No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella (13 page)

"Sure. Where am I going to go?"

"I thought I'd stop over after work."

"Suit yourself."

Apparently Lisa was too proud to say thank you. Asia
sighed in her sleep and smacked her lips. Munch touched her back
lightly; hoping to transmit reassurances that all would be well.
Don't worry. I won't leave you, too.

She shut the door gently on her way out. After Munch
left, two men entered Lisa's house from the back door.

"What did she want?" the taller one asked.
Lisa spoke to the second man, the one with the tattoo on his neck.
"She was asking about you."

"By name?"

"Nah. She just said some dude was with Sleaze on
Friday with long black hair. She described your tattoo, but she
didn't know who you were."

"Is this bitch going to be a problem?" the
other man asked, his large body filling the door frame. Almost
against her will, Lisa glanced at the revolver jammed in the
waistband of his leather pants. " don't think so, Tux."

He stepped forward, gathering her hair in his big
hand and jerking her head back. "You better hope not, bitch.
'Cuz I don't give a fuck what happens. I'll chain you both up and use
you for target practice. You know that, don't you."

'You've got nothing to worry about from me," she
said.
 
 

11

ALEX PEREZ ARRIVED at work at ten o'clock on Monday
morning looking more rumpled than usual. Blackstone threw the car
keys to his partner.

"We need to take a ride out to Inglewood,"
he said, "and pick up Garillo's sister. Sugarman needs a visual
identification from a family member."

"Why didn't somebody go out there yesterday?"

Alex asked, yawning.

"Cassiletti said she had a bunch of kids and no
car. He also said she was pretty hostile."

"In other words, he didn't want to fuck with
her."

"I guess not," Blackstone said.

Alex scratched his head and rubbed his eyes. "Let
me grab a cup of coffee before we go," he said. "Number two
son kept us up all night. You want a cup?"

"No," he answered, checking his watch. He
wanted to get out to Inglewood and back as quickly as possible. "I've
got a call in to Special Agent Claire."

"Is she the one you worked with on that serial
rapist case?"

"She's the one."

"Well, at least we got an in."

"Let's see if she returns my call."

While Alex fetched his coffee, Blackstone leaned back
in his chair, stroking the ends of his mustache and taking a moment
to recall the last time he had worked with Claire Donavon. It was two
years ago, when he was still investigating sex crimes. The case they
had worked together had been one of those frustrating situations
where the perpetrator was known to them, but impossible to build a
case against. The rapist chose his victims well. He used a condom and
remembered to take it with him afterward. Even when caught with
circumstantial evidence, he was too smart to incriminate himself.
Stalemate.

The FBI took an interest when one of the victims
turned out to be the niece of the L.A. bureau director. There had
been a lot of heat on the case. Special Agent Claire Donavon was
known for her ability to connect with the subjects she interviewed
and was brought in as the interrogator.

He had found himself strongly attracted to her, an
attraction that ran deeper than his unconscious male response to her
superb physical attributes—it took more than that to pique his
interest. He'd always had his pick of women. His married friends were
constantly fixing him up with some cousin or friend of their wife's.
The first thing they usually told him was how pretty the woman was—as
if that meant so much.

Claire Donavon, for instance, had so much more going
on behind those green eyes of hers. He'd witnessed firsthand her
unwavering tenacity sharp reasoning skills, and powers of
observation. She hid the steel edges under an earth mother facade of
curves and dimples. Maybe that softness wasn't a facade, perhaps
distraction was a better word. In this new age of womens lib, she'd
found a way to make her femininity work for her Smart.

The break in their case had come when she'd finessed
a confession from the perp. Somehow she'd dug up the fact that he'd
been fired unfairly from a managerial position at Kmart. His boss had
been a woman. Claire had even interviewed the perp's mom and had a
detailed history of the guys bedwetting.

She understood, she said, how difficult to please
mothers could be. She had convinced the perp—and everyone listening
to the interview—that she really understood where he was coming
from. Ten minutes with the guy and she had had him bawling on her
shoulder, giving up everything.

Later, she brushed off everyone's compliments, said
all the answers had been in the guy's file. There was no denying that
she was good, damn good. But when all was said and done, she was
still a federal agent first, which meant that she took more than she
gave.

The last time he'd seen her was in court. Following
their combined testimony the rapist had been sentenced to thirty
years. She and Blackstone had gone out afterward for drinks, but she
had had to leave to meet her boyfriend. Not a husband, he remembered.

"She'll call," Alex said, returning with a
mug of coffee and a donut and seemingly reading his partner's
thoughts.

"Are you ready?" Blackstone asked, coming
to his feet and slipping into his sports coat.

"Would you mind driving?" Alex asked.

"Your moon in Uranus again?" Blackstone
asked.

"I'm just tired, that's all." He affected a
hurt expression. "You know, you don't do yourself any favors
closing yourself off to what you don't understand."

"Are you saying I don't keep an open mind?"

"You're an Aries. You can't help yourself."

"Just give me the keys."

It took over half an hour to reach Lisa Slokum's
address in Inglewood. They parked across the street and studied the
neighborhood. Most of the houses spotted burglar bars and pictures of
Dobermans wired to their chain-link fences. The shriek of jet engines
drowned out the static and chatter of their police radio. They had
left the volume up loud. In this neighborhood, they didn't want to be
mistaken for potential robbery victims. The two detectives walked to
the door together. When the chubby woman in the bathrobe came to the
door, they showed her their badges.

