Page 64 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

Baby restarted the car, drove over to the house, parked, unlocked the front door, and went inside. Everything seemed untouched. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Baby greeted Marshall and the guy in the coveralls and was unsurprised to see a County of Los Angeles Public Health badge pinned to the man’s chest.

“Hello, ma’am,” the guy said. “My name is Richard Desmond. I’m from the public health department. I’m here to conduct an inspection on this dwelling in response to a complaint.”

Baby held the door without inviting them inside. She looked at Marshall, noticed how her pin-striped skirt suit gripped her little body the way a surgeon’s glove clings to skin.

“You know,” Baby said to the woman, “calling in the health department is a cute move. But you spoiled it by coming along. You should have watched from the car, out of sight, or had one of these scumbags film it for you.” She gestured to the corner boys, then to the junkies and pimps watching from distant porches. “You got no subtlety, Marshall. No sophistication. That’s your problem.”

“Ma’am,” Richard the health department guy said, tapping his clipboard with a pen to draw Baby’s focus back to him. “I’m going to ask you if you have knowledge of any of the following health hazards on your property: mosquito breeding zones, sewage discharge, insect or rodent infestations, damaged walls, floors, or ceilings. Do you have running water at this property? What about your electrical system? Are there any known faults?”

“Yes, the electricity.” Marshall smiled. “That’s what worries me most, as a concerned neighbor. The wiring on the side of the house looks old. Is it faulty? Because there was a fire in the area this morning. We’d hate to have another one.”

Baby chewed the inside of her cheek.

“How about hazardous substances?” Marshall said. “We wouldn’t want anybody to get sick.”

Baby squeezed the edge of the door, tried to focus on the tendons in her wrist flexing so that she didn’t lose control.

“Is this the way you really want to go?” Baby asked Marshall when she felt she could speak without growling. “Because there are laws against the furnishing of criminal activity within residential households in this county, Ms. Marshall. Just like there are with the health department. You might’ve sicced this spineless minion on me” — Baby gestured to Richard — “but what happens when it’s discovered that Enorme is accommodating drug traffickers at a string of their properties?”

Marshall’s hand flew to her chest as if she were shocked. “Drug traffickers?” She laughed, looked down the street. “Here? You’re kidding. It’s such a nice area.”

Almost on cue, someone fired a gun a couple of houses down. The public health guy tapped the clipboard against his leg, looking increasingly nervous. His eyes locked on Marshall’s for guidance. Baby felt for the man. He’d probably been offered a sizable envelope of cash to fudge the inspection and assumed he’d be walking into a run-of-the-mill neighborly dispute. He couldn’t have known that this was an all-out David and Goliath battle.

“If you suspect criminal activity in any of these houses, Ms. Bird, you should call the police.” Marshall gave an earnest shrug. “But I’m certain the men and women you see here have no violent or malignant intentions whatsoever. I’m sure they’re simply homeless people taking shelter in these abandoned houses.”

More gunshots. The health inspector tugged at his collar. “If you wouldn’t mind, Ms. Bird?” Baby let him in. Richard was already slipping the bright orangeUNSAFE TO OCCUPYnotice to the front of the clipboard as he passed her.

“This doesn’t solve your problem,” Baby said to Marshall, who had been walking toward the street. Marshall stopped on the path and looked back as Baby continued. “So you get the house condemned and you kick Arthur out. Okay. Then what? He still owns the property.”

“The increasinglyworthlessproperty.” Marshall held up a finger. Shouting was coming from the house with the gunshots. “The property that will, in a few minutes, be written up for several municipal code violations that will incur fines in the tens of thousands of dollars if not seen to. You know, it’s a real shame that Mr. Laurier didn’t take my offer on the house when I made it, because even if he tries to fix the property to get it compliant again, I have a weird feeling that he’ll have trouble getting builders in.”

Baby felt like an elephant was standing on her chest. She kept her bearing only by focusing hard on her breathing and on the pain caused by her fingernails biting into the flesh of her palm as she squeezed her fist.

“Give up now,” Marshall said, her ruse suddenly dropped. The tiny woman looked up at Baby from the cracked concrete path. “Or it’ll get worse.”

“No,” Baby said.

“No?”

“Arthur is old. He’s tired. You killed his wife,” Baby said. Her voice was like black ink in the bright daylight. “I won’t take that. I will never, ever let something like that slide. It’s not who I am.”

Marshall appraised her. Baby thought she saw a flicker of something in her eyes — annoyance and, hopefully, fear. But it was gone so fast, she might have imagined it. Marshall had been doing this a long time, and she was practiced at hiding her weaknesses. She smiled cheerfully at Baby and walked off as if she had somewhere better to be.

CHAPTER73

I WATCHED THE MINUTEStick by on the clock in the dashboard, slowly calming as the numbers changed and the miles of desert and then forest flew by the windows. My panic simmered down to a quiet tension that stretched its limbs within mine. I was a smart, capable woman who could handle herself, yet conflicting emotions paraded through my mind: Guilt about keeping Baby in the dark about my current situation. Fury that Dave Summerly had dismissed my concerns so coldly. Embarrassment that I might be whipping the whole scenario into something more than it was and hysterically dragging a homicide detective in to back me up on a non-threat.

In the end, I didn’t have any definitive proof that someone was on my tail. I had only what I took to be evidence of their presence. I sighed and gripped the wheel and told myself that calling in backup had been the sensible thing to do. I would keep driving and not risk being attacked in a gas station or at a rest stop where innocent civilians could get in harm’s way.

The traffic thinned. I started seeing billboards for big Los Angeles hotels and checked my phone. I was still streaming my location to Brogan. It calmed me further to see myself as a little blue bubble on the long beige highway, heading toward Los Angeles, my return home as yet uninterrupted by actual violence.

I’m gonna be okay,I told myself.Brogan will call and tell me that he’s nearby, and I will pull over, and he will reassure me, and we will convoy back to the city.

The traffic dissolved. Mine was the only car on the highway when I felt a whump from under the car, and the sickening flapping sound that told me I’d blown a tire.

CHAPTER74

AT ANY OTHER TIMEin my life, the situation might have made me laugh. I’d always appreciated the simple beauty of the universe’s little quirks, the unwritten laws that made sure five people texted or called the phone I’d left on the kitchen counter the very moment I slipped into a relaxing bath. The same laws ensured that if I chose to head to the supermarket makeup-less, disheveled, hung over, I would run into a client or an ex-boyfriend. Having car trouble in the middle of a post-apocalyptically unpopulated highway while I was worried about a stalker made sense within these laws. At least I didn’t need help changing a tire.

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