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He cuts the dead man's fingers off, rehydrates them, and rolls a clean set of prints.On Sunday, Liova hears a radio news broadcast.A Latin couple named Carlos and Delia Guevara have been reported missing in Lancaster.She gets another strong vibe: Her dead man is Carlos Guevara.She calls the Antelope Valley Sheriff's Missing Persons unit.An officer tells her that Sergeant jim Sears and Deputy jerry Burks of Sheriff's Homicide have already been assigned to the case-- because a bullet hole was found in Carlos and Delia Guevara's living-room wall.Joe Guzman returns from Texas.Liova drives him up to Lancaster and explains the case en route.The team meets up with Burks and Sears at the Guevara house.Sears drops a belated bomb: Delia Guevara's body was discovered in Yermo over the weekend.The woman had been shot and similarly dumped--in San Bernardino County, sixty miles from the spot where Guzman and Anderson's body was found.Liova checks the Guevaras' family records stash and finds a fingerprint ID card on Carlos.She takes itto the L.A.County crime lab and has a technician compare it to the rehydrated digits cut off her victim.The prints match.Burks and Sears work the Delia side of the case.Anderson and Guzman stick with Carlos.Liova's original vibe simmers: This is a sex or sexual-revenge killing.She begins an extensive background check on the Guevaras.She learns that Delia worked at a local Burger King 2nd Carlos worked at a local appliance store.She learns that the couple had emigrated from Mexico illegally and were living above their means.She learns that Delia had been receiving menacing phone calls at work and that Carlos loved to talk lewd in mixed company--even though it made his friends and neighbors uncomfortable.Carlos was also known forGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlchasing women outright.Joe Guzman finds numerous toys in a sealed-off bedroom at the Guevara house.It is a striking anomaly.The Guevaras were childless and had often told friends they did not intend to have children.The motive takes circumstantial shape.Two killings.Vengeance perpetrated by a cuckolded lover or the parents of an abused child.Ray Peavy wraps his account up.Anderson and Guzman, Burks and Sears are still on the case--which remains one baffling whodunit.Sergeant Jacque Franco pokes her head in the door and eavesdrops.Deputy Rick Graves sidles by for a listen; Dan Burt shoots him an attaboy for his work on that drowning case off Catalina Island.Ray Peavy says, "It never ends."Jacque Franco says, "We're still six short of breaking the record."Dan Burt pats his fat ceramic bulldog.Sergeant Bob Perry and Deputy Ruben "Bj." Bejarano get called out on Christmas Eve.It's cold, dark, and rainy--good indoor mayhem conditions.They roll to a video store near the Century Sheriff's Station.A Taiwanese woman named Li Mei Wu lies dead on the floor behind the counter.The weather has kept rubberneckers to a minimum.Patrol deputies have rounded up eyewitnesses and sequestered them at the station.A sergeant lays things out for Bejarano and Perry.Three black teenagers entered the store around closing time.They gave the victim some verbal grief, split, and returned a few minutes later.One of them shot Li Mei Wu with a rifle.They ran outside and disappeared on foot.The victim is positioned faceup.There's a live.22-caliber round and a.22 ejected casing behind the counter.A coroner's assistant lifts the body, notes the exit wound, and points to a projectile tangled up in Li Mei Wu's clothes.He says the shot probably tore out the woman's aorta.The assistant finds $300 in Li Mei Wu's pockets.Perry and Bejarano note the untouched money and the full cash register and tentatively scratch robbery as a motive.The patrol sergeant tells them what eyeball witnesses told him: The perpetrators bopped to a coin laundry a few doors down before they bopped back and bopped Li Mei Wu.The body is hustled off to the county morgue.Bj.diagrams the video store in his notebook, zooms down to the laundry, and quick-sketches the floor plan.A deputy from the crime lab arrives.He begins snapping crime-scene shots and dusting both the video store and the coin laundry.Bob and Bj.secure the location and drive to Century Station.Two witnesses are waiting; three haveGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlsigned preliminary statements, left their phone numbers, and gone home.Bj.and Bob conduct interviews.They go over minute points of perspective and indoor and outdoor lighting repeatedly.Questions are phrased and rephrased; answers are cross-checked against the three preliminary statements.A single short narrative emerges.At 8:20 P.M., three black teenagers enter the video store.They behave in a raucous fashion; Li Mei Wu tells them to leave.The kids peruse the skin-flick section and touch numerous fingerp rintsustaining surfaces.They walk to the laundry, behave in a raucous fashion, return to the video store and approach Li Mei Wu.One boy says, "Give me your money, bitch!" One boy pulls a rifle from under his clothes and shoots Li Mei Wu--just like that.It's Christmas morning now.Yuletide greetings, Bulldogs-- your new case is senseless blasphemy on this day of peace and joyous celebration.Days pass.Bejarano and Perry work the Li Mci Wu snuff.They interview four more witnesses and get their basic scenario confirmed.They run mug shots by the witnesses and come up empty.They run a previous-incident check on the video store-- and hit just a little bit lucky.The place was robbed in November, while Li Mei Wu was working the counter.The perpetrators: three black teenagers.The same kids robbed a nearby pizza joint that same November night.Li Mei Wu ID's one boy as the grandson of one of her customers.Deputies went by the family pad to grab him--butJunior was long gone.Bj.and Bob think the December incident report through.One fact stands out: Li Mei Wu hit the silent alarm when she was robbed in November--but did not rush for it on the night of her death.She obviously did not recognize the kids as the kids who robbed her the previous month.Bejarano and Perry get their gut feeling confirmed: The murder was committed by local punks.The killers ran away on a rainy night--they didn't have a car and got soaked dispersing back to their pads.One robbery threesome; one trio of killers.Word would be out in the neighborhood--and loose talk would give them a good shot at solving the case.While other cases accumulate.There's a big post-Christmas murder lull.Entire on-call shifts are rotating through sans killings.The lunchroom tree is wilting under the weight of decomposed fake snow.Bulldog eyes are bloodshot.Bulldog waistlines have expanded.High-octane coffee can't jolt Bulldog talk out of a desultory ripple.Rey Verdugo's recalling other murder lulls.A few years ago the County of Los Angeles went nine days without a single murder.One of Rey's buddies put a sign reading KILL! in the squad-room window.Sheriff's Homicide notched twelve righteous whack-outs over the next twenty-four hours.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlDave Dietrich's showing off some threads he got for Christmas.His wife reads men's fashion mags and shops for him accordingly.You'd call him "Dave the Dude"--if he didn't look so much like a college professor.Bill Sieber's drinking Slim-Fast in anticipation of his New Year's diet.He's monologuing between sips--in an uncharacteristically subdued fashion.Ray Peavy and Derry Benedict are discussing the Christmas party at Stevens Steak House.Ray worked the bash as a disc jockey--between his regular off-duty deejay gigs.Talk shifts to famous unsolved murders.Derry brings up his favorite: the 1944 Georgette Bauerdorf job.When he retires he's going to write a novel about the case [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]