the Forgotten Man (2005) by Crais Robert Read Free Book Online Page B

reached his office at the Scientific Investigations Division, they told me he had the day off. Perfect. I hung up, then phoned a detective I knew on the Hollywood Station Juvenile Section named Carol Starkey. Starkey had been a bomb technician with LAPD's Bomb Squad until some bad breaks made her change jobs, so she knew almost as much technical stuff as Chen.
    When Starkey answered, she said, "You finally calling to ask me out?"
    "No, I'm calling to see if you can recover information off a key card for me."
    I explained about the card, the body, and what I was doing.
    She said, "No shit? You think this guy is your father?"
    "No, I don't think he's my father. I just want to find out what's on the card."
    "Call Chen. Chen knows how to do that."
    "Chen has the day off."
    "Hang on."
    She put me on hold. While I waited, I stacked the garbage bags the man in the pink shirt had piled around my car into a huge mound against his door. Pissy.
    Starkey came back on the line.
    "Chen will meet us at SID in an hour."
    "I thought he had the day off."
    "Not anymore."
    I hung up, then checked my watch. It had been almost nine hours since John Doe #05-1642 had been murdered. The key card was about to open a door to his identity, and to far more than I wanted to know.

PART TWO
    Father Knows Best Chapter 8
    L APD's Scientific Investigation Division shared its location with the Bomb Squad, where Carol Starkey had spent three years strapping into an armored suit to de-arm or destroy improvised explosive devices while everyone else hid under a tree. You've seen bomb techs in the news. They're the men and women dressed in what looks like a space suit, bent over a box or a backpack that's loaded with TNT, trying to render it safe before it explodes. Starkey was good at it, and loved it, until it finally went bad. Starkey and her supervisor were killed on the job, blown apart in a trailer park by a keg of black powder and nails. The medics brought her back and the surgeons stitched her together, but they wouldn't let her go back to the Squad. She worked in Criminal Conspiracy for a while, and now she worked on the Juvenile desk, but she still missed the bombs. Some woman, huh?Starkey was leaning against a dark blue Bomb Squad Suburban when I pulled into the parking lot. She was in her early thirties, with a long face, limp hair, and a dark gray pin-striped suit that went with her attitude. She was smoking.
    I said, "Those things will kill you."
    "Been there, done that. Chen's inside, sulking 'cause I made him come in."
    "Thanks for setting this up, but you didn't have to make the drive. I know you're busy."
    "What, and miss the chance to flirt with you? How else am I gonna get you in the sack?"
    Starkey is like that. She turned toward the building, and I followed, the two of us threading our way between parked cars.
    She said, "So what's the deal on the vic? You don't think he's related?"
    "No, I don't think he's related. He was just obsessed or confused. You know how people get, like stalkers when they fix on a movie star. That's all it is."
    "Lemme see that picture."
    I had told her about the morgue shots, but I was irritated she wanted to see. She looked at the pictures, then me, then back at the pictures. It left me feeling vulnerable in a way I didn't like. She finally shook her head and handed them back.
    "You don't look anything like this guy."
    "I told you."
    "He looks like a praying mantis and you look like a rutabaga."
    "This is what you call flirting?"
    Starkey squeezed between a couple of cars that were parked too close together, then waited as I walked around. She seemed thoughtful as we continued on, and maybe embarrassed.
    She said, "Listen, maybe I shouldn't've joked about it. I didn't know about you not knowing your father. I can see how this would be weird for you."
    "It's not weird. I'm not doing this because I think he's my father."
    "Whatever."
    "Don't make more out of it than there is."
    "Tell you what, let's change the subject