Scarla by BC Furtney Page B

leveled a cool gaze on him. “We’ll start with 3417 Overlook Drive.”
    “What about it?”
    “You applied for a search warrant this morning.”
    “Is there a problem?” Facil replied, eyeing everyone. Delmones watched the table. Smith stared queerly. They’d just met, but Facil wanted to smack him already.
    Rattan shot a look at Delmones, who didn’t react, then continued. “Do you know who
Michael Glissberg
is?”
    Facil paused. He knew the surname, everyone did. Jan Glissberg had run the
Times
for twenty seven years, and anyone in town with
that
name was in the family. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots, but Facil poker-faced it. “No.”
    Delmones eyed him. The Chief was unamused. “You fucking well
should
, he owns the house. Who did you think you were getting a warrant on?”
    Facil looked at Ray Smith, whose eyebrows were arched so high it looked like he might take flight.
Creepy bastard.
    Rattan picked up steam. “Do you
really
intend to raid Glissberg? And what,
arrest him?
”
    Silence. All eyes were on Facil. “Something like that.” More silence.
    Finally, Delmones cracked a rueful smile. “I’d have a bitch of a time keeping
that
quiet.”
    Facil eyed him. “Wanna give it a shot?”
    The Chief blew his top, hammering the table with a fist that bounced the glasses. He composed himself before speaking. “You’re not getting a warrant.”
    Facil didn’t miss a beat. “The house is a problem.”
    “We have bigger problems to deal with.”
    “With all due respect, Chief, I thought that’s why we’re out there.”
    Rattan blinked rapidly, a sign that he was really about to explode. “To bust the
Glissbergs?
And make
headlines?
Is that what you thought?”
    “There was a massacre there last night.”
    “A massacre involving
whom
, Lieutenant?” “Security staff, a doctor, I don’t know the extent of it—” Rattan leapt to his feet, red-faced. “If you don’t know, who knows?!
Who knows?!!”
    Smith leaned back with a wince, fingered his ear, adjusted his tie. Delmones grew fidgety, eyed the door. Facil remained composed. If the guy in charge couldn’t control himself, clear decisions wouldn’t be made, and if directive muddled, there’d be no point in continuing. Plus, he really didn’t like being yelled at.
    “Scarla knows.”
    Rattan paced.
“Jesus fucking H Christ.”
    Delmones spoke up. “Is Michael Glissberg alive?”
    Facil always appreciated Tommy’s cool head. “I think he is.”
    The Chief glared. “You
think?”
    Facil shot a look back. “That’s what I said.”
    Delmones breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. This is good, we can handle this. Do you know, I mean, is he
injured
, or—?”
    Facil shook his head. “I need to go back to find out. If we haven’t gotten a call by now, he’s either dead or covering up, because there’s at least five bodies up there and one injured that might be dead too. We need to check all hospital activity from around ten o’clock last night.”
    Delmones bit his lip, thinking. The Chief and Ray Smith shared a grim, wordless look. Delmones muttered under his breath. “Five dead, one wounded. Neighbors overhear, they’d call it in.” He winced at Facil. “Witnesses?”
    “Closest neighbor’s about a hundred yards. Gated estates. I didn’t see anyone.”
    “Okay.” Delmones turned to Rattan, Solution 1 cocked and loaded. “Easy answer, if Mike Glissberg’s got bad shit going on at his place, why break our asses to cover
his?
It blows up in his face one way or another. We can go in on a phony disturbance call and pin any casualties on the cartels, call it a bad deal, turf war, blame the spics. Whattaya think?”
    The Chief stared at Facil. “Did you at any time identify yourself as a police officer?”
    Facil shook his head. “No.”
    “What about Fragran? Did she tell anyone she was working for the department?”
    “She knows better.”
    “A lot of people know better.
Did
she?”
    “No, she didn’t.” Facil