Chasing Darkness

17

MY BODY felt brittle the next morning, but my face was as tender as an heirloom tomato. Stretching and a hot shower helped with the stiffness, but they didn’t do much for my face. I tried to eat, but was too anxious about meeting the Repkos.

I reread the materials I had about Debra. Though I did not have the police report, the CI report Chen gave me listed the original investigating detectives as Robert Darcy and David Maddux. I wondered if they had been included on the task force and returned when Chen was sent to collect the second set of samples.

Though the medical examiner’s protocol showed a minimal blood alcohol level, no mention was made of Debra Repko’s activities that night or in the days preceding her death. These were things I wanted to know. As I reread the newspaper accounts, I was struck again by the similarities between Repko and the first victim, Sondra Frostokovich. Both were white, educated, and had worked downtown in a capacity related to city government. This might be relevant, but I had no way to know.

I reread the reports until I realized I was stalling. I did not want to face the Repkos, but then nothing was left except for the drive to Pasadena. I gathered my things and left.

The Repko family shared a lovely ranch-style home in an upper-middle-class neighborhood east of the Rose Bowl. I left my car on the street, walked up a long, used-brick drive, and rang their bell. It was a difficult walk to make, going to see a family who believed I was responsible for their daughter’s death. I was queasy and tried breathing deep, but the breathing didn’t help. Maybe I would puke on their floor.

Michael answered as if he had been waiting. His eyes widened when he saw me, and the two of us studied each other. An angry red mark creased his right cheek and his upper lip was thick and mottled.

He said, “You’re pretty dinged up.”

“You, too.”

The smell of lilacs was strong. Their home felt like a funeral parlor, which, I guess, it was. Michael lowered his voice as he let me in.

“Go easy with my mom.”

“I’m not going to kneecap anyone.”

Michael led me into a spacious living room where Dennis and Gordon were waiting with their parents. Gordon’s eye was purple and Dennis’s left arm hung in a sling. Family photographs were dotted around the room, but an enormous photo of Debra hung above the fireplace. More pictures of Debra crowded the mantel and hearth, along with stuffed animals and yearbooks and keepsakes. Her family had created a shrine.

Michael’s head drooped when we faced his parents. He no longer looked like the hardened troop who had tried to beat me to death with his brothers.

Michael said, “This is him.”

Him.

Mrs. Repko, propped in a wing chair as if she were made of marble, stared at me with open loathing. She was in her late fifties, with the stocky, large-bone build of her sons. Mr. Repko was ten years older than his wife; a thin man with the rheumy eyes of someone who had been drinking too much every night without regretting it the next morning. He had a high forehead and glasses, and looked nothing like his sons. Debra had gotten his looks. He frowned at the marks on my face, and glanced at his sons as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t.

I said, “Thank you for seeing me. I know this is difficult.”

“Michael tells us you believe the police have it wrong.”

“I have some questions, is all. I’ll try to make this quick.”

“Get to it then. Let’s try to make this as pleasant as possible.”

I took out my notepad. Hiding behind a 3x5 pad was an easy way to avoid the condemnation in their eyes.

“I need some background information about Debra, but I also want to know what the police did and what they asked you about.”

Mrs. Repko crossed her arms.

“It sounds like he’s trying to blame the police for something.”

Mr. Repko glanced at his wife, then studied me as if he thought I was setting him up.

“The police have been good to us. They’ve been very kind. We won’t say anything bad about them.”

“I’m asking so I’ll know how the police framed their investigation. If I know what they did, it will save time by suggesting a direction. You see?”

Michael said, “Mom. C’mon.”

Gordon said, “Can we just do this, please?”

Mr. Repko adjusted his pants. He still wasn’t comfortable, but he had let his sons talk him into seeing me and now he was stuck.

“All right, then. What?”

I glanced at the pad again. The three hundred Spartans would not have approved.

“I understand the police sent a criminalist to your home last week.”

“That’s right. He looked through Debra’s things.”

“Did they tell you what they were looking for?”

“The criminalist didn’t say much. He was a very odd man.”

“Not the criminalist. The police. Was that Darcy and Maddux?”

Michael said, “Darcy and Maddux are gone. These were new cops-Bastilla and Munson. A detective named Crimmens was here, but he left. We haven’t seen Darcy and Maddux in a while.”

Munson was new. I scratched his name onto the pad.

Mr. Repko nodded along with his son.

“Detectives Bastilla and Munson are on this special task force they have. We don’t know what happened to Darcy and Maddux.”

“Uh-huh. And what did Bastilla and Munson tell you they were looking for?”

“Some kind of samples. That’s all they said, really, that they needed to collect samples from Debra’s things. They asked if we’d had them laundered or whatnot, but other than that they didn’t get into specifics.”

“Uh-huh. And did they ask you questions about anything or anyone in particular?”

Mrs. Repko squinted and grew even more strained, like a violin string tightened to the breaking point.

She said, “They told us about her murderer with those sick, twisted pictures. They wanted to warn us because it was going to be on TV. They wouldn’t show us the pictures, but they warned us. I asked to see her. I wanted to see the picture he took, but they wouldn’t let me-”

Her eyes reddened and blinked. Gordon touched her arm and whispered, “Mom.”

She blinked harder, but Gordon’s touch settled her. I wanted to ask more about Bastilla and Munson, but changed the subject to Darcy and Maddux.

Mr. Repko explained that Darcy and Maddox had come to Pasadena on the morning Debra’s body was found. At that time, the detectives believed Debra resided in Pasadena because her parents’ address was still on her driver’s license. When they were told Debra had taken an apartment, Darcy and Maddux asked to see it, so Dennis and Mr. Repko drove into the city to let the detectives into her apartment. Michael and Gordon had stayed with their mother.

I said, “I’d like to talk to her neighbors about visitors she might have had, or if men had come around. That type of thing. I’m sure the police did the same, but I want to hear it for myself.”

Mr. Repko nodded.

“All right.”

“Was she seeing anyone?”

Dennis said, “Not since Berkeley. She dated a few guys at grad school, but they were more like friends, not boyfriend-girlfriend.”

“How about the men at work? Did she mention anyone she might have liked at work?”

Mrs. Repko had relaxed when her husband was doing the talking, but now she visibly tensed again.

“Once she went to work she didn’t have time to date. They work them like slaves at that place.”

“Leverage Associates?”

Michael nodded.

“Yeah. Debra worked hard, but she loved it. She was a politics wonk. It was her dream job.”

Mrs. Repko pulled her arms into her sides.

“It was an awful job, the hours she worked.”

Gordon said, “Mom, she loved it.”

“I don’t care.”

I cleared my throat to bring their focus back to me.

“Did she see someone on the night it happened?”

Mrs. Repko said, “We have no idea. She worked that night. All she did was work.”

“The medical examiner’s report indicates she had a drink earlier that evening.”

Mrs. Repko leaned forward, her face softening for the first time since I entered the room.

“It did?”

“Yes, ma’am. A drink or a glass of wine. The level was very low.”

Mrs. Repko blinked. The blinking grew faster, and her eyes turned red.

“Well, I just don’t know. How could we know? When she was here, we knew, but not after. I never saw why she had to have that apartment, working right downtown like she did. If she hadn’t taken that damned place none of this would have happened.”

Gordon spoke softly.

“She was twenty-six years old, Mom.”

“Oh, you shut up. Just…please.”

She squinched her eyes and waved her hand as if trying to brush away something that could not be brushed. It was easy to see her making that same move a hundred times a day in a terrible endless loop. Her daughter’s death came down to the apartment, to growing up and moving away because if she had stayed home her parents could have protected her.

Mr. Repko suddenly blurted out Debra’s apartment address and the name of the manager, a man named Toler Agazzi, but Mrs. Repko’s pain filled the room and everyone in it like radiant heat. The sons all stared at the floor. Mr. Repko couldn’t look at his wife. I stared at Debra’s portrait. The picture had probably been taken when she was a senior in high school. She was an attractive girl with clean features and smart eyes.

I cleared my throat and shifted. I wanted Mrs. Repko to see me looking at her daughter. I wanted her to know that her daughter was real to me. When I knew she was staring at me, I looked at her.

“What about her girlfriends, Mrs. Repko? I’ll bet Debra had a lot of close friends. She probably has friends she’s been friends with all the way back to grade school.”

Mrs. Repko glanced at the picture, then me. She wet her lips, then we were both looking at the picture. Here they were, the Repkos, upscale and educated, as close as you could come to a Norman Rockwell family portrait except that one of them had been murdered. Scratch Debra from the painting. Draw Xs over her eyes.

Her mother said, “Yes. Yes, she did. The sweetest girls.”

“Could you give me their names and numbers? I might like to talk to them.”

“All right. Of course I could.”

And this time Mrs. Repko didn’t tense in that horrible way when she answered.

I said, “When it first happened, did Darcy and Maddux take anything from her apartment?”

Mr. Repko adjusted his pants again, thinking, then nodded.

“They took her computer and her phone, I think, and a few other things.”

“They took her hard line or a cell?”

“Well, the cell was in her purse, so they already had it. She wasn’t robbed, you know; everything was still in her purse, even her money. But she had a cordless in the apartment. They gave me a receipt. I have it, if you want.”

“That would help. Also, if you have Debra’s phone bills I’d like to see them.”

“We have them. I kept everything in a file.”

Mr. Repko left to get the file, so I turned back to Mrs. Repko.

“Did the police return the items they took from her apartment?”

Mrs. Repko nodded.

“Detective Maddux brought back some things.”

“He bring back her phone, too?”

Mrs. Repko suddenly stood, with her sons straightening as if she might suddenly tip over.

“Here, I’ll show you,” she said. “You probably want to see, so let me show you. I want you to see what you’ve done.”

Michael glanced at Gordon, then lowered his voice again.

“Go get Dad.”

18

MRS. REPKO didn’t wait for her sons or her husband. She pulled me through the house to a girly room with frills and collages Debra had probably made during high school. I went in with her, but Michael and Dennis stopped at the door.

The room was immaculate; the bed tightly made, the pillows fluffed, the desk neat and waiting to be used. The room was small, but neatly decorated with a teenage girl’s furniture and bright curtains. The only items that seemed out of place were a large cardboard box against the wall and an overstuffed chair covered with a zebra fabric.

Mrs. Repko went to the chair.

“Most of the furniture at her apartment was rented, so it went back to the company. But she bought this chair, god knows why, this ugly thing, so we kept it.”

Mrs. Repko ran her hand over the fabric, then gripped it hard, digging her fingers in as if she was hanging on for her life. She heaved once as her eyes filled, and Michael and Dennis almost knocked me over as they went to her. They took her arms as she shuddered, and gently led her from the room, Michael’s soft voice in her ear.

“C’mon, Mama. You have to make that list for Mr. Cole. Let’s make his list.”

Mr. Repko appeared with an envelope as they helped her away. He said something after them I didn’t hear, then gave me the envelope.

“The last month, like you wanted. Got the cell in here and the one from the apartment. This is what I gave the police. The receipt they gave me when they took her things is in here, too.”

He had made copies of the bills for the police. He had gone through the numbers, noting those he recognized and which were personal or job related, and then he had called each number to ask who it was and how they knew his daughter. He had made handwritten notes in the margins. The police had asked him to do this, and I would have asked the same. The receipt showed that the police had taken-

(1) Apple laptop computer

(1) Panasonic 5.8 GHz cordless phone

(1) Samsung cell phone

(1) red leather address book

(1) blue checkbook

(assorted) papers

The papers would have been bank statements, phone bills, and any notes or scribbles they found. The receipt was signed Det. R. Darcy.

I gestured at the desk and the boxes.

“These are the things Darcy and Maddux returned?”

“Some of it, yes. They returned whatever they took, those items there on the receipt. Most of these things we packed up ourselves.”

“How about Bastilla and Munson? Did they take anything?”

Mr. Repko thought for a moment.

“No. The criminalist was back here, but the detectives mostly stayed out in the front with us. The boys were back here, keeping an eye on things.”

“This is when Bastilla and Munson were telling you about Byrd.”

“That’s right.”

“So it was an informational visit. They didn’t ask any questions.”

“A few, I guess. They wanted to know the same things you and the other detectives asked about. I think they were making conversation until the criminalist finished.”

“That’s probably it.”

The box held a few assorted paperbacks and magazines, and some pots and pans Debra had probably bought for when she wanted to cook. Her computer was back on her desk here at home just where it had been before she moved out, and her cell phone was in the little change dish where she had probably always kept it. Mrs. Repko had hung Debra’s clothes and returned her toiletries and makeup to her bathroom. They had put everything back in its place as if she had never left. It was so sad I wanted to cry.

I searched the box and desk, then went to the closet and studied the clothes. She hadn’t been wearing any of these things when she was murdered. Everything in the closet had been safely back at her apartment, so it made no sense to search for fibers unless Bastilla and Munson believed someone else was involved.

I said, “Lots of clothes. It must have taken the criminalist a long time.”

“He was back here for a long time.”

“You were talking with the detectives all that time?”

“That’s right. It was very emotional for us.”

“I’m sure. I’m curious, Mr. Repko-did Bastilla and Munson ask about anything, other than informing you about Byrd?”

“You mean about Debra?”

“Yes, sir. About Debra. All that time you were talking, I’m sure they had questions.”

He thought some more.

“Men. Boyfriends. That kind of thing. They asked about her job.”

“At Leverage?”

“Who she liked, who her friends were, if she mentioned anyone. That kind of thing. I don’t think we were very much help. I didn’t see what it had to do with this man, Byrd.”

“So they were interested in Leverage?”

“I guess you could say that, but like I said, I think they were making conversation-”

Then he frowned as a thought occurred to him.

“Well, there was the one thing, but I don’t know if this is what you mean-”

“What’s that?”

“Detective Bastilla wanted the guest registry from the burial service. They wanted to make a copy of it.”

“Was she suggesting Byrd might have come to Debra’s burial?”

“It seems unlikely, don’t you think, considering?”

I didn’t tell him I thought the idea of Lionel Byrd attending her funeral was absurd.

“That’s an interesting notion, Mr. Repko. Could I see it?”

“They haven’t returned it yet. When she returns it, would you still like to see it?”

“Yes, sir. That would be good.”

