Chapter Seventy Eight
Manic, exhausted and spent, Detective Lieutenant Victor Garcia moved to Just Mal’s iron security gate, stalled in front of it, looked up and down the street and, then taking a small leather wallet, withdrew his lock picks from it.
Breaking every rule in his policeman’s book, and from a lifetime of sneaking around and very good at it, he quickly opened Mal’s iron-gate, then the wooden door and silently crept inside the artist’s darkened studio, quietly latching the door behind him.
Once inside, he leaned against the entry near the spiral staircase and peered across the spooky, dark loft allowing his eyes to acclimate to the darkness. Except for a single light in Mal’s utility room and another far across the loft, the entire artist’s studio made his blood chill, for
