Free Blood Test by Jonathan Kellerman Page A

east.
    “Unlikely. They’ve got a sick child with them.” To
Bev: “I saw a phone at the gas station on the corner. Call it in as a
suspicious disappearance.”
    She moved toward the door.
    The Iranian lifted the hinged counter and came around
to our side.
    “What do you want? Why you make trouble?”
    “Listen,” I told him, “I don’t care what kind of nasty
little games you’ve got going on in the other rooms. We need to talk to the
family in fifteen.”
    He pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket. “Come, I
show you, they not here. Then you leave me alone, okay?”
    “It’s a deal.”
    His pants were baggy and they flapped as he strode
across the asphalt, muttering and jingling the keys.
    A quick turn of the wrist and the lock released. The
door groaned as it opened. We stepped inside. The desk clerk blanched, Beverly
whispered Ohmigod, and I fought down a rising feeling of dread.
    The room was small and dark and it had been savaged.
    The earthly belongings of the family Swope had been
removed from three cardboard suitcases, which lay crushed on one of the twin
beds. Clothing and personal articles were strewn about: lotion, shampoo, and
detergent leaked from broken bottles in viscous trails across the threadbare
carpeting. Female undergarments hung limply over the chain of the plastic swag
lamp. Paperback books and newspapers had been shredded and scattered like
confetti. Open cans and boxes of food were everywhere, the contents oozing out
in congealing mounds. The room reeked of rot and dead air.
    Next to the bed was a patch of carpet that was clear
of litter, but far from empty. It was filled with a dark brown amoebalike stain
half a foot across.
    “Oh no,” said Beverly. She staggered, lost her
balance, and I caught her.
    You don’t have to spend much time in a hospital to
know the sight of dried blood.
    The Iranian’s face was waxen. His jaws worked
soundlessly.
    “Come on,” I took hold of his bony shoulders and
guided him out, “we have to call the police now.”
    It’s nice to know someone on the force. Especially
when that someone is your best friend and won’t assume you’re a suspect when
you call in a crime. I bypassed 911 and called Milo’s extension directly. He
was in a meeting but I pushed a bit and they called him out.
    “Detective Sturgis.”
    “Milo, it’s Alex.”
    “Hello, pal. You pulled me out of a fascinating
lecture. It seems the west side has become the latest hot spot for PCP labs—they
rent glitzy houses and park Mercedes in the driveway. Why I need to know all
about it is beyond me but tell that to the brass. Anyway, what’s up?”
    I told him and he turned businesslike immediately.
    “All right. Stay there. Don’t let anyone touch
anything. I’ll get everything moving. There’s gonna be a lot of people
converging so don’t let the girl get spooked. I’ll crap out of this meeting and
be there as soon as I can but I may not be the first, so if someone gives you a
hard time, drop my name and hope they don’t give you a harder time because you
did. Bye.”
    I hung up and went to Beverly. She had the drained,
lost look of a stranded traveler. I put my arm around her and sat her down next
to the clerk, who’d progressed to muttering to himself in Farsi, no doubt
reminiscing about the good old days with the Ayatollah.
    There was a coffee machine on the other side of the
counter and I went through and poured three cups. The Iranian took his
gratefully, held it with both hands, and gulped noisily. Beverly put hers down
on the table, and I sipped as we waited.
    Five minutes later we saw the first flashing lights.

6
    THE TWO uniformed policemen were muscular giants, one
white and blond, the other coal-black, his partner’s photographic negative.
They questioned us briefly, spending most of their time with the Iranian desk
clerk. They didn’t like him instinctively, and showed it in the way L.A.P. D.
cops do—by being overly polite.
    Most of their interrogation had