'Sure pays to have the inside track,' he teased.
'Hey, I didn't ask her,' Frank shrugged. 'She volunteered.'
Lowering his voice, Noah said, 'That's 'cause she
'Don't start with that old auntie crap,' Frank warned her ex-partner.
Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, Noah sighed, 'And this is the thanks I get.'
Frank pushed him toward the door.
'I'll thank you when you get our Dog Killer. Let's go.'
Normally Frank didn't tell the next of kin about the victim's death until after she'd questioned them, but she didn't have the stomach for that with Jimmy Barracas' widow. And maybe because Lorrie Barracas had been expecting the news ever since she'd been married, she reacted stoically when Frank told her, graciously offering to answer a few questions. She didn't know of any specific threats against her husband, but as she pointed out, 'When you're a cop, threats are made against you every day.'
Jimmy Barracas was Julio Estrella's nephew. When Frank asked what sort of relationship they had, Mrs. Barracas proudly said that Jimmy had assumed the role of surrogate father after his sister's husband died. Jimmy was close to his niece, Claudia, and his nephews.
'Even Luis?'
'Of course,' his widow answered. 'Jimmy's as—'
She caught her mistake.
'Oh, my. I guess I'll have to get used to saying was. Jimmy was ... as good as gold to that boy.'
The correction was painful and Frank gave Mrs. Barracas a moment to pull herself together. When she had, she continued, 'He was too good, if you ask me. We had a lot of fights about Louie. Every dime Jimmy ever gave that boy went straight into his arm.'
Frank didn't care for ambiguity, asking exactly what Mrs. Barracas meant.
'He's been fixing since he was fourteen. He'll shoot anything he can get into a needle, but heroin's his drug of choice.'
Frank wasn't surprised. Claudia Estrella had chipped for years and Frank asked how her husband had felt about that, being a narcotics officer.
Lorrie Barracas shrugged.
'He was resigned to it. What could he do? The kids were older and they lived with their mother. Such as she was,' Mrs. Barracas sniffed.
Frank had dim memories of a large, unwashed woman who sat in a dark room, staring out the window and drinking sweet wine.
Frank asked if she had any idea where Luis was and she said no, she hadn't had heard from him in three or four days.
'What happened then?'
'He called for Jimmy.'
'Do you know what they talked about?'
'Business, I'm sure.'
'What sort of business?'
An impatient gesture told Frank that the widow's brave front was fading.
'Jimmy set the boys up with a courier service. Cops always need things delivered here and there so Jimmy supplied the customers and the boys did the work.'
'Mrs. Barracas, you've been extremely helpful. I know this is terribly difficult for you, but if you could just bear with me for a few more questions ...'
'Of course,' she answered, gamely masking the strain. She told Frank what she knew about the business, which wasn't much, and provided names and phone numbers of her husband's two closest friends. As is common with cops, they were his ex-partners.
Frank thanked Lorrie Barracas for her time and patience, leaving her with the standard appeal to call if she thought of anything else, anything at all, no matter how silly it might seem.
On her way over she'd passed a Peet's and now she went back to it. Sitting in the parking lot, she considered the phone numbers Lorrie Barracas had given her. She poked one into the cell phone, but didn't hit 'send'. Telling Barracas' wife had been bad enough. Telling his partners would definitely have to wait until she was well fortified with designer coffee.
The day dragged on but by late afternoon Frank managed to get to the coroners office. Cause, manner, and mode of death were blatantly obvious in the Estrella case, so she didn't really need to be there, and at least one of the boys would attend, most likely Bobby as Nook always managed to weasel out of being the attending detective. But because bodies sometimes gave up unexpected clues, and because ME's often rendered opinions that couldn't be printed in a protocol, Frank attended autopsies whenever she could. Gowning up, she tried to figure who was being cut. Gail had just started on Barracas and it looked like the Mangier was finishing with Marta Estrella. Bobby was watching a new baby-faced ME peel someone's scalp over his face. From the brands it looked like Julio.
'How we doing?' she asked him.
'Well, we still don't know where Luis is. Seems like he's got a pretty bad jones, so maybe he's on the nod somewhere. I asked Claudia who his main suppliers were, but she wouldn't say. If he's as bad as she says he is, I wouldn't imagine he'd go too far away for too long.'
'Talk to anybody at Narco?'
'Not yet. We talked to some sources, a couple baseheads. Nook's checking on some of the names they gave us.'
'When was the last time Claudia saw him?'
'Friday. He stopped by to borrow some money. She fed him and he hung around for a couple hours, playing with Gloria's kids. She didn't say much, neither did Gloria, but they know something.'
'Too quiet?' Frank guessed and Bobby nodded, 'Too evasive, too vague.'
'I'll stop by later, see if I can't squeeze some blood out. You know Barracas set the boys up in some sort of courier service?'
Bobby shook his head and Frank told him to check every service in the phone book.
'Wife said Barracas set it up because cops always need deliveries and that he supplied the nephews with customers. Talked to the partners. They didn't know much about it. Went by Hollywood and no one had heard of this alleged service. Depending on what you find, we might want to subpoena some IRS records.'
Bobby recorded their conversation into his notebook, mentioning that he'd managed to get a good picture from Claudia.
'It shows him from the waist up, showing off his tats. The guy's got stars inked all over him. You know Estrella means star in Spanish?'
Bobby never asked rhetorical questions so Frank shook her head that she didn't know that.
'I dropped the picture off and Donna's making a bulletin. She thought she'd have it by shift change.'
'Good.'
Gail and a massive black tech were turning Barracas onto his back, and Frank asked, 'How's it going so far, Doc?'
'I just got started. I had to do a missing kid that finally turned up. Well, at least parts of him turned up. It looks like a mountain lion got him, mauled him pretty badly. That's my second mountain lion attack already this year.'
'Where'd they find him?'
'Out around Malibu somewhere. I guess somebody's dog dragged one of his arms home. Can you imagine?'
'Yech,' the tech said, 'That's why I have cats.'
'Me, too,' Gail replied. To Frank she said, 'We did Marta Estrella already. She was about six weeks pregnant.'
'Make that seven and a dog,' Frank noted.
Gail looked up sharply, then said to her tech, 'Charlie, see if you can find me some vinyl gloves.'
'We're out. We've been out for weeks.'
'Check for me anyway.'
