Episode 2

He parked his car in the carport and went up to his apartment. His cat, Miss Bates, lay on the living room window sill and looked at him lazily before drifting back to sleep. Tate wrote the license plate number of the Navigator on a scratch pad next to the phone, and then lay down on the sofa. By ten minutes to two he and the cat were snoring in unison.

Twenty minutes later the telephone rang. The cat jumped out of the sill and ran into the bedroom while Tate's eyes snapped open and swivilled around the room in confusion for a few seconds before he reached over his head and lifted the receiver of the telephone sitting on the corner table.

"Tate," he croaked.

"Lieutenant Tate? This is Sergeant Paddison. We need a couple of detectives. There's been a body found in a car near the corner of Norwood and Petroleum."

"Who's there now?"

"A couple of patrol cars -- Marsh and O'Connor, Sergeant Washington and Sanchez."

"Have you called anyone else?"

"No, sir."

"Okay. Call Detective Sergeant Garza. Give him the address and tell him that I'll meet him there."

" Will do. Do you want the address?"

"I'll just follow the flashing lights."

Tate went into the bathroom and ran an electric shaver over his stubble, washed his face and rinsed his mouth out with Listerine. He changed into a pair of gray slacks, white shirt with black necktie and tan sports coat. Black socks and shined black Blucher shoes finished the ensemble. He loaded his pockets with his wallet, keys, notebooks, pen and pencil, pipe and tobacco pouch, matches, cell phone and digital camera. By the time he headed out the front door he half wondered why he didn't carry a briefcase or wear some sort of tool belt to carry all his stuff.

The corner of Norwood and Petroleum was in the north end of Sycamore Grove. Norwood ran roughly north and south, and all the way from the ocean at Horseshoe Beach to the foothill of the San Gabriel Mountains. The sycamore Grove city hall was on Norwood in an area made up of apartment buildings and small retailers. In the two mile distance from the city hall the apartment buildings gave way to post world war two housing tracts -- stucco sided, flat roofed houses -- to light industry and warehouses. Radiator and muffler shops, weld shops and machine shops lined the street with liquor stores, sandwich shops and mini-marts scattered among them. A small trailer park occupied the northwest corner of Norwood and Petroleum. Then a strip mall made up of a laundromat, a liquor store and a Mexican restaurant. The next business on Norwood was The Rustlers' Roost Gentlemen's Club. It was from there that the flashing lights of two patrol cars came.

Tate turned left into the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant, got out of his car and walked across a strip of dying grass to the parking lot were the patrol cars sat. A patrolman on foot approached him and shined a flashlight into his face.

"There's nothing here to see, " the patrolman said.

"I'm lieutenant Tate of Robbery/Homicide. Get that thing out of my face." Tate took out his wallet, opened it and showed the patrolman his badge and ID card.

"Sorry, sir. We've never met."

"No problem, Officer..."

"O'Connor, sir. Terence O'Connor."

"What's the story?"

"The story is over by the dumpster. Sergeant Washington is in charge of the scene."

O'Connor turned and led the way to a portion of the parking lot where a green dumpster was pushed up against a cinderblock wall. A sliver late model Infinity was parked next to the fence, the front bumper a few inches from the steel bin. An officer Tate recognized by his perfect posture as sergeant Charles Washington stood a couple of yards from the car slowly sweeping the ground with the beam of a flashlight.

"G'morning, Sergeant Washington, Tate said.

Washington looked up with a grim expression on his face. "Lieutenant."

"What do we have?"

"A dead body in a car." Washington turned and shone his flashlight through the driver's side window. A man slumped behind the steering wheel, his chin resting on his chest. A pair of eyeglasses sat crookedly on his nose. There was a bullet hole at the top of a patch of drying blood behind his left ear.

"Have you called the paramedics?"

Washington tilted his head toward the Rustlers' Roost. "They're over there. Drinking coffee," he said sourly.

Tate had known Washington a long time and he knew him well enough to know that the sergeant considered each and every crime a personal affront. Washington was one of the few cops Tate had known who had never developed a gallows sense of humor and that Washington thought little of cops who had. The same held true for paramedics. Death was not something to be taken lightly. The fact that the paramedic were laughing when he pointed them out to Tate did nothing to elevate them in Washington's opinion.