Chapter Thirty Four:

Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – Cedars-Sinai

Inez had not been out of the room for more than fifteen minutes when another detective came into the waiting room. Although they had only met twice, both times at The Bloody Bucket, Soonie recognized her as Angela Kim.

"Hello, Angela," she said.

"Hello, Kay." Angie said, almost apologetically. Then she turned to Daisy. "I'm Detective Angela Kim. I'll be assisting Detective De Pina and Detective Thompson on the initial investigation."

"Have you heard anything about Enos?" Daisy asked.

"No, Ms. Duke, and I don't expect to for a while," Angela said.

Soonie asked, seeing that Angie had brought the accoutrement of crime scene investigation with her. "What do you need from us?"

"To start with, fingerprints as well as DNA and hair samples from each of you." Seeing what she recognized as a common reaction to being fingerprinted in Ms. Duke, she added, "for elimination purposes. It's standard procedure. You each had," she hesitated only a second, "physical contact with him in the last twenty four hours."

Daisy had not meant to appear resistant. It was an automatic response acquired over years of dealing with the law-according-to-Hazzard-County. "If it will help find whoever did this to Enos, let's get started," she said, with as much sincerity as she could muster.

After Angie finished with Daisy it was Soonie's turn. While Daisy cleaned her fingertips at the sink in the corner of the waiting room, and while Detective Kim was labeling Mun, Kyung-soon on several bags, she heard Angie say, "Soonie. Pretty name. According to my grandmother, it's special because it's rare these days and means "gentle or mild.'"

Soonie had not remembered Enos calling her by that name in front of anyone but Inez that one time at the office and it showed in her expression.

"Oh, sorry. Enos asked me months ago if it would be okay if he called someone from Korea Soonie. He wanted to be sure it wouldn't be something insulting or mean something he didn't intend." She chuckled at the memory and pointed to herself. "Third gen American. I don't speak Korean, so I had to ask my grandmother."

In spite of how worried she was about him at the moment, Soonie smiled at the thought that Enos knew all along what his pet name for her meant, and how rare it was.

Until now, Daisy had been glad for the break in the silent tension between her and the other woman in Enos' life, a woman she knew absolutely nothing about until about seven or eight hours ago. It seemed like every passing moment some new snippet of information surfaced that she hadn't learned from Enos' letters, her two plus hours with Mrs. Huang or the hour and a half she had spent with Enos in his apartment. Angie had said, 'months ago.'

"He didn't waste much time pinin' over me." It was a foolish, snappish thought, she knew, but she couldn't help it. Her brain demanded that she remember what she had done to him; had been doing to him all these years. But her heart, and maybe her ego, had taken more than a few sharp blows since she arrived in L.A.

Soonie broke through Daisy's dark thoughts with a question.

"Angela, Daisy is concerned, and I have to admit that I am becoming a little concerned myself, about why we are here. I mean in this particular waiting room, with a police guard at the door." She suspected the answer but wanted it confirmed.

"It's a controllable environment used for several scenarios. VIPs, celebrities, fire and law enforcement officers. Provides security when it's needed and keeps families away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. We don't even want this getting out to the legitimate news media until we know more. Especially after Wednesday."

"But you will not be able to keep it contained indefinitely," Soonie suggested.

"No," Angie sighed, "we won't. Dollars to doughnuts they're going to try to make a connection with the raid and the car crash. Perfect fodder for the guys on the iffy side of journalistic ethics. All we can do is try to get ahead of it."

"And the guard?" asked Daisy.

"Maybe I should let Detective De Pina field that question. She should be back in a few minutes."

Down the hall from the waiting room, Inez was furiously trying to organize investigative notes in her head.

It was one thing to be injured in the performance of your duties. All police officers and their families have to deal with that on a daily basis. Neither she nor E had escaped their years on the force without some serious injury. It was the unavoidable certainty that E had been ambushed, like others before and those that would follow, while off-duty that had raised the collective hackles of his brothers and sisters in blue.

When Inez had checked his ankle holster, she'd had to unsnap the tab that secured the pistol. Even though forensics hadn't confirmed it, she knew it had not been fired; likely he never even had the chance to reach for it. His wallet was missing but not his weapon, his ID or his badge. If he, she, or they incapacitated him before he could take any action, then why not take everything? The gun was worth more on the street than the wallet. And what about the truck? Also a high value on the street or to a chop shop, it was not stolen. From her initial inspection, it had not been forcibly entered or even searched for property to steal. They were still awaiting forensics to finish with it to confirm that.

This was either an assault on E because he was a police officer or it was something personal. That's what Inez intended to pursue when she went back in to talk to Ms. Mun and Ms. Duke.

And then there was the question of how E had escaped without an even greater degree of injury.

Interrupting Inez' mental note-making, Thompson said, "I think Strate's neighbor knows more than she told me when I went to his apartment."

"Get her set up for an interview. Dylan," she said to Greer, "Is Torres on his way in with Ms. Mun's car?"

"I checked with him just before we arrived. He was still working the scene, but expected to be able to leave shortly. He should be on his way."

"When he gets here," Inez said, handing him the evidence bags, "You and Torres get these to the lab before you file any reports or go back out on patrol. Be sure Maria Flores gets the skin samples and photos of the facial damage. See if she can narrow down what the son of a bitch used to hit him. Ask her to send her preliminary to Thompson. And get the keys to Ms. Mun's car to the forensics techs working on E's truck. I want it processed as well."

After Greer took off down the hall, Thompson was going to add something else, but Inez' phone rang. The caller ID displayed Ruby Baker's name.

"Yes, Ruby, what do you have for me?"

"I finished with the preliminary processing on Detective Strate's truck. We pulled several distinct prints and among what we expected to find in the truck, there were a couple of items that don't appear to be his."

"Like what?"

Ruby read off the inventory of items found in the glove compartment, the truck tool box in the bed, and behind the seat which included what looked to be an expensive violin in its case and a plastic bag with peach colored freshwater pearls with the findings from a necklace that appeared to have been broken.

"Bring the violin, the pearls, and E's go-bag to me and take the rest back to the lab with you. I'll make sure the items don't get tainted before they can be dusted."

Inez held up a finger to Thompson when he reacted quizzically to 'the pearls.'

"Will do," Ruby said before she hung up.

Inez said to Thompson, "I have no idea… What was it you wanted to say before I talked to Ruby?"

"I think we should start the search area for crime scene near your house. Could be he ended up there because he was attacked somewhere close by, or at least closer than the nearest police station."

Her house was definitely not on any route to San Francisco from LAX that E would have taken. Far from it. Inez was thankful Thompson hadn't assumed something else with regard to why E had shown up at her house at three in the morning. Even if he did, he didn't say it.

"Get it started," she said. As he was putting his notebook away, she added, "After you do that, swing by and pick up Mrs. Huang. Get her statement first, then bring her here. She seems to have played a part in whatever went down at E's apartment last night. Maybe we need to get the three of them in the same room together."

"On it."