He walked me back to the living room. The brothers looked up as if they thought I was going to announce the big breakthrough, but all I could do was tell them I would call with any developments. Mrs. Repko was not with them, but Michael handed me a short list of names and numbers. When Mr. Repko showed me to the door, Michael started to follow, but Mr. Repko stopped him.

“I’ll walk Mr. Cole to the door. I’d like a word with him alone.”

Michael met my eyes, and I followed his father out. When we reached the entry, Mr. Repko hesitated before he opened the door.

He said, “I really don’t know what to say to you.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

He stared at the floor, then straightened as if it took an enormous effort. He studied my face. His boys had marked me up pretty good.

“Michael told me what happened. I guess you could have had them arrested. I imagine you can still sue us.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He looked away again, as if the weight of maintaining the contact added to his burden and he had to drop it before continuing.

“Those first few weeks, all I thought about was what I would do when the police found him. All those terrible fantasies you have, shooting him at his trial, hiring a mobster to kill him if they sent him to prison.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then, when they didn’t, I was so scared he would get away with it, and then they did, but now-”

He trailed off, and I could see the weight of his pain crushing him-his face sagged, his shoulders slumped, his back bent. It was awful to see, but I had seen worse and would see worse again.

“I’m sorry for what the boys did, Mr. Cole. I would not have allowed it. Please let me pay for any damages.”

“I’d better get going, Mr. Repko.”

I left him without looking at him or saying anything more. I walked down his lovely drive and into the lovely street, and stood by my car, wondering why Connie Bastilla would want the funeral registry. Murderers often attended their victim’s funerals, and sometimes left flowers or cards. It was possible Bastilla checked the registry for Byrd’s name as a pro forma part of her investigation, like dotting an i or crossing a t, but it was also possible she was checking for a different signature-someone whose DNA was currently an unidentified blind sample in anonymous tests.

I was still thinking about it when a grey Crown Victoria eased up the street and took forever to reach me. It idled to a stop, and two men in sunglasses stared at me. The passenger and the driver were both in their early thirties with short dark hair and ties but no jackets. They wore short-sleeved shirts and the flat, empty faces that came with having to wear bad clothes while riding around in a bad car. The passenger’s window rolled down.

I said, “You’re either cops or the Men in Black. Which is it?”

The passenger held up his badge, then tipped it toward the backseat.

“I’m Darcy. He’s Maddux. Let’s talk about Debra Repko.”

I didn’t want to get in their car.

“So talk. I can hear you.”

Darcy glanced in his side-view like someone might be behind him. Maddux leaned across his partner to see me.

“You’re Cole, right? The dude who got off Lionel Byrd?”

“Tell you what, Maddux-how about you kiss my ass?”

“We don’t think Byrd killed her. Now get in, and let’s talk about it.”

I got in, and we talked.

19

MADDUX PULLED into the shade of an enormous elm, but left the engine running with the AC on high. Darcy was the larger of the two, with fleshy hands and the slow moves of a man who thought things through. Maddux was different. He flicked and fluttered like a man wound tight by a grudge. Once we were parked, they hooked their elbows over the top of the front seat, propping themselves sideways. Darcy faced me, but Maddux glanced everywhere as if he was worried someone might see us.

Darcy said, “Nice set of lumps there, bro. Those brothers are something, aren’t they?”

“It’s an acne flare-up.”

“Sure. Mrs. Repko called us this morning. She wanted us to do something about you.”

“So this is you, doing something?”

Maddux stopped squirming long enough to glare at me.

“This is us sticking our necks out. One day we’re ordered to give up our work, a week later, Marx and his asshats clear seven cases.”

“Maybe the asshats are better than you.”

“And maybe they pulled Byrd out their ass.”

Darcy and Maddux were watching me. We were under an elm tree in Pasadena, and they shouldn’t have been here and they shouldn’t have been talking to me. They were probably detective-twos, but they probably hadn’t been on the bureau for more than six or eight years. They might be guys on their way up or they might be guys who had already topped out, or maybe they were working for Marx. If they weren’t, they were hanging out over the edge just by talking with me.

I said, “You have a problem with what the task force is saying, you should take it up with them.”

“We tried. They told us to eat it.”

Darcy smiled at his partner.

“Actually, they told us the case was no longer our concern. We didn’t like that. Then they refused to return our case files. We liked that even less.”

“So this is what we call an off-the-record conversation?”

“Something like that. Either way, we don’t think they should have closed the case.”

Their curious cop gaze rested on me, content to wait beneath the elm for the world to turn and the seasons to change and the sun to cool.

I said, “What if I told you the case isn’t closed? What if I said the task force was here pulling fibers off the girl’s clothes at the same time Marx went public about Byrd?”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits.

“I’d tell you to keep talking. I’d say if we like what you’re doing, we might be willing to help.”

I walked them through Bennett first, then sketched out Byrd and what I knew of the other murders and how Debra Repko was different. I told them about Ivy Casik and the reporter who might or might not be a reporter. Darcy and Maddux knew almost nothing about Byrd or the previous five murders, but they had worked on Debra Repko’s case for almost five weeks before it was taken, and were willing to tell me about it.

Debra Repko had spent the day performing her duties at Leverage Associates, then accompanied five other Leverage employees to an evening political event where she assisted with media interviews. Once the interviews ended, Debra and her supervisor, a woman named Casey Stokes, walked to their cars together. Casey Stokes was the last person known to have seen Debra Repko alive.

Darcy and Maddux caught the case the following morning, and thought they lucked into a game-winning break right away.

Darcy said, “One of the shop owners where her body was found called, saying he had a security video of the murder. We thought we had the killing on disk.”

“Waitaminute-you have something on tape?”

“DVD. It was digital.”

Maddux waved his hand like he was chasing away a fly.

“It was nothing. The guy rigged up a do-it-yourself surveillance kit because kids were tagging the building, only the cheap fuck set it up wrong. All he got were shadows.”

“Could you see any part of the incident?”

“Not even. SID dicked around with it for a couple of weeks, but said the digital information just didn’t exist, so Darcy here gave it to his brother-in-law.”

“My brother-in-law works for a CGI house in Hollywood. You know what that is?”

“Sure.”

Computer-generated images were a mainstay of Hollywood special effects.

“He offered to take a look, but it was a long shot. By that time, we had other lines-”

Maddux interrupted.

“The manager at her apartment house looked pretty good, a dude named Agazzi. I’m all over this guy. I still think he’s good for it, and he could have gone into her apartment any time he wanted. If Bastilla and Munson were out here looking for fibers, they might have been looking for him.”

Darcy shook his head.

“Maddux and I don’t agree. He likes Agazzi, but one of Repko’s neighbors at the apartment, a woman named Sheila Evers, told us Repko was seeing a married man.”

Maddux shook his head.

“If there’s a boyfriend. Personally, I think the broad made up that stuff. We couldn’t find anyone who confirmed a boyfriend.”

I showed them the names Mrs. Repko had given me.

“You check with her friends?”

Darcy glanced at the names, then passed it to Maddux.

“Yeah. They didn’t know anything. Said Debra never mentioned a boyfriend or lover or seeing a married guy, but here’s this good-looking young woman, it’s easy to think we’re talking about someone she met at work.”

It was reasonable, especially considering the amount of time Mrs. Repko complained her daughter had worked. If Debra was always working, then her only opportunity to meet men was through work.

I said, “Mr. Repko told me Bastilla and Munson were asking about Leverage. They made out they were just making conversation, but they were asking about the people Debra worked with.”

Darcy and Maddux traded another glance.

Darcy said, “When we talked to Leverage about Debra’s evening, they were cooperative. Then the boyfriend angle presented itself. When we told them we wanted to interview the male clients she worked with, they hit the brakes.”

“They wouldn’t tell you who she worked with?”

“They didn’t have a problem letting us talk to the male employees at Leverage, but they dug in hard when it came to naming their clients. We pushed, and we were told to lay off.”

“Their clients are politicians, Cole. We got a call saying the brass would review the matter and get back to us.”

“The brass. Parker Center?”

“It came through Parker, but who knows where it started? Couple of weeks later, Leverage got back to us, but they basically chose who we could talk to.”

“You think Leverage is hiding something?”

Maddux smirked automatically, but Darcy was more considered.

“I don’t know, Cole. Maybe they just didn’t want their clients linked to a murder investigation. I get that. But most people are murdered by people they know. A wife gets murdered, the first person you look at is the husband. Doesn’t matter if he’s the greatest guy in the world, you look at him because that’s how it works. You clear the people who were the closest to the vic first, then work your way out. We weren’t allowed to clear Leverage.”

Maddux said, “Agazzi was close. He lived right down the hall.”

Darcy sighed, tired of hearing about Agazzi. He had probably been sighing like that for as long as they were partners.

“We know she left the dinner event alone, but we don’t know if she stopped on her way home. It’s possible she picked up someone, but I’m thinking this guy was waiting for her.”

“Because they went for a walk.”

“That’s right. If she asked some dude back to her place, they’re going inside. So I’m thinking she got home and found someone waiting. Then one or the other of them says let’s take a walk. Probably the male because he already has it in his head to kill her and wants to lead her in the right direction. There was no reason for them to walk south that time of night. Maddux and I made the walk, man. All the action is north on Melrose. I think she knew the guy, she was comfortable with him, and he led her into the kill zone.”

The corner of Maddux’s mouth curled.

“You see this woman going for a stroll with a creep like Lionel Byrd?”

I smiled.

“No, Maddux. I don’t.”

“Which means if Byrd did the deed, he stalked her or the whole thing was a chance encounter. If you buy either one, you have to buy she went for a walk that night by herself, in the bad direction with no open shops and nothing but darkness, in heels. In heels, for Chrissake. That’s bullshit.”

Darcy stared at his partner as if he was thinking it through for the thousandth time, then finally shrugged.

“That’s where we were when they pulled the plug, Cole. We believe she knew the killer. I believe she was seeing someone on the sly. If we were still on it, we’d be all over Leverage. Especially now with what you’ve told us.”

The three of us sat in their car under the elm in silence. I thought through everything and tried to put their information in some kind of usable order.

“What happened with the video?”

“Don’t know. Some task force douche picked it up before my brother-in-law could get to it.”

“Why’d they pick it up?”

Darcy shrugged.

“Don’t know.”

“What did they do with it?”

“Don’t know. We asked, but they wouldn’t tell us.”

Maddux said, “They wouldn’t tell us anything, Cole.”

Darcy checked the time, then nudged his partner’s arm.

“That’s it. Let’s take him back.”

Maddux dropped the car into gear and pulled a slow U-turn. We headed back toward the Repkos’.

Darcy still had his elbow hooked over the seat, staring at nothing. I could see the passing houses and trees crawl across his sunglasses like a film strip. It was a nice film. It looked like the American dream.

I said, “Why’d you guys bring me in?”

Maddux glanced in the rearview. Darcy came out of his film.

“The Repkos deserve to know what happened to their daughter.”

“Meaning you’ve taken the case as far as you can.”

“Man says we’re off, we’re off. You, on the other hand, can do whatever you want.”

Maddux glanced again.

“I just wanna fuck that prick Marx.”

Darcy unhooked his arm.

“That, too.”

They dropped me outside the Repkos’ home, then melted through a tunnel of dappled shade.

20

DARCY AND Maddux had been cut out of the loop. Poitras, Bobby McQue, and Starkey had been cut, and Chen and the criminalists had been forced to work in the dark. People who should have been collaborators with Marx and his task force had been treated as if they couldn’t be trusted. I wondered what Marx didn’t trust them with.

I sat in my car outside the Repko house, thinking about the video and why Marx pulled it before Darcy’s brother-in-law finished trying to recover whatever was recorded. LAPD had a long history of using local special-effects houses to examine and enhance film and video. If you had state-of-the-art specialists available, it made sense to use them. Marx pulling the DVD bothered me because SID was good, and if they said the DVD was junk, then it was probably junk, which was why Marx’s play didn’t make sense. If the DVD was useless, there was nothing to lose by letting a cutting-edge CGI house see what it could do and everything to gain.

I paged through my notes until I found Lindo’s number, then gave him a call. He didn’t seem as nervous as when we spoke before. Maybe because he was back to investigating bomb-kook conspiracies.

He said, “What’s up, Cole?”

“Do you know what happened to the security video of Debra Repko’s murder?”

The surprise in his voice was clear.

“There was a video?”

“One of the shopkeepers where Repko was murdered turned in a recording. How could you not know about this?”

Lindo was silent for a moment.

“Waitaminute-maybe I heard something. It was blank or something was wrong with it?”

“That’s the one. A CGI house was working on it when you guys took over.”

“Didn’t SID say it was no good?”

“The case dicks took a shot with a CGI house. Marx pulled it before the CGI people finished. I’m trying to find out what he did with it.”

“No idea, man. Like I told you, my team worked on the book. Wasn’t in the book, I don’t know about it.”

“Who worked on Repko?”

“That was Bastilla and Munson. Yeah, I’m pretty sure Munson was on it.”

Munson again.

“Who’s Munson?”

“One of the Homicide Special guys, up there with Bastilla. He and Marx go back. I think they used to work together.”

“Can you ask them what happened with the disk?”

“Uh-uh, man, no way. I’m not going there. They were the inner circle.”

“Just tell them you were wondering about it. No big deal.”

“Cole, you don’t get this at all. Those people were the people who gave us our orders, and one of our orders was to mind our own business. I ask about this DVD, they’ll wonder why. We weren’t even allowed to ask about each other’s work when we were working together.”

“I thought Marx gave the orders.”

“Our work went up to the senior supervising detectives, and they brought it to Marx. That’s why we called them the inner circle. You had to go through them to get to Marx.”

“So each team only saw its own part of the case, but the guys up top put it together.”

“It was the only way to keep so much parallel work coordinated. Look at how much we accomplished in just a week.”

“Was Crimmens part of that crew?”

“Nah. He was an add-on like me. We had a ton of people in here, man. I heard it was thirty-two people, though I couldn’t say. I never met most of them.”

I kept thinking about the DVD. It was a piece of physical evidence. Like every other piece of evidence, it would have been numbered, documented, and preserved in a chain of custody. Even if it was only a useless piece of plastic, its location and uselessness would be a matter of written record.

“Okay. Forget asking. How about you take a peek in their evidence file and tell me what it says?”

“No way. I can’t.”

“Thirty seconds and you’re gone. Just tell me what Marx did with it.”

