us.”
“Damn!” Ibarra said, and smacked his desk.
“What?”
“Something’s gotta give around here,” he said. “How can I be at the lab with you tomorrow while I’m talking to all these family members that want to give me information in the Grayling shooting?” He held up a fistful of phone messages. “And Delaney’s on my tail to finish the interviews from that stabbing over on Miracle Mile. What the hell?” He threw his pencil down on the desk. It flew off across the room, narrowly missing the detective at the next desk, who sent him a black frown but went on with his phone conversation. “Shit, the faster I work the deeper I dig the hole!” He slammed some papers around on his desk for a few seconds, then calmed down and looked sheepishly at Sarah. “Sorry.”
“You need some Tums?”
“I’m not having gas, I’m having a hissy fit.”
“We don’t both have to go to the autopsy,” Sarah said. “I’ll take good notes and you can read them. Or are you really having a hissy fit about something else?”
He rubbed his face hard with both hands, got up and picked up his pencil, came back and sat down. “Good call. Two of my kids have got sinus infections. Sandy and I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since last week some time. You’re talking to the walking dead.” He did a zombie imitation, eyes rolled back and tongue hanging out.
“Jimmy, why don’t you put in for some family leave?”
“I’m saving it up for when I get my vasectomy,” he said, and they both laughed. Jimmy’s family planning negotiations with his devoutly Catholic wife had regaled the section for years.
“Forget the autopsy,” Sarah said. “I’ll handle it.” She was secretly pleased. She always thought she learned more at the investigations she did alone. But she went back to her desk reflecting that Jimmy’s family situation was going to damage his career if he didn’t find some way to get it under control. She wished she knew how to help; she had been to the edge of that cliff herself.
She was answering e-mails when her phone rang. A man’s voice yelled, “One thing I hate it’s a smartass.”
A little buzz of satisfaction raced along her nerves. “This wouldn’t be Bud Ganz, by any chance?”
“Not if he could help it but yes, this is Ganz-by-any-chance.”
“And are you calling to tell me that you’ve already found a match?”
“I sure as hell am, lady.”
“Well now, ain’t that a hole in the boat? How come so fast?”
“My next work order after I talked to you, there was a mistake in the request so I had to send it back. So I said to myself, “Self,’ I said, ‘let’s show that uppity Sarah Burke she may look good in pants but she isn’t any smarter than the rest of us.’ He coughed again, terrible whoops that made her hold the phone away from her ear. She put it back fast when she heard him say, “But now instead of that, goddammit, I gotta call and tell the uppity woman she was right.” Actually he was bursting with pride, she thought—over the moon in love with himself.
“Where’d you find him?”
“Florence. Your victim is Adolph Alvin Perkins, a.k.a. ‘Ace’. Cute, huh? Ace.” He made a rude noise. “Served three years and three months of a 3-to-ten for dealing cocaine, released early this year. I’ll copy this to your e-mail.”
“Good. Just that one conviction, huh?”
“Well, in Arizona. I’ll do the nationwide search some day soon, but you seemed like you wanted this before the body got cold, so ¾ ”
“Yes. Has anybody mentioned to you lately that you do very superior work?”
“Go ahead, flatter me shamelessly.”
“I mean it. I owe you a big one.”
“You want to pay up? Sex is always good.”
Ganz always made verbal passes at her, but in a routine way that made it easy not to take offense. In a workplace that was still mostly
“Damn!” Ibarra said, and smacked his desk.
“What?”
“Something’s gotta give around here,” he said. “How can I be at the lab with you tomorrow while I’m talking to all these family members that want to give me information in the Grayling shooting?” He held up a fistful of phone messages. “And Delaney’s on my tail to finish the interviews from that stabbing over on Miracle Mile. What the hell?” He threw his pencil down on the desk. It flew off across the room, narrowly missing the detective at the next desk, who sent him a black frown but went on with his phone conversation. “Shit, the faster I work the deeper I dig the hole!” He slammed some papers around on his desk for a few seconds, then calmed down and looked sheepishly at Sarah. “Sorry.”
“You need some Tums?”
“I’m not having gas, I’m having a hissy fit.”
“We don’t both have to go to the autopsy,” Sarah said. “I’ll take good notes and you can read them. Or are you really having a hissy fit about something else?”
He rubbed his face hard with both hands, got up and picked up his pencil, came back and sat down. “Good call. Two of my kids have got sinus infections. Sandy and I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since last week some time. You’re talking to the walking dead.” He did a zombie imitation, eyes rolled back and tongue hanging out.
“Jimmy, why don’t you put in for some family leave?”
“I’m saving it up for when I get my vasectomy,” he said, and they both laughed. Jimmy’s family planning negotiations with his devoutly Catholic wife had regaled the section for years.
“Forget the autopsy,” Sarah said. “I’ll handle it.” She was secretly pleased. She always thought she learned more at the investigations she did alone. But she went back to her desk reflecting that Jimmy’s family situation was going to damage his career if he didn’t find some way to get it under control. She wished she knew how to help; she had been to the edge of that cliff herself.
She was answering e-mails when her phone rang. A man’s voice yelled, “One thing I hate it’s a smartass.”
A little buzz of satisfaction raced along her nerves. “This wouldn’t be Bud Ganz, by any chance?”
“Not if he could help it but yes, this is Ganz-by-any-chance.”
“And are you calling to tell me that you’ve already found a match?”
“I sure as hell am, lady.”
“Well now, ain’t that a hole in the boat? How come so fast?”
“My next work order after I talked to you, there was a mistake in the request so I had to send it back. So I said to myself, “Self,’ I said, ‘let’s show that uppity Sarah Burke she may look good in pants but she isn’t any smarter than the rest of us.’ He coughed again, terrible whoops that made her hold the phone away from her ear. She put it back fast when she heard him say, “But now instead of that, goddammit, I gotta call and tell the uppity woman she was right.” Actually he was bursting with pride, she thought—over the moon in love with himself.
“Where’d you find him?”
“Florence. Your victim is Adolph Alvin Perkins, a.k.a. ‘Ace’. Cute, huh? Ace.” He made a rude noise. “Served three years and three months of a 3-to-ten for dealing cocaine, released early this year. I’ll copy this to your e-mail.”
“Good. Just that one conviction, huh?”
“Well, in Arizona. I’ll do the nationwide search some day soon, but you seemed like you wanted this before the body got cold, so ¾ ”
“Yes. Has anybody mentioned to you lately that you do very superior work?”
“Go ahead, flatter me shamelessly.”
“I mean it. I owe you a big one.”
“You want to pay up? Sex is always good.”
Ganz always made verbal passes at her, but in a routine way that made it easy not to take offense. In a workplace that was still mostly
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