Serpent’s Tooth. Faye Kellerman

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      “True or false.”

      Decker ignored her, turned to Cindy. “Well?”

      Cindy said, “Daddy, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to talk to you about my decision. I’d love to hear about your experiences and your insights. But I’m in the Academy regardless.”

      “That’s being very pigheaded.”

      Rina interjected, “Peter—”

      “She’s acting like a mule.”

      “There’s no reason to name-call—”

      “Why is she afraid of hearing the truth?” Decker said.

      Cindy said, “Listen, guys, I’m really tired. I want to go home.”

      “You tell your mom about this?”

      Cindy sighed.

      “You haven’t told her?” Decker began to pace. “Great. I don’t have enough garbage in my life dealing with friggin’ mass murderers—”

      “Dad, I’m really sorry about that. It must be terrible. And I certainly don’t mean to add to your stress—”

      “But you’ll do it anyway.”

      No one spoke. Cindy sighed. “I’m going. We’ll talk later. When everyone’s calmer.” She smiled at her father. “Good night.”

      Abruptly, Decker stopped walking, plunked himself down in a chair, and stared out the window, his eyes a thousand miles away.

      “She said good night, Peter.”

      “Good night, good night,” he muttered.

      “Give her a hug, for godsakes.”

      Cindy waited a beat. When Decker didn’t move, Rina said, “Peter, did you hear—”

      “Yes, I heard you.”

      Cindy felt her eyes start to moisten, but quickly she held back the tears. “That’s okay, Rina. Everyone needs their space. Even parents.”

      Again, she waited a moment. When Decker didn’t move, she bade Rina good night and left quietly. Soon the car’s engine faded to nothingness. Rina broke the silence.

      “You should have given her a hug, Peter,” Rina rebuked him. “Your intransigence was nasty. God forbid, suppose she has an accident or something. How would you feel?”

      “Horrible. I’d never forgive myself.”

      “So how could you let her leave like that!”

      He turned to her, his own eyes moist. “Because … I was afraid if I hugged her, I would have never let her go.”

       10

      The temperature in the office was arctic. Why did the city feel it necessary to keep the station house in a deep freeze? Or maybe it was just Decker’s mood. Because things weren’t going well. He sat at his desk, looking out at a wall of eyes. His Homicide team arcing around him. Protective. Like a moat. His brain pounded. With any luck, ibuprofen would work its magic. He nodded for Oliver to begin.

      Scott scanned his notes, hand raking through his black hair. “Loo, we’ve gone through Estelle’s room to room, wall to wall, floor to floor, ceiling to ceiling. Neither Dunn nor I could find enough empty magazines at the scene to account for all the bullets and casings.”

      Decker’s eyes glanced at the newspaper on his desk. A couple of days had passed, but Estelle’s was still front-page news. He spoke quietly. “Would it help if you looked again?”

      “We were very thorough.” Marge smoothed out the leg of her beige pants. She wore lightweight fabrics today—white cotton shirt, viscose pants. But if the weather continued its cooling trend, it would be time for the wools. “I’ll show you our grid maps if you want. Right now it doesn’t look like much … a mass of dots.”

      “We marked every place where we extracted a bullet or found an empty casing,” Oliver explained.

      Bert Martinez twirled the ends of his bushy mustache, his stocky frame bowing the seat of the folding chair. “Whole damn case is starting to smell fishy. Anyone show the Loo Harlan’s autopsy report?”

      Decker sat up. “When did that come in?”

      “You were in a meeting with the mayor, city council, and Strapp,” Marge said. “We tried paging you …”

      Decker grimaced. He’d forgotten to pick up a new pager.

      “How’d that go?” Oliver was concerned. “Are our asses on the line?”

      “Why should our asses be on the line?” Martinez asked. “We’ve got the perp … of sorts.”

      “Lawsuits, right?” Oliver said. “Police should have showed up sooner, right? If they had, more lives would have been saved, right? What was time of arrival on that one? Something like two minutes?”

      “First cruiser arrived in two-twenty-eight,” Webster said.

      Oliver said. “Am I right, Deck?”

      “Close.”

      “No matter what happens, we’ll get blamed. Earthquake could drop the city into the center of the earth, it would be our fault.”

      “For the time being, the Detective division isn’t a point of concern.” Decker paused. “But if this turns out to be … how should I say this? If this is something more than a straightforward mass murder, the focus will shift to us. Who has that autopsy report?”

      “That would be me.” Webster handed the folder to Decker, his blue eyes focused, alert. Today, Tom was dressed in a black suit, sunglasses dangling from his jacket pocket. Looked more FBI than LAPD with his permapressed Anglo good looks. Suave manner. But Decker didn’t hold it against him. Webster was a damn good cop.

      Decker thumbed through the pages, eyes working like strobes. “What should I be looking for?”

      Webster drawled, “The bullet that killed Harlan Manz. It was fired at a range consistent with a distance of around two to two and a half feet—”

      “What!” Decker raced through the report. “Where?”

      “Page eleven or twelve. I marked it with a pencil.”

      Decker fast-forwarded to the paragraph. Read it once, then read it again. He sat back in his chair, ran a hand down his face.

      Martinez said, “I called up the morgue … asked if they were sure about that distance.”

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