No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella (6 page)

When she returned to the living room, she found
Lisa's children standing in front of their mother demanding that she
settle their dispute. The two little girls eyed Munch momentarily
then seemingly dismissed her presence.

"I thought I'd change the baby" she said to
Lisa. Another jet passed by overhead, drowning out the TV and making
the walls shake. Munch found a Pampers wrapper in the bottom of the
cloth bag and removed the last diaper.

Lisa's two children stood poised before their mother.
The older of the two girls, Charlotte, was the same age as Boogie,
which would make her close to seven. Munch knew that the younger
girl, Jill, was four. Lisa and Munch had been pregnant at the same
time. Munch often did the math.

She changed Asia's diaper, cleaning the little girl's
bottom with the wet towel. The baby had a rash, but Munch couldn't
find any cream or powder. She wrapped the soiled diaper in the empty
Pampers wrapper and dropped the towel into the pile of clothes on the
kitchen floor. The plane finally passed, and the little girls picked
up where they left off.

"It was my turn," Charlotte said.

"You're a stupid," Jill countered.

"That's enough from both of you," Lisa
screamed.

"Why do you two always have to scream at each
other? Go clean your rooms. I'm tired of always picking up after you
little bitches. I could use some help around here."

Munch flinched, but said nothing.

"You want a beer?" Lisa asked.

"I don't drink anymore."

"Nothing?" Charlotte said, wide-eyed.

"Not for eight months."

Charlotte considered this for a moment. "Not
even apple juice?" she asked.

Munch laughed. " mean nothing with alcohol in
it, like beer and wine and whiskey"

"Oh," she said, clearly unimpressed.

"You still smoke doobies, right?" Lisa
asked, pulling out a half-smoked joint.

"No," Munch said, "Nothing. I don't
use anything anymore. That includes pot."

Lisa turned to her daughter. "Honey go get Mama
her lighter" Jill ran ahead towards the bedroom with Charlotte
protesting after her.

"She asked me, you little freak. Mommmm!"

"Don't run in the house," Lisa yelled after
them. Munch moved to stand by the open door, taking the baby with
her. "When is Sleaze supposed to get here?"

Lisa shrugged. "Who knows?"

Charlotte returned with the lighter and a roach clip.
"So you don't use any drugs anymore?" she asked.

"No," Munch said.

The girl seemed to consider this information."That's
good," she said.

"Thank you."

"Does that mean we won't have to wake you up in
the bathtub anymore?"

Munch stared at the child, trying to imagine what she
must remember. Had she stood in the doorway while a blue-lipped Munch
was repeatedly submerged in a bathtub full of ice water? The cold
water was the best antidote for a heroin overdose, next to a shot of
Narcan. Of course she had been there and seen. Munch had never
considered the impact such a sight would have on a child. How was she
supposed to make amends for that kind of shit?

"C'mere," she said. Charlotte walked over
to her uncertainly Munch knelt down and hugged her "That's
exactly what it means." She turned to Lisa. "Is there
anything else you need? You got enough food and diapers?"

"I've got two dollars in food stamps that's
supposed to last me to the first." Lisa carefully pinched out
the joint's burning end. " don't know how they think a person
can survive on what they give you."

Munch released Charlotte and put the baby back in her
crib. She reached inside her purse and pulled out her billfold.
Lisa's eyes followed Munch's movements.

"Sleaze said he was going to pay me for
baby-sitting," Lisa said. "I was counting on that money"

Munch extracted a twenty "This should tide you
over." She found one of the shop's business cards, wrote her
home phone number on the back, and handed it to Lisa along with the
money "Call me when you hear from him."

"Yeah, and if you see the fucker," Lisa
said to Munch, "tell him I'm pissed off."

"So what's new? Right?" Munch said, forcing
a laugh.

"I heard that."

Munch leaned over Asia's crib and wiggled her foot.
"We'll just have to see what's keeping your daddy won't we?"

"Oh. Oh," Jill said, raising her hand and
hopping on one foot. "You know who I saw the other day?"

"Who?" Lisa asked.

"Daddy. He was in a car."

"Daddy who?" Lisa asked, laughing
indulgently

"Daddy Darnel or Daddy James?"

"Daddy Darnel," the little girl answered.
Munch looked back at the baby and silently promised to return.

She was already on the freeway when she realized that
she hadn't left the car seat with Lisa. She fought the urge to turn
around. It was hard enough to leave the kid there the first time and
she had plans. She couldn't stop thinking about those liquid brown
eyes staring at her, as if waiting for her to do the right thing.
She'd take the car seat over tomorrow. By then, hopefully Sleaze
would have shown up and she could stop worrying.

Blinding light filled her rearview mirror and she
cursed. She hated how the headlight beams of pickup trucks and vans
shone right at your eye level—especially when they followed you so
closely She slowed down, giving the offending vehicle—a blue van
with tinted windows—no choice but to pass her.
 
 

6

WHEN BLACKSTONE GOT back to the station, the first
thing he did was open his desk drawer and sift through his file of
twenty-four-hour reports. The daily bulletins were issued to all
detective bureaus and listed short synopses of state and local
felonies committed in the previous twenty-four hours. He found the
report he was looking for and read it quickly A little over a month
ago, the National Guard Armory in Kern County had been robbed. The
thieves made off with semiautomatic weapons, pyrotechnic devices, and
ammunition—some of it armor-piercing.

