Prayers for the Dead Read Free

burying your head in the sand.”
    “More like… selective ostrich.” Decker smoothed his mustache. “Sometimes, I have to look the other way. Otherwise, you spread yourself too thin.”
    The phone rang.
    Both of them looked at the wall, at the malevolent blinking business line. Rina poured the eggs into the pan and scrambled fiercely. “How about doing some fancy head-interring right now, Mr. Cassowary?”
    “Lieutenant Cassowary.”
    Wordlessly, Rina picked up the receiver, handed it to her husband. He took it, shrugged helplessly.
    “Decker.”
    “It’s Marge. We need you.”
    “Can I finish my dinner?”
    “You may not want to. Just found sixty-plus white male slumped inside an ’86 Buick. Gunshot wounds to the forehead, as well as multiple stab wounds to the chest. The man had ID on him. Pete, it’s
Azor Sparks
!”
    It took a few moments for Decker to put flesh and bone on the name. “The
heart
doctor?” He felt a sudden pounding in his head. “Jesus! What happened?”
    “What?” Rina asked.
    Decker waved her off. Marge said, “The car was found parked in the back alley behind Tracadero’s. A busboy was taking out the garbage when he saw that the Buick had the driver’s seat door wide open. He went over to investigate… Oh Christ!… Pete, a stray was on top of him, snout buried in his chest—”
    “I’ll be right over.” Decker hung up the phone.
    Rina handed him his plate of salami and eggs. “You don’t have time to bolt it down?”
    Decker’s stomach lurched. Not the time or the inclination. “It’s bad, Rina. You don’t want to know.”
    “Will I hear about it on the news?”
    “Probably.” Decker grimaced. “Dr. Azor Sparks, the famous heart transplant surgeon. He was found dead in his car… in a back alley behind a restaurant.”
    Abruptly, Rina paled, brought her hand to her throat. Decker regarded his wife. As gray as ash. “Sit down, honey.”
    “I think I will.” She melted into a chair.
    “You want something to drink?”
    “No, I’m…”
    The kitchen went silent. Decker studied Rina’s expression. “Rina, did you know this man?”
    Slowly, she shook her head no. “Not personally. By reputation.”
    “I’m sorry you have to witness such ugliness through me.”
    A baby’s cry shot through the room. Rina stood on shaky legs. “Hannah’s up. It’s like she has a sixth sense… I’d better see…” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Smiled at her husband, but left without a good-bye.
    Decker waited a beat, then slipped on his jacket, puzzled by Rina’s strong reaction.
    Odd.
    But maybe not.
    Homicides weren’t a daily occurrence in her life.
     
2
     
    Tracadero’s was one of the few hoo-hah, nouvelle, chic, posh, pick-your-own-effete-adjective restaurants in the West Valley. Translation to Decker: Pay a lot for tiny portions. He had been there once. The inside had been done up to look like scaffolding. For that kind of money and atmosphere, he could have just as easily bag-lunched it at a construction site. The place was located midblock in a commercial strip of street.
    A long block. As Decker fast-walked through a decently lit back alley, he noticed a pizzeria, a clothing boutique, a guitar store, a pharmacy, a hair and nail salon, and a tropical fish store. The night was foggy and cool, the glare of starlight spread behind a wall of filmy clouds. Yellow crime tape had been stretched across the alley’s main entrances, two black-and-whites nose to nose at the driveways, preventing pass-through traffic. As he came closer to the actual crime spot, the crowd grew dense. Uniformed and plainclothed officers swarming around a bronze Buick. The strong odor of garbage mixed with the metallic stench of fresh blood and excreted bowels.
    Marge and Oliver had already arrived. So had Martinez and Webster, the newest imports to Devonshire Homicide. Bert Martinez came from Van Nuys Substation, having worked Crimes Against Persons detail, Tom Webster was a