“I physically cannot. They keep the files in an evidence room. It’s locked. We could only sign out material specific to our assignment. Since I didn’t work on Repko, I don’t have access to that material. One of the commanders would have to sign off.”

“Don’t you find that extreme, Lindo?”

“I find it anal and corporate, but nobody asked me. Use your head. If this disk mattered a damn, we would have seen the video on the six o’clock news.”

“It doesn’t make sense they would pull it before the CGI house finished their work.”

“Maybe that’s why they pulled it, Cole. How long did that place have it and still hadn’t finished? Marx or whoever probably had the FBI do an overnighter. That’s what I would have done.”

I didn’t like it, but Lindo was making sense. The LAPD couldn’t make demands on a civilian firm unless they were paying for a service, and Darcy hadn’t been paying-he had leaned on his brother-in-law for a favor.

I put down the phone, then tried to decide on a game plan. The next obvious step was to pick up where Darcy and Maddux left off at Leverage, only the people at Leverage had no reason to be cooperative. If they sandbagged two LAPD detectives, they probably wouldn’t even bother to return my calls.

I was still thinking about it when I noticed Michael Repko. He was standing in the front window of his house, watching me. He stood as if he had been there a while.

I called him, and watched him fish his cell from his pocket to answer. I could have walked the fifty feet up his drive, but I didn’t want to face his mother again.

He said, “Was that Darcy and Maddux?”

“Yeah. Your mother called them.”

“Shit, man. I didn’t know.”

“They told me some things I want to check out, but I’m going to need your help.”

“Okay.”

“I need to talk to Casey Stokes about your sister, but she’s not going to talk to me if I just show up.”

“Uh-huh. Sure, I understand.”

“I want your father to tell her I’m working for your family. He should keep it vague. All he has to say is he and your mother have some unresolved questions. Will he do that, Michael?”

Michael raised a hand to his head. It was a gesture indicating his anxiety, and he glanced at something or someone deeper inside the house before turning back.

“I could call her. She was really nice at the funeral.”

“Not you, Michael. It has to be your father. When she gets this request, she has to feel the weight of Debra’s family behind it. Debra’s family will be asking the questions, not me. That’s the only way she will talk to me.”

“I don’t know. I could ask.”

“He needs to do this, Michael. If I’m working for Debra’s family, then I’m representing Debra. If not, they won’t talk to me.”

Michael stared at me with his hand on his head.

“I guess you are kinda working for us.”

“Yes. I’m working for Debra.”

“You aren’t what I expected.”

“Have him call.”

“I’m sorry my mom called those guys. I didn’t set you up, man.”

“Tell your mother something. She was right about Darcy and Maddux. They’re good guys. They did a good job for your sister.”

“Do they think Byrd killed Debbie?”

It was the first time I had heard her called Debbie.

“Have your father call Casey Stokes. I’m driving there now, so let me know after he speaks with her.”

“I’ll try.”

“One more thing. Were you and your sister close?”

“Well, sure, I guess. What do you mean by ‘close’?”

“If she was seeing someone, would she have told you?”

Michael stared at me for another moment, and finally lowered his hand.

“My sister didn’t share.”

He was still in the window as I drove away.

21

LEVERAGE ASSOCIATES occupied two floors of an older glass building in the downtown business district, not far from City Hall. They were less than fifteen minutes from the Repkos’ home in Pasadena. Michael Repko called back twenty minutes later as I circled the building.

“My dad talked to her. You’re all set up.”

“Okay. That’s great.”

“He kept it vague like you said. He told her you were working for us. He wasn’t so thrilled about that, but he told her.”

“This will make things easier, Michael. I’ll keep you advised.”

I pulled up in front of the building as I closed the phone, parked at a meter, then took the elevator up to the seventeenth floor. It was a nice floor in a nice building with tasteful, conservative decor. Steel letters fixed to the wall read LEVERAGE ASSOCIATES. I identified myself to the receptionist, told her Casey Stokes was expecting me, and took a seat to wait.

I didn’t sit long. An attractive African-American woman in a grey business suit came down the hall. She offered her hand with a quick, professional smile and an expression of condolence.

“Mr. Cole, Casey Stokes. I was Debra’s supervisor.”

“Thank you for seeing me. The Repkos appreciate it.”

“I was surprised when Mr. Repko said there were questions. I thought the case was closed.”

I tried to look noncommittal.

“Something like this happens, families always have concerns. I hope you understand.”

“Oh, of course. Here, we can speak in my office.”

She ushered me along a hall decorated with black-and-white photographs of people and places from the city’s past-the Angels Flight funicular climbing Bunker Hill, Chavez Ravine when it was goat farms and barrio housing, and William Mulholland opening the aqueduct to bring water down from the Owens Valley. Along with the historic scenes were photographs of past state and local politicians of both political parties. I didn’t recognize most of them, but a few had gained national prominence and two had been elected to national office. A Who’s Who of California ’s power elite.

Ms. Stokes was saying, “Do you know what we do here, Mr. Cole?”

“You run political campaigns.”

She gave a benevolent smile, as if she was the teacher and I was slow.

“A campaign is a point-in-time event. A political career is an ongoing effort. We manage political careers.”

“Ah. The wizards behind the curtain.”

“Only if we’re successful. We develop election strategies, but we also advise on public relations and help our clients refine or perfect their political identity.”

“If I decide to be governor, you’ll be my first call.”

She laughed. She had a lovely laugh, and a charming, genuine manner.

A faint buzz cut through her laugh, and she took a PDA from her pocket. She glanced at the screen without breaking stride.

“Sorry-a meeting was changed. This business, everything rolls from one crisis to the next.”

“I understand.”

She thumbed out a reply, then slipped the PDA back into her pocket as we passed a glass-walled conference room before entering her office. Several people were in the conference room shaking hands and smiling. Beyond her office were cubicles with men and women talking on phones or texting. Most appeared to be Debra’s age. One might have been Debra’s replacement.

Casey Stokes offered me a seat, then went behind her desk. She laced her fingers and maintained the professional smile.

“Now, how can I help?”

“We have a few questions about some things that were brought up during the investigation.”

We. The family and the ghost of Debra Repko were now in Casey Stokes’s office. She seemed genuinely pained.

“When I remember that evening and what happened only a few hours later-it was awful.”

“Yes, ma’am. It was. I understand you were the last person to see her.”

“That’s right. We attended a dinner honoring Councilman Wilts at the Bonaventure. The councilman is one of our clients.”

“So you spent the entire time together?”

“More or less. Debra’s job was to make sure each reporter had their five minutes with the councilman before the dinner began. Debra and I. Actually, five of us from Leverage attended, but we all had different responsibilities. Debra and I had our own segment of the evening to handle, so we were together.”

“She was your assistant?”

“Debra was what we call a first-year. All our first-years work as floaters to experience the different aspects of what we do. I had Debra join me that night so she could gain experience with the media. Once the interviews were over, our job was finished. We walked out to our cars together.”

“Did Debra tell you her plans for the evening?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Maybe mention she was going to meet friends or wanted to stop for a drink?”

Ms. Stokes studied me, then cocked her head.

“What does this have to do with a chance encounter with a maniac?”

“It has to do with her personal life.”

Something that might have been sadness flickered in her eyes.

“Now I understand. That rumor about her seeing a married man.”

“It’s eating at her parents. Especially her mother.”

Casey Stokes sighed, and something in her sigh made me feel bad for having said it.

“Mr. Cole, I don’t know what to tell you. If Debra was seeing someone, married or otherwise, she never mentioned it to me or anyone else here at Leverage. My understanding is that this rumor started with someone at Debra’s apartment building.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s where it started.”

“Then perhaps you should be asking that person. Debra and I only spoke about politics. She was excited by politics. She wanted to work on a national level. She might have. She was serious about her career.”

Her phone rang as she finished. She glanced at her watch, then excused herself to take the call. While she was on the phone, I looked at the people in the conference room. Two men in conservative business suits were making a PowerPoint presentation to the five people who were now seated at the table. The man at the head of the table was a balding guy with a large stomach and white shirt rolled to his elbows. Everyone else was twenty years younger.

While the suits made their presentation, a young man seated beside the older man was texting on his PDA. Nobody seemed to mind. He nudged the older man, then showed him the PDA. The older man took out a PDA of his own and fired off a message. The two guys with the PowerPoint looked as if they didn’t know whether to keep going or not.

Stokes put down her phone and checked her watch again.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, but perhaps you’ll have better luck with Debra’s neighbors. Please tell her parents that, personally, I think this rumor was-and is-absurd.”

She stood to show me out, but I didn’t stand with her. When I didn’t get up, she sat.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what more I can say.”

“I’m speaking with you and not Debra’s neighbors because of something we learned from the police. I feel awkward about bringing it up, but her family is in a great deal of pain. We need to clear the air.”

She waited without saying anything, so I went on.

“The Repkos recently learned that when the rumor first surfaced about Debra being involved with a married man, you folks here at Leverage refused to cooperate. In fact, the detectives felt you were sandbagging them.”

Her mouth drew into a knot as she tapped a perfectly manicured nail on her desk.

“That’s not precisely true.”

“Seems like it should be either true or not true, Ms. Stokes. Without the ‘precisely.’”

She tapped the nail again.

“You have to understand. As a first-year, Debra attended meetings with most of our clients. The police wanted to talk to these people. I understood that. We all understood. But our clients are people who live their lives in the public eye, and here were these officers wanting to question them about a young woman most of them probably didn’t remember. Just being questioned could be used against them by their enemies.”

“It was a murder investigation. Questions have to be asked.”

Ms. Stokes shifted uncomfortably.

“And those questions were asked. You can assure the Repkos we cooperated.”

“Stonewalling the investigation for two weeks doesn’t sound like cooperation.”

“No one here stonewalled. We simply went over the heads of the original detectives and consulted with the command structure. They understood our concerns.”

I stared at her.

“The command structure where?”

“The police. We reviewed our concerns with Deputy Chief Marx. He made what could have been-and was-an uncomfortable situation much more tolerable.”

“You mean the task force?”

“No, no. This was during the original investigation. Chief Marx personally ensured that a thorough investigation was conducted, and had our full cooperation. He even interviewed some of the clients himself.”

I stared at her so hard she frowned.

“Mr. Cole?”

“Chief Marx oversaw the investigation?”

“That’s right. The chief is one of our clients.”

I tried to smile. I tried to look as if this was the best news the family could hear.

“Well. That changes things.”

Casey Stokes looked relieved.

“I’m so sorry for this confusion.”

“Of course. The family will be glad to hear it.”

“Please. Tell the Repkos to call me. If they have any questions at all, they can call me.”

I nodded. I smiled.

“So. The chief is going into politics?”

“He’s considering it. We believe he can be positioned to fill Councilman Wilts’s seat when the councilman retires next year. The councilman is quite a fan of Chief Marx.”

I smiled even wider.

“How could he be anything else?”

“So please assure Mr. and Mrs. Repko the police had our full cooperation. We simply worked at a level where discretion could be guaranteed.”

Her PDA buzzed again. She glanced at the message, then stood.

“I really do have to go now, Mr. Cole. It’s been awful for all of us, but I know it’s been worse for the Repkos. Please tell them we would never have done anything to hamper the investigation, and we didn’t.”

“I’ll tell them, Ms. Stokes. Thank you.”

Her PDA buzzed once more, and now she touched a button to make it stop. Everyone at Leverage seemed to have them.

“Does everyone here carry one of those things?”

“It’s how we stay in touch. One of the perks, but also one of the pains. We carry them twenty-four/seven.”

“Did Debra have one?”

Across the hall, the meeting in the conference room was breaking up. The young guy who had shown his PDA to the older guy was still texting.

Ms. Stokes said, “She did. All of our associates and principals have them. Leverage provides them.”

“You saw her with it that night?”

She gave a halfhearted shrug.

“Of course. We used them to coordinate the interviews.”

Her PDA buzzed again, but this time she didn’t look at it. She touched my arm to herd me toward the door.

“One more thing about this rumor, and I hope her family will find some solace in this. I can’t definitively say Debra wasn’t involved with someone, but she never hinted at such a thing, or acted the way young women act when they’re infatuated. She never mentioned anything like that to me or the other first-years. I know because I asked them, and so did Chief Marx.”

Casey Stokes walked me out, but did not say good-bye. I didn’t say good-bye, either. I was too busy thinking about Marx.

22

WHEN I reached my car, I shuffled through the papers Mr. Repko had given me. Among them was the receipt Darcy and Maddux provided when they returned the items they had taken to examine. A cell phone and a laptop were on the list, but not a PDA, and I didn’t recall seeing it at the Repkos’ home.

I found Darcy’s card, called him, and asked if they recovered a PDA with Debra’s body.

He said, “Sure. It was still in her purse. We gave it back to the family.”

“Not her cell phone. She also had a PDA.”

“Like a BlackBerry?”

“Yeah. Did you find one?”

“Hang on-”

He spoke to someone in the background, then came back.

“No, nothing like that. We had her cell. Maddux says it was a Samsung.”

“I just left Casey Stokes. Leverage gives out PDAs to their associates. Debra used hers that night at the dinner.”

“All we had was the Samsung. We ran the call log on the cell and the hard line in her apartment. If we had the PDA, we would’ve run that, too. Maybe her family has it.”

“They would have it only if you gave it to them. It should have been on her body, in her car, or in her apartment.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I know you’re thinking the killer nabbed it, but how can we know that or prove it? She might have lost the damn thing.”

“Hang on, Darcy. Think about this. If Leverage provided the PDA, they probably take care of the bills.”

“I know where you’re going, but there isn’t anything I can do. If this case was mine I’d subpoena their call records and hit up the provider for her email and text messages. But this isn’t my case. It’s Marx’s case, and he closed it.”

“Did you know Marx is a client at Leverage?”

Darcy was silent.

“Darcy?”

“You’re kidding.”

“When Leverage was freezing you guys out, they were talking with Marx behind the scenes. He walked them through the investigation to keep their clients out of the headlines.”

“That sonofabitch.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s why the pressure came down for us to back off. Nice of him to tell us.”

“Marx’s name never came up?”

“Not until now. Maddux is going to shit.”

I called Michael Repko next. Michael remembered that his sister had a PDA, but didn’t know where it was. He agreed to ask his parents and brothers. I was still talking to him when my phone beeped with a call from Pat Kyle. I finished with Michael, then switched over to Pat.

