Free Irish Chain by Earlene Fowler Page B

East L.A.’s toughest Latino neighborhoods. Jim took my statement next, then Mac’s, then Ramon’s. Mac and I lingered around the crowded nurses’ desk, listening to the retirement home employees carp about who was going to get stuck cleaning up the murder scene, when Gabe walked over to us.
    “You can both go home now,” he said. “Come down to the station sometime tomorrow and sign your statements.”
    “Did he see anything?” I asked, pointing at the scared attendant.
    He ignored my question and laid a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently. “Be careful driving home. Lock your doors.”
    “I have to stay and clean up,” I said. “The recreation room is also the dining room. They’re going to need it for breakfast tomorrow.”
    He narrowed his eyes and frowned, trying to decide if my reason for staying around was legitimate or just an excuse to hang around the crime scene. Though how we met was due to an unfortunate set of murders at the crafts museum, he’d attempted to keep the more gruesome aspects of his job separate from our relationship. I fought it, partly because of curiosity about his work and partly because if we were going to have any sort of a relationship at all, I didn’t want it to contain any secrets. Besides, I found his attitude somewhat condescending.
    I crossed my arms over my chest. “You sent all my helpers home.”
    “Let the staff do it. That’s what they’re paid for.”
    “It’s my responsibility to see that everything is put back in place. You can’t make me leave.” Actually, I wasn’t sure about the legal accuracy of that point, but I was betting he wouldn’t fight me.
    “I want you to go home.”
    I gave him a frustrated look which he returned with a stubborn one.
    “I’ll help her,” Mac broke in. “It won’t take long with both of us working.”
    Gabe glanced at him, an unreadable expression in his slate-blue eyes. “All right,” he finally said. He turned back to me, his voice quiet and tense. “ Then I want you to go straight home.”
    “I’m too restless,” I said. “Besides, I never ate dinner. How about meeting me at Liddie’s for something to eat?” The last thing I felt like doing at that moment was walking into a cold, lonely house and thinking about what happened to Mr. O’Hara and Miss Violet.
    “I don’t know when I can get there,” Gabe said.
    “I’ll wait.”
    “You know I hate you being out alone this late at night.”
    I opened my mouth, ready to argue that I’d managed to stumble through a good part of my life without his sometimes overpowering protection, when Mac spoke up again.
    “I haven’t been to Liddie’s in years,” he said. “Mind if I join you two?”
    “Sure,” I said. “And Chief Ortiz, I’ll make sure and walk with him through that dangerous parking lot so he doesn’t get mugged.”
    Gabe’s lips compressed into a thin line under his black mustache. I knew he wouldn’t flat-out fight with me in front of Mac, but this issue would be something we’d tangle over later. “As I said, I don’t know how long I’ll be.” He whipped around and strode back toward the crime scene and a group of reporters who were waiting behind the yellow crime-scene tape. At his side, one hand curled in a fist.
    “Good old Pancho,” Mac said, walking with me through the garden to the recreation hall. “Still likes to be in control. Never was much of a team player. One heck of a quarterback, though.”
    “Okay, that’s it,” I said. “Tell me how you two know each other and what’s with the nicknames?”
    He smiled good-naturedly. “Nothing special about the story. Gosh, it must have been back about ten years ago, when I lived in L.A. Just a bunch of guys in Griffith Park playing pickup football every Saturday afternoon. All of us getting rid of one sort of tension or another. I quit after about a year, when it got too hard on my knees. Believe me, I almost didn’t recognize him. Last time I saw him he had hair