Category: In Uniform

Christmas Eve in the City of the Angels came in hot and mean, ninety-five degrees and not a cloud dumb enough to offer mercy. The sun baked the concrete scar of the L.A. River basin until it shimmered like a bad alibi, a waterless waterway where careers went to rot. Officer Jane Law walked her beat through the heat haze, boots crunching grit and regret, every step a reminder of why she’d been exiled to this bone-dry purgatory. She’d followed a money trail too clean to be coincidence, too dirty to be legal, and it had led straight to the department’s polished brass shaking hands with mob grease. That kind of curiosity didn’t get you medals—it got you forgotten. She knew the only way out was something spectacular, the kind of mess nobody could ignore. That’s when she saw it a hundred yards ahead: a body sprawled like yesterday’s news, a knife standing proud in his chest, waiting for some lucky flatfoot to make sense of how Christmas had come early for one poor bastard.

By the book, she’d call it in and let the forensics boys do what they did best—muddy the water, lose the evidence, ship the stiff to the wrong slab so any future collar would walk on a technicality. But Jane wasn’t interested in losing this one. If she was going to climb out of the riverbed, she needed the only scientific mind in town sharp enough to read a corpse like a confession: Boris the pug. And Boris didn’t come alone. He came with Jonny M.—the one man who’d ever cracked her armor, whose touch could still turn her ice-cold blood into something reckless and alive. Jane scanned the empty stretch of concrete, heat waves dancing like ghosts, and knew there was no other play. She fished out her phone, dialed the operator, and swallowed hard before saying the last words she ever thought she’d say: “Connect me with the Jonny & Boris Detective Agency.”

It was three in the morning, the hour when the streetlights flicker like dying stars and the only things awake in Van Nuys are the rats, the sinners, and the poor mugs paid to clean up after them. Jonny M. swaggered onto the scene like he was arriving at a Hollywood premiere rather than a sidewalk soaked in yesterday’s blood. While he kept himself occupied tossing charm grenades at the gorgeous lady cop assigned to the case—Officer Jane Law, the kind of knockout who could stop traffic and maybe even a raging bull—Boris crouched over the mutilated stiff with an expression that would curdle fresh milk. The little pug detective’s face had never exactly been a picture of joy, but tonight it was uglier than a politician’s promise.

Boris didn’t need more than a glance to know what he was looking at. The deep lacerations ripping across the victim’s torso weren’t the work of some dime-store switchblade or a hopped-up mugger with brass knuckles. No—these were the calling cards of something far more primal. Razor-sharp claws. The kind only an angry tomcat could wield with enough fury to send a man to meet his maker early. The pug lit a cigarette, letting the smoke curl around his thoughts like a lazy fog creeping over a cemetery gate. He was just reaching for his magnifying glass when Jane Law strolled over, heels clicking like a countdown to doom.

“You can put that toy away, Boris,” she purred. “We’ve already got the culprit.” Boris looked up, squinting through a ribbon of smoke, and saw her holding a pair of heavy steel shackles. On the other end of them stood a sexy tomcat in a little black dress, wide-brim hat, and eyes wide with terror. But this wasn’t just any feline femme fatale—they’d dragged in Pussy, Boris’ own girlfriend. His Camel hung from the corner of his mouth as he took the longest, slowest drag of his life. This wasn’t just another corpse on just another crooked night in Van Nuys. This was a frame-up, and unless Boris could crack the case wide open, Pussy was headed straight for a date with the hangman’s noose.