Street Rules

He looked to Frank.

'Somewhere around there.'

'Yeah, right around the time she stopped wearing the badge.'

'What badge?' Gail asked.

'That's another reason they called her Placa. It means badge or shield in Spanish. She had this thing for cop's badges, ' Bobby chuckled. 'When she was just a toddler we'd find her in the middle of the street and we'd stop and pick her up, put her back in the house with someone. And she always wanted your badge. When you picked her up she'd finger your shield and stare at it, try to pull it off your shirt. That was back when Frank was my FTO. Remember when you gave her that plastic badge?'

Frank offered the outline of a smile and Gail glanced at the two cops.

'So what happened?'

'You tell her,' Bobby said.

Frank shrugged. 'She must have been about five then. She was walking down the sidewalk one evening, it was getting dark, she was all alone. Me and Bobby stopped and she came running over. She loved riding in the squad car.'

'Yeah,' Bobby interrupted. 'We should've known then she was going to be an OG. Remember how she was always wanting to play with the shotgun?'

Frank continued, 'We pulled up to her house, but before I took her in, I told her I had something for her. I grabbed a bag out of the backseat and gave it to her. She reached in, pulled out a plastic police badge, you know, a toy like you get at the five and dime. She looked at it, turned it over, had this really serious expression. Then she shoved it in my hand and shook her head. Told me it was plastica and jumped out of the car. She turned around and stood up on her toes, jabbed at my badge. T want that one,' she said and marched up the driveway.'

Gail smiled, and Bobby took up the rest of the story.

'Frank, being the softie that she is —'

'— hey. That's an ugly rumor.'

'Frank has us looking all over town for metal badges. I know Noah brought some in and Haystack found one, but no, they weren't good enough. It had to look like an LAPD badge. So we're looking all over town for a realistic badge and one of the Pi's from — where was it? Newton?'

Frank nodded.

'His brother runs a machine shop, so he makes one up. It's perfect. It's got the gold and blue and the insignia, probably illegal as hell —'

'— he spelled LAPO instead of LAPD,' Frank corrected.

'Okay. Other than that, it was perfect. And she wore that badge every day, didn't she?'

'Yep.'

'She was a wild child,' Bobby mused. 'There aren't too many girls allowed into gangs. I mean they've got their own, but usually females aren't allowed to run with male gangs.'

Addressing a puckered old bullet wound, Gail asked why Placa was allowed.

'Oh, she earned it,' Bobby answered. 'And it helped that she had an older brother in the gang. In fact he jumped her in, whipped her for fifty-two seconds. When her time was up she was still swinging. The other guys backed off quick but Chuey kept at her, laughing the whole time. He finally knocked her out.'

'His own sister?'

'Yep. No room for softies in the 'hood. If you're going to make it you've got to be hard. Chuey wanted to make sure his sister was down, that she'd be there for her clique.'

Bobby grinned at Frank, who couldn't help noticing the similarities between street gangs and cops.

'Remember that time she took the .22 in her head and everyone thought she was dead?'

'What happened to her?'

'We took her to the hospital and an hour later she's asking us to buy her a soda. That bullet went in behind her ear and just curved around her skull. It came out the other side. You'll see where when you open her up. She was getting quite the rep then and don't you know that only added to it. Then she started doing that hex thing, like Claudia and Gloria used to do. Started leaving dead chickens and rats everywhere. You know that freaked some of the hermanos. Dead homies are one thing but start messin' with that Santeria stuff. . .'

'What is it?' Frank asked. Gail was squinting at the girl's wrists, and answered, 'Bruising. It's real faint, but it's there on both forearms. See? Like someone was pinning her down.'

Both detectives leaned over and saw the faint purpling. Gail carefully continued searching the body. There were older cuts and bruises, but the only other thing noteworthy was what looked like dried sperm on Placa's right thigh.

'Let's see what the PERK comes up with,' she said straightening up, arching the muscles in her back.

'Rape?' Bobby asked his boss.

'Be my first thought.'

Gail frowned, 'How did you jump to that?'

Bobby glanced at Frank but she just kept her mouth shut behind her fist.

'Placa didn't go for boys,' he explained awkwardly.

'She was a lesbian?'

'Yeah.'

Gail offered no reaction and Frank asked Bobby, 'You talked to this Reina?'

'Yeah.'

'Did she look beat up at all?'

'No. She's missing a tooth but that's old.'

'She seem afraid?'

'No.'

'She say anything about her and Placa?'

'This is the first I've heard of it,' Bobby said. 'But Nook found out Placa had dumped Itsy a couple weeks ago. Guess she's hitting the pipes pretty hard and Placa didn't want her around. She ordered the Queens to jump her out.'

Frank studied the placement of the shots in Placa's torso. Three in the ten ring, as they taught in the academy, an accurate pattern for stopping someone. Forever. Was the shooter that accurate on a moving target or just lucky? Frank cautioned herself on the pronoun, considering Itsy and La Reina potential suspects.

Halfway through the internal exam, Noah and Johnnie came in. Johnnie hung back by the door but Noah gowned up.

'How's it going?' he asked, pulling on the cap.

'Interesting,' Frank answered as he joined them at the table. 'What are you doing here?'

He shrugged, 'We're off the clock and were over at the Heights anyway. I just wanted to come by and see what was going on.'

'Yeah, we're off the clock,' Johnnie grumbled, 'and we gotta stop and look at a fuckin' post that's not even ours.'

'What's interesting?' Noah asked, ignoring his partner sulking against the wall.

'Looks like maybe she was raped.'

'Wow. I'd like to see if that guy's still walkin'.'

Johnnie whined from the back of the room, 'Jesus, No, how long you gonna stay here, huh?'

Frank continued, 'That's not the interesting part.'

She explained the tattoo and Noah answered, 'Son of a bitch.'

Maybe he was thirsty and long past due for his first drink of the day, but for whatever reason, Johnnie lost it. He stomped to the autopsy table, demanding, 'Give me the goddamn keys. Get a ride back to the station with Frank. I'm not standin' around off the clock to watch an autopsy on some fuckin' beaner that's not e-'

That was as far he got. Calling Johnnie an ignorant fuck, Noah whirled and slammed a fist into the big man's cheek. The shock of his own partner hitting him rendered Johnnie momentarily defenseless and Noah swung again.