Gated Prey (Eve Ronin #3)(12)
“I figure the department owes us lunch,” he said. “And the upgrade to Double Quarter Pounders.”
Eve couldn’t disagree with that.
They were both drawing curious glances from the other McDonald’s patrons because they were considerably overdressed for the place, which was filled with people in beachwear who were either on their way to or from Malibu.
“I think we’re violating the dress code,” she said.
Duncan took a look around. “If you take off that jacket, you’ll fit right in.”
Between bites of his burger, Duncan called the judge to get telephonic search warrants on the homes, vehicles, and phones of the three dead assailants, but in doing so, he dribbled some ketchup on his Louis Vuitton camouflage shirt to go with the blood.
The judge granted their warrants, which Eve knew was a no-brainer given the situation. Eve’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She looked at the caller ID: SHARK. It was Linwood Taggert, her Hollywood agent. She ignored it.
They finished their meals and headed to the station, which was on the west side of Agoura Road, parallel to the freeway, and was up against the boundary line between the small cities of Calabasas and Agoura, both of which contracted with the LASD for law enforcement services.
Eve drove through the gates to the restricted parking area in the back, where the employees parked their cars among the patrol units, assault vehicles, mobile command center, and other official vehicles. There was also a large helipad, often used as a staging area for search-and-rescue operations in the Santa Monica Mountains.
She parked beside her freshly repainted Subaru Outback and they went inside, directly to their respective locker rooms, to change into their own clothes before their interviews with the Officer-Involved detectives.
Eve was eager to peel off her boob tape and get back into her usual blouse, blazer, and slacks. But since she didn’t have a spare bra, she had to live with the tape for the rest of the day.
She was just buttoning her blouse when she heard what was clearly a brawl in the men’s locker room next door and Duncan saying, “Confess or I’ll break your fucking arm.”
Eve ran into the men’s locker room. A red-haired man, wearing nothing but a pair of tighty-whities, was facedown on the floor, his nose bleeding, a fully dressed Duncan Pavone on his back, pinning his right arm behind him at a painful angle. Three deputies, in various stages of undress, stood around them, tensely watching the scene.
Duncan looked defiantly at the men. “If any of you boys tries to pull me off, I’ll snap this bastard’s arm like a twig, so back the fuck away.”
They did, which gave Eve room to step forward without having to shoulder anyone out of her way. “Bud Collier, I presume?”
Duncan gave the man’s arm a twist, eliciting a cry of pain. “The bastard almost made me a cliché: the old detective killed three months before his retirement. Can you believe that?”
Eve squatted in front of Collier and noticed the Great White tattoo on his calf: two surfboards, a gun, and a great white shark arranged so the pointed front sight of the gun barrel, the fins and tail of the shark, and the tips of the surfboards evoked the six points of a sheriff’s star badge set against the backdrop of a cresting wave.
Collier gritted his teeth and glared at her with hatred.
She sighed and rose to her feet. “He’s not going to say anything, Duncan. He’d rather have the broken arm as a badge of honor, to show his buddies that he didn’t talk and fool them into thinking he has some guts. Don’t give the coward the satisfaction.”
“You’re probably right.” Duncan leaned close to Collier’s ear and whispered, “You want me dead? Next time, pretend to be a man and come at me yourself. Don’t get someone else to do it for you.” Duncan let go of Collier’s arm, got to his feet, and stared down the men around them. “You boys have something you want to say?”
The men shared some awkward looks between them, then dispersed to their various lockers to finish getting into or out of their uniforms.
“That’s what I thought.” Duncan adjusted his food-stained tie, straightened his hopelessly wrinkled off-the-rack jacket, and headed for the door.
Eve kept an eye on Collier as Duncan walked away in case he tried to take a cheap shot in retaliation and then followed her partner out.
Once they were out in the hall, she turned to Duncan. “Beating Collier up wasn’t a wise move.”
“What are they going to do, fire me? I’m retiring. Besides, that coward isn’t going to file a complaint and neither are any of his buddies.”
“How did it feel to break his nose?”
“Great,” he said. “Did I get any of his blood on my tie?”
“It’s hard to tell with all the other stains.”
“Then it’s a good thing I haven’t washed it.”
“You’ve never washed a tie in your life,” she said. “You just throw them away when they start to decompose and buy a new one.”
“Now you know why,” he said.
Eve spent nearly two hours being interviewed about the events at the house and the supermarket but the detectives weren’t hard on her. They had no reason to be. She had nothing to do with Joel Dalander’s ill-fated leap off the balcony, nor did she shoot Greg Nagy or Paul Colter. But her actions did end in two deaths, even if they weren’t by her hand, so she didn’t blame them for wanting an explanation from her.