She said, “Am I the best or what?”

“I’ve been saying that for years, and not just to annoy your husband.”

“A little annoyance is good for him. You have something to write with?”

“I do. You find Tomaso?”

“He’s with a commercial agency called Figg-Harris. Figg tried to reach him to see if it would be okay to give out his contact info, but the kid hasn’t returned his calls. I had to pressure him.”

“I get it. Give me the stats.”

“Okay. This is his cell.”

She read off an 818 phone number and an address in North Hollywood. I thanked her, then called Angel’s number, but didn’t have any better luck than his agent. Angel’s phone rang five times before a message picked up.

“Hey, this is Andy, the next big thing. Leave the 411 and I’ll get back. Peace.”

Andy. The next big thing.

I left my 411, but didn’t wait for the next big thing to get back to me. I headed north toward the valley.

The breathtaking clarity we enjoyed during the Santa Anas had vanished when the winds died. The air, now sleeping, was heavy with haze. A misty shawl blurred the Hollywood Sign and the skyscrapers lining the Wilshire Corridor appeared to be in a fog.

It was almost one o’clock when I dropped off the freeway at Universal to hit Henry’s Tacos for lunch. Four tacos later, I turned onto a neat residential street wedged in the flats between Toluca Lake and Studio City. The main house was a small Craftsman with a large porch and a For Sale sign in the front yard. A narrow drive ran past the main house to a converted garage in the rear.

I parked on the street and walked down the drive.

The guesthouse had once been the garage. The double-wide garage door had been replaced by French doors with sun curtains pulled across the doors for privacy. A patio table and chairs sat on the driveway outside the doors, shielded from the sun by an overhead trellis matted with crimson bougainvillea. I rapped on the glass.

“Angel? It’s Elvis Cole.”

Angel didn’t answer.

I rapped again, then stepped off the patio into the yard. Two windows and a door were cut into the side of the guesthouse, and had probably been there before the garage was converted. The backyard was hidden from the neighbors by a chain-link fence overgrown with trumpet vines and more bougainvillea. Violet trumpets drooped from the vines and fought with the bougainvillea for attention.

The side door was locked, and more curtains covered the windows. I returned to the French doors, knocked again, then decided to talk to his landlords. If nothing else, I could ask them to let Angel know I had come by.

I went back along the drive, climbed onto the front porch, and rang the bell. No one answered at the main house, either. I cupped my face to the window, and was able to see the living room, dining room, and part of a hall. The furnishings were gone. The owners or tenants had already moved. Maybe Tomaso had moved out with them and hadn’t bothered to tell his agent, but the odds of that were small. Struggling actors would live in their agents’ pants if they could.

I went back to the guesthouse to leave a note, but after I wrote it I decided to call Angel again. He might be around the corner, but he could have gone to Vegas with friends and might not be back for weeks.

When his cell phone rang I heard it inside his house. I lowered my phone and listened. The ringing went on for five rings, and then the ringing stopped. Angel’s message was playing in my phone.

I said, “Angel?”

Nothing.

I put away my phone, then knocked again. After I knocked I tried the handles. The first set of French doors was locked, but the second set opened when I pulled the lever.

The guesthouse was set up like a studio apartment with a cheap dining table, a TV, and a pull-out couch. A cell phone, wallet, and keys were on the table. Books on acting and directing were stacked on the floor, and unframed posters of modern crime films like The Big Lebowski and Gone Baby Gone were tacked to the wall. The furnishings were spare, but Angel had filled his apartment with the stuff of an aspiring actor, only now he would never see it again.

Angel Tomaso was facedown on the couch with the side of his head so dark with crusted blood it was black in the bad light. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. His bare arms and legs were purple where the blood had settled. Someone had written on the wall in uneven red letters. The message read: I LOVED U.

I listened, but knew Angel was alone. The tiny apartment was still, with only a single fly circling the body. In the time I stood in the door, more flies joined the first.

I stepped inside and went to his body. The couch beneath his head was rich with dark blood, and the ceiling above the body showed a thin splatter trail from the rise of the weapon. The side of his head behind his right ear had been struck with something heavy more than one time. Whatever had been used to kill him was no longer present.

The message appeared to have been written in blood, but when I examined it more closely I realized it had been written in lipstick.

The windows and doors showed no sign of forced entry. His apartment appeared in order, and did not look as if it had been searched. I was careful not to leave fingerprints or disturb the scene. His wallet contained sixty-two dollars, a Visa card, and a MasterCard. A letter from his aunt was unopened on the kitchenette counter. I felt sad when I saw it, thinking he should have opened it when he had the chance.

I studied the body and the blood patterns for a while, then stepped outside to call the police. I sat at the little table beneath the bougainvillea and breathed the good air that didn’t smell like the air inside with the body. I should have closed the French doors, but didn’t. He had been alone long enough. I thought about Angel’s aunt, and knew it would be hard on her and the rest of his family in Austin. It was always hard that way.

I was still sitting there when two uniformed officers came through the picket gate, walked up the drive, and saw me. Then they saw Angel’s body through the open doors and told me to raise my hands.

23

“TAKE IT easy. I was just calling you guys.”

The older officer said, “I’ve heard that a thousand times.”

Their names were Giardi and Silbermann, Giardi being a senior P-III training officer. Silbermann was a first-year boot, still on probation, and was big on shouting instructions. Giardi told him to settle down. Both of them eyed my face, but neither asked about the bruises.

I identified myself, told them I was armed and why I was present. They didn’t handcuff or arrest me, but they checked my ID, took my pistol, and the three of us went to the French doors without entering.

Silbermann said, “Yikes.”

“His name was Angel Tomaso, also known as Andy Thom. He was a witness in a murder case three years ago.”

Giardi said, “You shouldn’t talk without a lawyer.”

“I’m not admitting to anything, Giardi, I’m just telling you. I’ve been trying to find him. Connie Bastilla down at Robbery-Homicide knows about it.”

“She knows about him being dead?”

“She knows I’ve been trying to find him. As of last week, she was trying to find him, too.”

Silbermann checked out my face again.

“You get in a fight with him before you killed him?”

Giardi told him to stop. He called in the situation, then walked me out to the radio car to wait for the roll-outs. Silbermann stayed at the guesthouse, guarding the scene in case anyone shot their way past me and Giardi.

I said, “How did you guys know to come here?”

“Anonymous male caller reported a DB. Was that you?”

“Not me. Like I said, I was about to call when you guys arrived.”

“Save it for the detectives. They’re on the way.”

Two more radio cars arrived, one with a sergeant-supervisor who ordered the street blocked off, and then the detectives arrived. One of the detectives was Crimmens.

Giardi met them on the drive, then pointed my way. Crimmens never took his eyes off me as Giardi gave his report. When Giardi finished, he took Crimmens’s partner back to the guesthouse, but Crimmens came to me. He grinned when he saw my face.

“What happened, Cole, you mouth off to the wrong guy?”

“I thought you were downtown.”

“No more task force. They sent me back to North Hollywood. Is that really Tomaso back there?”

“See for yourself.”

“You kill him?”

“He was dead when I got here.”

“When did you get here?”

“Five minutes before Giardi and Silbermann.”

“We’ll see.”

“Too bad I didn’t get here last week when you and Bastilla couldn’t find him. He might still be alive.”

“Sit tight, shitbird. You’re going to be here a while.”

Crimmens left to see the body as Silbermann returned and slid in beside me.

Silbermann said, “Did you kill that guy?”

“Of course not.”

“I think you killed him.”

“Let me ask you a question. When was the body reported?”

“Forget it, murderer. I’m not telling you anything.”

Silbermann didn’t speak to me again for twenty minutes. During that time, Crimmens and his partner returned to their car. Crimmens spent most of that time on his phone until the coroner investigator arrived, then the three of them went back to the body. Crimmens almost immediately reappeared as a command-level black-and-white arrived and parked at the mouth of the drive. When the command car opened, Bastilla and Marx got out.

Silbermann’s eyes widened and he craned around for a better look.

“Wow, that’s a deputy chief.”

“He puts on his pants just like you.”

“You’re retarded.”

Marx glanced at me only once, then turned away as another unmarked D-ride pulled up. A tall, thin detective in his mid-fifties got out of the new car and joined Marx in the drive. They traded a few words, both of them glancing at me, then hooked up with Bastilla and Crimmens. The new guy was probably Munson. I wanted to wave and smile, but common sense got the best of me.

Marx and Munson eventually disappeared down the drive, but Bastilla and Crimmens came over to me.

I said, “For a task force that no longer exists, you people spend a lot of time together.”

Bastilla stopped on the sidewalk and crossed her arms.

“How did you find him?”

“Aren’t you going to smart off about my face? Everyone else does.”

“Everyone else probably cares. How did you find him?”

“His former roommate gave me a number for Tomaso’s family in Texas. The family told me he moved back here to resume acting. His talent agent gave me the address.”

I left Pat Kyle out of it and would not involve her without her permission.

“Did you speak with him?”

“He was dead when I got here.”

“Before he was dead, Cole. Did you have a conversation with him before he was murdered?”

“I only learned he was here a couple of hours ago. I called, but all I got was his message, so I came over. I didn’t know he was dead. I had no reason to believe he was in danger.”

“You remove anything from his apartment?”

“C’mon, Bastilla. You think I was looking for souvenirs?”

Silbermann jumped in.

“The door was open when we arrived. He was right there by the door and all by himself. It’s a solid burglary collar.”

Bastilla said, “You’re Silbermann?”

“Yes, ma’am. Giardi and I arrived on the scene at-”

Bastilla held up her hand.

“You can leave now, Officer. Thanks for your assistance.”

Silbermann looked crestfallen, but slid out of the car.

I said, “Why are you and Marx here? I thought the case was cleared.”

“What makes you think this poor kid has anything to do with the case?”

I stared at her, but her face had been composed to show nothing. “Because you and Crimmens were looking for him and now he’s dead. Because he was a principal in the Bennett case, and now we can’t talk to him.”

“Did you see what was written on his wall?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“The evidence indicates a lovers’ quarrel. Did you enter his apartment?”

“So a man we were all looking for last week turns up dead, and you’re good with a lovers’ quarrel?”

“Did you go in or not?”

“No. I could see he was dead from the door.”

If I admitted entering the apartment, she would have a green light to book me.

“Did you disturb the evidence in any way?”

“How could I disturb the evidence if I didn’t go in?”

“Do you know or suspect who did this?”

“Probably the same person who killed those seven women. What happened with Ivy Casik? Did you follow up on the man she saw visiting Byrd?”

Bastilla pursed her lips, then shook her head as if she felt sorry for me.

“You’re a screwup all the way around, Cole.”

“What does that mean?”

Bastilla stepped away and nodded at Crimmens. Crimmens made a little finger wave, telling me to get out of the car.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

Crimmens turned me around and pushed me against the car.

“Assume the position.”

“What in hell are you doing?”

Bastilla said, “Making sure you didn’t remove anything from the crime scene. If you refuse to cooperate, you’ll be placed under arrest for unlawful entry, burglary, and suspicion of murder.”

Crimmens said, “Don’t be slow, Mr. Thirty. Just go along.”

Crimmens went through my pockets, placing my wallet, cell phone, thirty cents, and a handkerchief on the trunk of the patrol car. He also took my notepad and a black uni-ball pen. While Crimmens searched me, Bastilla slid into the backseat where I had been sitting. She ran her hand along the seam in the seat, then searched the floorboards and under the front seat. She inspected anyplace I could have hidden something if I had something I wanted to hide, then backed out of the car. I wondered what she was looking for.

“Check his socks and shoes. Make sure he didn’t put anything in his shorts.”

“Why don’t you check me yourself, Bastilla? Crimmens might miss my crotch pocket.”

Bastilla turned red, but didn’t respond.

Marx and Munson returned and stood with Bastilla on the sidewalk while Crimmens searched me. The three of them spoke quietly, then Munson went to his car, making a call on his cell. Marx and Bastilla turned back to us as Crimmens finished.

“He’s clean, boss.”

“Have you questioned him yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Leave us for now, but don’t go far. You can have him when I’m finished.”

Crimmens immediately joined his partner and the CI on the driveway. Silbermann and Giardi stood with them, too.

I said, “So much for your case being closed, Marx.”

Marx studied me with his mouth folded into a hard crease, then put his hands on his hips.

“You’re a pathetic excuse, Cole. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“For doing your job?”

His jaw clenched, but he kept going.

“For destroying what little peace of mind the Repkos have. Mrs. Repko told me you assaulted her sons. What in hell is wrong with you?”

“Speak to Mr. Repko. He might tell a different story.”

“What’s your endgame here? You trying to drum up a fee by getting the families to hire you?”

“I’m trying to drum up votes so I can run for office. I need the money to hire Leverage Associates. Would you recommend their work?”

Bastilla said, “Take it easy, Cole.”

“C’mon, Marx, I’m asking if they’re any good. I know you work with them. Did they tell you to close the case on Byrd so you could make a big splash on the news?”

Marx turned bright red.

“You arrogant prick.”

“Do the Repkos know you interfered with their daughter’s investigation to protect your handlers?”

Bastilla said, “Cole, get back in the car.”

I should have gotten back into the car, but I was angry and looking for a reason to knock Marx on his ass.

The driveway and the front of the house were crawling with police. Neighbors in the surrounding houses had come out to see what was going on, and a reporter from the Times had shown up. Marx took one step back, then looked around until he spotted Crimmens in the driveway.

“Detective, get over here.”

Crimmens trotted over.

“This man is a suspect in the murder of Angel Tomaso. Place him under arrest and take him to your station for questioning.”

I said, “Fuck you, Marx.”

Crimmens broke into a ragged smile, but Bastilla took Marx by the upper arm.

“Chief, a word, please.”

Marx pulled away and stalked over to Munson, and Bastilla went after him. Crimmens stepped into my face and stood with his nose less than two inches away, still with the ragged grin.

“Resist. I’m begging you. Resist.”

“I know what you told the Repkos, Crimmens. When this is over, we’re going to talk.”

Crimmens laughed as he spun me around. He whispered in my ear as he clipped on the cuffs.

“This is better than sex. I’m getting off right now, Cole.”

They put me back in the patrol car. Crimmens left to find his partner while Giardi and Silbermann logged my possessions into a plastic bag.

Silbermann said, “I knew you did it.”

