The Trade. Shirley Palmer

else take the hassle.” Matt looked again at his watch. “See you tomorrow.”

      Matt put the Range Rover into the now doorless garage, walked down the side deck past Bobby’s Harley, a Softail, parked in the middle of the ruined front garden, and let himself into the kitchen.

      Bobby was sprawled on the overstuffed sofa in the living room, a box of crackers on the table in front of him, watching a ballgame on television, Barney at his feet. The Lab got up as Matt came in, gave him a swift, enthusiastic greeting, and went back to monitoring Bob’s hand-to-mouth motion. Bob held up a warning finger. “USC, Arizona, flag on the play. Oh, damn. USC’s offside.” He clicked off the set.

      Bobby tossed Barney a Ritz and swung his feet to the floor. “You’ve got to find a new hiding place for the house key. That flowerpot’s history.”

      Matt threw his briefcase onto the kitchen counter. The key had always been kept in a flowerpot. “I’ll get a new one.”

      “And get the fence fixed while you’re at it. You’re totally exposed to the street, your neighbors are never here and this place is barely more than a shack. A quick push on the kitchen door, and you’re cleaned out in minutes.”

      “You try getting anything done. Half of Malibu’s in line ahead of me.”

      “What about one of your own work crews?”

      “Ned would have a coronary. Leases are signed and we’re getting the Contessa project ready for occupancy. Anyway, Barney would take the hand off anyone coming in here.”

      “Okay, that’s my community outreach for the week,” Bobby said.

      Matt filled Barney’s bowl, took a bottle of water from the fridge. He crossed to the living room, dropped into an armchair, propped his feet on the coffee table. “So, okay, what’s happened that’s so all-fired important?”

      Bob leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “A body’s been found up on Encinal Canyon Road. A girl, maybe fourteen, fifteen. White.”

      Matt knew what Bobby was going to tell him, but he didn’t want to hear it. A fourteen year old. Just a kid herself. “Didn’t Encinal burn out?”

      “No, not all the way down to the beach. Anyway, she wasn’t in the fire area. She was by the side of the road, and she was covered in wildflowers. A fire crew checking hotspots found her.”

      “Flowers? Someone must have cared about her.”

      “Or some sick bastard thought it was a cute touch.”

      “How’d she die, Bobby?”

      “Until we get an autopsy report, it’s just guesswork. She’s been badly abused at some time, but the scars are old. Marks on her breasts as if she’d been burned by cigars, that sort of thing. Poor kid had a short and brutal life, but whoever put her on the side of the road wanted her found. She was dressed in some expensive threads, baggy silk pants, a matching top and a shirt. The pants were blood-soaked, but someone had tried to clean her up. My guess is that she gave birth then hemorrhaged out.”

      “So that’s the mother.”

      Bobby shrugged. “Putting two and two together, that’s my guess. Homicide’s got it. So far her description doesn’t match any missing person on file in Los Angeles County. They’ve sent it to Sacramento, see if they get any hits statewide. I thought you’d be interested.”

      “What’ll happen if they don’t get anything?”

      “Nothing much. No identifying marks on her or the baby, no way to find out who they were.”

      “What about dental records?”

      “Sure, but not everyone visits a dentist. And anyway, there’s no national database for teeth. All we can do is find out if they’re related. After that, there’s nowhere to go.” Bobby dropped another cracker for Barney. “Don’t try to get that baby released to you, Matt. Let it drop.”

      “It’s too late, I told you. I called the coroner this morning.” Matt got up, put his empty glass in the sink. “I’m going out to eat. Sylvie still on late duty?”

      “Yeah, all this week. You want to take this seriously, buddy.”

      “I am taking it seriously, but what do you want me to do? I’ve already called the coroner’s office. They have my name, my address, my phone number. They didn’t ask for my social security number, or they’d have that, too. So, you want to go eat?” Bob let out a long breath. “Okay. Usual place?” Matt had been thinking of Granita for a change, Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant at the top of the road, but the prices were pretty rich for a deputy sheriff with a Malibu mortgage, even with two salaries coming in. Bob would agree if he suggested it, then insist on carrying his weight. “Sure. Googie’s Coffee Shop in five.”

      CHAPTER 5

      7:00 a.m. on a Friday morning, and traffic on the I-10 from Santa Monica to downtown was moving steadily. In another hour, it would be gridlock. Matt listened to Coltrane, and restrained the impulse to jockey the Range Rover from lane to lane. He got off the freeway at 9th Street, and stopped to pick up a couple of caffe grandes at the Starbucks by Macy’s—he knew better than to risk the coffee on a construction job, which tasted as if it were made with iron filings, guaranteed to burn a hole in the lining of the stomach.

      By 7:30 he was at the Contessa, four hundred low-rise luxury apartments on what used to be a used-car lot before the neighborhood got too run-down even for clunkers. Swimming pools, tennis courts, running track, gym, all the bells and whistles, heavily landscaped, an urban refuge, and close to major freeways and the Staples Center. The city was jubilant, already counting on the tax base to revitalize the surrounding area. Lowell Brothers was gambling the company shirt on the project, their first venture into new construction, but so far it looked good. Ned had negotiated leases with both teams that called the Staples Center home, NBA basketball and NHL hockey, the Lakers and the Kings.

      Half a dozen trucks loaded with large boxed jacaranda trees were lined up on Bixel Street outside the Contessa. By the time the job was finished, a hundred prime specimens would be in the ground.

      “Good morning, Ben.” Matt handed Ben Pressman, the landscape architect, a container of coffee, popped the lid on his own and took a sip. He and Ben circled the trucks, checking out the jacarandas.

      “Pretty nice, huh?” Ben said.

      “Yeah. Not bad, Ben.” He and Pressman had personally selected each one, shopping half a dozen tree farms to get what they wanted. “Let’s get them in the ground.”

      He stayed on through the morning, ate enchiladas with the Hispanic work crew gathered around Roxanne’s Hot Lunch, the roach wagon that made the rounds of downtown construction sites.

      It was almost four when he got back to the office in Brentwood.

      Two men, flipping without much interest through magazines devoted to the construction business, looked up as he walked in. Matt raised an inquiring eyebrow at Marni behind her desk in the front office.

      “These gentlemen are waiting to see you, Matt. They’re from the sheriff’s department.”

      The men replaced the magazines on the table, got to their feet. The elder of the two said, “Mr. Lowell? I’m Detective Jim Barstow. My partner, Detective Eduardo Flores.”

      Matt glanced at the proffered shields, noted the nicotine-stained fingers and the smell of tobacco that clung to the two men. He shook hands with each in turn, conscious of Marni’s ears straining to hear every word, and ushered them into the office. Ned, frowning at the computer screen on his own side of the partners’ desk, looked up as Matt introduced the detectives. They refused coffee. Matt settled himself behind his desk, indicated a couple of chairs on the other side.

      “So, what can I do for you?”

      “Just a few questions. You are the Matthew