Milo said, “Maybe he left a note on someone’s desk, Rieffen saw it, snatched it.”

“Guess so,” said Wimmers. “But try proving that.”

I said, “Even if Bobby suspected something and checked in the fridge, how would he have found her out? We’re talking evidence removal, how do you confirm the absence of something?”

“Then why bother killing him?”

“Maybe he gave her a look that unsettled her. Or made a comment. Not enough for him to report, but more than enough to get Rieffen worried. She told Monte, he decided to fix the problem.”

“Homicidal boyfriend,” said Wimmers. “Can’t believe she actually finagled herself to process a murder she’d done. That’s gotta be a first.”

“Didn’t take much finagling,” said Milo. “She offered a trade to another C.I. The tipoff is she never bothered to claim her share.”

“Too good to be true,” said Wimmers. “Man, this girl’s a piece of work. Now all we have to do is prove it.”

“What brought you back to Escobar’s office today?”

Wimmer pushed cranberry sauce around his plate. “What brought me back was my perception of the case. It wasn’t mine, initially. Two rookies caught the call, got pulled off to do gang stuff and wrote up the prelim as a robbery gone bad. Given the neighborhood and Escobar’s wallet being gone, that made superficial sense. But when I looked closer, it started to fall apart. Escobar’s cell phone was right there, on the passenger seat. So was a bunch of bling on his person, all inherited from his dad, who was a pawnbroker. I’m talking a big gold ring with a diamond, a gold I.D. bracelet, a gold-and-diamond earring. Stuff that would’ve been easy to fence. Plus, Escobar was sitting behind the wheel of his car when we found him but most of the blood was outside and when I revisited the scene, I found what looked to be drag marks.”

“He got shot outside and put back in?”

“How many armed robbers you know gonna take the time to do that? To me it smelled staged.”

“Rieffen and Monte are veterans at that.” Milo described the turret murders in greater detail.

Wimmers said, “Please tell me your guy was shot with a .22 revolver or maybe an automatic and the shells were collected.”

Milo nodded.

“Your bullet clean enough for analysis?”

“Coroner says frags but they can be put back together, so maybe.”

“Who’s making the call to the gun lab, you or me?”

“Be my guest, Irv.”

Wimmers phoned Ballistics, arranged for the comparison asap. “They said forty-eight hours, I got ’em down to twenty-four.” Two giant hands rubbed together. “This is starting to taste even better than my bird.”

CHAPTER

41

There’s a sixth sense, a high-definition sensitivity to threat, experienced by soldiers in combat, veteran cops, and a certain class of cold-blooded psychopath.