LITMIR.BIZ

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forced herself to stare down at the police blotter.

      The list of the night’s crimes was already long: Burglary/Theft from Motor Vehicle. Grand Theft. Vandalism. Battery. And the usual collection of oddities: the owner of a La Brea Avenue business reported that someone tipped over a Porta Potty and attempted to break into a storage barn; a Vista Street woman reported a female who had delivered pizza to the address the night before had shown up at 2:00 a.m. with blood dripping from her nose and asking for money; a resident of Orange Grove Avenue reported an unknown person stole four solar lights and a garden gnome from his yard.

      Barrie knew how to scan for potentially Other-related crimes; you developed a kind of sixth sense about it. But tonight it didn’t take any special skill to find the case that she would need to look into; it jumped out at her from the reports as if it were lit up in neon:

      Dead body in alley off Hollywood and Gower. Mixed race, late teens, street name Tiger. Sus- pected OD.

      Barrie felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach.

      She knew Tiger. Had known him. He was a street kid, a runaway, one of the eternal hopefuls who left their small towns and got on buses to Hollywood with big dreams of fame, fortune, love—and ended up turning tricks on the Boulevard instead.

      Boulevard of Broken Dreams, they called it. You got that right, she thought, feeling a flare of anger and grief.

      The Boulevard was part of her Keeper jurisdiction, so she spent a lot of time with the street kids. She was drawn to them, she ached for them, most of them running away from exploitation at home only to fall into the hands of the same kind of predator on the streets.

      Tiger was a shape-shifter, and like so many others, he’d thought he could use that talent to make his fortune.

      But it was a sad fact that despite their incredible talents, shifters were rarely productive members of society. Their sense of self was too amorphous. After all, they could and would subtly alter their physical form to match other people’s fantasies. And because of that inconstancy and lack of center, they tended toward indulgence of all kinds, which too often turned to addiction.

      Along with that ability to create fantasy, they were also some of the most manipulative creatures on the planet. And they far too often got caught in their own manipulative traps.

      Tiger was smart, and he was manipulative. Just sixteen or seventeen years old—Barrie had never been able to pin him down about his age—but already he was an expert hustler. He had been using his shifter talents to attract an upscale clientele. She had been sure he was also stealing as well as conducting any number of other illicit activities.

      It had taken some time for him to trust her, but Barrie blended in well with the street waifs; at her height and weight she could easily look like no more than a kid herself.

      She’d worked on Tiger, bought him meals, flattered him, joked with him, chided him, and time after time had hammered him that he could be using his talents for anything he chose, no dream too big. And she’d thought she’d gotten through to him. She’d persuaded him to check in to a local shelter, Out of the Shadows, that specialized in getting young prostitutes off the street and out of the life.

      Not out far enough, as it turned out.

      “Damn it,” she said softly.

      Someone spoke behind her, startling her. “Gryffald?”

      She whirled in her chair—and saw Mick Townsend looking down at her with an odd expression. She suddenly realized she was crying.

      Townsend was staring at the tears running down her cheeks. “What is it?” he asked gruffly.

      She swiped at her face. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

      He was about to speak again when she pushed her chair back, stood abruptly and walked out past him, willing herself not to break into tears again.

      She made it across the newsroom and out without crying, but broke down again in the elevator.

      Damn Townsend, anyway; he seemed to have a radar for every vulnerability. She hit the side of the elevator with her fist, pounding in frustration, and the concrete pain of it brought her back to herself. Somewhat.

      She wasn’t being fair, she knew. Townsend couldn’t help the way he looked. Maybe he had come to L.A. to be an actor, as so many people did. And most came to their senses and realized the competition was hopeless and the ruthlessness required to act soul-killing, and wisely chose other professions.

      But some were not so wise or so lucky. Those were the ones who clung to the desperate delusion that they would “make it,” that stardom was just around that next corner. Instead they ended up used-up in their twenties…

      Or like Tiger. Dead.

      And most likely with no one even to claim his body.

      She could do that for him, at least. So she swiped away her tears and stood straighter, resolved.

       Chapter 2

      Barrie wasn’t exactly dressed for the morgue, so she changed in the car in the parking lot. She never knew where the job would take her, so she always carried several changes of clothes in her trunk. She chose old jeans and a tank top and hoodie, washable and discardable in case she got into an autopsy room. You never could quite get out the smell of the morgue.

      Then she drove east, toward the L.A. County Cor-oner’s Office, just minutes from downtown in Boyle Heights.

      Her purpose was layered. She had to make sure the right medical examiner got assigned Tiger’s autopsy; it wouldn’t do to have a mortal cutting into a shifter. Too many questions could come up that were better avoided. Then she needed to see if there was anything unusual about the death, and whether there might be some danger for other shifters: a bad batch of meth, for example. Also with the recent scare of a blood disease affecting one species, she had to make sure there was nothing just plain bizarre going on. But mostly, she wanted to make arrangements for Tiger’s funeral.

      The coroner’s office was in a gorgeous Baroque building, red with cream trim, dramatic steep front steps lit by streetlamps that cast eerie shadows as Barrie climbed the stairs toward the House of Death.

      She signed in with the attendant on duty, telling him she had an appointment with Dr. Antony Brandt, and proceeded down the chilly hallways, trying not to look in through the doors where dozens of bodies in various stages of investigation and storage were laid out.

      She reached an office with a plate on the door reading Dr. Antony Brandt, Senior Pathologist. Almost as soon as she’d knocked, Brandt was opening it. Tony Brandt looked every bit the werewolf, even if you didn’t know he actually was one. He had a head full of thick, bushy hair, a powerful barrel torso, shaggy eyebrows over watchful eyes and an ever-present five-o’clock shadow.

      He acknowledged Barrie with an ambiguous smile. “I knew you’d be here. Everyone else is lining up for a look-see at the Prince of Darkness.”

      Exactly what Mick Townsend had called him, Barrie thought. And, of course, it made sense that the coroner’s office would be expediting Mayo’s autopsy. In death, as in life, celebrities got the spotlight in Hollywood.

      “Just as well,” Brandt continued. “No one will bother with this kid.”

      So, already a main part of her mission was taken care of. Brandt was taking Tiger’s autopsy, and he was not about to reveal that Tiger had been a shifter. Any Others who worked in criminal justice were experts at hiding the existence of their fellows.

      “Can I see him?” she asked.

      Brandt led the way down the hall to one of the autopsy suites. In the observation room he handed her a white gown, mask and gloves, which she slipped on before they entered the cutting room.

      It was a large space; several procedures could take place at one time. Now, however, the room was quiet and dim, and a single body lay on a single gurney on the far left.

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