Thats got to be it, he thought. In the issued
bulletin, the feds asked to be notified immediately if any state or
local agencies came into possession of any of the aforementioned
weaponry The contact agent—the Special Agent in Charge—was listed
as Claire Donavon. No wonder the report had stuck in his mind. He
tacked the paperwork on the cork board mounted on the wall directly
across from his desk. The walls of his cubicle were plastered with
evidence reports, case updates, and composite sketches. But unlike
those in Alex's work space, Blackstone's were aligned symmetrically
and updated periodically

The cubicle was an innovation by the station's newest
lieutenant, Mace St. John. He'd divided the homicide war room with
standing partitions, and given every detective his own desk, phone,
and three walls to do with as he wished. The lieutenant felt the men
might work better if each was given his own space.

God, Blackstone thought, how these guys talked once
they got married. You never heard a bachelor talk about breathing
room.

He dialed Jeff Hagouchi's number in Firearms.

"I was just about to call you," Hagouchi
said. "I got some information for you on that freeway sniping."

"Already?"

"The bullet we dug out of the road was a 7.62 by
21 mm."

"So the weapon is going to be an M-l4."

"Uh-huh. I haven't gotten to the good part. I
also found a fleck of green paint in the windshield."

"Which tells us . . . ?"

"Military AP rounds are color-coded, the tips
are painted green. Last month the FBI issued a memo to all the
firearm crime labs. If we came across any military weaponry they
asked us to let them know immediately"

"Yeah, I know. It was that Kern County armory
job. Did you call the feds yet?"

"As soon as I got in. They just left."

"They came right over?" Blackstone asked,
amazed at the response speed.

"Surprised me, too," Hagouchi said.

Blackstone tapped his pencil on his blotter, then
drew a circle. "Was one of the agents who came by Claire
Donavon?" he asked, careful to keep his tone casual.

"Do you know her?"

"We've crossed paths."

"Built like a brick—"

"Did she say if they had any leads?"

"Like they'd share them with me? You know those
guys, Jigsaw. I'm just a lowly lab rat."

"Did she give you anything at all?"
Blackstone asked. Was she wearing a wedding ring? he wanted to ask.
Does she still wear her hair long?

"She did want to know if we'd confiscated any
grenades lately"

"Like you'd call her about the ammo and not
about a grenade?"

"Yeah, well, what are you going to do?"

"I'll stop by later and sign out the evidence."

"Uh, Jigsaw?"

"What?"

"She already took it."

"Damn," he said, trying to sound upset.
"Looks like I'll have to talk to her myself."

"You want her number?"

"No, I've already got it." He also kept a
catalogue of business cards from all the law enforcement officers
he'd ever worked with. He would have held on to hers regardless. He
looked down and realized that he'd unconsciously written her name
inside the circle. "I gotta go."

'Yeah," Jeff said, "me, too. Some of us
work for a living."

Blackstone pushed the button to disconnect them and
then dialed Claire's number.

While he waited for her to answer her phone, he toyed
with the jagged skull fragment on his desk that he kept as a memento.
It was one of the larger of several fragments he'd found stuck to the
motor that ran the electric door of a freshly painted garage.

From those few shards of bone he had built a case
that went to conviction. He kept the incriminating piece of evidence
as a reminder that sometimes the good guys finished first, especially
when they remembered to look up.

"FBI," a woman's bored voice said.

"Claire Donavon, please," he said.

"Special Agent Donavon isn't in right now,"
the operator told him. "Would you like to leave a message?"

He told her he would and left his information, adding
that his business was urgent. She promised him that his message would
be delivered. Pushing back his chair with a sigh, he checked his
watch. There were two hours left on his shift, and he didn't want to
spend them sitting. His neck and shoulders ached already from bending
over reports and studying crime scene photographs.

Tilting back, he studied the poster of Bobby Fischer
taped above his bulletin board. The picture was taken during the
match for the world championship with Boris Spassky After winning the
title of world champion, apparently Fischer had felt there was
nothing left to prove and had stopped competing. In 1975, he lost his
title by default. Blackstone wondered if there would ever be such a
defining moment in his own life. He hoped not. He loved the work.

He entered an investigation the same way he
approached a chess match. The best way to stay ahead of the game was
to consider the board from the opponents viewpoint. This meant
figuring out why the guy had made his last move and what his next
best possible move should be. Though in order to get into the game
plan of the average criminal, Blackstone usually had to adjust
himself to think stupid.

He sketched a profile of the truck and its driver as
they must have been just seconds before the shots were fired. Putting
himself in the driver's seat, he ran through a series of scenarios.
Something wasn't adding up. He didn't believe for a moment that this
had been a traffic dispute that escalated to gunfire. There was more
to this one. He could smell it.

The second shot, assuming its accuracy wasn't just
luck, was too deliberate. But to commit the act so openly in broad
daylight . . . And yet, no witnesses had come forward. Maybe the
killers knew exactly what they were doing. The police search of the
freeway hadn't turned up any spent cartridges. Quite possibly the
shell casings had been picked up in the tread of another vehicles
tires and carried away One more lucky break for the bad guys.

Sergeant Mann chose that moment to emerge from his
office and walk over to Blackstone. "What you working on?"
he asked.

"The freeway sniping."

"Any luck?"

"Check this out," Blackstone said. He sat
up in his chair and put his hands in front of him as if he were
holding a steering wheel. "I'm driving on the freeway and I see
another vehicle. They cut me off and we have words." He raised
his left hand in the one-fingered salute of the freeway "The
passenger of the other vehicle pulls out a rifle and aims at me."

He ducked to the right.

"So what's your point?"