“Who says they are?”
“Parnell.”
“You’re my mother now?”
“If I have to be. Rookie.”
I looked at him. He rolled his eyes.
I breathed in, exhaled. Watched the smoke linger in the still air. A motorcycle revved its engine somewhere nearby, and the sound of traffic on the interstate thrummed. Clyde was invisible in the back of the Tahoe, probably taking a nap.
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me, Bandoni.”
“Don’t mean we’re engaged. Just saying, if you aren’t careful, this job will kill you.”
I raised an eyebrow at him as we both tapped ash onto the ground. “You and irony? I never would have guessed.”
“You’ll have to talk simple. Keep it at my level.”
I laughed despite my mood.
He said, “How many autopsies you seen?”
“This is my fifth. But I’ve handled plenty of dead people.”
“I know that. It’s not the same.”
Bandoni walked down to a picnic bench where morgue staff probably took their lunches on nice days. I followed. He heaved his bulk onto the center of the table and set his feet on the bench. “In Iraq, you were treating those men and women with complete respect. Here, you must feel like we’re doing more damage than the killer.”
By now, Bell would have peeled John Doe’s scalp from his skull, opened the bone, and would be lifting out his traumatized brain.
“You’re right,” I said. “An autopsy is another intrusion.”
“Don’t sound so surprised. It’s the shits, this job. Sometimes. Sometimes it’s fucking fantastic.”
“When you find the killer?”
“Not that. Or not just that, anyway. The pure, sweet rush of drugs in your veins comes when you nail ’em in court.”
I remembered the big case Bandoni had lost, long before my time. The one that had fallen apart in court.
“What happens when you lose in front of the judge?” I asked.
“I don’t. Not anymore.” He stabbed his cigarette at me. “So don’t do anything stupid, rookie. Or my advice to the lieutenant will be to bust you all the way down.”
One thing with Bandoni—at least you knew where you stood.
“I’ve been thinking about the ink on his arm,” he said. “We’ll need someone to look through that tattoo mug book.”
I only had to give it two seconds of thought. “Gorman isn’t on a case right now, is he?”
Bandoni grinned. I think it was the first time I’d seen his upper teeth.
“Gorman.” He nodded. “No job too small.”
I sucked in a lungful of smoke and released it. “Where do you think they took him to hurt him like that?”
“Our job to figure it out.”
He pushed himself off the picnic table. The slick soles of his cheap dress shoes slapped the concrete. We both crushed out our cigarettes.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Lead on, Macduff.”
“Sometimes I have no fucking idea what you’re saying.”
“Shakespeare. Macbeth. Give it a try.”
“Shakespeare.” He opened the door. “He as good as Louis L’Amour?”
“Who?”
“Louis L’Amour. The Sacketts.” He clapped my shoulder almost cheerily. “Gap in your knowledge base, rookie. Better work on it.”
CHAPTER 9
Perhaps we are not cursed by war and what we’ve seen.
Perhaps we are holy.
—Peter Hayes, Clinical Therapist, VA Hospital.
When Clyde and I stopped at headquarters, the detectives’ room was quiet. A light glowed in the lieutenant’s office, but her blinds were drawn, and I hoped she was gone for the day. I needed to type up the incident reports. Paperwork was every cop’s nemesis.
One hour, I promised myself. Then home.
I filled Clyde’s water bowl, and my patient partner settled into his usual spot as if he was far more adjusted to the career change than I was. I kicked off my shoes, made a note to buy a case of blister bandages, then typed up my interview with the gutter punk, Purple, and my observations from the autopsy. Once Bell supplied us with her own report, I’d link the files. By then we would hopefully have a name to attach.
My phone buzzed as I was finishing up. The forensic artist had sent me the composite sketch from her meeting with Deke. I studied the image. Definitely Latina. Dark hair and eyes, a sweet, uncertain expression. She did not look like killer material.
“Where are you?” I said out loud.
I forwarded the text to Bandoni, then tried again to reach the security guy from ColdShip. Martin Chase. Still no answer. I left another message explaining how important it was that he contact me. I didn’t mention we’d requested a warrant.
I finished out the hour by looking at my email. I had a message from Ron Gabel. He’d eliminated another potential suspect from the rape of Denise Jackson’s mother. Tired as I was, anger did a quick boil in my blood. Too many times these creeps climbed out of the swamp, ruined someone’s life, then disappeared back into the murk.
I had just shut down my computer when Clyde lifted his head and footsteps scuffed the carpet behind me.
“Parnell.”
I swiveled my chair. Lieutenant Lobowitz leaned against Detective Shultz’s desk, her arms folded, her expression unreadable. Lobowitz wasn’t physically imposing, but she radiated a cross-this-line-you-die vibe. No one wanted to draw her ire. Not fresh-faced patrol FNGs. Not crusty old homicide dicks who’d faced the most violent dregs of humanity.
And especially not me.
Lobowitz hooked one ankle over the other. Despite her stylish high heels, it didn’t look as if her feet hurt. I wondered if it would be bad form to ask her secret.
“You’re making a late night of it,” she said.
I refrained from pointing out that I wasn’t the only one. “I was just finishing up our reports. I’m heading out now.”
“And your partner?”
Hopefully settling in with a beer and March Madness. But discretion is the better part of valor. “Finishing up at the morgue.”
“You make me nervous, Parnell.”
“Ma’am?”
“Your previous cases. The ones you handled while you still worked for Denver Pacific. Pretty damn impressive. Catching killers, solving a ten-year-old cold case. Saving a kidnap victim. Not too many cops have a record like
