“Want me to go with you?”
“Nah. A guy not answering his phone calls doesn’t scream foul play. Why shouldn’t at least one of us get some sleep?”
“You’re making me feel guilty, Marge.”
“You better believe it, Pete.” Marge pushed limp blond wisps out of her eyes and smiled. “I left an empty California King. You might as well make the most out of the situation.”
Decker smiled back. “Not so bad.”
“Not so bad.”
Rina emerged from the bedroom. “Is it safe?”
Marge laughed. “You can come out now, Mrs. Decker. Poor Rina. What did you ever do to deserve this?”
“What did I ever do to deserve this?” Decker said.
Marge pointed a finger at him. “Hollander warned you. He offered to take the case.”
Decker glanced upward, studying the ceiling. “Is that coffee I smell?”
“I’ll get you a cup, Peter,” Rina said. “Marge?”
“I’ll get the coffee, Rina,” Marge said. “You deal with Detective Sergeant Innocent Bystander here.” She walked into the kitchen.
“I didn’t say I was an innocent bystander,” Decker called after her. But she was already out of sight. To Rina he said, “You actually made her coffee?”
“It gave me something to do with my hands while I dodged her questions.”
“I really am sorry.”
“You don’t choose your cases.”
“Truth be told, Marge is right. Hollander did warn me off. But you know me. I get stubborn.”
“It’s called perseverance.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “It’s what makes you a good detective.”
Decker smiled. “You can say the right things when you want to.”
“Meaning I don’t always want to?”
“No, I just meant—”
“Forget it, Peter.” Rina tousled his hair.
Marge returned, carrying a mug stenciled with dinosaurs. “I’m off.”
Rina looked at Peter. “You’re not going?”
Marge scowled. “Who needs ’im? Good night, folks. I’ll call if something’s amiss.” She sipped coffee and looked at the cup. “I’ll give this back to you in the morning.”
“Keep it,” Decker said.
“I can’t be bought off with stegosauri, Pete.”
“How ’bout if I throw in a year’s supply of coffee, sugar, and whitener in individual packets?”
“The temptation is overwhelming.” Marge wiggled her fingers and left.
“You owe her,” Rina said.
“Big.” Decker raised his brow. “You want to salvage the night?” He slipped his arms around Rina’s burgeoning waistline and kissed the nape of her neck. “I’ll even carry you across the threshold.”
Rina turned and slipped her arm around his waist. “Speaking of being turned on, your damsel in distress got quite excited when you yelled at her.”
Decker dropped his arms. “She’s not my anything—except my supreme pain in the ass.”
“I know.” Rina picked up his hands and kissed them. “I was just being … hostile. But what I said was true. She likes your anger.”
“Okay. Thanks for telling me. I won’t get angry around her anymore. But there was no friggin’ way I was going to let her get away with speaking to you like that.”
“I appreciated your support, Peter.” She kissed his hands again. “You know, I was just thinking—”
“Uh-oh.”
“Thank you, Peter.”
Decker smiled. “What’s on your mind?”
“It’s probably stupid.”
“It probably isn’t. What?”
“Her getting aroused by your fury. Maybe she likes her sex rough. Maybe her rape was … you know … her partner got carried away … and she’s trying to protect him.”
Decker tapped his foot and digested her words. “A game gone too far? Then what about the burglary?”
“I don’t know.” She let out a laugh, took his hand, and led him to the bedroom. “You’re the detective.”
“Leave me with all the hard stuff, huh?”
But she’d made an interesting point.
He was still awake when the phone went off and he answered it before the first ring was completed, glancing at Rina. Sound asleep. That made him happy.
“Pete?”
“Yeah, go ahead, Marge,” he whispered.
“I haven’t gone inside yet. Just called Burbank PD and told them what I was up to, asked them if they wanted to be part of this. They’re sending me a single black-and-white.”
Decker hopped out of bed, tucked the receiver under his chin, and pulled on his pants. “What’s tweaking your nose?”
“Empty lot, Pete, except for a lone Mercedes 450 SL. The clinic’s dark, the front door closed but unlocked. I’ve banged on the door. Went around to the back, banged on that door, too. Nothing. I’m not about to go and step on anyone else’s turf.”
“Right.”
“On top of the car and unlocked door, I shone my beam on the asphalt and found a nice trail of what could be blood drips.”
Decker buttoned his shirt. “Freddy said it was an abortion mill. Women bleed after abortions.”
“Yeah, in and of itself, it wouldn’t have raised any hackles. But with everything else …”
“I’ll be down.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Four-forty-five in the morning and there was still traffic on the freeway. The city might sleep but the roadways never did. The night was cool and clear, the moon gliding over the tops of the mountains as Decker sped along the blacktop. He pushed the gas pedal to the floor and the Plymouth shot into overdrive.
The address Marge had given him was a poorly lighted stucco and brick corner office building set behind towering eucalyptus and palm trees. There was a paved parking lot in front, spaces marked for ten cars. Decker pulled the Plymouth between Marge’s Honda and a Burbank cruiser, shut off the motor, and got out. Hands on hips, he took a quick look around. Adjacent to the clinic was an empty, weed-choked lot. The three other corners of the intersection were taken up by a Taco Bell, the skeletal remains of abandoned framing, and a discount-food-chain warehouse. Marge walked over to him.
“Not exactly city central.”
“Makes sense,” Decker answered. “You have an abortion clinic, you want privacy. Why give the nutcases an easy target to firebomb?”
“Nutcases?” Marge smiled. “You’re not sympático with the right-to-lifers?”
“I’m not sympático with firebombers.”
“Hear, hear!” Marge led him to a uniform leaning against his cruiser. “Sergeant Decker, Officer Loomis.”
The patrolman stuck out a spidery-fingered hand. He was tall and lean and young and