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“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me ‘Sir’, Sanchez. We’re still partners, asshole.”
Mani grins. “In that case: You gonna dick around all day, or take a look at the body?”
I exhale one deep breath. “Show me.”
He takes a step out onto the short pier where the body is, gently removes the tarp, and steps back, making space for me on the short dock.
“You left out some details, Mani.”
“It felt wrong to mention.”
On initial inspection, the woman I’m looking at doesn’t have the patina of a life hard lived. She is medium height, maybe five-seven, and slender with a crop of short, black hair and green irises that stare. Her body is curled in the fetal position, but her face is angled up at the sky above me as if begging for a place there. She was beautiful once, not too long ago. Maybe, even yesterday.
“She’s not homeless,” I cede.
“Nope.”
Mani was right about one thing: She was made up for a night out. The short, black dress and spiked heels are indication enough, but so too is the makeup that hasmottled under the elements, leaving her face an unlikely abstract canvas.
I put on a pair of latex gloves and crouch next to the body, getting as close as possible without touching anything. “No visible bruising or lacerations.”
“Just the gunshot wound,” Mani confirms.
It hit her bowels. I’ve naturally adjusted to breathing through my mouth. But the jagged hole visible through her torn dress is helpful in its own way. “Small caliber bullet. We can confirm when the ME arrives, but probably close range. What else, Mani?”
“Barely any blood.”
“So, we may have the dump site. Not the scene of the crime.”
Mani squats next to me and focuses on the body. While he quietly observes the dead woman, I sear the details to memory. Dumped, limbs sprawled carelessly, not placed down carefully. Left in the open, adjacent to a major thoroughfare. Wallet and (apparently) expensive shoes, not stolen. Whoever left her here didn’t care, not about her or about her chances of being found.
“You think she came out here looking for a fix?”
“It’s unlikely. Assuming this was the dump site. And even if she wanted a fix, women like this don’t come here looking for drugs. They buy them from middlemen at bars and nightclubs.”
“The way the body is positioned…”
“Go on,” I say.
“Body, fetal position. Head, facing up. Limbs, sprawled.”
“So?”
“She wasliterallydropped. Probably by someone who didn’t know her or didn’t care for her, not a friend or spouse.”
I don’t argue. The statement may seem obvious. But we’ve both been in LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division long enough to know that love and homicide often go hand in hand. “Or by someone in a panic,” I add. “What else?”
“By a male who could physically move her.”
“Why not two females?”
“One woman committing murder…okay. Less likely to be a violent homicide. Two women conspiring is statistically unlikely. Two women working together to not only kill butdump the bodyafter the fact, improbable. I’ve never worked—or evenheardof—a female-female homicide cohort.”
“Men account for ninety-six percent of homicide perpetrators,” I confirm. “And, if you’re two females carrying a body that’s about each of your sizes, how do you do it?”
He thinks for a small moment. “One carrying both arms, the other carrying both legs?”
