The Sentry - By Robert Crais Page 0,50

integrity of case evidence, enforce a professional code of conduct, and discourage employee corruption.

John Chen was corrupt.

A paranoid with low self-esteem, Chen lived for the headline, and this was normally Cole’s ace. Cole often gave Chen information that allowed him to make breakthroughs on cases he would not have made otherwise. These breakthroughs led to a media profile few other criminalists enjoyed, Chen having been quoted more than a dozen times in the Los Angeles Times, interviewed by various local TV news anchors, and hired as a technical consultant on motion pictures based on two of his cases. Chen, whose obsessions in life revolved around women and money, currently drove a Porsche Boxster. The women had so far eluded him.

Cole worked his way onto the I-10 Freeway for the fifteen-mile trek across the Los Angeles Basin. He was approaching the Mid-City area less than halfway across when his phone rang, and he saw it was Pike. Cole had been struggling with what to tell Pike, but now the call forced his hand. If Wilson and Dru were still alive, he would say nothing until he knew more.

“Was it them?”

“Mendoza and Gomer. They’re dead.”

Cole felt a kick of surprise. Mendoza and Gomer were the predators. They weren’t supposed to be dead. If the predators were dead, where were the victims?

“What about Wilson and Dru?”

“Nothing. Mendoza was in the canal by Washington. Gomer was in a car up at the north end. If the cops found something in Gomer’s car, they haven’t told me.”

Pike quickly described how they were killed, which left Cole even more unsettled.

“When did it happen?”

“Fill you in later. I’m being questioned.”

“You’re a suspect?”

“It won’t be a problem. They’re covering the bases.”

“There’s a third player, Joe. The person who jimmied the kitchen window.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about it.”

Pike hung up and Cole drove on, letting the flow of traffic carry him through increasingly darker thoughts.

When the Los Angeles Police Department relocated their headquarters from a decayed and crumbling Parker Center to the new Police Administration Building two blocks away, they forgot to take the Scientific Investigation Division with them. This wasn’t factually the case, but was one of many jokes the criminalists liked to tell. The reality was that until a suitable site was found, SID would remain the last man standing in LAPD’s past.

Cole didn’t drive to the old Parker Center location. He waited for Chen outside the Criminal Courts Building six blocks away, arriving early and waiting an extra twenty minutes until John arrived.

Chen slipped into the passenger seat of Cole’s car so fast it was as if he fell from the sky. He wore oversized dark sunglasses, a Dodgers cap pulled low on his face, and a windbreaker with the collar turned up even though it would reach almost ninety degrees later that day. His grapefruit head was tucked into the collar like a turtle into its shell. Hiding.

“I don’t think anyone saw me, but we’d better drive. They might have followed.”

Chen’s paranoia.

Cole pulled into traffic, determined to make this a short drive. The news about Mendoza and Gomer had left him feeling even more concerned about Smith and Dru Rayne.

Cole reached behind the seat for his bag, and put it on Chen’s lap. There wasn’t much room. Chen was tall, skinny, and looked like a praying mantis folded into the front passenger compartment.

“It’s breakable, so be careful.”

“What’s in here?”

“Glasses. A couple of soda cans. Things like that. I also have a metal box you can have when you get out of the car.

Chen took off the sunglasses and put on his regular glasses. The lenses looked like they had been cut from the bottoms of Coke bottles.

Chen peered inside.

“Shit, this is a lot. I have a caseload, man. I have so many cases my backlog has a backlog.”

“I know it’s a lot, but don’t get ahead of yourself. The prints should belong to two individuals—a male and a female who live at the residence. The woman’s prints should be on the deodorant stick. The male’s prints are probably on the file box. Run the stick first, then the box. If you pull something clean, you won’t have to clock anything else.”

Chen didn’t look any happier.

“I didn’t say I couldn’t do it. I just gotta figure out how. I’ll have to work this stuff into the landing pattern, and that could take days.”

The Latent Prints Unit was staffed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The backlog of prints waiting to be analyzed was