After she left, Decker said, “The blood work might help you out with the baby’s race, too. If I were on the case, I’d call up the hospital lab.”

“Don’t I need some kind of court order to do that?”

“Probably. But sometimes, if you just go down and make an appearance, you can persuade the technicians to talk to you.”

Koby came to mind. I wondered if he was working today. “Right. Good idea.” I warmed my fingers on my coffee mug. “Things okay with you, Dad?”

“Things are coming along.”

I looked at my father in earnest. Over the past couple of months, he had traversed some rough roads, things he refused to talk about. He kept up a stoic appearance-big worries rarely registered on his face-but I knew better. There was always a telltale sign. The twitch of his mouth, the shift in his gaze. I switched the discussion to neutral ground. “How’s the family?”

“Great.” He sounded like he meant it.

“How’s my Hannah Banana?”

“Your sister’s scary.”

“At ten, her vocabulary is probably bigger than mine.”

“Well, it’s definitely bigger than mine.”

“Is Jacob adjusting to college all right?”

“Yes, very well, thanks.” Dad looked at me. “It’s nice of you to ask, Cindy.”

“And Sammy? Didn’t you say something about a girlfriend?” Surprise in Dad’s eyes. “See? I listen when you talk.”

“Sammy and Rachel are still an item as far as I know.” Decker took my hand. “How areyoudoing, Princess?”

“I’m all right, Dad. Waiting patiently for my turn in the Detectives squad room. In the meantime, I’m studying for the Sergeant’s exam. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in school, but it’s going well.”

“Brains was never your problem.” He dropped my hand, then fiddled with his coffee cup. “Getting out at all?”

He was staring somewhere over my shoulder, trying to hide his concern. The truth was that both of us had experienced terrible ordeals, events that had almost cost us our lives. And neither of us was eager to talk about them.

“I’m still in the bowling league.” I scrunched up my eyes and made a moue. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. If you want to help me, give me some tips on finding this mother. Even if the mom never sees her child again, the kid deserves to know something about her genetics, don’t you think?”

“Sure.”

“Any advice other than the lab?”

“Visit the local schools-Mid-City High or even the local junior highs because you’re looking for a girl without a car. Ask the teachers who has been missing, who was pregnant, who may look like they’re pregnant but is not saying anything.”

“That’s a good idea.” I felt suddenly dispirited. Why hadn’t I thought of those things? Of course, Decker picked up on it.

“Cynthia, Ishouldknow more than you at this stage.” His smile was tender and a bit sad. “Although sometimes I wonder. I’m certainly not immune to failure.”

I waited for him to say more. Of course, he didn’t. So I told him I thought he was terrific.

Decker smiled. “Likewise. I’m your biggest fan.”

“I know you are, Daddy.”

“Anything else?”

“No, not… well, how about this? Suppose… suppose, I find the mother. Let’s say she’s fifteen andhermother won’t let me talk to her or see her. What do I do?”

“You use psychology to convince the mother that it’s in her best interest for you to interview her daughter.”

“How do I do that?”

Decker smiled. “Charm.”

I busied myself with my toast, eating quickly and without talking. The meal was essentially over in ten minutes. When I saw Decker sneaking a look at his watch, I knew I should let him go. He had taken time off from work. It would be rude of me to keep him longer.

I left a ten on the table. When he balked, I insisted. Decker walked me to my car, opening the driver’s door like the true gentleman he was. I hesitated before getting inside.

“I don’t know if I can be charming, Decker.”

“It depends on how badly you want that gold shield,” he responded.

I didn’t answer.

Decker said, “Practice smiling in front of a mirror, Princess. It’ll help to wipe the sneer from your face.”

7

Located smack in the centerof Hollywood just east of the famous Sunset Strip, Mid-City High connoted glamour to the uninitiated, but in fact, it was a dispirited school in a depressed area. It compensated for its age by being big-blocks long with intermittent patches of green lawn. The flesh-colored pink stucco building was constructed with lots of curved walls and glass-block windows-fashionable architecture in the ’40s and ’50s. Some of the exterior was painted with patriotic or ethnic murals, other parts held smudges of unwanted graffiti. A couple of smog-tolerant palm trees and clumps of banana plants rounded out the picture of old Los Angeles. I jogged up the twenty-plus steps leading to the front entrance and pulled open the brick-colored doors.

I was no stranger there, having been sent before by the Department to deliver the “earnest” drug talks with the students. Last year, I also manned the LAPD booth with George Losario on Career Day. We were deluged with working-class teenage boys interested in excitement and power. The biggest problem for most of them was the high school diploma required by the Police Academy. The dropout rate at Mid-City was substantial. George and I used the opportunity to encourage them to stay in school.

Quite a few of my colleagues had more than the requisite high school education. Some had A.A. degrees from community college; others had B.A.’s. I had a master’s from Columbia. It made me an oddball with the other uniforms as well as an object of suspicion. I was working really hard to overcome prejudice and had met with some success. I wasn’t complaining, and it wouldn’t help if I did.

The hallways were crowded and sweaty with adolescent hormones and nonstop activity; school was now year-round in the L.A. unified district. Noisy, old, tired, Mid-City was only several miles away from the cultured Hollywood Bowl Amphitheater, but light-years away from the West L.A. area, where the privileged often eschewed the neglected public institutions in favor of posh private schools. I had to hand it to my stepmother. Though Hannah was an outstanding standardized-test taker, Rina wouldn’t ever dream of sending my half sister to a privatesecularschool. Instead, she elected to send her to a privatereligiousschool-a seat-of-the-pants Jewish day school. She prized religious studies above all, and in return for her faith in God, she was rewarded by not having to worry about entrance exams and interviews for my ten-year-old sister.

Jaylene Taylor held the title of Girls Vice-Principal. She was tall and big-boned with a broad forehead, long equine teeth, and dark eyes. She wore a beige blouse that sat over navy slacks and sensible flats. When I told her why I was there, the dark eyes narrowed and her mouth screwed up into a distasteful look.

“I can’t just hand out names of our students. Everyone has rights, even minors.”

Not technically true, but now was not the time to get legal.

“Besides,” Jaylene continued, “you don’t want pregnant students, you want girls who were formerly pregnant. You know the dropout rate we have with pregnant girls?”

“I bet it’s high.”

“Skyscraper high. We’ve got all these state-mandated testing-program requirements.Ourmain problem is getting the students to show up and put in the hours to graduate. Academics?” She stuck out her tongue. “What’s that?”

“I went to public school.”

She threw me a sour expression that screamed:Look where it got you!

“All I want to do is talk to them, Ms. Taylor.”

“They’re scattered, Officer Decker.” She was regarding me with contempt. Or maybe that was contempt at life in general. “We don’t run a school for wayward teen girls who can’t say no.” Under her breath: “Although sometimes it feels that way.”