2 Sisters Murder Investigations

CHAPTER 1

THERE’D BEEN NO DOUBT in my mind that Baby wasn’t going to last the whole stakeout. I just hadn’t thought she’d quit it by crawling out the passenger-side window and onto the roof of my car.

I’d sat calmly in the white 1958 Chevy Impala for two hours, watching the dark apartment windows through my binoculars, listening to the humid Los Angeles night’s sounds enveloping the parking lot. Crickets, distant sirens, Latin music. My sixteen-year-old sister, Baby, had twisted and turned in her seat, variously twirling her hair, napping, scrolling social media, drumming the dashboard, and trying to engage me in rounds of Kiss, Marry, Kill with celebrities I’d never heard of. Two stakeout highlights — one man leaving the apartment building briefly to smoke a cigarette, another driving off and returning with a bag of items from a nearby pet store — did little to disrupt Baby’s bored agony or my quiet focus.

Then, without warning, my sister was clawing her way out the car window with the speed and dexterity of a praying mantis escaping a bug jar.

I exited the car in a considerably less nimble fashion, using my weight to rock and shunt myself out the narrow door. Yes, we shared DNA, but if Baby was like a praying mantis, I was like the star of Kung Fu Panda.

“Hey!” Baby sat on the Chevy’s roof and yelled up at the building, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Listen up, you stupid pricks! We know you’re in there! We know you’ve got L’Shondra! Hold on to your balls because we’re a-comin’ in!” I grabbed one of Baby’s sparkly black boots, yanked her sideways, and caught her in my arms like a doll before she could hit the ground. If there’s one thing my kid sister hates, it’s when I manhandle her. Unpredictability is one of Baby’s teenage superpowers, but one of mine is being able to throw other human beings around like bed pillows.

“Rhonda, what the hell are you doing?” she wailed at me. “What am I doing? What are youdoing? You just blew our cover!”

“So what? We’ve been sitting here doing nothing!” “We’re gathering intel!”

“We know the guys in that apartment have our girl! How much more intel do you need?”

A couple in the street beyond the edge of the parking lot had overheard Baby and were now pressed together, trying to figure us out. I caught the word police.

Baby wriggled out of my arms. “I’m tired of sitting on my ass watching these guys and doing squat to save L’Shondra. You gave me lead on this case,” she said. “I’ve decided. We’re gonna charge the doors, grab our girl, and go get tacos to celebrate. We’ll be home by midnight and done with this sickeningly dull case.”

She popped open the trunk and went rummaging around behind the seats.

“Giving you lead on this was a big mistake.” I sighed. “This was your first chance to show me you have the patience and maturity to make major decisions at the agency. You failed, Baby.”

“I failed?” She straightened, laughing. “Rhonda, I’ve never failed at anything in my life.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Why do I need to show you anything? I don’t have to prove myself to you. You know, there’re a whole bunch of decisions that seem to automatically fall to you,” she said. “We decided to start this detective agency together. We’ve both been private detectives for the same amount of time. Now suddenly you’re in charge and you’re picking the cases. You’re grading me. You’re ‘giving’ me lead.”

“Baby, I amin charge,” I said. “Dad’s dead. I’m your legal guardian. I’m more than twice your age. And I’m a lawyer. Okay? I know criminals. I know investigations. I know cops. I know the kind of cases we can and should take so we can establish our street cred. Legally speaking, you’re still a child.”

“Oh, give me a break.” “You give me a break!”

A man stepped up to us. He seemed to materialize from behind our vehicle, where the trunk abutted the wet palms. The hammer of his huge revolver clanked down heavily as he pointed it at Baby’s face.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Either of you.”

•••

CHAPTER 2

A BOLT OF ADRENALINE hit my chest, freezing all thought. For a second there was nothing but the gun and my kid sister in the line of fire, the purest manifestation of all my worst nightmares. It didn’t matter who the guy was. What mattered was his finger on the trigger, the ability of that single digit to destroy my entire world.

