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the detectives had to take umbrellas in the bathroom with them. Most of the guy’s face ended up on the ceiling. And, as we all know, what goes up must come down. I heard an eyeball dropped and hit Kray in the head.”
    Parker chuckled. “Too bad he couldn’t have scooped up some of the gray matter. Then at least he’d have half a brain.”
    Chew grinned. “That guy’s head is so far up his ass, it’s popped back out of his shoulders again. He’s a fucking French knot.”
    Parker turned his attention to the dead body again. “So what’s the story here?”
    Chew rolled his eyes. “Well, Kev, we have here dead on the floor an unlamented scum-sucking member of the bar.”
    “Now, Jimmy, just because a man was a soulless, amoral asshole doesn’t mean he deserved to be murdered.”
    “Excuse me? Who’s in charge here?”
    Parker swiveled his head around to see a pretty twenty-something brunette in a smart Burberry trench coat standing three feet away, near the hall to the back door.
    “That would be me. Detective Parker. And you are?”
    Unsmiling, she looked directly at him with steady dark eyes, then at Officer Chewalski. “Abby Lowell. The scum-sucking member of the bar, the soulless, amoral asshole lying dead on the floor, is my father. Leonard Lowell.”

                             5
    Jimmy Chew made a sound like he had been impaled with something. Parker took it on the chin with just a hint of a flinch around his eyes. He pulled his hat off and offered his hand to Abby Lowell. She looked at it like she figured he never washed after going to the john.
    “My condolences for your loss, Ms. Lowell,” Parker said. “I’m sorry you heard that.”
    She arched a perfect brow. “But not sorry you said it?”
    “It wasn’t personal. I’m sure it’s no surprise to you how cops feel about defense attorneys.”
    “No, it’s not,” she said. Her voice was a strong, slightly hoarse alto that would serve her well in a courtroom. The withering gaze never wavered. She had yet to look at her father’s body. She kept her chin up, Parker thought, to avoid seeing him. “I’m in law school myself. Just so you can get a head start coming up with new and different derogatory ways to describe me.”
    “I can assure you, we treat every homicide the same, Ms. Lowell. Regardless of who or what the victim was.”
    “That doesn’t instill much confidence, Detective.”
    “I have an eighty-six-percent clearance rate.”
    “And what happened to the other fourteen percent?”
    “I’m still working them. I’ll work them ’til they’re cleared. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care if by the time I close those cases the perps are hunchbacked old men and I have to chase them down with a walker,” Parker said. “There’s not a homicide cop in this town better than me.”
    “Then why aren’t you working with us, Parker?”
    Bradley Kyle, Detective 2 with Robbery-Homicide—LAPD’s glamour squad, bastion of hotshots and arrogant assholes. Parker knew this firsthand because he had once been one of them, and a more arrogant, hotshot jerk had never walked the halls of Parker Center. In those days he had been fond of saying the building had been named for him. Stardom was his destiny. The memory bubbled up inside him now like a case of acid reflux, burning and bitter.
    Parker scowled at Kyle moving toward him. “What is this? A party? And how did your name get on the guest list, Bradley? Or are you just out slumming?”
    Kyle ignored him and started looking around the crime scene. His partner, a big guy with no neck, a blond flattop, and horn-rimmed glasses, spoke to no one as he made notes. Parker watched them for a moment, a bad feeling coiling in his gut. Robbery-Homicide didn’t just show up at a murder out of curiosity. They worked the high-profile cases, like O.J., like Robert Blake, like Rob Cole—LA’s celebrity killer du jour.
    “Don’t piss on my crime scene,