Bastilla spoke with Marx and Munson privately by their command car, then Bastilla called over Giardi. They spoke for a few minutes, then Munson drove away. Marx got into his command car and Bastilla came back to me.

She said, “Just take it easy.”

“This is bullshit. You people don’t have a goddamned thing.”

She made a shushing gesture.

“I’m handling it, Cole. Take a breath.”

“Talk to Casik.”

When Crimmens and his partner came back, Bastilla changed their orders.

“Question him here. Don’t take him in.”

“The chief said take him in.”

“The chief changed his mind. Question him, then canvass this neighborhood and do your goddamned job. You have a murder to solve.”

She stalked back to the command car, got in beside Marx, then they drove away, too.

I grinned at Crimmens.

“Is it still good for you?”

They kept me in the backseat of Giardi’s car for almost two hours, first Crimmens and his partner, then one, then the other, then both together again. They questioned me about Tomaso, the phone calls I placed prior to arriving at his residence, and everything I saw, did, and witnessed once I reached the scene. I kept Pat Kyle out of it. I told them I had checked the exterior doors and windows for signs of forced entry because I knew they would find my fingerprints, but refused to admit I had entered the guesthouse. If I admitted entering, Marx would have an uncontested shot at me for unlawful entry, and I didn’t trust he wouldn’t book me. I told the truth about everything else. The questions were fair and appropriate, and would have been asked of anyone found at the scene. A criminalist appeared halfway through the questioning to take my fingerprints.

We were going over the same questions for the third time when Crimmens received a call on his cell. He listened a moment before responding.

“Sure, Chief. We’re still questioning him.”

He listened some more, then held out the phone.

“Chief Marx.”

I took the phone.

Marx said, “Listen to me, Cole, and make no mistake. Lieutenant Poitras told me you two were close. I understand you’re the godfather to one of his children.”

I felt irritated and confused, and suddenly scared.

“That isn’t your business, Marx.”

“I gave the lieutenant a lawful and direct order when I instructed him to seal Byrd’s house and deny all requests for information. Yet there you were, a civilian, present at a crime scene I had sealed, and you were accompanied by the lieutenant-in direct violation of my orders, and in front of multiple witnesses. Are you hearing me?”

I felt the sting of acid on the back of my tongue.

“I hear you.”

“I could have Lieutenant Poitras brought up before a review board for administrative punishment. This would effectively end his career.”

“What are you doing, Marx?”

“Stay away from the Repkos. Stay away from the good people at Leverage and away from my case. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes.”

“Give the phone to Crimmens.”

I felt empty, as if I had not eaten in days and would never eat again. Crimmens listened for a moment, then closed his phone.

“Get outta here, Cole. He says you can go.”

24

TWILIGHT SETTLED like a murky shawl as I drove away from the crime scene. Marx had taken an enormous risk by threatening Lou Poitras. He would have anticipated I would tell Poitras, which meant Marx was confident he could control the situation however Poitras reacted-probably by doing exactly what he had threatened. But people don’t take enormous risks unless they’re desperate, which meant Marx was hiding something important. If he wanted to make me back off, then I wanted to get even closer.

I pulled into a gas station on Ventura Boulevard, called Joe Pike, then an attorney named Abbot Montoya. It was late in the day, but I knew Mr. Montoya would take my call.

“How are you, my son? It is good to hear you.”

The smile in his voice was warm.

Abbot Montoya was a cultured gentleman in his seventies, but he had not always been cultured and no one in those days would have described him as a gentleman. Mr. Montoya was once an East L.A. gangbanger along with his best friend from those days, another young thug named Frank Garcia. Together, they had risen from the barrio, Abbot Montoya working his way through UCLA Law and Frank Garcia building a food empire worth more than a billion dollars. Frank owned a city councilman named Henry Maldenado. He probably owned others, as well.

“It’s good to hear you, too, sir. I have a favor to ask.”

“What you call a favor, we call an expression of love. However we can help, it will never be enough.”

Frank Garcia had hired Pike and me to find the person who murdered his only child. We did, and they’ve been like this ever since.

“Do you know anything about a political management firm called Leverage Associates?”

“I know of them. They are a firm of long standing.”

“I need background information on them and their clients. One of their clients is an LAPD deputy chief named Thomas Marx. Another is Nobel Wilts.”

“Councilman Wilts?”

“Yes, sir. Is Councilman Maldenado a client of theirs?”

“He is not, but it would not matter if he were. Would you like to speak with him about these people?”

“Yes, sir. If he would.”

Mr. Montoya chuckled as if the thought of Maldenado refusing was laughable.

“He will be most happy to see you.”

“Sir, I can’t have Leverage learning of this. The people I ask about, they can’t know I’m asking.”

“ Para siempre. Trust me on this.”

I lowered the phone but remained in the gas station, thinking how easily I had found Angel Tomaso. Having Jack Eisley as a contact had helped, but a couple of phone calls and there he was. Almost as if Bastilla and Crimmens hadn’t been trying. Ivy Casik hadn’t been much more difficult, and now I wondered if Bastilla had bothered to follow up. She had ignored me when I asked.

I fought my way down through the Cahuenga Pass into Hollywood, then up again through the soft hills surrounding the Hollywood Bowl, where Ivy Casik lived. The low apartment building was just as quiet as when I met her, the neighboring apartments locked tight against the world. I rang her bell and knocked, the knocking loud in the silent courtyard.

“May I help you?”

A bald man shaped like a pear had stepped into the courtyard. He was wearing oversize shorts and a baggy undershirt and holding a cocktail glass. A small sign beside his door identified him as the manager.

“I’m here to see Ms. Casik.”

He shook the glass. The courtyard magnified the tinkling ice.

“She isn’t home. Your knocking is quite loud, you know. You don’t have to knock so loud.”

He tinkled the ice again.

“Sorry. I’ll leave a note.”

I took out a card and held it against the building to write a note asking Ivy to call.

The man said, “Is this about the police? They were loud, too.”

I stopped writing to look at him. When I looked, he tinkled the ice, then sipped his drink.

“Was that Detective Bastilla?”

“I don’t know her name.”

Her. I put my hand at Bastilla’s height.

“This tall. Forties. Latina.”

“That’s right. This morning.”

Another sip. Tinkle.

“You know if they spoke with her?”

“Ivy wasn’t home.”

He reached out his hand for the note.

“If you’d like, I’ll make sure she gets it.”

“Thanks anyway. I’ll leave it in her box.”

I dropped the card in Ivy’s mailbox, then wound my way down out of the hills toward home. The drive home seemed long, maybe because there was so much to think about, and so little that made any sense.

I put the car in the carport, let myself into the kitchen, then drank a bottle of water. I had parked in the carport and opened the kitchen door and drank the same bottle of water ten thousand times. The cat wasn’t home, but I put out new food for him exactly as I had another ten thousand times. Ten thousand fresh bowls of water. The patterns were reassuring.

I stripped off my shoes and clothes in the kitchen, threw them into the laundry room, then went upstairs to shower, which is what I did every time I came home after being with a body. My patterns continued, but Angel Tomaso did not have the same luxury. His pattern was a single event that could not be washed away.

I did my best in the shower, then put on fresh clothes, went downstairs, and found Pike in the living room. He was holding the cat in his arms like someone cradling a baby. The cat’s eyes were closed. All four of his feet were straight up in the air as if he was drunk.

I said, “I’m going to cook. You want a beer?”

“Sure.”

I took two beers from the fridge, set them on the counter, then told him about Angel Tomaso.

“An anonymous caller tipped the police, and the cops arrived while I was with him.”

“Think they set you up?”

“They couldn’t know I would find him. They couldn’t know I was at his house.”

“Someone watching the body would know.”

I drank more of the beer, then went through the rest.

“They sweated me for a couple of hours, then Marx told me if I didn’t back off he would bring Lou up on charges for disobeying his orders. He would ruin Lou’s career.”

“He threatened Poitras.”

“Yeah. For letting me into Byrd’s house.”

“He actually made the threat.”

“Yes.”

The corner of Pike’s mouth twitched and he leaned against the counter.

“What did he mean, back off?”

I described how Marx was involved with Leverage Associates.

“Marx ran interference for Leverage during the original investigation into the Repko murder. He shut out Darcy and Maddux weeks before Byrd’s body was discovered, and those guys never knew he was involved. Darcy also turned up a security vid made in the alley where Repko was murdered. SID couldn’t do anything with it, so Darcy sent the disk to a CGI house. Thing is, when Byrd turned up, the task force sucked up the disk before the CGI house finished their work. Now nobody knows what happened to it.”

“You think Marx is sitting on it?”

“I don’t know what to think. If it showed Byrd committing the murder, Marx would have used it. If it was garbage, why make it disappear?”

“Maybe it showed someone else.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

Pike took a careful sip of his beer.

“You’re not just talking about Marx, Elvis. You’re talking about an entire task force. Someone would be talking about it. You can’t keep secrets like that.”

“Lindo told me the task force was vertically integrated. Only the people at the top knew the full picture, what Lindo called the inner circle. He said the guys on his team even used to joke about it. Secrets are a lot easier to keep when people don’t know what’s going on.”

“Who ran the show?”

“Marx on top with Bastilla and a dick named Munson. Lindo heard Marx and Munson have some kind of history together.”

Pike put down the cat. He slid from Pike’s arms like molasses and puddled at his feet.

“If Marx is shading the case, Bastilla and Munson would have to go along.”

“He’s a deputy chief, Joe. He can make their careers before he retires.”

The cat peeled himself off the floor. He gazed at Pike, then came over and head-bumped my leg. I poured some of my beer in his beer dish, and watched him lap it.

Pike said, “So what are you going to do?”

“Dig into Leverage. It’s all about Leverage and Marx. While I’m doing that, maybe you can try to dig up something on Munson and Bastilla. Dirty cops leave a dirty trail.”

Pike grunted.

“Have you told Lou?”

I finished the rest of the beer.

“You know Lou. If I tell him, he’ll jump in Marx’s face.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I have to keep him as far from Marx as I can, but I can’t drop this thing now and walk away.”

I glanced at Pike, but Pike was impenetrable.

“You understand what I’m talking about?”

“I understand.”

“If Marx is so worried about something he’s willing to threaten Lou, if I can find that something then I take away his power to threaten.”

Pike nodded.

“Do you think I should tell Lou anyway?”

“No.”

“Let him decide for himself?”

“Telling him takes the responsibility off you and puts it on him. But you already know that.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve been thinking about it.”

“You’re going to move forward anyway. We always drive forward.”

“That’s right.”

Pike watched me for a while through the quiet dark glasses, then squeezed my trapezius muscle.

“Lou wouldn’t want you to stop. He would think less of you if you did.”

I nodded. Sometimes it helps to hear it.

Pike said, “What do you want me to do?”

“You’re doing it.”

We cooked, and drank more beer, and ate in silence as we watched an ESPN sports recap. Sometime after Pike left, the coyotes began to sing.

I was getting ready for bed when I remembered Pat Kyle. Angel’s agent would be questioned the next day. He would almost certainly tell the police Pat had been looking for Tomaso, after which the police would call her. Crimmens would likely be the caller. I didn’t like calling so late and didn’t want to tell her this would be waiting for her tomorrow, and I didn’t like knowing my call would upset her and cost her a miserable night. I didn’t want to call, but I did. She needed to hear it from me so she would be prepared. Pat Kyle was my friend. You have to take care of your friends.

25

JOE’S SUGGESTION that someone had been watching Angel Tomaso’s guesthouse left me with a wakeful paranoia the rest of the night. An opossum foraging on the deck became a home invasion crew. The soft clicking of the cat door was a lip gloss tube being readied to write. I loved u. I locked the doors and windows before shutting off the lights, but woke to check them twice, as if I had only imagined locking them in an earlier dream. The second time up I carried the Dan Wesson, but told myself I was being silly. I covered my head with a pillow. The ostrich approach.

Abbot Montoya phoned at twenty minutes after eight the next morning to tell me the meeting with Councilman Maldenado had been arranged. Maldenado would see me at ten and offer every assistance. Frank Garcia assured it. By eight forty-five, I was showered, dressed, and eating scrambled eggs with cilantro when the doorbell rang. It rang three fast times before I reached the door and found Alan Levy. Levy had never been to my home or my office. Outside of the six or eight times we met when I worked for him, I had never seen him anyplace other than his office or court.

“Alan. This is a surprise.”

A sleek Mercedes convertible was parked off the road behind him, but Alan didn’t look sleek. He looked awkward and worried, and his bulging frog eyes flickered as if he was nervous.

“I hope you don’t mind, me dropping in like this. I thought we could speak more freely outside of the office.”

This, from a man who made his living as a criminal defense attorney having the most private conversations in the world.

I stepped back to let him in. Levy noticed my loft, then stared out through the sliders into the canyon. The morning haze filled the house with a milky glare.

“Hey, this is nice. You’re very private up here.”

“What’s up, Alan? I have to leave for an appointment.”

He turned from the view and put his hands in his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them.

“Angel Tomaso was murdered.”

“I know.”

“I know you know. The police found you with the body.”

“Are you here as an attorney, Alan? Are they going to charge me?”

“No, nothing like that, but-”

He managed to look pathetic. I had never seen Alan Levy look pathetic before, but then he suddenly frowned.

“Tomaso was murdered. Tell me a young man found himself in a relationship that resulted in murder, I would say that sort of thing happens all the time. But not this particular young man. Not at this particular time. Maybe you were right about there being more to this than the pictures recovered with Byrd.”

The frog eyes blinked.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“Marx is still working the homicides.”

Levy’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

“But Marx closed the case. He shut down the task force.”

“Marx kept his top people on, what they call his inner circle. The task force might have been officially shut down, but Marx is still kicking rocks. The problem is, I’m not sure whether he’s trying to find evidence or hide it.”

I told him how Marx was connected to Leverage and how he had interfered with the Repko investigation even before Byrd’s body was found. When I described the video disk of Debra Repko’s murder, Levy grew irritated and stopped me.

“What did they do with it?”

“No one knows. Marx took it away from the CGI house before the work was finished. It’s possible he sent it to the FBI lab, but that’s only a guess.”

“So the FBI has it?”

“I don’t know where it is, Alan. For all I know, Marx is using it as a bookmark. Either way, it was probably garbage like SID said.”

