Red by Kate Kinsey Page B

you didn’t have any problem with breaking that law.”
    He knew he couldn’t find Paul without her, and he probably wasn’t going to get anybody else in that community to talk to him, even if he could find them.
    “If you work this case with me,” Hanson said, “it’s got to be totally as an informant—”
    “Informant? No way. Consultant, maybe—”
    “And I gotta let my partner in on this. You know that, right?”
    “Shit.” She made a face. “It would have to be Griggs.”
    The problem of how to bring Gina into the investigation became entirely academic when the phone rang; not Rick James this time, but the familiar beeps of Hanson’s T-Mobile.
    They had another body.

Chapter 17
    I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worse place can I beg in your love,—
And yet a place of high respect with me,—
Than to be used as you use your dog?
    —W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE ,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
     
     
     
     
    T he house was a run-down ranch in a middle-class neighborhood sliding downhill. A couple of patrolmen were standing in the street, keeping a few gawking neighbors behind the tape.
    Hanson saw Griggs on the edge of the lawn. He was staring over the shoulder of one of the CSU techs. Hanson didn’t recognize the tech, but he could see that she was making a mold of a shoe impression in a patch of dirt.
    “Bet it belongs to the fuckin’ neighbor who called it in,” Griggs said.
    Hanson waved him away from the tech. Griggs gave him a quizzical look.
    “We need to bring Gina in on this,” he said. “She identified the key chain and the tattoo—”
    “You’re jerking my dick, right?” He looked around at Gina, who was making her way toward them, and his tone was jubilant. “I knew this was a sex thing! I knew it!”
    “We need her help. Try not to be as big an asshole as you are. I’m begging you.”
    “Hey, you’re hurting my feelings,” Griggs said with mock pain. “But you know we could both get fucked over this, bringing her in. She’s not a cop anymore. She’s a civilian.”
    “She’s a resource. Just play nice, all right?”
    “I’ll be as sweet as a sixteen-year-old pussy.” Griggs leered, then turned toward Gina, calling out in a jolly voice. “Gee, you picked a hell of a day to drop in! Sure you’re up for this? It’s a doozy!”
    “Fuck you, Griggs.” She nodded toward the truck parked at the curb. “What’s with Animal Control?”
    “Well.” Griggs scratched his head, doing his bad Columbo impersonation. “We couldn’t figure out how to bag and tag the little fuckers.”
    He handed them both a pair of booties.
    “You’re gonna need these. And this.”
    He tossed a small bottle of wintergreen oil at Hanson, who managed to catch it against his shirtfront.
    “Come on,” Hanson groaned. “I didn’t know you even had this stuff—”
    “I borrowed it from Creepy,” Griggs said. “Believe me, you’re gonna need it.”
    Hanson threw it back to him. Real cops didn’t need that stuff.
    “Fine, have it your way,” Griggs grunted.
    Hanson and Gina slipped the booties over their shoes, though Hanson thought, as always, Gina performed the maneuver with much more grace. He fished gloves out of his pocket and put them on as well.
    “You got an extra pair?” Gina asked.
    “Whoa, you ain’t touching nothing,” Griggs said. “You shouldn’t even be here.”
    High-pitched barking—and the most God-awful stench—grew as they approached the front door. Hanson raised a hand to his nose and tried not to gag.
    “What the fuck ? What is that? It’s not just decomp—”
    He’d had a body once, left for three days in a car trunk in summer heat, that didn’t stink this bad.
    Human decomposition is the worst smell in the known universe, almost beyond description: like raw meat gone rancid; a hot, cloying