“Phones,” he said. “Slowly.”

We extracted our phones from our pockets and handed them to him. I glanced around, sweat already beading on my brow. The curious couple was gone. The gunman tossed our phones into the palms.

“Move,” he said, gesturing toward the apartment build- ing with the gun.

We walked. I gave Baby a Don’t do anything stupid glare.

She shook her head, disgusted.

“Listen,” I said, glancing back at our captor. I clocked the tired expression on his stubbled face. “We don’t even know where you want us to go.”

“Third floor,” the guy said. “It’s the apartment you’ve been out here watching. The one you were just shouting at.”

“We weren’t — ”

“Don’t play dumb with me, all right? I don’t get a lot of sleep in my line of work. My patience is at an all-time low.”

The man grabbed a handful of my shirt and shoved me onward. We started up dimly lit stairs, and my stomach sank. There were good signs about the situation, but not many. The guy hadn’t patted either of us down, which meant he was probably unaccustomed to, maybe unprepared for, actual violence. The gun he carried was big and chunky and awkward in his hand. It looked unused, something meant only to scare us. But my fluttering confidence took a nosedive when we reached the third floor. There was another, much shorter man at the door to the apartment. He also had a gun and looked tired but he seemed meaner than his partner. I heard dogs barking inside. One had the wet, hysterical, savage bark of a big animal losing its mind.

Baby and I were shoved into the apartment. It was dark, lit only by colored LED lights in dozens of reptile and fish tanks lining one wall. I saw lizards and spiders and snakes in there, huge coiled pythons sagging over branches, and hairy tarantulas scaling rocks. Beneath the aggravated, panic-driven barking of the dogs was a different rumble of noise — parrots squawking in another room, fish-tank pumps humming and bubbling, cats whining.

A dozen dogs of different breeds rushed over and swirled around us, some snuffling and pawing at our legs, others standing back and yapping, muzzles up in challenge.

Among them, I spotted our girl: L’Shondra, a sleek and googly-eyed Italian greyhound who stood trembling at the back of the pack.

The dog that was on the border of insanity was a hellish hound who looked like it could have swallowed L’Shondra whole. The dog was chained to a U-bolt mounted to the wall; its scarred, boxy black head was held low, and its clipped ears shone pink in the weird light. All the other dogs stayed well outside the range of its chain.

The dog’s yellow eyes were fixed on Baby. I felt her cold hand slip into mine. Not for the first time since I’d met my sister less than a year ago, I was overcome by the intense, soul-squeezing maternal instinct to protect her, and I knew someone was about to get hurt.

I just didn’t realize how bad.

•••

CHAPTER 3

THE TWO ARMED MEN huddled near us.

“What were you thinking?” the small one asked the tall one. “Are you a goddamn idiot?”

“I wasn’t thinking anything. I can’t concentrate with all this noise.”

“What are we supposed to do now? They’ve seen everything. They’ve seen our faces!”

“They’d already seen our faces, man. I think they’ve been out there for hours. Probably saw me leave for cigarettes. Saw you bringing up the birdseed.”

I forced a long, slow breath, tried not to think about the guns and the surprise and desperation that these two men were clearly feeling, or about how guns and surprise and desperation made terrible bedfellows. It was time to argue. I told myself this room was no different than the hundreds of courtrooms I had commanded in my life.

“Hey,” I called and pointed to L’Shondra. “We’re here about that one dog. Just give her back and we’ll clear out. There’s no need to make things worse than they already are, okay? You’ve already committed California Penal Code two forty-five A and two oh seven PC here tonight, guys. Assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping. That’s twenty years. Don’t do anything that’s going to make it life for the sake of a few thousand bucks.”

The gunmen stared at me. I felt like I was getting through to the big guy, at least. He looked calm, ready to listen, his gun almost forgotten by his side. A tiny wave of relief rose in me. It crashed when the smaller man raised his weapon and shot his partner in the head.