Murder Season by Robert Ellis Read Free Book Online Page A

on the third floor directly behind the Homicide Special Section. Her captain was in New Orleans, so the room was available and always left unlocked. Her desk stood just on the other side of the wall at one of four homicide tables. Her early morning arrival, more than routine. But Lena could sense something was different about today from the moment she passed through the lobby doors. The lunch stand across from the front desk. The guys working the turnstiles and X-ray machine. The three or four groups of people she passed in the hall.
    The usual morning banter had been replaced with muffled voices and dull eyes pinned to the ground. The read she picked up was disappointment. But she thought that she could see fear and uncertainty, too.
    The mood followed her into the captain’s office, only it was more pervasive here. As she slipped into an open seat and listened, Deputy Chief Ramsey was standing at the head of the table, laying it out for anyone who might have missed it. His audience was a select group that included the two prosecutors from the district attorney’s office who had failed, Steven Bennett and Debi Watson, another deputy DA Lena recognized but had never worked with, Greg Vaughan, along with their boss, District Attorney Jimmy J. Higgins. Aside from Ramsey, the only other LAPD official was her supervisor, Lieutenant Frank Barrera. That could only mean that Lena really was on her own.
    She pushed the thought away and tried to concentrate on what the deputy chief was saying. Most of it was a repeat of her conversations with Rhodes and Escabar. But Ramsey had found his voice—gravel rinsed in an ashtray—and spiced things up with new details.
    “We’re making news again,” he said. “Department of Justice attorneys will be meeting with the judge in two hours. Every reform we’ve made under Chief Logan—the progress we’ve achieved, the performance records we’ve broken—everything we’ve stood for over the past few years burned up with this case. This trial. And now, two men murdered in Hollywood. Termination of the consent decree has been tossed to the side of the road. Another monitor will be selected to look over our shoulders and report to the judge. The department is under the microscope again. You are, too, Higgins. We’re in this mess together. And right now, we’re roadkill. We’re fucked.”
    The deputy chief’s words settled into the room sharp as broken glass. When Higgins didn’t react, Lena looked around the table and wondered what she’d missed over the past forty-five minutes. Bennett and Watson were sitting with the district attorney directly across from her. Barrera was on her left, but seemed to be focused on Greg Vaughan who was in a chair by himself at the far end of the table.
    Something was going on. The more she thought it over, the more convinced she became that Vaughan’s presence was out of place. And from the grim expression on his face, it seemed obvious enough that he didn’t want to be here, either. Of all the prosecutors in the DA’s office, Greg Vaughan was the total package and could have worked for any law firm in the city. Lena had only met him in passing, but was well aware of his reputation. He was an exceedingly bright and gentle man, and looked to be about forty. His hair was more brown than blond. His frame, lean and athletic. When she had seen him in the past, he walked with an easy confidence. But it had been his eyes that set him apart. The glint and energy in those light brown eyes.
    Today it looked like the lights had been shut down.
    Lena glanced at Higgins, then back at Vaughan jotting something down on his legal pad. Vaughan had been shut out of the Jacob Gant trial early on when it looked like the kind of high-profile case that could make a deputy DA instead of breaking one. Higgins had kept Vaughan away because it was well known that he had become the district attorney’s chief rival. To Vaughan’s credit, he didn’t seem to have an interest