Every Move She Makes (10 page)

Zim immediately filled the space Reid vacated.

"Heard you were a regular block of ice out there. Didn't even faze you
to find your partner's wife dead." "Better watch yourself, Zim,"

Markowsld quipped from his desk. "She touches you, you won't even need a
freezer like that guy she found in the warehouse." I opened my
briefcase, shoved all the drug ODS and the Soma Slasher files into it.

Abruptly the laughter stopped. I looked up, expecting the lieutenant had
walked in, putting an end to their fun. Instead I saw Torrance at the
doorway, his expression unreadable. "Mind if I see you a minute,
Gillespie?" I followed him from the office, only to hear Zimmerman say,
"There goes the perfect couple. The ice queen and the polar prince."

"Slither back down to your basement," I said over my shoulder.

When I first transferred to Homicide a year ago, the guys waited to see
me fall apart at the sight of my first floater. It was the rite of
passage for every new inspector, but because I was a woman, it seemed my
trial went on forever. I'd become expert at hiding my feelings, just as
they'd all had to do. The male double standard. On them, it was
masculine. Me, I was considered cold, unfeeling. I silently fumed as I
accompanied Torrance to his office on the next floor. He held the door
open, I stepped in. "Doesn't anything get to you?" I asked after he shut
the door and took a seat on the edge of his desk. I remained standing.

"Zimmerman gets off on knowing he can make you angry.,,

I was mad that I'd let Zim upset me. "What do guys like you get off on?"

"Pantyhose," he said without missing a beat.

I shouldn't have asked such a question. More important, I couldn't
believe he'd answered. The shock I felt must have registered on my face.

"Sorry," he said. "I couldn't resist." That dark gaze of his, usually so
intense, reflected a sparkle of amusement, and I found myself smiling in
return. "Is there something you wanted?" The hesitation that followed
was palpable, the look in his eye unmistakable. Finally, "I wanted to go
over the details of Scolari's call one more time. If you don't mind." He
indicated the laptop on his desk, moving aside to let me read the
screen. All amusement faded from his expression. He had it pretty much
verbatim, and so I gave him my okay, for whatever it was worth. "You
didn't happen to read the paper this morning, did you?" I asked. "Not to
mention seeing you on the morning news." His face remained as impassive
as his computer screen. I was beginning to wonder if he had Vulcan blood
running through his veins.

"It doesn't look good," he said.

"That Scolari's considered a suspect?" "That the MO's the same." I
watched the cursor on his screen blink on and off. "Hardly the same," I
heard myself say. "Patricia Meadscolari was sitting in a luxury car
blocks away from the Soma area." "You might want to read Dr.

Mead-Scolari's autopsy report." His words shocked me, and I met his
gaze, but couldn't tell what, if anything, he was after. Was he telling
me for my benefit? Scolari's? Or was he fishing to see what I knew? He
handed me a manila envelope. "Figured I'd save you a trip to the
morgue." I opened the envelope, wondering why he'd felt the need to
give me the autopsy file in private. Inside was the report, as well as
some black-and-white photos. I closed it, not wanting to look at the
pictures just yet. Not ever, really. "Thanks, but I have to go there
anyway." He regarded me closely, looking for what, I had no idea. I
figured now was as good a time as any to discuss the surveillance he was
conducting on my apartment. "How long are you planning on camping out on
my doorstep?" "As long as necessary." As if I had a choice. "Have at
it," I replied as I left, not meaning it in the least. I didn't bother
with goodbyes, I didn't see the point. I headed back to Homicide, and
my new partner. When I got there, Zimmerman was gone. "Zimwit told me to
tell you he was on a detail that couldn't wait," Markowski said. "He'll
get back to you when he's done." As fortuitous as that sounded, I still
needed a partner to canvass the Twin Palms. "Either of you busy?"

"Sorry," Shipley said. "Me and Rocky got a couple of appointments that
can't wait." Great. If I couldn't come up with a temporary partner, I'd
have to take a uniform for backup. Which meant the luck of the draw,
anything from slick sleeve rookie to jaded veteran. I'd try elsewhere.

Perhaps Narco. Might as well. I was working some of the same overdose
cases. The only difference was the status of those involved. If the
overdose victims lived, Narco got them, and tried to get the name of
their suppliers. If the victims died, they came to me. The Narcotics
detail was one of the few facilities not housed in the Hall of justice.

I could have called, but the truth was, I needed a break
and decided that the drive would give me both. Outside, a light, salty
breeze swept through the courtyard, and I took my time walking to the
parking garage. As I drove, from the crest of a hill I caught a glimpse
of the Bay Bridge crowned by cumulus clouds. Postcard perfect. A great
day for camera-toting tourists who flocked here, ignorant and untouched
by the crime, the death, the inner-city life that occurred beyond their
wide angled lenses. I parked, and walked the half block to the Narcotics
office. Betty Ramirez was sitting at her desk talking on the phone when
I strolled in. She could have been a model, tall and thin with short,
dark, wavy hair, but she had a thing for law enforcement. We were
partners up until a year ago, when the mayor decided to make me
Homicide's poster girl.

"Hey, Kate," she said, covering the mouthpiece.

