neither as imposing, but both of them cool and smug. They stood just
inside the bedroom, one on each side of the door, like temple guards,
watching Julio and Reese with unconcealed suspicion.
Julio had never encountered Defense Security Agency men before. They
were far different from the FBI agents that he had sometimes worked
with, less like policemen than FBI men were. They wore elitism as if it
were a pungent cologne.
To Julio and Reese, Sharp said, “I know who you are, and I know a little
bit about your reputations-two hound dogs. You bite into a case and you
just never let go. Usually that’s admirable. This time, however,
you’ve got to unclench your teeth and let go. I can’t make it clear
enough. Understand me?”
“It’s basically our case, Julio said tightly. “it started in our
jurisdiction, and we caught the first call.”
Sharp frowned. “I’m telling you it’s over and you’re out. As far as
your department’s concerned, there is no case for you to work on here.
The files on Hernandez, Klienstad, and Leben have all been pulled from
your records, as if they never existed, and from now on we handle
everything. I’ve got my own forensics team driving in from L.A. right
now. We don’t need or want anything you can provide. Comprende, amigo?
Listen, Lieutenant Verdad, you’re gone. Check with your superiors if
you don’t believe me.”
“I don’t like it,” Julio said.
“You don’t have to like it,” Sharp said.
Julio drove only two blocks from Rachael Leben’s house before he had to
pull over to the curb and stop.
He threw the car into park with a violent swipe at the gearshift and
said, “Damn! Sharp’s so sold on himself he probably thinks someone
ought to bottle his piss and sell it as perfume.”
During the ten years Reese had worked with Julio, he had never seen his
partner this angry. Furious. His eyes looked hard and hot. A tic in
his right cheek made half his face twitch. The muscles in his jaws
clenched and unclenched, and the cords in his neck were taut.
He looked like he wanted to break something in half.
Reese was struck by the weird thought that if Julio had been a cartoon
character, steam would have been pouring from his ears.
Reese said, “He’s an asshole, sure, but he’s an asshole with a lot of
authority and connections.”
– “Acts like a damn storm trooper.”
“I suppose he’s got his job to do.”
“Yeah, but it’s our job he’s doing.”
“Let it go,” Reese said.
“I can’t.”
“Let it go.”
Julio shook his head. “No. This is a special case. I feel a special
obligation to that Hernandez girl. Don’t ask me to explain it. You’d
think I was getting sentimental in my old age. Anyway, if it was just
an ordinary case, just the usual homicide, I’d let it go in a minute, I
would, I really would, but this one is special.”
Reese sighed.
To Julio, nearly every case was special. He was a small man, especially
for a detective, but he was committed, damned if he wasn’t, and one way
or another he found an excuse for persevering in a case when any other
cop would have given up, when common sense said there was no point in
continuing, and when the law of diminishing returns made it perfectly
clear that the time had come to move on to something else. Sometimes he
said, “Reese, I feel a special commitment to this victim cause he was so
young, never had a chance to know life, and it isn’t fair, it eats at
me.” And somerimes he said, “Reese, this case is personal and special
to me because the victim was so old, so old and defenseless, and if we
don’t go an extra mile to protect our elderly citizens, then we’re a
very sick society, this eats at me, Reese.”
Sometimes the case was special to Julio because the victim was pretty,
and it seemed such a tragedy for any beauty to be lost to the world that
it just ate at him. But he could be equally eaten because the victim