Sudden Exposure by Susan Dunlap Read Free Book Online Page A

insisted. “Have your lab guy go over it. I haven’t fired it in a year, but listen, don’t take my word for it. Spend the taxpayers’ money finding out.” His trim little beard quivered.
    “You’ve got plenty of bricks,” Howard said before Johnson could gloat too long.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Where were you last Friday night?” I demanded.
    “A week ago? Who the hell knows?”
    “Think.”
    “Why?”
    “Because that is when someone bashed in the logo of The Girls’ Team van.”
    Johnson put down the papers and looked up. For the first time the man was smiling, albeit not pleasantly. “So that’s what’s got a bee up her ass. Someone’s after her van, huh? Hitting her right in the logo.”
    “She said you’re deceiving your customers. Yanking them in by their bleeding hearts.”
    I expected a roar of protest. But Sam Johnson looked me in the eye and said, “I haven’t shot at her; I haven’t come at her with bricks. But let me tell you, the woman’s a fucking pain in the ass. You can believe I’m not the only one she’s ticked off. And if she doesn’t stop sabotaging my fence here, I won’t say I’ll take matters into my own hands—the law frowns on that—but if someone wants to know where she is, wants to sit in my house and take a look around the neighborhood, I’m not going to stop him.”

Chapter 5
    F EELING LIKE A PLAYGROUND monitor, I headed back to Bryn Wiley’s to get her explanation of the hole in Sam Johnson’s fence. The Girls’ Team van was gone, and so, apparently, were Bryn and her cousin. “They must really have the inside scoop on the city,” I said to Howard as we walked back to our cars. “I’d give a lot to find a place to get a doughnut and a cup of Peet’s at this hour.”
    “Hang on,” he said, giving my stomach a pat. “There’s pepperoni pizza in the fridge at home.”
    “ If the tenants haven’t scarfed it down.”
    “I’ll pick up a carton of ice cream before you get there.”
    I squeezed his hand, still perched on my stomach. “The way to my heart.”
    People think of Berkeley as a town that doesn’t close, with jazz slithering under the doors of off-hours clubs, Cal students partying, Avenue crazies honing their routines till the sun comes up. And California Cuisine for the asking anytime night or day.
    Au contraire. Finding a place that will cook you a hamburger after 10 P.M. qualifies you for Detective Detail. From the trunk, I grabbed my garbage bag and jacket and headed inside to write up the reports on the nudist, Bryn Wiley, and Sam Johnson.
    To those citizens who hate spending tax dollars on their police department, this building should be a comfort. Everything is shabby. In the basement there’s a lunchroom you’d have to be starving to consider. The most visually appealing space in the entire station is the jail—if you like salmon pink.
    The squad room is essentially a large foyer surrounded by offices. Through one window I could see both sergeants in their cubicles. I glanced down the squad room table past the box of forms that sat on it like a centerpiece. Occasionally there is a class in the meeting room and Community Service provides bagels or cookies. Less occasionally a few crumbs survive till 1:30 A.M. Not tonight. I pulled out a plastic chair and began on the reports.
    I’d finished the first two when Connie Pereira came by. Pereira had been on patrol as long as I’d known her, but she had worked with me on a number of homicides. Now that I’d been deposited in her domain, she could barely contain herself from mentoring.
    “Smith,” she said, propping her butt on the table beside me. “I ran into Howard in the lot. He said he left a box of papers in your old office. Can you bring it home tonight?”
    “Sure.” I looked at her more carefully. “Connie, I do believe you’ve got a few of those blond hairs out of place.” For Pereira that was virtually dishevelled. “Hard night?”
    “A ten