Free Suspect by Robert Crais

Sound good?”
    He popped a frozen pizza in the microwave, three minutes, good to go. While the microwave was humming, he searched the fridge, and came out with half a pack of baloney, a white container with two leftover Szechuan dumplings, and a container of leftover Yang Chow fried rice. He stopped the microwave, pulled the pie, and smushed the dumplings on top. He covered it with the fried rice, then set a paper plate over it, and put it back into the microwave. Another two minutes.
    While Scott’s dinner was heating, he put two scoops of kibble into Maggie’s bowl. He tore the baloney into pieces, dropped it into the kibble, then added a little hot water to make a nice gravy. He mixed it together with his hand, then took a piece of the baloney to the crate, and held it out in front of Maggie’s nose.
    Sniff, sniff.
    She ate it.
    “I hope this stuff doesn’t give you the squirts.”
    She followed him into the kitchen. Scott took his pizza from the microwave, got a Corona from the fridge, and they ate together on the kitchen floor. He stroked her while she ate, like Leland said. Long smooth strokes. She paid him no attention, but didn’t seem to mind. When she finished eating, she returned to the living room. Scott thought she was going back to the crate, but she stopped in the center of the room by the tennis ball, head drooping, nose working, her great tall ears swiveling. Scott thought she was staring at the tennis ball, but couldn’t be sure. Then she went into his bedroom. Scott followed, and found her with her face in his tennis bag. She backed out of the bag, looked at him, then walked around his bed, sniffing constantly. She briefly returned to the tennis bag before going into the bathroom. He wondered if she was looking for something, but decided she was exploring, then out came the sound of lapping. Scott thought, crap, he would have to keep the seat down. When the lapping stopped, Maggie returned to her crate, and Scott went to his computer. He had been thinking about the robbery Orso described since he left the Boat.
    He used Google Maps to find the site of his shooting, then the satellite-view feature to zoom into the street-level view. He had viewed the intersection this way hundreds of times, as well as the location where the getaway car was found. But this time he directed the map along the side street from which the Kenworth emerged. Three storefronts up from the T-intersection, he found Nelson Shin’s shop. He recognized the location by the blocky Korean characters painted on the metal shutter covering the windows, with ASIA EXOTICA painted in English below the Korean. The paint was faded, and virtually covered by gang tags and graffiti.
    Scott zoomed out enough to see Shin had the bottom of a four-story building, with two storefronts on either side. Scott continued past to the next cross street, then realized it was an alley. The street-level feature wouldn’t enter the alley, so Scott zoomed out until he was in satellite view, and looked down from overhead. A small service area branched off the alley behind the row of storefronts. Dumpsters were lined against the building, and Scott saw what appeared to be old fire escapes, though he wasn’t sure because of the poor angle. The roofs appeared to be at differing levels. Some were cut with skylights, but others weren’t. He zoomed back farther, and saw that if someone had been on the roof that night, they would have had a hawk’s view of everything that happened below.
    Scott printed the image, and pushpinned it to the wall by his drawing of the crime scene. Orso had given him a good tip, and now he wanted to see the alley himself, and find out if Orso knew anything more about Nelson Shin.
    He was still thinking about this at dusk when he took Maggie out. They walked until she pooped. He picked it up with a plastic bag, and brought her home. This time, he beat her to the crate, and arranged the pad. As soon as he backed out of the crate, she went