Nursery Crimes Read Online Free PDF Page A

National Crime Information Center. It’s the computer system listing everyone with a criminal record in the United States. The investigators have access to it so they can get the skinny on the informants, witnesses, and other nefarious characters the defender’s office deals with. They are specifically not allowed to use it to, for example, check if someone’s daughter’s fiancé has a record. Al’s daughter was, by the way, still single despite a couple of offers.
    Al got up, poked his head out of his office door, looked up and down the hall, and sat back in his chair.
    “Got a name and Social for me?”
    “No Social Security number, but I do have the name. Bruce LeCrone.”
    “Capital ‘C’?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What about a birth date?”
    “No, but he’s probably about forty-five or fifty years old.”
    “Okay, give me a minute.” Al scribbled the name on a Post-it and headed off down the hall to the computer terminal with the NCIC link. While he was gone I nosed around the files on his desk. Nothing seemed very interesting, just the usual bank robberies, mortgage frauds, and drug deals. Ten minutes passed before Al came back.
    “Well, your boyfriend’s got a record.”
    “No kidding! Great. Fabulous. He’s not my boyfriend. Gimme that.” I grabbed the printout.
    In 1994 Bruce LeCrone had pled guilty to chapter 9, section 273.5.
    “Do you know what section 273.5 is?” I asked Al.
    He looked over my shoulder. “No idea. Here, look it up.” He handed me the blue, paperback
California Penal Code.
    I leafed through the book, found the appropriate section, and read aloud, “Willful infliction of corporal injury. Any person who willfully inflicts upon his or her spouse—”
    “Domestic violence,” Al interrupted.
    “A batterer.” I said.
    I was flabbergasted. I knew how prevalent domestic violence is, even in educated, wealthy families. Nonetheless, it still shocked me to hear that someone in my world was a wife-beater. Recent events notwithstanding, most of us probably still believe that that kind of thing happens only in trailer parks, not in Brentwood.
    “Any jail sentence?” Al asked.
    I looked back at the printout. “Nope. Probation.”
    Al leaned back in his chair and looked at me speculatively. “Juliet, what gives? What are you up to?”
    “What do you mean?” I asked, disingenuously.
    “You know what I mean. Are you working on something?”
    I considered whether to take him into my confidence. I trusted Al, I always had.
    “I’m checking into the background of a man I think might be responsible for a murder. Have you been paying attention to the case of the nursery school director who was hit by a car?”
    “I think I saw something about it on the local news. What’s your connection to the case?”
    “I knew the woman.”
    “So you’re playing detective?”
    “I’m just looking into a few things.”
    “That sounds like so much nonsense to me.”
    “What?” I was genuinely shocked.
    “Look, Juliet, the cops can do their job. They don’t need you investigating this murder, if that’s even what it is. They’ll figure out who done it without any help from you.”
    I sputtered.
    “This is about
you
,” he continued. “You are doing this for yourself.”
    I shrugged, angry at him but knowing, deep down, that he was right.
    “You’ve always been a ball of fire, Juliet. It was obvious from that first day I saw you come in here looking like Tina Turner. You just like mixing it up.”
    “That’s probably true,” I admitted.
    “Not much opportunity for that, driving around in that big blue Volvo of yours, is there?”
    “Nope. There isn’t. What do you want me to say, Al? That I’m playing private eye because I’m bored with the daily grind of motherhood?”
    “Well, are you?” He asked.
    I considered for a minute. “Probably. Is there anything wrong with that?”
    Al looked at me and shrugged. “How should I know? Who do I look like, Dr. Laura?”
    I had to spend