“The DA sent us,” Justine said, biting off the line.

“Uh-huh. Your boyfriend calls, you go to a murder scene. That’s kinky.”

Justine walked away from the pissy lieutenant, signed the log for herself and for Cruz. Then she ducked under the tape and called out to the medical examiner, Dr. Madeleine Calder, a good friend.

“Hey, Madeleine. We need to take a look at the victim.”

“Howya doin’, Justine? Cruz?” said Calder. The ME was small boned and petite, but strong enough to flip the body of a homicide victim when necessary. She stepped aside, giving Justine a full-on view of the girl lying between bags of trash and the cruddy back door of a Taco Bell restaurant.

Justine stooped beside Connie Yu, saw the dark pool of blood around the girl’s head. And also a gold stud glinting from the girl’s left ear.

Madeleine Calder said, “Justine, check this out.”

There was no earring in the victim’s right ear.

There wasn’t even an ear.

Dr. Calder said, “The ear’s gone, Justine. Restaurant Dumpsters have been tossed. The crew has been up and down the street looking for it. Nowhere to be found. I guess the perp will tell us where it is in a couple of days.”

Agonized screams at the police cordon caught Justine’s attention. She looked up at Cruz. “Connie Yu’s family has arrived. Let’s get out of here, Emilio. We can’t help those poor people. Not here, anyway.”

Chapter 7

JUSTINE HAD GONE to the morgue with the girl’s body, and it was past two a.m. when she called Private’s chief criminalist, Seymour Kloppenberg, nicknamed Dr. Science-Sci for short-and said she needed him right away.

Sci told his girlfriend, Kit-Kat, he had to go in to the Private offices, made a snack for his rather unusual pet, Trixie, and left the apartment with his helmet under one arm.