Prayers for the Dead by Faye Kellerman Page A

of the car, legs dangling from the interior. Finally, he began to push his body out. It looked like the Buick was giving birth to a breech baby. He straightened his spine, handed some paper to Decker. “Couple of gas credit slips. He kept his car real neat. Not surprising considering what he does.”
    “Yeah, think you would want your heart surgeon to be the compulsive type.”
    “Now, this is more interesting, Loo.” Gaynor offered Decker a white business card.
    “Wait, let me put my gloves on.” He slipped on latex, then took the piece of paper.
    The background was imprinted with the Harley-Davidson logo — wings attached to a big H. Bold Gothic letters were overlaid across the center of the card.
     
Everyone needs an Ace In The Hole
.
Because Sparks fly hard and hot
.
Born to be Wild
.
     
    No address, no phone number on the front. Decker flipped the card over. Nothing on the back, either.
    Gaynor said, “What do you make of it?”
    “Where’d you find it?”
    “In the glove compartment,” Gaynor answered. “Stuck between the pages of a Thomas guide. Only other thing in the compartment was the owner’s manual.”
    “Ace In The Hole? Sparks fly…?” Decker laughed. “Azor Sparks. Ace Sparks?”
    “Maybe the good doctor is a secret Hell’s Angel.”
    “Yeah, he’s really a kingpin crank supplier who’s been manufacturing meth out of his hospital lab,” Decker said.
    “Can’t you see it in the headlines?” Gaynor said. “Head doctor is secret head.” Suddenly, he grew pensive. “You know, Loo, the case does have the look of a drug retaliation hit.”
    Decker laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
    “Lots of brutality. You yourself said it looks like a gang hit. I know it sounds lunatic. But maybe it’s worth checking out.”
    “It’s absurd.”
    “So is finding that card in Sparks’s car.”
    “Unless it isn’t his. Could belong to one of his kids.”
    “Ace sounds like Azor to me.”
    Decker rolled his tongue in his mouth. As of this moment, he didn’t have squat. What would it hurt to look at this through every possible lens. He pocketed the business card. “I’ll look into it.”
    “It’s stupid, but what the hey.” Gaynor rubbed his shoulders, massaged his neck. “Cold out here.”
    “Call it a night, Farrell.” Decker took off the gloves and blew on his hands. “I’ll wait for impound. You go back to the station house and finish up the paperwork. Tomorrow, start the paper trail on Sparks. His bank accounts, his credit cards, brokerage accounts if he has any. And I’m sure he does because his kid is a stockbroker.”
    “That doesn’t mean he invested with him.”
    “Find out. If he didn’t, that says something. Tomorrow, you also begin a paper trail on his children, starting with son Paul. He owed his dad some bucks. And so did Sparks’s daughter, Eva Shapiro. Those are the only two who fessed up to being in arrears with Dad. But I want you to check
all
of them out.”
    “You going home after impound, Loo?”
    “No, I’m going by Myron Berger’s house. Something’s way off with that.”
    “Be careful.”
    “Always am.”
    “See you, Loo.”
    “See you.” Decker rubbed his hands, then his arms, watching Gaynor totter back to his car. The man had two more years before he’d be forced to hang up his shield. Forty-five years of police service: thirty-five of them as a detective third grade, fifteen of those as a Homicide detective in brutal gang territory. And yet the guy was always neat, clean, punctual. As dependable as Big Ben and still had a bounce in his step at twelve-thirty in the morning.
    Way to go, Farrell.
     
8
     
    Something Marge could never understand: why someone would buy a house abutting the foothills. A bad month of rain and, lo and behold, a thousand-pound avalanche of mud occupied space that once was the living room. Yet, Pete’s house sat at the edge of the mountain. So did the home belonging to Dr. Elizabeth Fulton. For her domicile,