Read Online Flashpoint by Lynn Hightower - Free Book Online

would be out of range of the wheels of her chair.
    Her phone rang just as she settled into her chair. “Homicide, Sonora Blair.”
    â€œCan I please speak to one of the detectives?”
    â€œYou’re speaking to one.”
    â€œYou’re not the secretary?”
    â€œNo, I’m not the secretary.”
    Sonora heard a laugh, looked over her shoulder at Gruber.
    He grinned. “They want a real cop, I’m available.”
    Sonora put a hand over the phone. “Make yourself useful, honey, and get me a cup of coffee.”
    Gruber looked her up and down in a way guaranteed to annoy. He had bedroom eyes, a perpetual slump to his shoulders, a swarthy complexion, and New Jersey manners that offended some people and attracted young women.
    Sonora focused on the voice on the other end of the phone. “I’m sorry?”
    â€œYou know that guy that burned up?”
    Sonora frowned and picked up a pen. “What guy is that?”
    â€œThe one in the news. They didn’t give his name. But I think I better explain to you the situation with my brother-in-law, make of it what you will.”
    Not much, Sonora thought. She made a face, took useless notes. No stone unturned.
    â€œAnother nut,” she said, hanging up the phone.
    â€œYou attract ’em,” Gruber said. “’Member when we took you out trawling? You pulled in the weirdest nutcases, even for a hooker detail.”
    Sonora nodded. She’d hated and resented the prostitution detail and had been unable to refrain from giving prospective johns the copper’s eyefuck. Only one or two had been inexperienced or desperate or intrigued enough to try and do business. Sonora had been pulled off the streets after two weeks.
    â€œI always wondered if you screwed up on purpose, you know? To get off that detail.”
    Sonora smiled. “Keep wondering, Gruber.”
    â€œMolliter didn’t think so, but I figured maybe you did.”
    â€œWhere is old Molliter these days? He quit and become a television evangelist?”
    â€œWorking personal crime since last Christmas.”
    â€œ Molliter? ”
    Gruber folded his arms and cocked his head sideways. “Can’t you just hear him lecturing the rape victims on provocative clothing and those jiggly walks?”
    Sonora bit her lip. Actually, she could.
    Gruber shrugged. “Yeah, well. Bad choice. They had to pull him out of vice, he was trying to save souls. Didn’t really fit in down there, if you know what I mean.”
    Sonora draped her jacket over the back of her chair. Thought about coffee, thought about ulcers, decided against the one she had some choice about. The message light on her machine was still blinking. She settled into her chair and pushed the button.
    One informant looking for a handout, a terse one from Chas, who was feeling neglected, a coroner’s assistant about the suicide she hadn’t liked. There was a message from one of the mothers from Heather’s class reminding her to send cupcakes for day after tomorrow (shit, Sonora thought) and the one from Tim, letting her know that Heather had gotten on the bus okay, he was on his way, and yes he had his keys.
    Sonora took out a scratch pad, roughing out the description she would put out on the NCIC. Early days yet, but this one looked like a repeater, and she wasn’t asking permission. Under key points, she put homicide involving white female, victim white male, burned to death in car. She chewed the end of her pen.
    She felt a large hand on her shoulder and a familiar presence by her side. “Sonora, girl, that pen taste good, or you didn’t get any breakfast?”
    Gruber waved a hand. “It’s an oral thing. What she needs …” He caught the expression on Sonora’s face. Trailed off.
    â€œWise,” she told him.
    She swiveled her chair and looked at her partner, and flashed back to a night four years ago, before she really knew