Desert Run Read Free

neighborhood was likely to see, although they were treated from time to time to glimpses of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, which had a practice field in the park.
    â€œThis Warren guy, he any good?”
    â€œSupposed to be. He won the Best Documentary Oscar a couple of years ago for Native Peoples, Foreign Chains.”
    â€œI didn’t see that.” Kryzinski’s movie tastes ran to Clint Eastwood and James Cameron.
    â€œIt was about the Colonial practice of enslaving Native Americans and shipping them to work on sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean.”
    â€œI didn’t know we did that, sold Native Americas out of the country as slaves.”
    â€œMost people don’t.” I changed the subject. “ Escape Across the Desert was due to wrap next week, but now that Ernst is dead, I don’t know what will happen.”
    â€œWrap?”
    â€œFinish filming.”
    One side of Kryzinski’s lip lifted in a sneer. “Look who’s gone Hollywood. Gonna buy yourself a Shitzer, now, or whatever those little dogs are called, and tool around in two-hundred-dollar sunglasses?”
    â€œCome off it, Captain.” Just like old times, with Kryzinski sniping at me, me sniping back. Fortunately, Detective Kyle McKindroe, a friend from my own days in the department, emerged from the house and walked up to us.
    Although middle-age, with years of experience under his belt, McKindroe looked green around the gills himself. “It’s pretty bad in there, Captain. I’d say whoever did it wanted to get up front and personal.”
    My thoughts exactly. The level of violence directed against Ernst hinted at a personal relationship between killer and victim. But while still in Ernst’s kitchen, I had noticed several drawers pulled out, and it was possible that Ernst merely interrupted an intruder, someone high on drugs. Addicts’ crimes tended to be messy. Visualizing the kitchen again, I remembered something. By rights, Rada Tesema, the Ethiopian care-giver who visited Ernst several days a week, should have discovered the body when he came over to cook breakfast before bringing Ernst to the set, as he’d promised. But Tesema was a no-show. Where was he?
    While I stood there in thought, McKindroe went back in the house, leaving Kryzinski staring at me. “What?”
    I liked Tesema, whom I’d met on several occasions, and doubted if he had any violence in him. “What do you mean, ‘what’?”
    â€œI know that look of yours, Lena. What are you thinking about? That care-giver who never brought Ernst over to the set? Where the hell is he, anyway?”
    I glanced toward the curb. Unless I was mistaken, the autoplex guy had resumed his badly timed sales pitch. As he slid hands along the Golden Hawk’s sleek hood, I heard snatches of spiel. “…highly collectible classic gold-and-white two-tone…T85 three-speed with overdrive manual…two-hundred-seventy-five horsepower…” Beyond him and hurrying toward us was Fay Harris, reporter’s notebook in hand.
    â€œHere comes Fay, Captain, closing fast.”
    Kryzinski wouldn’t allow me my evasions. “Where’s the care-giver?”
    â€œSorry. I don’t know.”
    He frowned. “Okay, let’s try it this way. Did Ernst have any enemies that you know of?”
    Probably more than I could count. It would be hard to have a history of torpedoing American warships without incurring a few grudges. From what I had heard, Ernst had been unusually ruthless, even for a U-boat commander. The ugly rumor going around the set was that Ernst had a habit of shooting survivors out of the water, which was a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. But I wasn’t ready to tell Kryzinski yet.
    â€œEnemies? Why would an old man—an amputee, no less—have enemies? Look, Captain, if you want to know more about Ernst, talk to the people who worked with