Read Online Diamond in the Buff by Susan Dunlap - Free Book Online

building Herman Ott was a hero, a man who helped his neighbors through the mystifying bureaucracies. If Ott was avoiding me, I wouldn’t have expected his neighbors to help me out.
    Still fuming I walked down the stairs, telling myself that patrol would find Sandoval. At this very moment an officer would be checking her house, and walking officers would be questioning street vendors near Sandoval’s abandoned space. The best thing for me to do would be to go back to the station and wait. I had plenty of paperwork. There were thirty-seven assault cases on my desk to finish processing. Tomorrow I had a hearing for a warrant; there were still two officer’s reports I needed to round up for that. Before I got those, patrol would have Leila Sandoval waiting for me.
    I thought wistfully of my lost day. I had planned to spend it with Howard, looking at a few apartments, then a swim, a bottle of wine on one of The Palace decks, maybe a dip in the hot tub if the weather cooled, and a long, lovely evening that would meander like a teasing finger into a long, lovely night.
    A long, lovely fantasy.
    At least, I told myself, as I headed back to the station, this day was already shot. It couldn’t get worse.
    But when I got to the station, I found I’d been wrong.

7
    T HE B ERKELEY POLICE STATION was built by the WPA during the Depression. It is a four-story rectangle. The front desk and the row of chairs on which civilians wait is on the second floor. But to get there, civilians enter through a plain stucco room on the ground floor, a room that holds nothing but a work table and a pile of public-service notices. And the fey touch of a split curving staircase, à la Gone With the Wind, hugging either wall.
    I climbed to the third floor and pulled open the door of the tiny office I shared with Howard, a room that was definitely not Tara quality. The only similarity might have been the temperature. It must have been a hundred degrees in there, too. The papers in my IN box drooped limply over the sides of the box. Without looking at them I went downstairs to Files and ran the names of Leila Sandoval, Hasbrouck Diamond, and Krishna Das Mouskavachi through PIN for outstanding warrants, CORPUS for arrests. No warrants, no arrests, none for any of them.
    Then, assuring myself that this day had already provided me its quotient of frustration, that it was almost over, that in an hour I could still meet Howard at the pool for lap swimming, I made my way back to the office and sat down at my desk to tackle my IN box. On top was a note from Murakawa, reminding me I’d promised to talk to Mr. Kepple about his neighbors’ complaints. So much for self-proclaimed assurances. In the pasture the spot Mr. Kepple occupied was the one all the flies buzz around. For obvious reasons. Trying to rein him in there would make a fitting end to my day.
    Or so I thought until I read the next message: Inspector Doyle was in his office, waiting for me.
    Our pasture fence may be barely visible most places, but where Inspector Doyle is, you can see every board and every nail.
    “Go on in, Smith,” the officer outside his door said. There was a funereal quality to his voice. There was always that funereal quality. Most times it was warranted. Inspector Doyle was not known for his patience or good humor. I had seen him laugh once or twice, but neither of those times had been during this calendar year.
    Inspector Doyle nodded at me as I opened his office door. His once red hair had thinned and was mixed with gray. He reminded me of an old red hound lying in the dust, the folds of his neck quivering as he panted heavy old-dog breaths and peered out under sagging eyelids to watch a small terrier prance by. Then in one motion he’d spring forward and snap his teeth around the terrier’s neck.
    On the seat to the left of the door sat Raksen, the ID tech, looking exactly like that terrier.
    “I can come back when you two are done, Inspector,” I said hopefully.
    But