Levy told me to go on, and I did, anxious to finish so I could leave for my meeting with Maldenado. When I told Levy about Ivy Casik, he leaned forward.

“This woman claims someone was writing a book about Lionel Byrd?”

“She’s claiming Byrd told her someone was writing a book about him. He could have made it up.”

Levy considered me for a moment, then took out a pad.

“Is she credible?”

“She knew Byrd had been charged in the Bennett murder and about the trumped-up confession Crimmens used to make his case.”

“Have the police interviewed her?”

“They went to her apartment, but I don’t know if they reached her. She wasn’t home when I went back to check.”

“Which officer was that, Marx?”

“Bastilla.”

Alan grunted again and wrote something.

“All right. I’ll try to see the Casik woman, too. Tell me how to find her.”

He copied her name and address as I gave him directions, then tapped at the pad with his pen.

“Here’s what I can do. I’ll request Byrd’s criminal history-not just the arrest record, but the complete history. The DA shouldn’t object, and if she does, well, there are others who won’t.”

“Why the history?”

“Perhaps an officer who arrested him turns up on the task force. Maybe an attorney who once represented him now works for Leverage. You never know what you might find.”

I nodded. The big gun rolls into action.

“I’ll see if I can find out what Marx is up to. Maybe I can get more information from the inside than we’ve been able to get from the outside.”

We. I didn’t bother to correct him.

“Let’s get back to Tomaso for a second. Do you know which detective is in charge of the case?”

“That would be Crimmens.”

“Ah.”

Levy smiled as he made the note, then looked back at me.

“Had they identified any witnesses? Anyone see or describe the killer or a vehicle?”

“No witnesses by the time they cut me free. They had already started the canvass. They were striking out.”

“Evidence recovered at the scene?”

“Nothing they mentioned in front of me. Alan, look, I have to get going.”

He put away his pad and pushed back from the table.

“I know you have to go, but listen-you should be careful. Byrd had these pictures. That much is an undeniable fact. The man didn’t just find them on the side of the road.”

“Didn’t we go through this before?”

“Yes, but Tomaso has caused me to reconsider. Even if Byrd wasn’t a party to the murders, the person who gave those pictures to him was, and Byrd and that person were connected. That man is still out there.”

“I know.”

“You don’t want to end up like Tomaso, do you?”

“Alan, I have to go.”

“If Byrd was connected to someone at Leverage, maybe we’ll find the connection through his record. In the meantime, stay away from Marx. You should lay low for a while, Elvis. Don’t give these people an excuse to arrest you.”

“They could have arrested me yesterday.”

“They might still change their minds. Give me a chance to find out what they’re doing before you get yourself in worse trouble.”

We reached the door, and I watched him go to his car. It was a lovely car, and he waved as he got in.

“Hey, Alan. Good to have you aboard.”

He twisted around to look at me. He said, “I’m sorry I doubted your instinct.”

I smiled as he drove away.

26

MEMBERS OF the Los Angeles City Council had downtown offices on Spring Street, but each member also maintained an office in his or her district. Maldenado’s district office was in a two-story strip mall in an area where most of the signs were in Spanish and Korean, conveniently distant from the spying eyes that went with the downtown action. The councilman’s office was located above a women’s health club. The women entering the club were uniformly beautiful, but this probably had nothing to do with the councilman’s location.

I parked underground, walked up to the second floor, and entered the reception area. The receptionist was speaking Spanish to an older couple while two men in business suits waited on the couch, one tapping out a text message while the other read some sort of document. Photographs hanging above the two men and behind the receptionist showed Maldenado with Little League teams, sports stars from the Dodgers, Lakers, and Clippers, and various politicians. I counted Maldenado with three different California governors and four U.S. presidents. The only person who appeared with Maldenado more than once was Frank Garcia.

The receptionist said, “May I help you, sir?”

The older couple had taken a seat.

“Elvis Cole for Mr. Maldenado. I have a ten o’clock.”

“Yes, sir. They’re expecting you.”

She immediately led me around her desk and into Maldenado’s office. She didn’t bother to knock or even announce me. She opened the door, let me walk in, then closed the door behind me.

Before entering politics, Henry Maldenado had sold used cars and trucks, and had been good at it. His office was large and well appointed, and reflected his love of cars with models of classic Chevrolets. Maldenado was a short, balding man in his fifties who looked younger than he was, wearing jeans, a short-sleeved shirt open at the neck, and cowboy boots. A bank president’s desk sat at the far end of the room, bracketed by a glass wall overlooking the street and a couch. He came around his desk, offering his hand and a charming, natural smile. A second man sat on the couch.

“It’s good to see you again, Mr. Cole. If I haven’t expressed this before, I want to personally thank you for the help you’ve given to Frank in the past. He is one of my closest, dearest friends.”

“I’m sure. Thanks for making the time, Councilman.”

The other man was nothing like Maldenado. He was thin, with a sagging face and steel-colored hair. His sport coat and slacks fit like secondhand clothes draped on a rack. I made him for his late sixties, but he could have been older. He did not stand and made no move to greet me.

Maldenado waved at him as he showed me to a chair facing the desk.

“This is another close friend, my advisor, Felix Dowling. Felix has been working the back rooms of this city longer than either of us cares to admit, isn’t that right, Felix?”

Maldenado laughed, but all Felix managed was a polite nod.

Maldenado hitched his pants and hooked his butt on the front of his desk, one foot on the floor, the other dangling in front of me.

“So, Abbot tells me you have some concerns about my friends at Leverage. They’re a fine firm. Been in business for many years. Just a fine group of people.”

“That’s good to hear. I’m hoping you can answer a few questions about them.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, I don’t know much about those folks, but Felix here, well, Felix knows just about everything about everyone in this town, so that’s why he’s here. He knows where the bodies are buried, I’ll tell you that.”

Maldenado laughed again, but Felix still didn’t join him.

Felix said, “Why don’t you freshen your coffee, Henry?”

Maldenado glanced at his cup and appeared surprised at how empty it was.

“You know, I’ll do that. I’ll be right back, but you boys don’t wait for me.”

Maldenado closed the door on the way out. I glanced at Dowling, and Dowling seemed to be sizing me up. The office felt different with Maldenado gone, as if it suddenly belonged to Dowling and maybe always had. I let him look.

He said, “So. You’re the boy got the sonofabitch who killed Frank’s daughter.”

“My partner and I. I wasn’t alone.”

“She was a sweet kid. I met her a couple times.”

I nodded.

We looked at each other some more.

He said, “Okay. What’s up?”

“I believe Leverage Associates might be acting to suppress or subvert a murder investigation. Would they do that?”

He shrugged with no more reaction than had I asked if they validate.

“Would they? In my experience, people will do damn near anything. If you’re asking whether they’ve done that kind of thing in the past, my answer would be no. I’ve never heard them to be associated with anything that extreme. They’ve had clients get into trouble, sure, but never like that.”

He stopped, waiting for the next question.

“Are you familiar with their client list?”

“Sure. They have five or six on the council, couple of commissioners, on up the line. Right now, I’d call it fourteen clients holding office and another thirty or so contenders.”

“Could you get information about those individuals if I wanted it?”

“Yes. You want their entire list?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Done. What else?”

The door suddenly opened. Maldenado took half a step in and froze in the opening. Dowling and I glanced at him, but he backed out of the room, closing the door.

Dowling said, “Forget him. What else?”

“Do you know the name Debra Repko?”

“No.”

“She worked at Leverage as a first-year associate. That’s a training position where-”

“I know what it is.”

“She worked with several clients while she was there. Maybe a lot of them. Could you get their names?”

“That one I can’t promise you. I can get some names, no doubt, but I’ll have to see. Was she screwing somebody?”

“She was murdered almost two months ago. When her case was being investigated, Leverage didn’t want their client list made public or the clients questioned. They had a deputy chief named Marx crowd out the detectives.”

Dowling seemed interested for the first time.

“Thomas Marx?”

“You know him?”

“Never met, but he wants into politics. A lot of these guys do. He’s had a few conversations.”

“It’s beyond the conversation stage. He’s signed up at Leverage.”

Dowling seemed surprised.

“Marx is with Leverage?”

“They think they can position him for a shot at the council.”

Dowling stared with the same surprised expression, then suddenly barked a single sharp laugh.

“Of course. Wilts is with Leverage.”

Casey Stokes had mentioned that Wilts thought Marx had what it took to get elected. I thought Dowling was saying the same, so I nodded along.

“That’s right. Someone told me Wilts was a big supporter.”

Dowling made the bark again.

“Bet your ass he is. Marx was Wilts’s fixer. How do you think Marx got to the top of the glass house?”

The glass house was Parker Center.

“Marx took care of Wilts for years, and Wilts took care of Marx. Guess he still is. Wilts must have brought him in.”

Wilts had been at Marx’s press conference, but I had seen Wilts at dozens of press conferences over the years and thought nothing of it. I had not known their relationship was deeper, or longer, and now a nervous tension grew in my belly. Debra Repko’s final event was a dinner for Nobel Wilts.

“What kind of trouble did Wilts need fixed?”

“Those days, Wilts was a notorious drunk. I’m talking blackouts. He was always getting pulled over or crashing his car. Couple of times he got out of hand with a broad. Whatever. He’d call Marx, and Marx would make it go away. That’s what fixers do.”

“And Wilts returned the favors?”

“Leverage wouldn’t be interested in a stiff like Marx unless he was holding an ace. I’m guessing Wilts brought Marx in as his successor. The old man must be thinking about calling it quits.”

“As simple as that? Wilts tells Leverage Marx is his boy and Leverage takes him aboard?”

“Well, Leverage isn’t doing it because they like his smile. This stuff costs money.”

“So who’s paying the tab? Wilts?”

Dowling made a flicking move with his hand.

“Nah, he probably pressed one of his backers into footing the bill. They make the investment now, they get the favors later. Politics is like Oz, only you never see the magician behind the curtain.”

“Can we find out?”

He thought about it a moment, then checked his watch.

“I’ll have to get back to you. Anything else? Henry has a full day.”

I thought about what he had told me and all that went with it. Marx was no longer just a cop shading an investigation for publicity; now he was a cop who covered up crimes. I wondered how many crimes he had covered, and if Wilts was his only angel.

“One more thing, Mr. Dowling. How far back do Marx and Wilts go?”

“Gotta be fifteen or twenty years. Fifteen, for sure. I can tell you exactly how they got together. I heard it from someone who was there. You do what I do, you hear things, you learn from what you hear.”

He went on without waiting for me to ask.

“Wilts was still a supervisor, before his first run at the seat. Found himself shit-faced at Lenny Branigan’s, but that didn’t stop him from trying to drive. He didn’t make it half a mile. Sideswiped a line of parked cars, just raked right down their sides knocking off the mirrors, and ended up on the sidewalk. When he came to, Marx was wiping the blood from his face, had to be about three in the morning. Marx wasn’t even on duty that night, just happening by, and one thing led to another. Marx drove Nobel home, then brought his car to a boy in Glendale who worked fast for cash. I’ve used him myself. You know who told me this story?”

I shook my head.

“Wilts. Wilts said, you need a boy you can trust, you call this boy Marx. He was looking out for Marx even then, figuring I’d use him.”

“Did you?”

Dowling smiled.

“I have my own fixers.”

Dowling glanced at his watch again.

“Anything else?”

“No, sir. I guess that’s it.”

“Okay. You talk to Frank, tell him Chip Dowling sends his respects.”

“Yes, sir. I will.”

I thought of a final question when I reached the door.

“One more thing-”

He nodded.

“What’s the worst thing Marx ever fixed?”

“I don’t know the worst thing he fixed. All I know is the worst I’ve heard about.”

I let myself out.

27

I SAT in my car in the strip mall parking lot, watching the women come and go without seeing them. The heat was suffocating. It baked down from the sky and bounced up from the parking lot and soaked into the car until the car became part of the oven. The heat came from all sides, and didn’t let up, but I still did not move. I didn’t like what I had learned from Dowling or what those things led me to think.

The manila envelope with the articles and files I had collected was behind the passenger seat. I fingered through the printouts until I found the one I wanted, and reread it.

Marx had investigated the murder of the first victim, Sondra Frostokovich, almost seven years ago. Described as an administrator for the city, her body had been found by workmen in an empty building on Temple Street, four blocks from where she worked in the city administration building. She was twenty-four years old, and had been strangled to death with an extension cord. Lindo had pointed out the blood dripping from her nose in the death album Polaroid. Three drops that, when compared to the coroner investigator’s crime scene pictures, established the Polaroid had been taken within moments of her death. When I closed my eyes, the frozen image returned to life, and the red pool continued to grow.

The short article provided no personal information of any kind. No family members, spouse, or children were mentioned, nor was a place of birth or school affiliation. The article ended with the plea from Marx for anyone with knowledge of the crime to come forward. He had almost certainly worked the case with a partner, but the only officer identified was Detective-Sergeant Thomas Marx of Central Bureau Homicide.

It was a long road from sergeant to deputy chief, and Marx had traveled that road in only seven years.

I dialed Information and asked for any listing in any city area code for Frostokovich. It took a moment, but the operator found five listings scattered over three area codes-two male, one female, and two showing only initials. Good thing Sondra wasn’t a Jones or Hernandez.

I called Edward Frostokovich first, but got no answer, not even a message machine.

Grady Frostokovich was my second call. He answered on the fourth ring, sounding young and polite. I identified myself, and asked if he knew of or had been related to a Sondra Frostokovich.

He said, “The one who was murdered?”

“That’s right. I’m sorry to disturb you like this.”

“Hey, no worries, I barely knew her. They found the guy. All this time later, they got him. How cool is that?”

“I’m looking into the original investigation back at the time of her murder. Think you could help with that?”

“Well, I would if I could, but she was my cousin, you know? Our family isn’t the closest family in the world.”

“Was Sondra from here in L.A.?”

“Oh, yeah. They lived in Reseda.”

“Are her parents or sibs still here?”

“That’s my Aunt Ida. Uncle Ronnie died, but her mom was Aunt Ida. You should talk to Aunt Ida.”

There was an I. L. Frostokovich on my list.

“Is that I. L. Frostokovich?”

“Yeah, that’s her. She’s really nice. My mom hates her, but she’s really nice.”

Grady was right. Ida was nice. I explained I was working with the family of the seventh and final victim, Debra Repko, and asked if she would be willing to tell me about her daughter. Five minutes later I was heading for Reseda.

