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‘Your coffee’s going cold out here,’ he called through the remaining crack in the door.
‘It always does,’ Kathryn replied. ‘You enjoy yours.’
He wouldn’t; he left it where it sat, a sacrificial lamb left on a filing cabinet altar. He rushed outside, taking the stairs two at a time, and just made it to the bottom and outside before he heaved his stomach up, all over a rose bush that was thriving despite the dry Los Angeles climate.
***
Back at the Bureau’s main office downtown, Lindsay lucked out. It was late, but a ballistics tech was still kicking around the lab, blasting some pop shit at a volume that made Lindsay want to jump out of a window, or smash the computer it was coming from, all distorted and tinny. Nobody appreciated quality these days. They didn’t even buy their music, just downloaded it from torrent websites, and they were the fucking FBI.
Nothing was the way it used to be. Lindsay was only forty, but he felt old. Worn out. Twenty years in the force kind of had that effect.
‘Hey,’ Lindsay called from the doorway of the laboratory. He didn’t want to walk in unheard and spook the lab tech – this was a room full of guns and bullets, for Christ’s sake – but the dude working at his computer was totally oblivious.
Lindsay rolled his eyes, marched in and slammed the specimen jar on the desk so hard the whole thing rattled.
The guy jumped so high, Lindsay was surprised his head didn’t hit the fucking ceiling.
Lindsay blinked, his patience fraying, as the lab tech scrambled for the mute button.
‘I need a bullet run.’
The guy started typing, barely glancing at Lindsay. ‘I’m off the clock in five,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a booking at Romera’s. Leave it with me and I’ll add it to the pile.’
Lindsay ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting the faint remnants of coffee and vomit. No. He would not add it to the pile.
‘A cop was killed. She washed up in Long Beach this morning. This bullet’s the only thing we have. I guess Romera’s is gonna have to wait.’
The tech paled, his eyes meeting Lindsay’s as he held out his palm. Lindsay smiled congenially, smacking the jar into his hand.
‘Give me thirty minutes,’ the tech said.
Lindsay nodded. ‘I’ll be back in ten.’
Time enough to get coffee from the Starbucks down on Westwood and drive around in the peace that one could only enjoy in downtown LA in the quiet of the night. He drove as he sipped his Americano, all the while theorising how Alexandra Baxter had met her death. He was betting on a certain DEA agent called Christopher Murphy, who hadn’t been seen or heard from in the same time that Allie had been missing. Had he killed her? Dumped her body and fled, keeping their shared steals to himself?
Or was it just a matter of time before his body washed up, a matching bullet hole for a crab to burrow into and make a home?
***
Fifteen minutes later, Lindsay was carrying two cups of coffee back to the lab. He’d decided to be nicer to the lab tech, in hopes that it’d speed up the process. At first, when he walked in, the lab was empty, and Lindsay almost threw his second cup of coffee at the fucking wall. That bastard had left? Gone to keep his dinner reservation?
No. He hurried back into the lab a few moments after Lindsay, skittish and almost excited. He was waving around a printout that looked like a series of lines and going on about striations and barrels.
‘Here,’ Lindsay interrupted, handing him coffee.
‘Is it black?’ the guy asked breathlessly. ‘I’m vegan.’
He frowned. ‘Romera’s is a steakhouse.’
The guy tore the lid off the coffee – which was black and steaming hot, luckily for him, thevegan steakhouse frequenter– and started pouring sugar packets into the brew. ‘My girlfriend likes to eat dead animals. I see enough dead people to never eat meat again.’
Lindsay thought of Allie’s skull. ‘Fair call.’
The lab tech handed Lindsay a piece of paper with those irregular lines again.
‘You want the good news or the bad news?’
‘Just start talking.’Before I throttle you.
