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The case was straightforward enough, but the department acted like it was anything but. Everything Lena did was scrutinized, second-guessed, countermanded, picked apart and handed back to her with the vague instruction to “look closer.”
She understood why. When you were dealing with wealthy people, you were dealing with expensive lawyers, and that meant lawsuits and appeals and smear campaigns and general warfare between the department and the lovely one-tenth-of-one-percenters of the various ritzy enclaves of the City of Fallen Angels. It was critical that LAPD dot every i, cross every t, and punctuate every sentence or else murderers got to go home to their jacuzzis and toast their escape with bottles of champagne that cost as much as some cars.
She still hated it. Part of her wanted to let Harris handle the investigation, but if she gave into that urge, she’d end up a desk jockey like Punto, and that wasn’t a life she wanted.
So, she was here, investigating the murder of nineteen-year-old Lila Kensington, daughter of former C-list horror actress Clara Kensington nee Summers and tech darling and city council hopeful Julian Kensington.
At least it wasn’t a hair short of a hundred twenty degrees outside.
She stepped out of the car and walked toward the house. Harris was already there along with four uniforms, and she allowed herself a moment of irritation that she hadn’t just stayed at the office after all.
He looked at her and nodded in that affected devil-may-care attitude that for a brief minute at the start of her detective career had attracted her to him. Now it just annoyed her.
Hell, everything annoyed her right now. Screw this goddamned heat.
It didn’t help her mood at all that Harris looked cool as a cucumber. Detective II Damien Harris was one of those rare creatures who could wear a pair of khakis, a white long-sleeve, and a woolen blazer in every kind of weather and never appear uncomfortable.
“Body’s still in the pool,” Harris said. “Uniforms are taking pictures. I’ve instructed them not to touch anything.”
“But they’re stomping all over everything. What about footprints?”
“They’re dusting for prints too. Foot, finger and palm. Come on, Lena, give me some credit.”
“Who called it in?”
“Christ, good morning to you too.”
“Not in the mood, Damien. Who called it in?”
“Pool boy. Said he came over to retrieve a piece of equipment he forgot yesterday. Hopped the fence to the pool and found the body.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “That’s not suspicious at all.”
“That’s what I thought. Although he did admit it right away, so I'm allowing for the slim possibility that he's just a moron and not a killer. The kid was sweating like a drunk hippopotamus, but that could just be the heat."
“Where is he right now?”
“He’s around the corner just outside the fence door. Vince and Morales are with him.”
“Got it. You keep handling the scene. Go ahead and call CSI. I’m going to talk to the kid. What’s his name?”
“Nathan Harlow. Goes by Nate. Also nineteen. Just got a job with Best Pool Cleaners handling their clients here in Autumn Downs.”
“And that’s also suspicious. Good-looking kid?”
“Go see for yourself.”
Lena thought of snapping at him to answer her but decided against it. It was only the heat that was making her so bitchy.
She walked around the house and offered a silent prayer of thanks that this had taken place in the flats and not the hills. If she’d had to walk up and down a damned mountain to talk to this kid, she might have just tossed her badge in her car and walked home instead.
The kid was, as Harris had promised, with Vince and Morales. He sat against the fence, shaking slightly. Lena felt a touch of sympathy. Seeing a dead body wasn’t fun, especially if it wasn’t something you were used to.
Her sympathy disappeared as soon as it landed. For all she knew, he could be the reason there was a dead body.
“I’ll take it from here, boys,” she told the uniforms.
“Kid says he got here around ten-thirty,” Vince offered. “Says he had to hop the fence to get a pool vacuum.”
