comment?'
'Easy there, young Jedi. I so much as double-take, my old lady'll fly over here on her broomstick and staple my eyelids shut.' Bronner turned the plain gold band on his ring finger. 'Twenty-three years of wear and tear, and the fucker still fits snug as a hair in an ass crack. It's on till the finger falls off.'
'You never cheated on her? Even when you were younger?'
Bronner shrugged. 'I didn't inhale.'
The light changed and they pulled forward. A UCPD car passed them, and the driver and Bronner exchanged nods.
'Jesus Christ,' Jenkins said. 'How many do they have running?'
'Called additional units down from UCSB and Irvine. A little extra backup.'
'As long as Dalton and Yale have lead on the case, they can call in the Police Explorers for all I give a shit.'
'You want to go visit Nancy?'
Jenkins glanced in the direction of the Medical Plaza. Night had fallen quickly, and the windows of the hospital shone as floating squares in the distance. 'No,' he said.
They patrolled the campus perimeter twice in silence before coming up behind a beat-up van with tinted back windows on Sunset. 'That's a DLR,' Bronner said.
Jenkins pushed himself erect in his seat. 'You're right,' he said. 'That fucker Don't Look Right at all.'
Based on the open layout of the streets surrounding the hospital and the speed of the suspect's departure, Yale had laid down the hypothesis that the suspect had used a vehicle to get to and from the crime scene. Jenkins and Bronner had spent the last twelve hours looking for DLRs.
Bronner steered into the other lane and pulled up to the van's blind spot. FREDDY'S INDUSTRIAL CLEANING was written on the side in chipped white paint.
Jenkins's jaw tightened. 'Let's jack him up.'
'Probable cause?'
'Rear license light?'
Bronner leaned his head to the window, checking. 'Yup. Rearview mirror?'
'Yup. Pull forward.' Bronner did, but the van sat too high for them to see the driver through the passenger window. 'Front plate?' Jenkins asked hopefully.
'Yup.' Bronner's eye picked over the car exterior. 'Bingo. Cracked windshield.' He fisted the radio and it chimed its distinctive LAPD chime, prompting him to speak. 'LA, Eight Adam Thirty-two, traffic.'
The van turned down Hilgard, and they followed a half block before Jenkins switched on the lights. Sorority row flew by as the radio crackled its response: 'Eight Adam Thirty-two, LA. Advised traffic.'
The van pulled to a halt in front of two enormous garbage cans at the curb.
'Eight Adam Thirty-two, traffic,' Bronner said. 'Eight hundred block south Hilgard on a black Chevy van, possibly mideighties. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, please. License plate two Nora six eight one four two. Code four at this time.'
He angled one spotlight into the driver's side mirror. Because the van's back window was tinted, he couldn't get the second one on the rearview mirror, but he put it through the back window anyway. They sat in the car for a moment, gathering themselves. Jenkins unsnapped his holster, then snapped it shut again. 'A fucking industrial cleaner's truck. Isn't that perfect?'
They stared straight ahead, letting the suspect get nervous, waiting for traffic to clear.
Jenkins pulled out a small tape recorder, hit RECORD, and quickly rattled off the Miranda rights. He clicked the tape recorder off and turned a quick grin to Bronner. 'Glad we got that out of the way.'
Bronner cleared his throat, then took on a newscaster's intonation. 'Why did you shoot the suspect, Officer Jenkins?'
'I feared for my life and the life of my fellow officer. Why did you shoot the suspect, Officer Bronner?'
Bronner cracked a grin. 'I was concerned for my safety and the safety of others.'
'Ready?' Both doors opened simultaneously, and the officers came up on the van on each side. They did not cross their paths.
The driver squinted into the flashlight, which Bronner held about two feet away from his face. Bronner's radio cord ran from his hip up his back, away from grabbing hands, the unit hooked over his shoulder. On the other side of the van, Jenkins shined his light through the tinted back windows, trying to get a look at the dark interior.
'What'd I do, man?' The driver, a heavyset man with wide, doughy cheeks and heavily gelled curls of hair, raised an arm to the flashlight's glare.
'License, registration, proof of insurance,' Bronner said. Behind him, a broken sprinkler spurted a thick two- inch fountain that turned the lawn sleek like pelt. The runoff had left the sidewalk wet and spotted with snails. 'Keep your left hand on the dash or steering wheel and reach with your right hand to your glove box.'
'What are you-?'
'Don't make me ask again.'
The driver leaned toward the glove compartment, his thin polyester snap-up pulling up out of his jeans. He did not seem to be concealing any weapons on his body. His sleeve rode up on his right shoulder, revealing a tattoo of Mickey Mouse. Perhaps through her panic haze, Nancy had mistaken Mickey Mouse for a skull. 'Slowly,' Bronner added.
The driver handed him the documents, then dug in his pocket for his wallet. Bronner held the flashlight to the registration but kept his eyes on the driver's hand until it emerged from his pocket. He glanced at the license. Frederick Russay.
Bronner clipped the license and registration to his shirt pocket, sliding it beneath the protruding pen cap.
'Is there some problem, officer?' A little more polite this time.
'Are you aware that you have a cracked windshield?' Bronner asked.
'Yeah, I guess. Is that like some big deal or something?'
'Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle please?'
'Why?'
'For our safety.'
When Russay hunched forward, his shirt was stuck to his back with sweat.
'Get out of the vehicle,' Bronner said, a bit more firmly.
'For a cracked-?'
'Get out of the vehicle immediately.'
Russay scrambled quickly out onto the curb, leaving his door open. 'Look, man, I don't know what's going on here, but I didn't-'
Bronner spun him and pushed him forcefully up against the side of the van. He patted him down, even checking his crotch for a piece dangling from a belly band. He found nothing. 'Is there anyone else in the vehicle?'
'No.'
'Mind if we take a look?' Bronner kept his forearm across Russay's back, pressing him forward into the side of the van.
'No. I guess not.'
Bronner caught Jenkins's eye through the open passenger window and signaled him with a jerk of his head. Jenkins walked back to the rear of the van, snapping and unsnapping his holster. The street grew suddenly quiet. He threw open one door, and light fell into the van's dark interior from a nearby streetlight. The van smelled of Clorox, coffee, and wet rags. The flashlight's beam picked over the mounds of gear. Mops in dirty buckets, several coiled drain snakes, piles of dirty overalls. In the back, half hidden by an open toolbox, was a container of Red Devil Drain Cleaner.
The muscles stood out on Jenkins's jaw like walnuts.
He walked around and stood beside Bronner. 'He's got lye back there.'
'Could be legit if he is a cleaning guy,' Bronner muttered.
'Could be,' Jenkins said. 'If.'
Bronner nodded. 'We'll know soon enough.'
