In spite of its close proximity to Parker Center, the Blackbird Cafe wasn’t exactly a cop hangout. Nor did many tourists wander through the door. Instead, the cafe catered to artists and musicians who had migrated downtown over the past decade and sought a quiet place to sip what was probably the best cup of coffee in town. The place was hidden on a side street halfway down the block-an old brick building with vaulted ceilings that was originally built as a horse stable, served as an auto-repair garage for more than fifty years, and now had the look and feel of a community reading room. The lights were dim, the walls lined with books, paintings, and photographs. Last month a patron donated three prints by Minor White to the cafe’s art collection, three views of the world cast in light and shadow that Lena couldn’t stop looking at.
She had been a regular since her brother turned her on to the place after a gig at the Palladium. The Blackbird Cafe was open 24/7 every day of the year. Since her transfer from Hollywood to downtown, the place had become an oasis for her, and she needed it right now. One or two sips worth of high-end caffeine before she stepped back into the grind.
Klinger had called. Chief Logan wanted another briefing in an hour. Lena wasn’t looking forward to the meeting and thought it a complete waste of time.
And the autopsy had been an ordeal. The condition of the victim, worse than anything she had ever experienced before. Lena had worked with Pete Sweeney at the homicide table in Hollywood for two and half years. Her introduction to the Robbery-Homicide Division ten months ago had been a brutal murder case with multiple victims.
But this one was different. A lot different.
As she thought it over, it was the murderer’s expertise that made it different. The precision he exhibited with the knife. His obvious skills and physical strength. The cuts that weren’t really cuts, but so well executed that Madina had called them incisions. It all pointed to a level of coldness and brutality that felt like it came from another world, a very dark and lonely world.
Lena glanced at her computer, still booting up. Lifting the lid off her coffee, she let the steam rise into her face and tried to forget about the foul odor she endured at the autopsy. The smell of death had permeated her clothes and ruined them. Even though she had showered and changed in the locker room at Parker Center, she could still smell it. Not in her clean pair of black jeans or her sweater, but lurking in the deepest recesses of her memory. She knew from experience that it would take two or three days, maybe even a week, before it faded into the background.
She took a first sip of coffee, glanced around the room, and turned back to her laptop. She had filed a preliminary report and created the murder book last night-a three-ring binder often called a Blue Book that would serve as the complete record for the case. But her concern right now was the chronological record. The program on her computer mirrored the first section in the murder book and amounted to a journal. Every step she made in the investigation-what she was thinking, planning, or had ruled out-would be included. And she wanted to update the file and print it so that she could give the chief and his adjutant copies when they met.
She had come up with the idea last night when she couldn’t get to sleep. The only way to beat the micromanagers on the sixth floor was to flood them with paper. Keep them occupied with something tangible or nearly tangible so that she could work the case.
She checked her watch and started typing. After hitting the locker room, she had walked Jane Doe’s fingerprints up to the Latent Print Section on the second floor. Someone must have prepped the way because SID agreed to make the run immediately. Lena was well aware of the backlog and assumed that the call to bump her to the head of the line had come from the chief, or even Klinger. Still, she would have the results within a day-not a week-and that’s all that really mattered.
She wanted to push Jane Doe through the system as quickly as she could. Hit the speed bumps fast with the hope that just maybe something would shake out.
She wasn’t counting on anything. She knew the odds of SID identifying the girl were handicapped. In order to get a hit, Jane Doe’s fingerprints would already have to be in the system. One look at Jane Doe’s clear brown eyes told Lena that she was an innocent. The chances of her committing a crime or working a job that required fingerprinting was just short of nowhere.
But at least she finally had an accurate physical description. Lena typed in the victim’s height and weight from her notes jotted down at the autopsy. On the way over, she had made another call to Benson at Missing Persons and given him an update. Madina’s office had already sent over the autopsy photos, including close-ups of the victim’s belly ring and heart-shaped tattoo. Benson would make a run through the database and have results for her in an hour or two. But that only covered Los Angeles. The California Department of Justice would make a second, more extensive run. And with any luck, Lena would have their results in a couple of days.
She moved the cursor up to the menu bar and hit save. When she reached for her coffee, she looked up and saw someone walking toward her from the other side of the room. It was Denny Ramira, the crime-beat reporter from The Times.
“What are you doing here, Ramira?”
“I saw you on the street,” he said.
“You followed me?”
“Yeah. I’ve never been here before. Nice place.”
“Don’t make it a habit, okay?”
He smiled, still looking around. “Senator West digs you, Lena. You made his day by taking that picture with him. Did you see the paper?”
She shook her head. She had left the house early this morning and didn’t open the paper.
“You guys are friends?” she asked.
“His office is helping me research something on the side. Maybe a book; we’ll see. It’s not that far along yet.”
“A book about what?”
Ramira smiled again. “You might steal my idea.”
“Yeah, Ramira. I’ve got a lot of time on my hands. I really want to steal your idea.”
“Okay, so I’ll give you a hint. It’s about crime. White-collar crime. You know, the kind where nobody goes to jail because everybody’s rich enough to buy their way out.”
Lena followed the reporter’s gaze to her laptop. He was trying to get a look at the screen, but his angle was off. As he stepped to his left, she closed the file, shut down her computer, and started packing up.
“Sorry, but I’m not real sure I want to find my reports in one of your stories.”
“Hey, I wasn’t looking. Besides, if you had anything real, you’d give me a call. We’ve still got a deal, right?”
He gave her a look, and she shot it back at him. Ramira was thin and angular, about her height, and probably five years older. He was a handsome man with an intelligent face framed by dark hair and a pair of glasses that seemed to sharpen the light in his eyes. Although he may have been one of the best reporters Lena had ever known, that didn’t make him any less dangerous. The deal he was talking about had been struck after her last case. The doer had worn a badge, and the brass on the sixth floor wanted to keep it buried at the expense of an innocent man’s reputation. Lena needed an insurance policy and had given Ramira an exclusive “off-the-record” account of the investigation. Getting the story in print was the only way of ensuring that everyone involved lived up to the truth. When it was over-when the official record became straight and true-Ramira won an award, and Lena’s plight with Chief Logan was born.
“What deal is that?” she asked. “You already got your story”
“You know what I’m talking about, Lena. You need me just as much as I need you. Even the senator said it last night. He saw Logan reaming you out. That’s why he walked in on you and broke it up.”