A shot made as she reached the end of the road. She thought about it every day, that view into the abyss.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

Barrera lowered his voice. “Good,” he said. “Then go slow. Go safe. And keep me in the loop.”

 

3

Lena tossed her briefcase on the passenger seat, jumped into her Honda Prelude, and fired up the engine. Adjusting the heat vents, she flipped the radio and found KROQ. But before she could even get the volume turned up, her cell phone began vibrating and she checked the display again. This time the news would be wall-to-wall bad. The call was coming directly from Chief Logan’s office at Parker Center.

“This is Lieutenant Klinger, Gamble. Are you at the crime scene yet?” She shrugged. Klinger had to know that Barrera just made the call to her, so this wasn’t about information. This was about something else.

“I’m leaving now, Lieutenant.”

“You need to hurry, Detective. Shift to a higher gear.”

This is the way it would be, she thought: Klinger and the sixth floor watching everything she did from a spot somewhere over her shoulder. She wanted to tell him that there was no place in a murder investigation for micromanagers or know-it-alls. That crimes were created in the imagination and that’s where they were solved. But she didn’t say anything at all. As she listened to Klinger repeat just about everything Barrera had said ten minutes ago, she realized how little she knew about the man. Their paths rarely crossed. Klinger was about forty with fifteen years on the force. From what she’d heard around the division, he considered himself an expert at crime detection even though he had little if any experience as an investigator in the field. Instead, Klinger spent most of his career working outside Parker Center for the Internal Affairs Group, renamed by Chief Logan and placed under the supervision of the Professional Standards Bureau. There wasn’t a working cop in any division that didn’t have a natural distrust for IAG no matter what they called it these days. And Lena was as surprised as everyone else that the chief made Klinger his adjutant when he took the job. The chief may have been drafted from another city, but he had to be aware that the morale of the department was in play. No matter what Klinger’s talents might or might not be, it didn’t seem like the right move.

Her mind surfaced. Klinger had asked her a question, but all she caught was attitude.

“You there, Gamble? You still with me?”

“I’m here, Lieutenant.”

“Then answer the question. Do you have a copy of the chief’s itinerary or not?

“I’m all set,” she said.

“Then you know how to find us no matter what time it is. Get to the crime scene, Detective, and report back ASAP. The chief’s keeping a close eye on this one. He wants to be kept up to speed on every aspect of the investigation.