For the next sixty-three minutes I used every anger-reduction trick I knew while warming a hard plastic chair as Moore answered the phone and moved paper around. Twenty minutes into the wait, I stepped up to the desk and Moore said, “Why don’t you just go home, sir? If he really does know you, he’s got your number.”
My hands clenched below the counter. “No, I’ll wait.”
“Suit yourself.” Moore got up, walked into a back room, returned with a large cup of coffee and a glazed bear claw. He ate with his back to me, taking very small bites and wiping his chin several times. Minutes dripped by. A few blues came and went, some of them greeting Moore, none with enthusiasm. I thought of Stacy and Eric watching their father taken away by LAPD’s finest.
At five-fifteen, an elderly couple in matching green cardigans walked into the station and asked Moore what could be done about their lost dog. Moore adopted a skeptical look and gave them the number for Animal Control. When the woman asked another question, Moore said, “I’m not Animal Control,” and turned his back.
“What you are,” said the old man, “is a little prick.”
“Herb,” said his wife, easing him toward the door.
As they left, he told her, “And they wonder why no one likes them.”
Five-twenty. Eric and Stacy were nowhere in sight. If they’d made it, I assumed they’d been allowed upstairs, but Moore wouldn’t confirm it.
I’d sped over in the Seville, following Richard’s black BMW as Eric gunned it down from the glen and wove through Westwood traffic. Easy to follow: the car was a blade of onyx cutting through dirty air. The car that I’d wondered about as the match to the vehicle Paul Ulrich had spotted on Mulholland. Richard, Eric …
The boy drove much too fast, took foolish chances. At Sepulveda and Wilshire, he ran a red light, nearly collided with a gardener’s truck, swerved into the center lane, sped away from a chorus of honks. I was two cars back, got caught at the light, lost sight of him. By the time I reached the station, I couldn’t find the BMW on the street. No parking space for me in the police lot this time. I circled several times, finally grabbed a spot two blocks away. Jogging the distance, I arrived huffing.
Remembering the fear in Stacy’s eyes as Korn and Demetri placed their father in the back of a dung-brown unmarked. Tears striping her face. As Korn slammed the door of the police cat, she mouthed, “Daddy.” Eric dragged her to the BMW, opened her door, nearly shoved her into the passenger seat. Flashing me one furious look, he ran to the driver’s side, started the car up hard, shoved the RPMs to a defiant whine. Fishtailing and burning rubber, he took off.
“Where are the kids?” I asked Milo.
Something in my voice made him wince. “Let’s talk upstairs, Alex.”
The use of my name made Moore look up. “Hey there, Detective Sturgis,” he said. “This gent’s been waiting for you.”
Milo grunted and led me to the stairs. We climbed quickly to the second floor, but instead of exiting, he stopped at the fire door and leaned against it. “Hear me out. This was not my decision—”
“You didn’t send those two—”
“The command to pick up and question Doss came from downtown. Command, not request. Downtown claims they tried to reach me. I was out in Venice, and instead of trying harder they went around me and gave the order to Korn.”
“Demetri said you knew.”
“Demetri’s an asshole.” Neck bulging against the collar. Unhealthy flush. I was three steps below him and he probably didn’t mean to glare down at me. But the effect was there—looming bulk, volcanic rage. The stairwell was hot, gray, soupy with the steel-and-sweat pungency of a high-school corridor.
“Would I have done the same thing?” he said. “Yes, it was a command. But not at your house. So please. I’ve got plenty to deal with.”
“Fine,” I said, not sounding fine at all. “But cut me some slack, too. I saw the looks on those kids’ faces. What the hell’s the emergency? What’s Richard done?”