Cry Havoc

something like a cross between Baptist revival and Catholicism, but Mother Love's psychic abilities were legendary. Her devotees came from as far away as Malibu and Beverly Hills to hear what the Mother could tell them about health, wealth, and love. Some came for prophecy, others for the drugs.

'Maybe,' Noah said, scratching under his collar. 'But I'd give my left nut for a solid witness.'

He and his partner spent the rest of the day knocking on doors, but as it turned out, Noah got to keep both his nuts.

2

Frank circled the array of papers and photographs on her dining room table. She had the guts of an old triple homicide spread out before her, but the Duncan case kept breaking into her thoughts. She walked around the table, absently feinting and jabbing at the Duncan case, but not connecting.

She wished she'd brought that home instead, but the murder of a corner boy hadn't seemed to demand her attention. On the surface, Danny Duncan's death looked like the perfectly normal outcome of the business he was in. The motive was probably drug-related, his assailant an associate, competitor, or client. A garden variety South Central murder.

So why's this bugging me, Frank asked herself. Despite sparring with the facts all night, she still hadn't hit the one dangling right in front of her. She knew her brain at a crime scene was like a sponge dropped in water—when it was pulled out, the conscious thoughts were the ones that ran and dripped. The subconscious impressions remained inside the sponge and had to be squeezed out. Frank was trying to wring the sponge dry. Pulling another Corona from the fridge, she gave up. Sometimes the facts just had to surface at their own speed, a subconscious evaporation that was completely beyond Frank's control.

She flopped on the couch with the remote. Scrolling through the programming menu she realized it was almost Halloween—all the educational shows had a paranormal theme and all the movies were horror flicks. She clicked on a bar that featured The Exorcist. The opening credits were still rolling and she settled back with her beer, glad she'd caught the best part of the movie.

It opened with Max von Sydow in the desert, an old man running out of time. She empathized with the priest's urgency, his dread for the battle ahead. The dig was over and Father Merrin still hadn't excavated what he searched for. He returned anxiously to the ruins. It was dusk. His booted footsteps startled the watchman, who jerked a rifle toward the old man. He lowered it in sullen recognition. The priest continued. Dogs snapped and snarled at the ruin edges. Stones rolled under foot. The darkness came closer. The old man stopped. He lifted his head to the leering grin of an ancient stone demon. There it was. Where it had always been. Where he had known it would always be. Time ran between his fingers like sand, yet the priest remained a while longer in the demon's rough shadow. Now he knew what he had to do.

The scene faded to Washington, D.C. Mired in crude shock appeal, the rest of the movie never delivered the opening's promise and Frank clicked the TV off. She wished the movie had focused more on the old priest and his dilemma rather than the vulgarities of demonic possession. Frank sipped her beer, noting the silence stealing into the room. Silence, but not stillness. Frank wasn't moving, but she wasn't still either. She felt a vague disquietude, and thought to blame it on the movie. Nice try, she thought, balancing her bottle on her belly. It had been there before the movie. Had been there since she got home.

Unable to explain her unrest, she justified why it was ridiculous. Stats were up, the boss was happy, and her squad was finally recovering from some serious setbacks. Nothing wrong on the work front.

Something with Gail, Frank wondered. She'd been hoping the doc would come over tonight but she had to prep for a big day in court. As the Chief Medical Examiner/Coroner for L.A. County, Gail Lawless had to testify that the mayor's daughter had driven into a jeep at 76 miles per hour, killing herself and three teenaged friends. The then-mayor had threatened to paint Gail's relationship with Frank to the media with a very broad brush, unless the doc reduced his daughter's blood alcohol concentration from a flagrant .36 to a more modest .03. Gail had refused, and the mayor had started outing his ME, but at a politically bad time. Riots during the Democratic convention, accusations of a city council rife with fraud, and a transportation strike that cost the city a quarter million dollars a day, paled next to allegations about who the Chief Coroner was playing footsies with. By the time the case made it to court, the mayor had been voted out, and the new Hizzoner didn't mind rubbing his ex-rival's nose in the dirt a little more.

