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Followed by a woman's scream.
Chapter 24
An hour later, back at CBI headquarters, Al Stemple was leaning back in a Guzman Connection task force conference room chair. It groaned under his weight.
The others were here too, the whole crew. The two Steves--Lu and Foster--along with Jimmy Gomez. Allerton, as well, was back from the Seaside bungalow mission.
"What happened to you?" Gomez asked her. She had a bandage on her arm.
"That lead to Serrano? He had a big-ass Doberman in the back bedroom. Sleeping dogs, and all that. He woke up. Didn't like visitors."
"You get bit?"
"Just scratched getting out of the way. Knocked over a table of crappy glass and china. Serves him right."
"Al, you didn't shoot any dogs, did you?" Gomez feigned horror.
"Reasoned with it."
Foster was on the phone, saying to a CHP trooper, "Those're your procedures, not my procedures, and it's my procedures you're going to be following. Are we transparent on that?... I asked you a question... Are we transparent?... Good. No more of this shit."
He hung up with nothing more.
What a dick, Stemple thought and wondered if he'd have an excuse to dice the man into little pieces verbally. That'd be a challenge. Foster seemed like a good dicer too. It'd be like a knife fight.
Now that Foster had finished transparenting the Highway Patrol trooper, Allerton took the floor. "The lead didn't quite pan out, like we hoped. The Serrano Seaside connection."
Gomez asked, "Who was it?"
"A painter--a contractor, you know, a house painter. Not an artist. Tomas Allende. Serrano used to work with him. Uh-huh, he actually did day labor for a while before he got into turning people into skeletons."
Foster grumbled, "Whatta you mean didn't pan out?"
"I said didn't quite pan out. I'll tell you what we found."
We.
Nobody noticed. Probably thinking she meant her and Stemple.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
The stocky woman rose and walked to the door, looked out, then closed it.
Gomez frowned. The two Steves simply watched her.
"I have to tell you, I didn't go alone. Kathryn came with me."
"Kathryn Dance?" Gomez asked.
"How'd she do that?" Foster seemed both perplexed and put out by this information. Not an easy combo, Stemple thought. "She's civil exclusively. Or did something change that I haven't heard about?"
"Nothing's changed," Allerton said.
"Then what do you mean she was there? I don't need her to fuck up another operation in this case."
Stemple stuck his legs out and brought his boot heel down on the linoleum hard. Foster didn't notice the sound. Or maybe didn't care if he did.
Gomez said, "Steve, come on. We don't need that."