28

IDA FROSTOKOVICH lived in a small tract home in the center of the San Fernando Valley, north of the Los Angeles River and fifteen degrees hotter than the basin side of the city. When Ida was a child, orange groves covered the valley floor as far as she could see with Zen perfection-identical rows of identical trees, each tree identically distant from its neighbors; row after row of low green clouds heavy with orange balls that smelled of sunshine. She remembered those times, and thought often of the trees, but during the boom years after the Second World War, the groves were bulldozed and the trees replaced by row after row of small, low-cost houses. Most of the houses were much the same in size and shape as the thousands of other houses there on the valley floor, but none of them smelled like sunshine.

Ida had probably let the house go after losing both her daughter and her husband. The small stucco house with its composite roof, faded paint, and ragged yard seemed weary. A single orange tree from the original grove stood in the front yard like a lonely reminder of better times. Two more trees were in her backyard, the crowns of the trees visible past the roof. I circled the block twice before I stopped, checking to see if someone was watching her house, but found no one. The paranoia.

I was walking up the drive when she opened the door. Ida had been waiting for me to arrive.

“Mr. Cole?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come in where it’s cool.”

Ida Frostokovich was a sturdy woman with big bones, a fleshy face, and nervous hands. Like the Repkos, she had created a shrine to her daughter, which I saw as soon as I entered. A poster-size portrait of Sondra hung on the wall over the television, with smaller pictures around it and still more pictures on a nearby credenza. The pictures preserved Sondra’s life from birth to death, and dominated the room. I had seen similar shrines when I returned from the war and sought out the parents of friends who had died. A husband or wife could be lost and you would never know they were gone, but losing a child left an emptiness so large it screamed to be filled with memories.

“You say the Repkos want to know about the original investigation?”

“They’re trying to understand why it took so long to catch this man.”

She settled into a Barcalounger and cupped one hand with the other, but the hands never quite rested.

“Oh, I understand, believe me, and I don’t blame them. If the police would have caught this lunatic sooner, their daughter would still be alive.”

“Something like that. Were you satisfied with the way Sondra’s investigation was handled?”

“Ha. Seven years, and they still wouldn’t have him if he hadn’t blown his own brains out. I guess that should tell you something about my satisfaction level.”

“Who notified you of the discovery in Laurel Canyon?”

“A Detective Bastilla. She told me the newspeople might come around, but they didn’t. No one came. I guess it was too long ago, what with so many others.”

“I’ll get back to the police in a minute, but first let me ask you this-do you know of a firm called Leverage Associates?”

“I don’t believe I do. What is it?”

“They’re a political management firm downtown. Debra Repko worked for them.”

“Ah. Uh-huh.”

She nodded without comprehension, probably wondering what this had to do with anything.

“Sondra and Debra had a lot in common. More with each other than with the other five women. They both had college educations. They both worked downtown in fields involved with the government. Was Sondra interested in politics?”

“Not my Sondra. She was an account administrator with the planning commission. She called herself a bean counter.”

“She ever attend political events, like a fund-raiser or dinner?”

“Oh, my, no. She hated that kind of thing. Is that what the Repko girl did?”

“She was at a political dinner on the night she died.”

“Sondie was off having fun with her friends. At least she was enjoying herself.”

“Do you remember how the police handled the original investigation?”

“Every word. I lie in bed at night, remembering. I can still see them sitting here, right where you’re sitting now.”

“The detective conducting the investigation was Chief Marx?”

“At the beginning, but he left. Then it was, oh, I think it was Detective Petievich. A Serbian, that’s why I remember. Ronnie was so glad when a Serb took over. Frostokovich is a Serbian name.”

“How long was Marx involved?”

“Four or five weeks, was all, then he disappeared. Got a promotion, they said.”

“After four or five weeks.”

“Ronnie was just furious, but he calmed down. Marx and that other one hadn’t caught anyone, so we thought the new people might get results.”

“Who worked on the case with Marx?”

“Let me think-”

She stared at the ceiling, trying to remember.

“That was Detective Munson. He never said much. Ronnie called him The Zombie. Ronnie was always making up names like that.”

I tried not to show a reaction.

“Did Munson stay on the case with Petievich?”

“For a while, but then he moved on, too. They all moved on, sooner or later.”

“But Marx and Munson were the first investigators?”

“The day they found her body. They sat right where you’re sitting.”

“Did they have a suspect?”

“Oh, no. That first day they asked if we knew who did it. I will always remember that, them asking if we knew. Ronnie went straight up right through the roof. He told them if he thought anyone was going to kill Sondie, he would have killed them before they had the chance.”

“Was there anyone you suspected?”

“Well, no. Why would we suspect anyone?”

“Maybe something Sondra had said.”

The nervous hands held each other. It was a sad move, as if her hands were keeping each other company.

“No, nothing like that. We were shocked. It was like being swept away by a wave. We thought they must have made a mistake.”

“Did they ask many questions?”

“They were here for hours. They wanted to know if Sondra was seeing anyone or had complained about anyone, that kind of thing. Sondie had gone out with her friends from work that night, so the police wanted to talk to them. We had to look up their names and numbers. It just went on and on like that.”

She suddenly smiled, and her face was bright with living energy.

“Would you like to see?”

“See what?”

“Her friends. Here, they took a picture together-”

She pushed up from the well of the Barcalounger and waved me with her to the credenza.

“Carrie gave this to us. Ronnie called it The Last Supper. He would cry like a baby when he looked at it, but then he would call it The Last Supper, and laugh.”

She grabbed a framed snapshot from the forest of pictures on the credenza and put it in my hands.

“They took this at work that day. That’s Sondie, second from the right, that’s Carrie, that’s Lisa and Ellen. They used to cut up and have so much fun. They went out together that night after work.”

I stared at the picture.

“Her friends at work.”

“Well, the girls, not the gentlemen.”

The four young women were standing shoulder to shoulder and smiling in a professional, businesslike manner. They were in what appeared to be a city office, but they were not in the picture alone. A middle-aged African-American man stood at the left end of their line, and Councilman Nobel Wilts stood to their right. Wilts was next to Sondra, and appeared to be touching her back.

Ida tapped the African-American man.

“Mr. Owen here was Sondie’s boss, and this was Councilman Wilts. He was so kind to her. He told her she had a bright future.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture. I stared at it as if I was falling into it.

“I thought her job wasn’t political.”

“Well, it wasn’t, but they worked in the budgetary office, you know. The councilman stopped by for one of the bigwigs, but took time to tell them what a great job they were doing. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

I nodded.

“He was very impressed with them, Sondie in particular. He even remembered her name that night.”

I let go of the picture and watched her put it back on the credenza. She placed it perfectly onto a line in the dust.

“Did she see him again that night?”

“At dinner.”

“Sondie and Wilts had dinner.”

“Sondie and her friends had dinner. They bumped into the councilman at the restaurant, and he was just so nice again. He told them how much he enjoyed meeting them, and he even remembered Sondie’s name. I have voted for that man ever since.”

“When did Carrie give you the picture?”

“Must have been a year or so after what happened. She found it one day and thought we’d like it.”

“Did Marx and Munson see it?”

“They were long gone by then.”

I studied the picture in the little forest of pictures on the credenza, and knew by the smudged dust lines it had been moved more than once.

“Did Detective Bastilla see it when she was here?”

Her smile grew even brighter.

“She thought it was so pretty of Sondie. She asked if she could have it, but I told her no.”

I took Ida’s hand and gave her an encouraging squeeze.

“I’m glad you told her no, Ida. It’s a good picture. Let’s keep it safe.”

29

THE DAY shift ended at three. Uniformed officers punched on and off duty pretty much with the clock, but homicide detectives required more flexible hours. Interviews were arranged when citizens could make the time to be interviewed; file or evidence transfers often meant sitting in traffic for hours; and reports, records, and case notes still had to be typed and logged by the end of the day.

I arranged to meet Starkey a block from Hollywood Station when her shift ended and phoned Alan Levy while I waited. I wanted to see if he had learned anything about Marx from his inside sources, and I also wanted to know how Bastilla had handled Ivy Casik.

Levy’s assistant answered.

He said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Cole. Alan’s out of the office today.”

“I know. We saw each other this morning. Do you know if he’s spoken with Ivy Casik?”

“No, sir, I don’t. Would you like to leave a message? I expect he’ll call in later.”

“Yeah. Ask him to call me. Tell him I’ve learned some things about the task force.”

I gave him my cell number, then put away my phone.

Starkey left Hollywood Station at ten minutes after four and walked south, looking for my car. She was wearing a navy pantsuit, tortoise-shell sunglasses, and twining ribbons of cigarette smoke. A black bag hung on her right shoulder. When she saw me, I raised a hand. She flicked her cigarette to the street, then opened the door and dropped into the car.

“Is this a date?”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

I pulled a U-turn away from the curb, driving away from the station.

“I’m going to call it a date so I’ll feel better about myself. Here you are, picking me up, and now we’re going someplace nice. You see?”

I didn’t say anything. I was trying to work up how to ask what I needed to ask. It would put her in a bad place, but I didn’t know what else to do.

Starkey sighed dramatically at the silence.

“Not the most charming date conversation I’ve had, but I guess it will have to do.”

“Lindo told me the task force still has a locked evidence room down on Spring Street. You know that layout pretty well.”

“So?”

“You know which room he’s talking about?”

She looked at me with something like a scowl.

“They cleared out the offices they were using. They probably already shipped their files to storage.”

“They haven’t. Bastilla and Munson are still using the room. Lindo told me he’s seen them.”

She studied me some more, and now she looked uncomfortable and suspicious.

“What exactly are you asking me, Cole?”

“I’m asking if you know where they’re keeping their files.”

“Every task force they house down there uses the same room-and it’s not a room, Cole, it’s a fucking closet. Of course I know where it is. I spent three years down there.”

“Will you tell me how to find it?”

“The closet?”

“Yeah. I want to look at their files.”

“Are you stupid?”

“I need to see what they’re hiding.”

She held up her hands.

“You’re serious? You’re telling me you want to illegally enter an LAPD facility and break into official police files? You are actually asking me to help you do that?”

“I don’t know who else to ask.”

“That’s a police building, you moron. It’s filled with police officers.”

“I still have to do it.”

“You’re beyond stupid, Cole. They don’t have a word for what you are. Forget it. I am so pissed off right now-”

I drove another block, then pulled into a parking lot where a group of teenagers crowded a falafel stand. I parked behind the stand, but left the engine running. The smells of cumin and hot oil were strong.

“I know what I’m asking, but I have to keep Lou out of this for now and I don’t want Lindo to know. I believe Marx, Bastilla, and Munson aren’t trying to find the person who killed those seven women. I believe they know who that person is, or suspect they know, and they’re trying to protect him.”

Starkey’s face softened. The hard vertical line between her eyebrows relaxed as the weight of what I was saying settled, but then she shook her head.

“Marx might be an asshole, Elvis, but he’s a deputy chief of police. Munson and Bastilla-they’re top cops.”

“They appear to be protecting Nobel Wilts.”

The tip of her tongue flicked over her lips.

“The city councilman. Councilman Nobel Wilts.”

“Yes.”

“You’re telling me you believe a city councilman killed these women. That’s what you’re saying. Am I confused?”

“I don’t know. I’m not telling you Wilts is the killer because I don’t know. I’ve been digging into Marx, not Wilts, but you can’t rule out Wilts just because he looks normal. A lot of these guys look normal.”

“Thank you, Cole, I know that. I studied fucked-up people when I worked on the bombs. High-functioning people are just as fucked up as everyone else-they just hide it better. What do you have?”

I described Marx’s history as a fixer for Wilts, and how at least two of the fixes were for assaults against women. I went through everything Ida Frostokovich told me about Wilts meeting her daughter on the day Sondra was murdered, and described how Marx and Munson had been the original investigators. I told her how Marx had run interference for Leverage Associates when Darcy and Maddux were investigating Debra Repko’s murder, and that Wilts was a Leverage client and had arranged for Leverage to manage Marx’s run for the council. Starkey grew pale as the overlaps added up, and made only a single comment when I finished.

“Jeez.”

“Yeah. That’s what I said, too.”

Starkey rubbed hard at the sides of her face, then studied the kids around the falafel stand as if she thought she might have to pull them out of a lineup.

“I guess it’s possible. You don’t have any proof?”

“Nothing.”

“You think Marx and these guys are hiding the proof.”

“They’re lying. Things that might be proof are disappearing. People who should be involved are being cut out. You tell me.”

“If they’re protecting Wilts, you’re not going to find anything in their files. They would destroy incriminating evidence or doctor it.”

“Maybe I’m hoping something incriminating will be there. If Marx showed Wilts as a person of interest in the Frostokovich murder, maybe I’m wrong about the cover-up. Maybe it’s something else.”

Starkey laughed, but it was sickly and weak.

“Right. And you want to be wrong.”

“Like you said, the man’s a deputy chief of police. It’s okay if he’s a political asshole, but it’s not okay if he’s protecting a murderer. The only way I can know what they’re doing is to see what they’re doing with the information.”

Starkey nodded, but she was still thinking it through.

“So you just want to see.”

“The murder book Marx started on Frostokovich should contain statements by the girls she had dinner with on the night she died. They would have mentioned bumping into Wilts, and Marx should have followed up by asking Wilts if he saw anything that night. I also want to see what these blind tests they’re running through SID are about, and what happened to the DVD from the Repko case.”

“All right, listen-here’s what I can do. That’s very specific. That’s just looking in some boxes to see what’s what, right?”

“It won’t take long.”

“I’ll have Lindo do it. He’ll bitch, but he’ll do it. He can go in early and take a look when no one’s around.”

“They keep the room locked.”

“Cole, wake the fuck up-the department uses these offices every time someone squirts a new task force out their ass. They don’t change the locks. I know five different people down there who have keys to that room. I used to have them myself.”

“Lindo can’t be involved. If Lindo looks, I’ll have to tell him what to look for, and he’ll figure it out. The more people who know, the greater the chance Marx will find out.”

“There are ways to do this, man. There are people we can talk to.”

Starkey wasn’t liking it, and I couldn’t blame her. I twisted sideways, the better to face her.

“I know what I’m asking. You tell me you can’t get involved, that’s fine. I mean it.”

