Fallen Angels by Connie Dial

how she wanted to handle the investigation.
    “The same way you handle all your investigations . . . ignore Ibarra and pester me,” Josie said.
    “You know Bright will talk to Ibarra, and the little kiss-ass is gonna wanna run everything I do by the bureau first.”
    They were standing just inside her office. Josie gently pushed the door closed with her foot.
    “We’ll do what Chief Bright told us to do,” she said. “He’s the boss and it’s his investigation now, but everything goes through me first, same as always. Ibarra’s your boss. I’ll make him the official liaison between Hollywood and the bureau,” she said, thinking that would keep him preoccupied and out of everybody’s hair.
    “What a fucking disaster,” Behan said.
    “Do the best you can. You’ll make it work like you always do.” She tried to sound positive, but knew with Bright’s oversight and Ibarra’s ineptitude the case was destined to become a fucking mess, just like Behan said.
    Behan reached for the door when the adjutant knocked from the other side, then pushed it open almost hitting the big detective.
    “Sorry,” Sergeant Jones said, moving his stocky frame away from Behan. “Thought you’d want to know. Footbeat called in a dead body in an alley off the boulevard.”
    “Homeless?” Josie asked. She knew street people were always overdosing and dying in those alleys off Hollywood Boulevard.
    “Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “She had ID. It’s Misty Skylar.”
    “Fuck.” Behan mumbled.
    “Another movie star?” Josie asked. She’d have to start using some of those amc gift cards gathering dust in her desk.
    “Hillary’s agent,” Behan said on his way out. He told Fricke to put his snitch back in the holding cell while he tracked down a team of detectives to send to the alley.
    “You want to go out there with me?” he asked Josie, who’d followed him back to the homicide table. She had a stack of work waiting on her desk and wasn’t interested until Behan reminded her that Misty Skylar had been at the Hollywood Hills party house with Hillary the night she was killed. It was too much of a coincidence even for the Hollywood crowd.
    Lieutenant Ibarra was already on the scene when they arrived and was interviewing a pretty older woman in a revealing waitress uniform. The dead body had been discovered outside the back door of the bar where the waitress worked. Yellow police tape sealed the only entrance to the alley, and two uniformed officers stood in front of that flimsy barrier to keep curious pedestrians and the media from trampling the crime scene.
    Josie couldn’t see the body until she passed the dumpster. Misty Skylar was propped against the wall between the dumpster and a pile of trash. She was wearing an expensive-looking black strapless cocktail dress, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, and her arms folded against her chest. Her feet were bare but clean. Her head was back as if she was staring at the stars, though her star-gazing days were definitely over.
    Josie moved around the body, careful not to touch or step on anything, and glanced at the face. The eyes were swollen shut and blood was caked under the victim’s nose and both ears. The spot where Misty’s mouth should have been was a black hole. The flesh around it burned or shredded. The wall behind her was covered with blood, pieces of cartilage, teeth and brain matter. A highcaliber explosion had gone off in the woman’s mouth.
    “Too much blood and debris above her head,” Behan said, examining the gruesome mosaic on the wall. “She wasn’t in that position when the gun discharged in her mouth.”
    “The body was staged,” Josie said and asked, “How old is she?” Misty had a young woman’s figure, but Josie noticed that the skin on the arms wasn’t firm and the manicured hands had a few age spots.
    “Fifty-four,” Behan said.
    “Found the shoes and her purse with ID and money in the dumpster,” Ibarra said,