Frank backed out swearing. So much for superstition.
Chapter Seven
Back in the warren of traffic on the One-Ten, Frank shook her head at Nook and Bobby's run of bad luck. Not only did they get the Estrella homicides, but they'd caught two mysteries in the last two weeks — each case a bad boy shot with no witnesses, no motives, and no suspects. She considered how the two didn't make an ideal homicide team. They were both more tenacious than aggressive and tended to plod through cases, bogging down in detail. Especially Bobby. Though they both earned high marks for sheer determination, she wished there was more fire in their partnership. As it was, she'd have to settle for stubbornness and resolve. Because of their tendency to err on the side of caution, Frank figured they were calling her out on a grounder.
She poked the radio's preset button to KLOS, hoping electric guitars and pounding backbeats could pump her up for what was looking like another long night. Creeping off at the Downtown exit, she worked her way south using a maze of side roads. The cool spring evening belied the deadly summer heat just around the corner.
'What have you got?' Frank asked Bobby. He twitched his head at a body on the sidewalk. Its legs were off the curb, hidden by a line of parked cars.
'It's Placa, Frank. She took a couple rounds.'
Frank swallowed hard, holding Bobby's gaze a beat, before lowering it to his tie. She took in the LAPD tie clip and starched creases in his shirt. She appreciated the time he took to get dressed for a call-out. In the matter of seconds it took for Frank to formulate those thoughts, she had morphed into stone and ice. Now she swung her head toward the body which was suddenly not just a body. The ice in Frank's veins warned her that this was personal. It also warned her to be especially objective. She walked over to Placa, squatting on her heels in front of the dead girl.
Placa's left cheek was pressed against the broken concrete. From the shattered look of it she'd been dead or disabled as she went down and hadn't been able to break her fall. Her braid went through the back of a Dodger's cap, tilted almost off her head. Frank could make out a tiny blue tattoo just under the eye socket and the '52K' jarringly tattooed under her bangs. A sexy female devil with flowing hair and pointed tail peeked from under Placa's right sleeve. Her left hand was arched awkwardly in a blood puddle. The name 'ITSY' stood out in blue on the webbing of her thumb and forefinger.
Frank unconsciously held her own ring finger, stroking it lightly as she studied the dead girl in front of her.
Handley knelt too, but Frank said, 'Hold up.'
'I don't have all night,' he pointed out. The look Frank cut him was enough to send the tech a respectful distance away.
'Anybody see anything?'
'Not yet,' Bobby answered quietly.
Frank looked around. Nook was talking to two of the uniforms. The Sheriff's deputy was making conversation with Handley. Waddell was working paper in a radio car and Hunt was in his usual position against the bumper of another. Frank gave Handley the nod and walked over to Waddell. Twitching her head toward Hunt, she asked, 'You short tonight?'
'Yeah. Couple guys called in sick. Guess its just coincidence that it's Saturday night, huh?'
'Who's got the log?'
'Hunt.'
'Who was Responding Officer?'
'They were,' he said at the cops Nook was talking to. Frank moved toward Hunt, telling him she wanted the scene log. He sneered and moved slowly off the bumper, retrieving the list from inside the unit. Frank scanned it and as she did, she murmured, 'Are you 10-7?'
'No, ma'am,' he drawled, his answer sounding lazy and snide.
'Then I suggest you get your ass off this car and find some witnesses.'
Hunt grunted, 'There ain't a fuckin' monkey in this jungle that's seen shit.'
'You're probably right,' she answered, 'but you better start knockin' to prove it.'
Swearing under his breath, Hunt hitched up his heavy belt and sauntered off. Frank assessed the area. The east side of South Wilton was residential. It was a nice neighborhood lined with old, graceful palms. Each small, neatly kept bungalow had a trim patch of lawn sloping gently to the street. It was a solid working-class street where pride was still evident. Despite the hype, much of the south-central neighborhoods were like this one, quiet and modest, occupied by decent people trying to earn a decent living. Then there were the kids like Placa, who lived hard and died fast.
The rule of the streets, Frank thought, resuming her sweep of the area. The west side of Wilton was industrial, with privacy and security fencing running the length of the sidewalk. Where Frank stood, Wilton took a deep curve to become Hyde Park. Tall fences continued along the north sidewalk, but a building supply company took up the entire south corner.
Most of the adults on Wilton had gone back inside, bored with yet another gang-related shooting, but the kids still hung around, gawking. A radio played on a porch. A couple of young girls sang and mock danced with each other. Frank recognized the tune, the one all the pop and hip-hop stations played every twenty minutes. The irony that the band was Destiny's Child didn't escape her.
Frank caught the heavy odor of frying food in the air as she watched Hunt and Nook knocking on doors. Few of the houses had air conditioning. They would have easily trapped the heat of the day. Little kids would have begged to play outside before they had to go to bed. Grandmothers or grandfathers would have watched them, collecting the evening breeze on stoops and porches. Aunts or uncles might have joined them, sharing 40's or iced teas. Siblings would have been kicking by someone's car, bumpin' and swapping tales.
Still Hunt was probably right; nobody would have seen anything.
Frank returned to Bobby, who was searching the wallet Handley gave him.
'She strapped?'
'Nope, nothing.'
'What do you think about that?'
Bobby nodded, 'Kind of weird for that G to be running around without a gat. Is that what you're thinking?'
'Yeah. Especially Placa. She favored those little deuce-fives. I could wallpaper my bathroom with her concealeds alone. Find out what time this was called in, and when the first unit showed up.'
Nook sauntered up, and asked, 'Why's the LAPD better than the AMA?'
Both Frank and Bobby stared at him, and he grinned, 'We still make house calls.'
Neither of his colleagues responded, and he said, 'What?'
'Do a weapons sweep. Look for a .25.'
Bobby asked, 'You want to knock with us on this one?'
Frank nodded, watching Handley shove Placa's shirt up. She knelt next to him, noting the entry wounds.
'How many you see?'
'Well. . . looks like five. So far,' he said, pointing. Placa had taken a round dead center in her back and another through her left shoulder blade. A third grazed the left side of her neck, and Handley exposed another a few inches above her beltline. The fifth made a tiny hole at the base of her head. Whoever smoked her had made sure she wouldn't get up again.
'Trajectory?'
Handley gingerly examined the most lethal wounds. He boasted, 'Hard to say for sure until we get her on the table, but entry appears to relatively level, maybe angling slightly left.'
Nook had recovered a fresh case from a .25, roughly 150 feet south of the body. It had been on the road and was flattened.
