy. I've worked with him, and I had to see somebody after I shot Timothy Johnston. He's all right."
It was amazingly easy to tell Gail about Maggie and how she died, then about Kennedy and Delamore, and how she was finally dealing with the whole literally bloody mess.
"Impressive," Gail said when Frank was finished.
"How so?" Frank asked, draining the last of her grappa.
"There's a lot more substance to you than I originally thought."
Frank smiled, "More than just a wife-beater, huh?"
Gail returned the smile, her eyes lingering on Frank's. Looking away, Frank said, "I saw you hiding a yawn a while ago. Maybe we should call it a day."
"Probably," Gail said. Frank cleared the dessert plates and Gail helped. When she started rinsing the dishes in the sink Frank stopped her.
"Leave 'em. I'll get 'em tomorrow."
"Wow. You cook and do dishes. Are you sure you don't want a girlfriend?"