Dead Skip

“Well,” said Giselle. She looked at her watch, but said, “What’s the penalty for impersonating a police officer, Dan?”

Kearny stopped at the door, grinned. He had to get down to Fifth and Bryant to sign the murder complaint against Elkin so he could be held without bail. “I liked the stuff about the spectrographic analysis of inks, myself. You ought to get out of here if you don’t want to get stuck for the rest of the night. They’ll be coming with a warrant to bust up that cellar floor. Damned good job, you two. Take the day off.”

“It’s Saturday,” said Giselle. “We aren’t supposed to work anyway.”

“Then take Sunday off, too.”

“Why didn’t you call yourself Joe Friday?” asked Ballard coldly.

“You know I always use street names for my aliases,” said Kearny with great dignity. “Bush. Franklin. Turk. Gough. One of these days I’ll have to work something up with Golden Gate in it.”

They stared at the empty doorway, listened to Kearny’s energetic footsteps pound back down the hall. The front door slammed.

Ballard shook his head in wonder. “The son of a bitch probably will, too.”

Giselle laughed. Then she said, “Looks like you’re stuck with running me over to Oakland after all.”

Ballard used a four-letter word. Then, gritting his teeth, he used Elkin’s bathroom. No blood. Which cheered him so much that he took the bottle of bourbon with him. Maybe he could sneak it into the hospital in the morning. Bart liked bourbon, and Corinne Jones would take a sip of it from time to time. Especially when she had something to celebrate.