Marcia Clark - The Competition

“Good thing I know a lawyer then, huh?”

“Please. I’ll be the first to testify against you. You want to know who’ll be second?” I pointed to Rafi, the Biltmore valet, who was shooting daggers at Bailey.

Bailey threw him a smile as we walked past the valet stand. “Catch ya next time, partner.”

Rafi nodded sullenly.

“That’s what you always say,” I said, as we reached the front entrance.

Angel, the doorman, opened the door and chuckled. “I believe she’s right about that, Detective,” he said.

“Good idea, Angel, side with her,” Bailey said. “You don’t care about getting that Christmas bottle of scotch anyway, right?”

Angel put on an earnest expression. “On second thought, I believe you have let him park your car on many prior occasions,” he said.

“Shameless,” I said.

“Nicely played,” Bailey said.

Angel smiled. “Marriage has taught me many things.” We stepped inside. “Have a nice evening, ladies.”

The familiar faces of home. It was the best I’d felt all day. And I knew it was comforting to Bailey too. Even so, as we crossed the lobby and headed for the bar I noticed her steps were heavy. We had to lighten up. There was no way of knowing how long it would take us to wrap up this case. If we didn’t find some emotional balance we’d wind up wearing jumpsuits with very long arms. I grabbed the large brass handle of the bar door, pulled it open, and gestured for her to enter. “Your Highness.”

“Your Highness?”

“There’re plenty of other things I could call you.”

Bailey and I took our usual spots at the end of the bar nearest the wall. It was a classic, well-appointed bar, mahogany with plush swivel stools and a mirror that was lit softly enough to prevent depressing news if I accidentally caught a glimpse of myself. Our spot at the end offered the most privacy. But that wasn’t a problem tonight. The bar was relatively empty. Just a few businessmen whose loosened ties and red faces told me they’d finished their business for the day at least three drinks ago.

“I don’t see Drew,” I said. Drew Rayford is the head bartender and, more important, Bailey’s boyfriend.

“No, he’s off tonight. We were supposed to have dinner, but…”

“But a mass murder got in the way.”

We exchanged a look and sank back in our chairs. I’d hoped Drew would be here tonight. It would’ve been good for both of us to see him. Cliché though it is, he became my confidant and buddy from the day I first moved into the hotel. And he’s plenty easy on the eyes, which is also helpful. Tall, with a muscled V-shaped torso and skin the color of mahogany, Drew had women falling into his lap when he wasn’t even trying. When he and Bailey got serious, I could practically hear the weeping from all corners of L.A. County. I probably would’ve been one of them myself if I hadn’t been such an emotional wreck when we first met. I had been staying with my mother, nursing her through her battle with breast cancer. But after she died, I couldn’t bear to be there anymore. I had a high-​profile murder trial that was about to start, so I’d temporarily moved into the hotel because it was within walking distance of the courthouse. The murder victim was the Biltmore CEO’s wife, and she’d been killed in the parking garage during a robbery. Between the stress of that trial, my mother’s recent death, and the breakup with my long-term boyfriend, Daniel Rose, I wasn’t looking for love. Drew poured my drinks while I poured out my heart, and a deep, long-lasting friendship was born. As a side perk, after I’d won the trial, the CEO had made me an offer I couldn’t afford to refuse: a permanent residency at the hotel. I hadn’t planned to stay longer than a year-two at the most. But it’s been three years now and it still hasn’t gotten old. The truth is, it’s hard to give up a life with no laundry, no dishes, and room service.

A young bartender who’d started a few months ago took our orders: Ketel One martinis straight up, very dry, very cold, olives on the side. Bailey asked for an extra tray of Crunchies, the only food we could get at that hour.

“We need to nail down a list of who’s accounted for and who isn’t,” I said. “Have all the bodies in the hospital and the morgue been identified?”

“Not quite. Not all the kids carried ID with them when they went to the pep rally. We’ve got officers on loan from the burglary desk working on it. A lot of kids ran home, but not all. The parents have been blowing up the phone lines at the Valley Division.”

“It would help if we could round up all the students and take roll call-”

“Like they’d be doing if they had a school to go to?”

I sighed. “Yeah.” Fairmont High School would be out of commission for the next few weeks while every inch was combed for evidence. In the meantime the students had to be relocated, but finding the space for them in the overcrowded L.A. Unified School District was going to be a nightmare.

“I hate to tell you this, but it’s even worse than you might’ve thought,” Bailey said. “The unis said there were a ton of kids who were ambulatory whose parents took them to hospitals and clinics all over the place. If they weren’t brought in by paramedics, they might not show up on any of our lists.”

“But I heard the parents who haven’t found their kids are all waiting at the local rec center. That should give us a pretty accurate missing list.”

“Not necessarily. Not all of the parents are there, and even those that are keep coming and going. Like Sonny and Tom. Plus, some kids got taken to the hospital by other kids’ parents. Some kids went on their own. And I’ve heard some just ran to friends’ and relatives’ houses. It’s pretty crazy.”

So even if students were reported missing, that didn’t mean they really were. “The fastest way to find out who’s really unaccounted for is to go public with the fact that the shooters are still at large and ask all students to check in at the local police station. But that’ll tip off the killers-”

“Not to mention cause a riot,” Bailey said. “But we’ve got to do something or it’ll take us days to figure out who’s missing-”

“And we don’t have days.” I rubbed my forehead. “We’re going to have to let it out pretty soon no matter what.”

“If it doesn’t get leaked first.”

“I just wish we could get the killers ID’d before we go public with it,” I said. “At least we’d be able to tell everyone who to look out for.”

Bailey leaned back and sighed. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

The waiter brought our drinks, and I raised my glass. We clinked and drank, but two more miserable toasters would have been hard to find.

Tuesday morning, October 8

Bailey left earlyto go home and change. Though she had a drawer of clothing in my dresser, she didn’t have anything that was warm enough for this weather. The clothes Bailey still had at my place were left over from the time she’d moved in to help me deal with a psychopath who’d nearly succeeded in killing us both.

That psychopath, Lilah Bayer, was responsible for at least three murders and she was still at large. Though not a serial killer, Lilah was an “ends justify the means” kind of person, and if those means happened to include murder, so be it. But generally speaking, other than the ax murder of her husband-a crime for which she, incredibly, had been acquitted-she’d left the messy work for her employees. And if it was messy important work, she gave it to her main guy, Chase Erling.

Bailey and I had managed to nail Erling, but when Lilah found out that he was in custody, she hired an inmate to kill him. He’d always been loyal to her, but she couldn’t be sure that loyalty would last when he was facing a sentence of life without parole. A Nazi Low Rider serving a lifetime sentence shanked Erling.