Private (Private 1)

“How’s it going?” she asked me.

Cops were picking over the dump across the road. We could hear them talking to base over the police band.

I said, “Andy Cushman has about twenty pissed-off former clients, any one of whom has the means, the opportunity, and especially the motive to kill him. So why kill Shelby instead? I’m not getting anywhere on it.”

“Sorry to hear that, Jack. But what I meant was, how’s it going for you?”

Actually, what she meant was, how was it going for me and Colleen—and I didn’t want to get into that with her. Instead I said, “I have a new case to work on. It’s heavy-duty and personal. You remember me telling you about my uncle Fred.”

“Football guy.”

“Yeah. He’s worried that some of the games are being fixed. Could result in a huge scandal, the biggest since the Black Sox in baseball.”

“Wow,” Justine said.

“I’m having dreams again,” I said.

Justine’s eyebrows lifted. I had wanted to talk to her, but now I was going to have to really talk. Tell a shrink you’re having dreams, it’s like dangling string for a kitten.

“Dreams about what?” she asked. “The same ones?”

So I told her. I described the vivid explosions, running across the field with someone I love over my shoulder, never making it to safety.

“Could be survivor’s guilt, I guess. What do you think, Jack?”

“I wish the dreams would stop.”

“You’re still funny,” she said, “with the one-liners.”

I opened the folder I had wedged under the armrest and looked at the photo that Bobby Petino had e-mailed to Justine this morning. It was a school portrait of a pretty sixteen-year-old girl named Serena Moses. She’d been reported missing last night. Serena lived in Echo Park, a section of East LA that Justine called “the red zone,” the Schoolgirl killing field.

Two hours after Serena’s parents called the police, an anonymous and untraceable call had come in to 911 saying that Serena’s body was here in the landfill.

Just then, voices came over the police radio, one sharper and louder than the others.

“I’ve got something. Could be human. Oh, Christ…”

“Let’s go,” I said, opening the car door on my side.

“No, Jack. I’ve got to do this alone. If you come with me, I’ll lose my street creds. Just hang tight.”

I said okay. Then I watched Justine cross the empty street and head toward where the police were already taping off a section of the stinking terrain.

Chapter 26

JUSTINE LIFTED HER hand in a wave to Lieutenant Nora Cronin, who gave her the customary dirty look before turning back to the black construction-grade trash bag lying like a crashed balloon at her feet.

Justine’s chest tightened as she remembered another schoolgirl who’d been dumped here a year ago encased in a similar black plastic bag. Her name was Laura Lee Branco, and she had been knifed through the heart.

Cronin cut the tie with a pocketknife, and the bag fell open.

An arm tumbled out, almost in slow motion, the palm and fingers outstretched. It took Justine a long, heart-stopping moment to understand what she was seeing.

“What the hell?” Cronin said, pulling back the edges of the bag to reveal a department store dummy. Two other cops tugged the mannequin out of the bag.

Cronin turned over the female form and inspected it. There was no writing on the dummy, no note inside the black bag.

“So what’s the big message?” Cronin asked the air. “You’re the shrink, right?”