Killer Swell by Jeff Shelby Page B

What happens if I don’t?”
    â€œThen I’ll send someone with cuffs to get you.”
    The neighbors had probably grown weary of seeing me with the police, and I didn’t want to rattle them so early in the morning.
    â€œI’ll come.”
    â€œCarter with you?” she asked.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œBring him, too.”
    â€œI’m not his chaperone,” I told her.
    â€œNo, you’re more like his mother. Bring him.” She hung up.
    â€œDetective Santangelo wishes to see us,” I told Carter, grabbing my car keys off the table.
    He stood up and stretched like a cat, his hands nearly touching the ceiling. “What if I don’t wish to be seen?”
    â€œShe didn’t give me that option,” I said, heading for the door.
    He groaned. “Well, that’s not fair.”
    â€œCome on. You can tell her to her face.”
    He grinned. “Ah. A challenge.”

24
    San Diego Police headquarters is located in the heart of downtown on Broadway, a couple blocks from the courts and jail and right near the Michael Graves–designed Horton Plaza. San Diegans liked to point out the strange shopping mall as a defining image of the city, but I could never get past the fact that the biggest obstacle in building the structure had been figuring out where to move the homeless folks so they wouldn’t be hovering around a major tourist attraction.
    Square, bland, and unimaginative, headquarters could not look any more governmental. Liz’s office occupied a spot at the end of the hall on the third floor. Her head was down, staring at some paperwork on her desk.
    â€œWe’re looking for the Pirates of the Caribbean,” I said. “Can you point us in the right direction?”
    She glanced up, pulling her dark hair away from her face and over her shoulder. “Shut the door behind you.”
    Her office was small. A perfect square, with cheap cabinets in each of the four corners, her metal desk in the middle so that she could see anyone coming in. No pictures on the walls, only a city-issued calendar, with pictures of the zoo.
    Carter and I sat in the two chairs facing her desk. Her chair looked considerably more comfortable.
    â€œYou need to back off,” she said, her eyes on me.
    I scooted my chair back a couple of inches. “That good enough?”
    Her mouth screwed into a tight circle, a clear sign that whatever patience she had allotted for me was now gone. Same old, same old.
    She unscrewed her mouth. “Noah, Costilla is off-limits to you.”
    â€œOfficially?”
    â€œOfficially, unofficially, on the record, off the record,” she said. “Any way you want it. You go near him again, you’re done.”
    She looked at Carter. “And before you open that sinkhole you call a mouth, that means you, too.”
    Carter stared back at her with no expression.
    â€œWhy?” I asked.
    â€œBecause.”
    â€œGee, Mommy, I need something better than that,” I said.
    She leaned forward on the desk, the silver bracelets on her wrists jingling softly. “Because I’ve got an ID on you both in San Ysidro and I’ll arrest you if you so much as wink at him.”
    â€œBullshit,” Carter said. “You got an ID, you’d arrest us now.”
    â€œContrary to the opinion of the rest of this city, I’m not looking to lock you up,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, one of Costilla’s guys biting it isn’t such a bad thing. But I can sit you both in a cell if I need to. Those pain-in-the-ass twins you call friends, too, if I want.”
    â€œSo if I say no,” I said, “then you’re going to arrest us right now.”
    She nodded.
    I looked at Carter. He shrugged.
    I looked back at Liz. “No.”
    We all sat there. No one came rushing in with handcuffs and jumpsuits. I turned around to make sure. Nobody came in. They wouldn’t have fit in the room