He went inside the squad room—empty except for Homicide. The team was filling out thick stacks of forms, mowing through paperwork. Though there were a half-dozen open computer stations, much of the pencil pushing was still done by hand. They needed a break. Decker put on a fresh pot of decaf and called a meeting.

The detectives’ squad room was wide-open space, the perimeter outlined by filing cabinets and shelving units containing hundreds of blue case notebooks. Taped onto the walls were an assignment board, a preprinted poster of procedure rules, lots of Gary Larson pig cartoons, and a dozen street maps of the division’s territory, one of them overlaid with a dartboard outline. The different details—GTA, CAPS, SEX, JUVENILE, BURGLARY—were demarcated by placards hanging from the ceiling. Narcotics and Vice sat upstairs. Homicide took up the back area, cordoned off from the others by a filing cabinet barrier. Like other LAPD units, the detectives’ desks in Devonshire were set up in a capital I configuration. After pouring coffee for everyone, Decker took a seat at the crosshatch. He opened his notebook.

“We’ll start with the basics. Random or not random. Pros. Cons. Marge, you go first.”

She pushed wilted dishwater hair from her tired eyes. “Could be random carjacking, the drop point being the back alley. Why else would Sparks’s car be there? If he had come to Tracadero’s willingly, I think he would have used the parking valets in the front.”

“Maybe he was cheap.” Martinez chewed on his mustache. “Or maybe he didn’t trust the valet to drive his wheels.”

“How about a gang robbery thing?” Webster said. “Tracadero’s attracts rich blood. Not a bad place to hang out if you want to hit someone with cash.”

Martinez said, “He had cash on him, Tom.”

“Maybe something scared off the muggers,” Webster retorted. “Maybe Sparks fought back, they killed him and left.”

“Awful lot of damage for panic-stricken muggers,” Marge said.

“Maybe Sparks made the muggers mad.”

Decker said, “Either way, carjacking or robbery has to be at least a two-person attack.”

“The shooting and stabbing,” Marge said. “Unusual that one perp would use two methods.”

The detectives agreed.

“I had an interesting conversation with one of New Chris’s nurses, maybe a half hour ago.” Decker downed coffee. “Seems that Sparks had a reputation for being a good Samaritan with auto accidents.” He told the group Nurse Tara’s theories.

Marge said, “That supports a carjacking over a restaurant robbery.”

“Weird.” Oliver pulled out a comb and ran it through thick, black hair. “He can’t break out of his doctor mold even when riding home in his own car.”

“I know several lawyers who do that kind of stuff,” Gaynor stated. “Use scanners. But it isn’t for altruistic purposes.”