"What do you want?" she asked. A baby cried
behind her.

"Are you Lisa Slokum?"

"Yeah."

"We need you to come to the coroner's office and
make a positive identification of your brother's body"

Blackstone explained.

"Why do I have to go?" she asked.

"Are there other relatives you'd like us to
contact?" Alex asked.

"No," she said. "There's nobody else."

"Then you're it," Blackstone said.

"The other two cops showed me his picture. I
already told them that it was him. All you guys think you're such big
heroes, but you always want someone else to do your job for you.
Catch the fuckers who killed him if you want to do something."

Blackstone looked up and mentally counted to five.
"Do you know anyone who wanted your brother dead?" he
asked.

She shrugged.

"Did he have any woman friends who worked at a
printing press? Anything like that?"

She pressed her lips together and shook her head no.

"Where did he live?"

She sighed impatiently and scowled. "He moved
around a lot."

"Did he have a girlfriend? A wife? Any
children?"

"I don't know shit," she said. "All
right? You want me to look at his body you're going to have to give
me cab fare. I ain't taking the fucking bus."

"Why don't you get dressed," Alex said,
"and we'll take you down there now."

"What about the baby?" she asked.

"Bring the baby too," Alex said. "We
like kids. Right, Jigsaw?"

"Where are your other children?" Blackstone
asked, spotting the toys littering the front yard and remembering
what Cassiletti had said in his report of yesterdays contact.

"They're in school," she said, rolling her
eyes. "What do you think?"

He checked his watch again. ''We'll wait out here
while you get ready"

All the way downtown, Lisa Slokum kept up a running
tirade about cops and their ineptness. When they got to the coroner's
viewing room, Lisa wailed loudly when confronted with her brother's
remains, which got the baby going. Blackstone noticed that the baby
was the only one actually producing tears.

On the ride back to Inglewood, Alex fed the woman and
her baby M&M's from a bag he produced out of his coat pocket. He
put the baby on his ample lap and kept her entertained with faces and
a variety of sound effects. She tugged on his lips, earlobes, and
nose and laughed when he said, "Owwl" At one point she
almost broke the thin gold chain that held his crucifix.

Lisa Slokum also calmed down, limiting her
histrionics to audible sniffles. The detectives dropped her off at
her Inglewood address and gave her their business cards. Neither man
held much hope of receiving any help from her.

"Cute kid," Alex said as they drove away

Blackstone reached under his seat for the box of
pre-moistened towelettes he kept there and shoved them at his
partner. "Fifteen years and she'll be a carbon copy of the
mother," he said.

'You're probably right," Alex said, sighing.
"Shame."

He wiped off his hands and
stuck the used towelette in his pocket.

* * *

After returning to the station, the two detectives
contacted print shops for the remainder ofthe afternoon, working from
the Yellow Pages. It was tedious work, involving much repetition,
language barriers, and unanswered calls that would have to be noted
and tried again. Three hours later, they had found only twelve shops
that had female typesetters, but none of those women matched the
physical description of the woman they sought.

Blackstone looked up from his desk when he heard a
contralto voice asking for him. He stood, straightening his slacks,
and ducked his head out his doorway "Claire?" When they
first worked together, she had insisted that they all address each
other on a first-name basis. Her lack of pretension had been
refreshing.

She walked towards him with arms extended. To his
surprise, she hugged him. "How are you, Jigsaw?"

"Let me get you a chair," he said,
borrowing one from another cubicle and dusting off its seat.

"I understand our investigations have crossed,"
she said, taking the offered chair and setting her purse on his desk.

Blackstone smiled. She was direct. He liked that.

"What do you have for me?" he asked.

She laughed easily He liked the way the three small
moles on her left cheek formed a crescent when she smiled. "That's
not the way it works, I'm afraid. I understand you identified the
victim of last Fridays freeway homicide."

"Are you here to return my evidence, Claire?"

"When you need a ballistics match, you'll have
the Bureaus full support."

"All right. Then what do we owe the honor of
this visit?"

"I have a favor to ask of you," she said.
"This case has certain delicacies. I understand you plan to
release a photograph of the deceased to the press."

"Now that hes identified," he said,
shrugging, "theres really no need to circulate his picture."

"I'd like you to go ahead and do so anyway"
she said.

"In exchange for?"

"I'm asking as a professional courtesy"

Alex Perez chose that minute to stick his head in the
doorway "Whats up?" he asked.

Blackstone made introductions.

"Jigsaw treating you all right?" Alex asked
her.

"Oh yes." She crossed her legs and glanced
up at the Bobby Fischer poster on Blackstone's wall. "Ah, the
master himself." She turned to Alex. "Are you a fan of
Bobbys as well?"

"Sure," he said. " mean, he beat the
Russkies, am I right?"

"Do you play?" Blackstone asked Claire,
feeling a strong need to have her attention directed back on him.

"It's not always easy to find a good game,"
she said. "I submitted a membership application with the Santa
Monica Bay Chess Club."

"I competed there yesterday" he told her.
"I'll put in a word for you."

"And did you win your match?" she asked.

"Yeah, how'd it go, Jigsaw?" Alex asked.

"My opponent conceded after the thirty-ninth
move," Blackstone said. "He didn't have enough material
left to mate."

"I didn't know chess was so sexual," Alex
said. "Maybe I should take it up."