“Some like it that way,” he purred into the phone. “Don’t knock it ’til you try it, Joanie.”
Across the desk, Ruiz rolled her eyes.
“Enough out of you, mister. Put both hands on the table and pay attention. I’ve got a possible match for you on those prints from the Lowell homicide. You can’t hang your hat on it in a courtroom, but it’s something you can play off of. I’ve got a thumb and a partial middle finger on the murder weapon, and a partial thumb on the job application.”
“And they match?”
“In court I’d have to say a possible match on the thumb, and a defense attorney would have me for lunch. Between you, me, and the lamppost, I think it’s probably the same person.”
“I love you, Joanie,” Parker crooned.
“So you say, Kevin. One of these days it’s going to be put up or shut up.”
“Careful what you wish for, doll.”
He thanked her and hung up.
Ruiz tried to lean into his line of sight. “Hey, Romeo, what did she say?”
Parker chewed on his thumbnail for a moment, staring into the middle distance, thinking. “A probable match of a thumbprint on the murder weapon and on the job ap.”
“He’s our guy.”
Parker shook his head. “Play devil’s advocate. If you were Damon’s defense attorney, how would you punch holes in Latent’s evidence?”
Ruiz sighed. “I would say that we concede Damon was in Lowell’s office. He went there to pick up a package. So he touched a bowling trophy. So what?”
“Exactly. And where on the murder weapon are these prints located? To beat Lowell’s head in, he held the trophy upside down. The marble base did all the damage. Do we have photos back?”
“No.”
“Call SID now before they all go home like regular folks. You need to talk with the guy who lifted the prints off the murder weapon. And I need photos of the back of the desk, and the area around the desk.”
“What am I? Your secretary?” Ruiz complained. “My shift is over, and I’m hungry.”
Parker tossed a roll of Mentos across the desks. “When you’re with me, there are no shifts working a homicide, babe. Eat a breath mint. You’ll be fine. Your clothes will fit better.”
His phone rang again and he grabbed it up. “Parker.”
“Detective Parker?” The smoky voice was trembling a little. “It’s Abby Lowell. My apartment has been broken into. By that bike messenger. I thought you should know.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He hung up the phone and pushed himself to his feet. “Get those photos ASAP,” he ordered Ruiz as he went to the coatrack and shrugged into his raincoat. “And get going on the phone records from Speed. We need to get a line on Damon. Abby Lowell says he broke into her apartment today.”
“And where are you going now?” Ruiz whined.
Parker bobbed his eyebrows and put on his hat. “To the damsel in distress.”
18
Abby Lowell lived outside the lines of Central Bureau. Parker flashed his badge to the uniforms standing in the foyer of the building. One nodded him past. The other was engaged in conversation with a potbellied older guy who was expounding on his theory regarding the downfall of our once-great nation.
A pair of detectives from West Bureau, Hollywood Division, stood in Abby Lowell’s living room, looking around like they were sizing up the place to redecorate. Everything was everywhere. The living room had been tossed like a salad. A Latent Prints guy Parker knew was dusting.
“Some party,” Parker said. “Mind if I join the fun?”
The older of the two Hollywood cops, a square-headed guy with a Marine buzz cut, curled his lip like a dog about to growl.
“What are you doing here, Parker? I thought they had you writing parking tickets.”
“Your vic called me in. Apparently you failed to impress her with your commanding presence.”
“Crawl back in your hole, Parker. This is ours. We’ll send you a copy of the reports.”
Parker curled his own lip and took a step forward. “You think I want your fucking lousy B&E? File all the paper you want, then go chase some 7-Eleven bandits, go scare up some wannabe starlets moonlighting on their backs. Do whatever it is you people do over here.” He twirled a finger around, indicating the room. “This is part of my homicide, ace. You can’t piss the fence higher than I can.”
“The always-charming Detective Parker.”
Abby Lowell stood in the archway leading to the private rooms of the apartment, leaning one shoulder against the wall. She was still dressed in the same sapphire knit outfit she’d had on that morning, but had pulled on an old oversized gray cardigan. She was hugging the sweater around her. Her hair was mussed. Her mascara was smudged beneath her eyes as if she had been crying.
Parker went to her. “You’re all right?”
The smile was wry, fragile, quivering at the corners of her mouth. She looked down just to the right of his feet, and combed a strand of hair back behind her ear with a trembling hand.
“He didn’t kill me, so I’m better off than the last Lowell he ran into.”
“Where do you keep your booze?” Parker asked.
“In the freezer. Grey Goose. Help yourself.”
“Not my poison,” he said, picking his way over the aftermath of the ransacking as he went into the kitchen. He found a glass, poured some of the vodka over ice, and handed it to her. “How long ago did this happen?”
She sipped the drink, leaning her hip against the counter. “A couple hours, I guess. I didn’t realize this was out of your area until they showed up. They didn’t want me to call you.”
“Don’t worry about them. You did the right thing. Besides, I’m like a wolf. I’ve got a big territory. What happened?”
“I came home, walked in, the place looked like this. I went down the hall, went into the bathroom, and he grabbed me.”
“Did he have a weapon?”
She shook her head.
“What’d he look like? Tall, short, black, white . . . ?”
“Not as tall as you. Blond. Young. White. He looked like he had been in a fight or something.”
“I’ll need you to get with our sketch artist first thing tomorrow,” Parker said. “How did you know he was the bike messenger?”
“He wouldn’t tell me who he was. But he said he knew my father, that he’d done some work for him, and I just knew it was him.”
“What did he want? Why would he come to you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want to find out. I was sure he was going to kill me. I ran, and he chased me, and I was almost to the door, and then he was on me. . . .”
The dark eyes glistened with tears. She leaned back against the counter and put a hand over her face. Parker watched her for a moment, then walked away from her and went down the hall. The bathroom was on the left. A small space with a tub/shower combo, a toilet, a pedestal sink. The mirror of the medicine cabinet above the sink was broken, with shards missing.
He squatted down and checked out a pale rust-colored smudge on the old octagonal tile. Blood, he figured. Some had seeped into the grout between the tiles, staining it dark.
He stood and looked closely at the broken mirror and the inscription someone had written on it in red lipstick. NEXT YOU DIE.
Why would the bike messenger want Abby Lowell dead if killing Lenny and stealing the money from the safe had been a crime of opportunity? He wouldn’t. Whoever was behind the murder, behind this, had a more complicated motive. And as far as Parker was concerned, that ruled out Damon.
Abby appeared in the shattered glass, a multitude of tiny, fragmented images, as if she was inside a giant
