Free Scavenger Hunt by Robert Ferrigno

said Jimmy. “The ME does good work, but sometimes the caseload piles up and she gets behind, or she hands an easy one off to Boone, and we both know what
he’s
like. I want to make sure that Walsh gets four-star treatment, that’s all.”
    “Save your cheerleading for Detective Holt,” said Katz, hands on her hips. “I don’t see anything here that looks like murder, but I treat
any
suspicious death as a potential homicide. Now you show up with this missing-screenplay story, the mysterious screenplay that you don’t know anything about.” She closed in on him, so near that Jimmy could smell stale coffee on her breath, “I
surely
hope you’re not trying to stir things up so you can get a story out of it. If I decide that’s what you doing . . .”
    “Walsh just said that it was a million-dollar idea. That’s all I know.”
    “Okay.” Katz held his gaze. “I’ll go over Walsh’s trailer myself. This screenplay—does it look like a book or a magazine or what?”
    “It looks like a stack of paper. Maybe a hundred pages. He might have put it in a binder, or a manila folder—I don’t know.”
    “Just a stack of paper?” Katz shook her head, disgusted. “I guess a million dollars doesn’t buy much in Hollywood.”

Chapter 7
    “I have no intention of running phone numbers for you,” said Jane Holt, keeping a steady pace in spite of the twinge in her left ham-string, the one that was always tight.
    Jimmy didn’t answer.
    “I’m not going to do it,” Holt repeated. Seagulls screamed overhead as she ran along the waterline. Her dark hair was pulled back, elegant somehow, even in nylon shorts and a Catalina marathon T-shirt, but her legs were too muscular for the debutante she had once been. The T-shirt was untucked, covering the .380 auto clipped to the waistband along her back, and the handgun would have been out of place at a deb ball too. “You know I can’t.”
    “I wouldn’t ask except I’m having trouble pulling—”
    “Is
that
why you came this morning?” Holt stopped now, confronting him.
    “I’m having a hard time pulling up Walsh’s cell phone calls,” said Jimmy, not answering the question. “He didn’t have credit, so he had to use prepaid cards, and they’re hard to trace. Rollo says you have to go through central billing, and—”
    “Private citizens aren’t
supposed
to trace calls. Even police have to get a court order.”
    “I don’t think Walsh is going to complain that we violated his civil rights.”
    “That’s not the point.” Holt adjusted her weapon—a tiny callus had long since formed where it rubbed against the small of her back. Jimmy had noticed the small roughened patch of skin the first night they made love and tenderly kissed it, guessing exactly the cause. The first lover of hers who had figured it out. Maybe if she dated cops once in a while . . . But she didn’t like mixing business with pleasure. Until Jimmy. He wasn’t police, but he had the same heightened survival instincts and street smarts as a good cop. Or a good crook. She sometimes thought his journalism was just an excuse to work the middle ground between right and wrong, an opportunity to keep company with the dregs and the desperadoes, the high and the mighty too. Getting involved with him was a bad career move, particularly for someone as ambitious as she was. She didn’t care. She didn’t have to explain things to him, didn’t have to make excuses for her silences, didn’t have to hide her anger and frustration with the job. Plus, he was wicked in bed—and even better, he allowed her to be wicked too. Holt started running again, wanting to change the subject. “Sergeant Leighton asked me today if you would autograph this month’s copy of SLAP for him.”
    “I
told
you, I had no idea that Polaroid was going to make it into print—”
    “One of the detectives posted your page on the bulletin board. They drew a crown on your head. Do you want to know what they drew on the