Sacred and Profane. Faye Kellerman
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can’t come in without a search warrant,” the boy said, stunned.
The smell of marijuana was overwhelming. Decker opened his jacket and gave the kid a view of his shoulder holdster. The boy licked his lips.
“Hey man, no trouble.”
Decker made his way through the formal living room and into the den. Four teenagers stopped talking and looked up. Bruce Springsteen provided the background music.
Even if he had a warrant, and even if he had been from narcotics, it still wouldn’t have been much of a bust. A lid or two of grass—who gave a fuck? But image was all-important. He scooped up the bag and motioned Brian over.
“Where’s the john?” he asked.
“Third door to the left.”
Decker turned to the other teens.
“I’m a police officer,” he said. “You kids stay right where you are. Understand?”
They nodded solemnly.
“C’mon, buddy,” Decker said. He gave Brian a slight shove forward and prodded him down the hallway into the bathroom. When they were both inside, Decker locked the door.
The boy’s hands squeezed into tight, white-knuckled balls.
“You’re not going to try anything stupid, are you?” Decker asked.
The boy didn’t answer.
“Unclench your fists, son. I’m not about to duke it out with you.” Decker smiled. “In a john of all places.”
The boy’s fingers slowly relaxed.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Decker said, “this never existed.” He dumped the contents of the bag down the toilet and gave it a flush. “I gave you a break. Now you give me one.”
The kid stared, amazed.
“Whaddaya want?” he repeated, his tone of voice deferential this time.
“I’m looking for Brian Armor.”
“I’m Brian.”
“I want to talk to you about Lindsey Bates.”
The boy stared at him.
“Lindsey? … This is about Lindsey?”
“Yep. Your bad-ass attitude lost you your stash for nothing.”
“Aw, shit.”
“But look at it this way. I’m not gonna bust you.” Decker took out his notepad. “You wanna talk in here or you wanna go out there?”
“All my friends out there—they were friends of Lindsey’s.”
Decker grinned. He had just saved himself a mess of legwork.
“Let’s go.”
The gang was waiting, stiff and grim. When they saw Brian smile, their posture loosened.
Brian cocked a thumb at Decker.
“He wants to talk about Lindsey.”
“Why should we talk to you?” said a sulking brunette in torn clothing. He knew from Cindy what those rags cost.
“You’re a friend of Lindsey’s?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
“Then maybe you give enough of a fuck about her to help me find her murderer.”
She lowered her eyes.
“What’s your name?” Decker asked the girl.
“Heather.”
Decker consulted his list.
“Heather Hanson.”
Her head jerked up.
“That’s right.”
The detective checked her name off.
“I’m going to read some names,” he said. “Answer me if it’s you.”
They were all there. Decker marveled at his good fortune.
“So what do you want to know about Lindsey?” asked a big blonde with purple lips. She was Lisa O’Donnell.
“She left home at eleven A.M. Saturday morning, September tenth. Did she call any of you earlier that day?”
“She called me,” Heather answered. “I was her best friend.”
“And?”
“And she asked me to meet her at the Galleria at 12:30. She didn’t show up.”
So she had run away or had been abducted somewhere between eleven and 12:30. Amazing that no one had picked up on something so simple.
Heather went on: “I didn’t think anything about it. We change our plans lots of times.” She twirled her curly hair. “I mean, I didn’t tell the police about her phone call the first time around.”
“You’re not going to get into any trouble. I’m only interested in Lindsey now. Were the two of you supposed to meet anyone else?”
“No,” she said quickly.
Decker stared at her.
“Like maybe she was supposed to meet her boyfriend that her parents didn’t know about and you were supposed to meet your boyfriend that your parents don’t know about,” Decker pushed.
The girl studied her fingernails.
“Who was her boyfriend, Heather?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said weakly. “Is she really dead?”
Decker nodded.
Heather swallowed hard and looked away.
“It matters, Heather,” Decker said, “if it was her boyfriend who ripped her off.”
“Hey,” Brian butted in. “He wouldn’t do something like that. Man, he was torn to shreds when Lindsey took off. He thought she dumped him.”
“How long had they been sneaking around together?”
“They were in love!” Heather protested. “It wasn’t anything raunchy.”
Decker backed off.
“Okay, they were in love. Nobody’s saying they weren’t. How long were they going together?”
“Over a year,” Lisa volunteered. “He was a nice guy, but sort of a dropout. You know, free-lance photographer, a one-day-at-a-time person.”
“What’s his name?”
The room was silent. Decker waited.
“Chris Truscott,” Lisa blurted.
“Snitch.” Brian muttered.
“Listen, jerk,” the girl yelled, “if he had anything to do with Lindsey’s death, I don’t want him to go unpunished.” She looked to Decker for approval.
“It was okay to protect him before,” the detective said. “After all, if the two of them ran away together, it’s not your business. But now you know Lindsey has been murdered. She was probably burnt alive and suffered a lot of pain. No sense letting Chris walk away as innocent as a newborn babe if he lit the match.”
Stunned silence. Decker hated this. Bullying people with misery to get what he wanted. Tears fell down Lisa’s cheek.
“He lives in Venice,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I forget the exact address. I think it’s Fourth and Rose.”
“How old is he?”
“Twenty,” Brian answered. “I don’t know how the rest of you feel, but I feel