The First Rule of Ten by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay Read Free Book Online

and crabbed. It looked disappointed, too.
    “This about the car?” I asked. Stealing a rusted VW didn’t usually warrant a house call by two cops from two different departments, but you never know.
    Detective Tatum’s face narrowed. “What about the car?”
    “It’s hot. She stole it. From the cult, she said.”
    “That explains the expired plates,” Morris put in, and made another note.
    Tatum just shook his head. “No. We’re definitely not here about the car.”
    “What did she do, then?” Car theft aside, she didn’t strike me as felon material.
    “She didn’t do anything,” Tatum said. “She got it done to her.”
    A thin spear of dread drilled downward from my heart to my belly. I swiveled in my chair to look out the window. I think something bad may be going on. I took a deep breath. Turned back to Tatum. He was eyeing me closely.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    Tatum opened his mouth. Then closed it. One more silent exchange with Morris. I knew this look too well—Bill and I had shared it many a time when questioned by a well-intentioned citizen. I was the civilian now. Kicked out of the tribe, maybe for good.
    Well, I would have to create my own tribe, then.
    “We’ve got her on a slab downtown,” Morris said. “We need somebody to I.D. the body. She’s got no next-of-kin as far as we can tell, so that leaves you.”
    I have nowhere else to go.
    I stood up.
    “I’ll meet you there.”
    I headed south down Topanga Canyon, pulling a left on Pacific Coast Highway. Usually I loved to take the Mustang through her paces, but I was too distracted to enjoy the drive. I hugged the coast, glancing once or twice at the ocean to my right. It was dark and choppy today, like my mood. I wondered about Barbara’s connection to Zimmy, her concern about his royalties. I had been so quick to dismiss her fears. Too quick by far.
    I continued onto the 10. It was smooth sailing for about nine miles, until I ran into the inevitable clog of cars that meant downtown was close. I zigged onto the 110 toward Pasadena, zagged onto the 5 South, merged onto the 101, and took the Mission Road exit. Driving in L.A. was like negotiating a labyrinth. It took me years to learn my way around.
    I entered Boyle Heights, land of the gang, home of the disenfranchised. Last count, it was over 90 percent Latino, and who could blame them? Their forefathers were victims of restrictive covenants that limited land ownership throughout L.A. to only the whitest of lily-whites. South Central and Boyle Heights were the exceptions. Now these two neighborhoods marked their territories with spray cans and bullets.
    I pulled into the County Coroner’s entrance and parked in an open slot in front of the emphatic “Visitors Only!” sign. That was me, now. A visitor only.
    Ahead of me loomed an ornate confection of brick and cement that seemed better suited to an art academy than its singular, grim purpose. Eight hundred bodies passed through the County Coroner’s building every month—anyone whose death was sudden, unnatural, or suspicious in any way. Anyone not under the care of a doctor. Anyone who had fallen off the map. I have nowhere else to go .
    I slowly ascended the stone steps, dreading the job ahead. The last time I came here, it was to buy a beach towel—among other distinguishing features, this was the only Coroner’s office in the country with its own gift shop. Skeletons in the Closet stocked an array of morbid but amusing knickknacks, from skull business-card holders to numerous items decorated with the ominous traced outline of a fallen homicide victim. Some of the proceeds raised money to educate kids about drunk driving; though it seemed to me a tour of the morgue after a bad pile-up might serve just as well. Whatever. At the time, I’d been invited to a retirement party for a fellow cop who was taking his pension and hightailing it to Hawaii. The Body Outline Beach Towel seemed like just the thing.
    I entered the lobby.