Street Rules Read Online Free Page B

another gnat buzzing in Frank’s ear. They’d talked to Claudia’s neighbors and two of them remembered seeing her brother’s junked Bonneville outside her house on Sunday night. Both wits pinned the time around nine PM, about fifteen minutes after the Estella’s had been gunned down. One saw a figure get out from the driver’s side but wouldn’t say more than that. It looked like a man in dark clothes, but at night, with the street lights shot out, the wit couldn’t even swear with certainty that the driver had been male. But they were both pretty sure about the Bonneville because of its size and coughing muffler.
    Frank glanced around when Nancy brought her drink. She recognized lawyers, ADAs and detectives. Johnnie had peaceably wandered over to a table crowded with secretarial types and Hunt was hunched over the bar with a couple off-duty sticks. He was dressed in tight jeans that pegged over expensive boots and his muscles squeezed out from under a tight LAPD T-shirt. A black Stetson clung magically to the back of his head and his belt sported a silver buckle the size of a salad plate, the type cowboys won in rodeos. Frank thought he’d look more at home in a juke-joint than a bar full of suits. Usually the Figueroa uniforms favored a rougher bar called Red’s, and she wondered idly why Hunt spent so much time in the company of the suits he seemed to despise. Then it occurred to her he’d probably gotten eighty-sixed from Red’s.
    When Nancy brought her salad, Frank ordered another double. The first drink had untied the knots in her shoulders and the second would undo the knots in her mind. She attacked her dinner, careful not to spill on the papers clamoring for attention.

Chapter Four
    While Frank and her crew had been catching up on sleep, a heads-up sheriff was comparing Luis Estrella’s old Bonneville to the one on his APB sheet. Through a not uncommon assortment of red tape and miscommunications, Frank didn’t hear about the car until Thursday afternoon. Given the antagonistic relationship between the LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, Frank was glad she’d heard at all. Swearing more out of excitement than frustration, she and Noah grabbed jackets and headed out to Old Topanga Canyon Road.
    The car was parked in an isolated turnout in a grove of eucalyptus trees. Thick chaparral rose steeply from the north shoulder of the road, and fell away to the south. It was hot and still in the scrub-covered hills and the air smelled of dust and heated plant oils. The car was dusty inside and out, loaded with all kinds of crap, like Luis had been living in it. They quickly poked through the litter, finding nothing more interesting than Luis’ works on the passenger seat and a clean Bowie knife. The trunk was locked and the keys were missing but it didn’t smell like they had pudding in a cup, or in civilian terms, a body in a trunk.
    Noah tried to videotape the scene, but the camera battery was dead, as always. He settled on Polaroids while Frank sifted through eucalyptus leaves and old trash. As they waited for SID’s arrival, Frank scanned the random homes perched on the steep hills, noting the sparse traffic pattern. She wanted SID to process the trunk before they jimmied the lock. Depending on what they found inside, SID could either continue at the scene or have the car hauled back to the print shed to finish their evidence collection in a more optimal setting.
    The SID van pulled up and Noah groaned when Dave Grummond’s gangly form emerged. He was a tall man, balding, thin, and vaguely reminiscent of a cadaver. He was born without a sense of humor and had never thought to cultivate one, but he was a meticulous forensic technician. Frank greeted him quietly, outlining the situation for him. Her idea was to dust the trunk area so they could pop it open. If there was a body inside, they’d process it in situ to preserve the evidentiary value. If not, they’d tow the vehicle to the LAPD print