For the past eight months, Lena had been fed a steady diet of Officer Involved Shooting cases. OIS investigations were time consuming, involved a lot of paperwork, and had nothing to do with why she loved being a cop. Even worse, the orders to pull her out of the normal case rotation were coming directly from the chief’s office on the sixth floor. Lena understood that it was political fallout, that she was being punished for how the Romeo murder case shook out. That the last domino to fall had worn a badge, and the department’s reputation had taken another hit. But what troubled her most was that the OIS cases didn’t seem to have an end. The new chief Richard S. Logan, his adjutant Lt. Ken Klinger, and the bureaucrats on the sixth floor couldn’t seem to let it go. After all this time she still didn’t have a partner. And she was beginning to worry that the rumors sweeping through the division might be true. That the barrage of OIS cases would never end because they were waiting her out. Trying to make things hurt until she asked for a transfer, or even better, decided to quit.
Barrera came back on, his voice clearer but still anxious.
“Something’s come up,” he said. “A dead body in Hollywood.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re close. The victim was found half a block north of Hollywood Boulevard. There’s an alley between Ivar and Cahuenga.”
“Behind Tiny’s.”
“That’s right. The alley behind the dive bar.”
Lena had started to reach for a pen, but stopped. There was no need to write down the location. She had worked out of Hollywood both as a cop and a detective before her promotion to the elite Robbery-Homicide Division last February. She knew the neighborhood, even the bar and alley off Ivar. The crime scene was in the heart of the city, just one block west of Vine.
“Do we have a name?” she asked.
“I don’t have any details. All I know is that Hollywood’s already at the location, and that they’re gonna pass the case over to us.”
Barrera was an ally. Catching the tremor in his usually steady voice, she sat down on a stool at the counter. Homicide investigations were usually handled by detective bureaus at the local level. For a crime to bounce up to RHD, the case was either high profile or particularly egregious.
“Why us, Frank?”
“It’s bad, Lena. Real bad. It’s a girl and she’s all fucked up.”
“So, after eight months I’m back in the rotation because I’m close.”
Barrera cleared his throat. “That’s the bad news. That’s the reason I called, Lena. The order came directly from the chief. I thought it was another OIS case like all the rest, but this time it’s different.”
“Why?”
“That’s what got me thinking. Either he’s getting pressure from outside to use you, or it’s some kind of. .”
Trap, Lena thought. Her lieutenant didn’t need to finish the sentence. She got it. The chief wanted her out and was hoping something might push her closer to the door. This case could be the fucking door.
“What about a partner?” she asked.
“You’re on your own. I’ll make Sanchez and Rhodes available if you need them, but you’re flying solo. Your orders are to report directly to the chief and his adjutant.”
“Klinger?”
“Yeah, Klinger. I just e-mailed you a copy of the chief’s schedule for the day. He wants to be briefed after you’ve had a look at the crime scene. Doesn’t matter what time it is. He wants a report in person as soon as you’re done. Even if you’ve gotta wake him up in the middle of the fucking night, you need to show your face. You need to be there.”
“I’m okay with that.”
“Lena.”
“Yeah?”
“I talked it over with Rhodes and told him not to bother you. But he’s thinking the same thing I am.”
“And what’s that?”
“This smell’s like yesterday’s catch.”
She turned away from the window and noticed that her fingers were trembling slightly.
“When I picked up, Frank, you said good news, bad news. When does it start to get good?”
He laughed, trying to cheer her up. “The crime scene’s in Hollywood. You used to work with Pete Sweeney. He’s your old partner, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Sweeney and Banks got the call. They already know it’s your case. They’ll work the day with you, then back off. You cool?”
She nodded, then remembered that she was on the phone. She was thinking about the sixth floor at Parker Center and looking through the doorway at her gun on the bedside table. A Smith amp; Wesson.45 semiautomatic. The sun was low in the December sky and had moved to the other side of the house. She could see the rays of light feeding through the window, her pistol awash in red and gold. She had killed a man this year, in the line of duty. A shot made as she reached the end of the road. She thought about it every day, that view into the abyss.
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
Barrera lowered his voice. “Good,” he said. “Then go slow. Go safe. And keep me in the loop.”
3
Lena tossed her briefcase on the passenger seat, jumped into her Honda Prelude, and fired up the engine. Adjusting the heat vents, she flipped the radio and found KROQ. But before she could even get the volume turned up, her cell phone began vibrating and she checked the display again. This time the news would be wall-to-wall bad. The call was coming directly from Chief Logan’s office at Parker Center.
“This is Lieutenant Klinger, Gamble. Are you at the crime scene yet?” She shrugged. Klinger had to know that Barrera just made the call to her, so this wasn’t about information. This was about something else.
“I’m leaving now, Lieutenant.”
“You need to hurry, Detective. Shift to a higher gear.”
This is the way it would be, she thought: Klinger and the sixth floor watching everything she did from a spot somewhere over her shoulder. She wanted to tell him that there was no place in a murder investigation for micromanagers or know-it-alls. That crimes were created in the imagination and that’s where they were solved. But she didn’t say anything at all. As she listened to Klinger repeat just about everything Barrera had said ten minutes ago, she realized how little she knew about the man. Their paths rarely crossed. Klinger was about forty with fifteen years on the force. From what she’d heard around the division, he considered himself an expert at crime detection even though he had little if any experience as an investigator in the field. Instead, Klinger spent most of his career working outside Parker Center for the Internal Affairs Group, renamed by Chief Logan and placed under the supervision of the Professional Standards Bureau. There wasn’t a working cop in any division that didn’t have a natural distrust for IAG no matter what they called it these days. And Lena was as surprised as everyone else that the chief made Klinger his adjutant when he took the job. The chief may have been drafted from another city, but he had to be aware that the morale of the department was in play. No matter what Klinger’s talents might or might not be, it didn’t seem like the right move.
Her mind surfaced. Klinger had asked her a question, but all she caught was attitude.
“You there, Gamble? You still with me?”
“I’m here, Lieutenant.”
“Then answer the question. Do you have a copy of the chief’s itinerary or not?
“I’m all set,” she said.
“Then you know how to find us no matter what time it is. Get to the crime scene, Detective, and report back ASAP. The chief’s keeping a close eye on this one. He wants to be kept up to speed on every aspect of the investigation. Is that clear? Every report. Every lead.”
“Is there something I should know, Lieutenant?”
He hesitated a moment, as if he hadn’t expected the question and was working from a script. “Every case matters,” he said finally. “This is no different than any other investigation, Gamble.”
Lena understood what Klinger was saying because she lived it. But something in the adjutant’s voice didn’t ring true. Not by a long shot. It suddenly occurred to her why the chief might be paying so much attention to this one.