"Have a seat. Be done in a sec." I took the chair at the desk next to
hers, watched the goings-on, not really missing it. Like Betty, I'd been
assigned working the street dealers, a dirty business, dayin and day-out
with the scum of society. If you stayed too long, it rubbed off on you,
as evidenced by many of the officers who worked there. If not for the
necessity of photo IDS hanging around their necks while they were in the
building, one wouldn't be able to tell them from the hookers and crack
dealers on the street. George Jamison wandered through the door, brown
hair down the middle of his back, a scraggly beard and mustache. He
looked much different now than when he had taken on the role of my
brother when we went after Paolini. He patted me on my shoulder.

"Gillespie. You aren't really thinking Sam Scolari's the Soma Slasher,
are you? Word ho killed Doc Scolari." "Let me know when word on the
street gets me a viable witness. Then I'll listen." Betty hung up the
phone and turned to me. "Haven't seen you down here in a while. What's
up?"

"You got anything substantial on the drug ODS?"

"Nothing new." "Andrews wants a full report. Press conference tomorrow.

If you're not busy, I need to go out and do a few knock-and-talks."

"Busy isn't the word," she said, nodding toward several file boxes on
the floor, each filled with manila folders. "between the ODS and the
Scott Forrest cluster, we're all running around with our heads cut off.

Makes me wish I was back on patrol." Cluster, a cop euphemism for major
mess, was putting it mildly. Forrest, a lab tech, had recently been
arrested by the Narcotics detail for falsifying evidence and stealing
drugs sent in for testing. To the city's embarrassment, his case was
brought to light by an investigative reporter for the Chronicle. The
reporter, Maxwell Cameron, had already made his claim to fame over the
exposure of scandal in the mayor's office. "We have to go through every
one of those," Betty continued. "See if Forrest was involved in any way.

There's gonna be a lot of dismissals coming up on appeal. The DNS

screaming, and I'm due in court in ten minutes." She looked at her
watch. "A prelim for the city manager's kid on a possession for sales.

His father's hired some attorney from LA. He could have saved the money.

Forrest tested the drugs. It'll be dismissed, just like the rest of
them." She pulled a case folder from her desk, then motioned for me to
accompany her out. "You do realize what this means?" She handed me the
folder. It contained the case I'd worked against Paolini. I met her
gaze. "Tell me you're kidding." "DA called right before you got here.

Paolini's attorney got his appeal moved up on the calendar. Less than a
week." The renewed phone threats I'd received now made a lot more sense.

I told Betty about them. "It's got to be the reason why they've started
up." Betty gave me a searching look. "You seem sort of nonchalant about
the whole thing." "I've got enough crap to worry about besides Paolini."

Actually, I couldn't dwell on it. Not with everything else going on. I'd
go crazy. "So, how about it? Can YOU go?" Betty knew me well enough to
let the matter drop about Paolini and the calls. "I'll be in court all
day. Jury trial. I don't suppose it could wait till tomorrow morning.

"Tomorrow's fine. Let's say, nine?"

"Nine's good. We'll meet in front of the bail room."

"Thanks. I'll be there," I said.

After I got my latte, I made my next stop the morgue. I wanted every
coroner's case that might fit the Slasher profile. As I pushed open the
door, I thought how odd it was to be there and not see Patricia, and I
couldn't help thinking about my partner as a result. Did he do it?

Where was he? And why? Simple questions, but no simple answers.

"Hey, Inspector." Mary Whitman offered something close to a smile. A
black woman in her forties, she was Patricia's secretary. She stood on
the other side of a long counter that separated the lobby area from the
Coroner investigators' work area. Their desks were empty, the office
deserted by all but us.

"Thought you might take a few days off. You holding up okay?" I asked.

"Damn place would fall apart if I weren't here." Patricia had said so
many times. I tried not to glance into her office, but I looked just the
same, shivering at the images of the last time I'd seen her, in her car.

Mary saw the direction of my gaze. "Keep doing it myself. It's like I
expect her to say,'Mary! Where the hell's that toxicology report I asked
for?" Lab was always late, for all they're in the same damn building.

Used to grate on her nerves." She turned around, her dark eyes filled
with sadness as she eyed Patricia's door. Her voice cracked as she said,
"Can't seem to get around to emptying her things. Won't let nobody else
touch it, neither. Bad enough your guys searched through everything
after her murder. None of their damn business. At least wait until the
funeral." "You know they couldn't," I offered, though it was of little
consolation. Death did not end the violation of the victim. Every person
they saw, every move they made, every breath they took would be
scrutinized, picked apart, reassembled piece by piece until the final
appeal of the suspect was over and done. There was no peace for the dead
by homicide. She opened the top drawer of her desk, looking for
something I suspected wasn't really there. When she seemed in control
again, I asked her for the autopsy reports.

"How far back did you want to go?"

"Six months-no, make it a year."

"A year?"

"I'm working on a hunch. A shot in the dark, but what the hell." "Better
be a good one. It'll take me a while. In the meantime, I've got that
hit-and-run you were looking for the other day," she said, digging the
report out of the current file to let me read. I scanned over it.