Frank thought back over the weekend with Gail, trying to pinpoint anything that might be festering under her skin. The doc had dragged Frank to Griffith Park to ride horses. Watching Mr. Ed on TV was the closest Frank had ever been to a horse and she'd been reluctant to step up onto one. Surprisingly, she'd had a good time. She shouldn't have been surprised; she always had fun with Gail. Almost always. They had spats, but she was learning she could trust the doc. She could let her guard down and catastrophe wouldn't necessarily strike. It might, she maintained, but if it did, it was beyond her control. There was nothing she could do about that.

She had Clay over at the Behavioral Science Unit to thank for that. Like most cops, Frank lived with the constant certainty that bad things were inevitable. What Frank was trying to learn, and what kept her from going off the paranoiac deep end, was that she couldn't control all of the bad events, or for that matter the good ones. She still had more than a healthy share of cynicism—good cops had to in order to survive—but they also had to learn to put it away at the end of the day or they'd end up eating their guns. Clay had taught Frank how to loosen her emotional grip. It was a hard trick to pull off, but Frank was practicing diligently.

Spinning off the couch, she started pacing. Danny Duncan kept dancing just along the edge of her consciousness and every time she tried to focus on him, he vanished. Frank stopped in the middle of the living room. She folded her arms and listened to the air conditioner. She didn't usually have it on but without it, there was no sleeping through the merciless Santa Anas. The compressor's hum was steady and comforting. Frank stood and waited. She felt like Father Merrin under the rough shadow of the demon.

Her skin prickled, and she caught the merest whiff of it. Subtle, but there it was, a tiny weight hanging against her heart.

Dread.

Duncan felt big. Bigger than it should for the death of a wannabe bailer. Frank was glad no one was around to see the shiver that tickled her. The idea of another big case was repellent. Delamore, then Ike Zabbo—they'd been big enough to last her a career. A lifetime. They were ugly and sad and more than she wanted to face again.

A thud sounded against the front door and Frank's heartbeat trebled. She whirled, half expecting to see the door broken into, but its wood was solid and silent. Her 9mm sat on the kitchen counter amid the debris she unloaded from her pockets each night.

'Who's there?' she called. No answer. Frank grabbed the Beretta and checked the magazine, turning lights off. She simultaneously chided her overreaction and acknowledged the wealth of death threats she'd collected over the years. It was probably just Gail come to surprise her. Frank raced through a plausible scenario. Gail fumbling with her keys on the other side of the door, dropping her briefcase while she clamped a fat folder between her teeth, unable to answer or even curse. She was disorganized like that. Forever losing her keys, her glasses.

Or it was a pissed off parolee with an Uzi in his hands and no thought other than to blow away the bitch that sent him up.

From an angle, Frank peered through the peephole. Nothing. She checked the lateral view from the living room window. She couldn't see the entire alcove, but the front light wasn't throwing any shadows. Frank pressed her back to the wall parallel with the door.

Again she asked, 'Who is it?'

No answer. Frank turned the lock, ready for someone to bust in or shoot through the door. Nothing happened. She twisted the handle, pulling it just enough to slip the catch out of the hole. Again she expected someone to ram in. No one did. She shoved the door open with her toe. Only silence. Crouching, she chanced a glance outside.

Shadows danced crookedly on the lawn and the wind sent litter scraps scurrying along the sidewalk. At her feet was a dead pigeon. Taking in the empty cars at the curb, the lighted windows across the street, Frank relaxed and breathed normally.

She shook her head at the bird on her door mat. Its head was bent back at an awkward angle and a drop of blood made a perfect red bead on its beak. Frank picked the bird up by its feet. The scaled legs were warm. She dropped the little body into the garbage can and returned to the insulated silence of her house.

Half a block away, a flock of pigeons settled nervously along an eave. Frank didn't know that birds didn't fly at