“Oh, that’s big of you, Cole. That is amazingly generous. If I decline to help you commit a crime against my employer, which just happens to be the Los Angeles Police Department, me being a sworn officer and all, you won’t hold it against me. How did I become so lucky?”

I felt myself flush.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m talking about a city councilman and a deputy chief who might be abetting the deaths of seven women. I can’t bring something like this forward until it’s tied up so tight Marx and Wilts can’t use their influence to duck it.”

Starkey rubbed at the sides of her face again.

“God, I’m hungry. A real date would’ve fed me before he fucked me.”

I straightened behind the wheel, even more embarrassed.

“Let’s forget it. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, you shouldn’t have asked. Jesus Christ.”

“It’s my play. I didn’t want you involved.”

Starkey glanced at me, then studied her watch. She reached into her purse, took out a cigarette, and lit up even though I don’t let people smoke in my car.

“Looks like I’m involved whether you like it or not. I’ll get you in there myself.”

She waved her cigarette to fan the smoke.

“Don’t just stare at me, Cole. Buy us a couple of falafels and let’s get going. Traffic’s gonna be a bitch.”

30

THE CRIMINAL Conspiracy Section’s primary task was investigating bomb events. Most of the time when the bomb squad investigated a suspicious package, the package turned out to be someone’s abandoned laundry or a forgotten briefcase. But if the bomb squad determined the package to be an improvised explosive device, the CCS was tasked with identifying and investigating the person or persons who built the bomb. Such events could happen at any time, which meant CCS detectives might be working at any hour.

As we made our way through prime rush-hour traffic, Starkey sketched out her plan.

“Everyone bags it around four except for the duty officer. The D.O. hangs around doing paperwork, but that works for us. As long as the D.O.’s on duty the squad room is open. We just need to give everyone else time to leave.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“I am going to get us into the building. Then I’ll show you the file room and keep the duty officer busy while you see what you can find out about their investigation. How easy is that?”

“Okay. But what if they had a call-out and everyone’s working?”

Starkey made an irritated grin.

“Then I guess we don’t do this tonight, do we?”

“Guess not.”

“They don’t grow’m for brains where you come from, do they?”

“Guess not.”

“See the drugstore ahead on the right? Pull over and give me twenty bucks.”

Starkey returned a few minutes later with a two-pound box of chocolates and a fresh pack of cigarettes. We continued downtown, though neither of us said very much after we bought the candy.

When we reached the Spring Street building, Starkey directed me to a public parking lot across the street where an attendant made me pay in advance, but let me park it myself. Parking was easy at the end of the day, offering plenty of spots with a view of the building’s entrance. We watched as the detectives and plainclothes officers who worked in the building left. After a while Starkey checked the time, then glanced at me.

“Get rid of your gun.”

“It’s under the seat.”

“You have a camera?”

“Yeah.”

I had a small Sony digital in case something was in the files I wanted to record.

Starkey said, “Leave it. We don’t need attention at the security station. Leave any pens, coins, anything like that.”

I left it all, then walked with her across the street toward the entrance. A trickle of plainclothes officers were still leaving, but most were already gone.

Starkey said, “Looks good. Let’s do it.”

She took my hand, twined her fingers through mine, and gave me a beaming smile.

“Make a dimple for Mama. That’s it, Cole-look like you’re pleased with yourself.”

Starkey pulled me into the lobby and focused her attention on a muscular uniformed officer seated at the security station. A metal detector was set up beside him, but Starkey stepped around it without hesitating, and headed straight for the elevators.

“Yo, Manuel! You better wake up back there. They might make you start working for a living.”

Manuel gave her an easy smile.

“Yo, Bombs. Where you been, girl?”

Starkey raised our hands to show him how our fingers were wrapped together.

“Puttin’ this smile on my man’s face. Did Beth get back yet?”

Beth Marzik had been Starkey’s partner at CCS.

“No idea, babe. She might’ve come in through parking.”

Manuel glanced at me but didn’t seem overly concerned.

Starkey pulled me steadily toward the elevator as if the building belonged to her, walking backwards to keep up the patter with Manuel. She waved the candy at him with her free hand.

“Her birthday’s next week. Make her share, man. Don’t let her keep it all for herself.”

“I’m on it, Starkey. You be good.”

“Not in this life.”

Starkey backed me into the elevator as the doors closed. We stood silently for a moment, breathing.

I said, “You’re something.”

“Aren’t I?”

I realized we were still holding hands, and let go.

“Sorry.”

We rode in silence to the fifth floor, then Starkey took my hand again as the doors opened onto a short hall.

“Just follow my lead. If we walk into something I can’t handle, all we have to do is walk out.”

“I’m good.”

“Your hand is sweating.”

“That’s called fear.”

“Jesus, dude. Chill.”

Starkey’s hand was cool and dry. I guess if you de-armed bombs for a living, sneaking into the police department wasn’t impressive.

I followed her past a placard that read CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY SECTION into a large modern room divided into cubicles. The cubicles appeared deserted. Starkey raised her voice.

“Knock, knock, knock! I knew this place would fall apart when I left!”

A balding man stepped from a doorway at the far end of the room. He was short and neat with a tie on his short-sleeve shirt, and appeared to be holding a napkin.

“Carol?”

Starkey hit him with the smile and tugged me toward him.

“Hiya, Jorge. How’d you get stuck with the duty?”

The man seemed awkward and surprised, but he was probably always awkward around Starkey. He wiped his hands as we approached.

“My turn in the rotation, is all. What brings you by, Carol? Everyone’s gone.”

Starkey waved the box of candy.

“Marzik’s birthday next week. I’m going to leave it on her desk so she’ll be surprised in the morning. Hey-I want you to meet someone. This is my boyfriend, Axel. Ax, this is Jorge Santos. Everyone calls him Hooker.”

Axel.

I smiled politely and shook Jorge’s hand. He had been eating in a small interview room where two open Tupperware containers and a cup of coffee were still on the table. A copy of the LAPD union newspaper, the Blue Line, was open beside the food. Enchiladas.

Starkey glanced at his food.

“Oh, hey, man, we didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner.”

“That’s all right. I heard you got onto Homicide. How do you like it?”

Starkey shrugged, and glanced back at the squad room.

“It’s okay, I guess. Anything shaking tonight?”

“Same old same old. You know how it is-weeks of boredom, seconds of terror.”

“Yeah. Listen, Ax here needs to use the head, so I’m going to show him, okay? Is Beth at the same desk?”

“Oh, sure, right next to your old desk.”

Starkey slipped her arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze.

“Now you get to see where I used to work, honey. Isn’t that exciting?”

“Exciting.”

She showed him the candy again.

“I’ll drop this on her desk and get Ax squared away. Can I bring you a fresh coffee?”

He visibly brightened.

“That would be nice, Carol. Thanks.”

“Right back. Keep eating, Hook. Really. Don’t let your enchiladas get cold.”

Starkey quickly found the desk she was looking for, put the chocolates beside the phone, then quietly opened a ceramic cookie jar with a unicorn on the lid.

She made sure Santos was back in the interview room, then lowered her voice.

“Marzik’s kept her keys in here for years.”

She fished inside, took out a ring of keys, then led me past a coffee room into an adjoining hall. The hall opened into another large room. This room was smaller than the CCS squad room, with half the number of cubicles, and was also deserted. The lights were on, which surprised me, but we were moving too fast to think about it.

“The task force guys were in here. C’mon, I’ll let you in-”

Starkey checked again to make sure Santos wasn’t watching, then trotted across the room with me behind her. Unlike the CCS cubicles, which were marked by clutter and family photographs, these cubicles were stripped and lifeless. The men and women who had sat at these desks cleaned out their possessions when the task force disbanded, and now the cubicles seemed desolate.

Starkey unlocked a door behind the cubicles, pulled it open, and stepped away.

“I’ll put the keys back and keep Hooker busy as long as I can, but don’t dawdle, okay? Look fast and get the hell out.”

I stepped inside as she hurried away.

The file room was small and cramped, with three rows of metal Ikea shelves the CCS detectives had probably put up on their own time. Cardboard file boxes were lined on the shelves, along with a vinyl log used to keep track of who had which reports. The boxes on the middle shelf were labeled with the names of the victims, and should have contained everything I wanted to check. I pulled down Frostokovich first, and knew it was bad even before I took off the top. Yellow hanging folders held a few scattered files and documents, but most of the folders were empty and the murder book was missing. I pushed the box back onto the shelf, then opened the Evansfield box to see if it had been cleaned out, too, but it was heavy with files and the murder book was wedged in behind the folders.

I checked each of the other boxes and worked my way to Repko, but, like Frostokovich, most of its files and murder book were missing. I looked through the remaining files for information about the video disk, but if the disk had ever been in the box all signs of it and Debra Repko’s employment at Leverage Associates were missing.

I was checking the log when I heard Starkey call from far away.

“Hey, Ax! Did you get lost, honey? Where are you?”

I straightened the boxes, snapped off the light, and stepped out of the closet as Starkey appeared in the hall. She waved frantically for me to join her and lowered her voice as she pulled me down the hall.

“Munson’s coming. Hooker told me he was just up here, and he’s coming back-”

“The murder books are missing.”

“Whatever. We’re out of here, Cole.”

We made sure the squad room was clear, then hurried toward the elevators. I hit the button, but Starkey moved past, pulling me with her.

“Forget it. We’re taking the stairs.”

She pushed through a stairwell door, and we hurried down the stairs, neither of us speaking. Every time we turned a corner I expected to see Munson on his way up, but we made it to the bottom without passing anyone.

Starkey stopped when we reached the lobby landing and took several deep breaths, calming herself. I touched her arm.

“We’re okay. It’s going to be fine.”

“I’m not scared, Cole. I smoke.”

She sucked a last deep breath, then took my hand and we stepped into the lobby. A man and a woman were waiting at the elevator, and Manuel was still looking bored at the security station. We held hands as we crossed the lobby as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Manuel said, “Take care, Bombs. Be seein’ you.”

“You, too, Manny. I’ll try to stop by more often.”

I didn’t realize her hand was damp until we were on the sidewalk.

31

WE KEPT our faces down as we walked to the corner, then crossed with the light to the parking lot and got into my car. When I put the key in the ignition, Starkey touched my hand.

“The murder books are missing?”

“Pretty much everything they had on Repko and Frostokovich is missing. The file on Trinh seemed light, but I don’t know enough about that case to be sure. The log says everything should still be in the files, but it isn’t.”

“Hooker told me Munson carried out a box just before we got there. He said Bastilla took something yesterday.”

“The last date in the log was the day Marx closed the case. Nothing has been signed out since.”

“So they’re just taking it.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I reached for the key again, but Starkey stopped me.

“Let’s wait.”

“I’ll take you back.”

“I don’t need to go back. If these bastards are covering for a murderer, I want their asses on a string. Let’s see where he goes.”

“He’ll probably go home.”

“Then let’s follow him home and figure out what to do later. Maybe we can break into his car.”

“Are you serious?”

“Roll down your window, Cole. I’m going to smoke.”

Munson pulled out of the building two cigarettes later in a red Mustang GT. He stayed on the surface streets in no apparent hurry, passing under the freeway and away from the skyscrapers. We had followed him less than a mile when his blinker came on.

“You see it?”

“I got it.”

The Mustang turned into the parking lot of one of the oldest steak houses in Los Angeles, Pacific Dining Car. Built in the twenties, the restaurant was housed in a railroad dining car. I pulled to the curb so we could watch.

Munson got out of his car with what appeared to be several loose files, left his car with the valet, and entered the restaurant. A crowd waiting to be seated was huddled around the door, but Munson wound through them as if he already had a place waiting. The restaurant had preserved the dining car’s ambience by maintaining the big touring windows through which dining passengers had enjoyed passing scenery, so it was easy to watch Munson make his way through the restaurant. He went the length of the car, then slipped into a booth where two people were seated. Marx and Bastilla had been waiting.

Starkey and I got out of my car for a better view. The valets glanced over at us, but probably thought we were deciding whether to try out the restaurant.

Marx glanced at the files as Munson said something, then Marx brought a briefcase from under the table. He put the files into it, then put it away and motioned a waiter over.

The head valet was openly watching us now, and growing suspicious. It wouldn’t be long before he alerted someone in the restaurant.

“Keep an eye on them. I’m going to pull around the corner for a better spot.”

I moved my car into the shadows beneath a sycamore tree, then got out with my camera. The telephoto images would be grainy in the dim light, but the identities of the three people in the restaurant would be clear. The head valet didn’t like seeing me with the camera, but couldn’t do anything about it. Maybe he thought I was a paparazzo.

Starkey and I settled into my car and watched Marx and his inner circle share red wine and steaks for one hour and ten minutes. Then Marx paid the tab. The valets brought Munson’s Mustang first, then a light-colored Toyota, then a dark Lexus sedan. When the cars were lined up nice and neat, Marx put his briefcase into the Lexus. Bastilla took a manila envelope from her car and gave it to Marx, who tossed it in with the briefcase. Munson took a cardboard file box from the Mustang’s trunk, and put it into the back of Marx’s Lexus. I photographed all of it. Everything was going with Marx.

Starkey said, “What do you think he’s going to do with it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. We still don’t know what they have.”

Her stare was languid and thoughtful through vines of smoke.

“Change it, more likely. You don’t destroy that many records-a couple of files, maybe, sure, anyone can lose a file-but you can’t explain it if that much stuff goes missing. So you change it. Take out the parts you don’t like. Retype the pages if you have to. Then you put everything back in the system and hope nobody notices.”

I was staring at her when she finished. She saw me staring, and shrugged.

“Just saying.”

Marx didn’t say much when they finished. They slipped into their cars, and pulled into the oncoming traffic. Starkey and I followed Marx.

He climbed onto the Pasadena Freeway almost right away and never once exceeded the speed limit. The traffic was heavy, but smooth-the lanes flowing with on-their-way-home-from-work freeway professionals who made this same drive at this same hour every day of the week. We crossed the river and cruised up through Montecito Heights, where the Pasadena officially becomes part of Route 66. Marx led us into South Pasadena, where the freeway ends, then along surface streets into the soft residential slopes of Altadena. We entered a neighborhood of neat, modest homes set among pepper trees that cast jagged shadows on the lawns. When his blinker came on, I cut the lights and pulled to the side.

Starkey said, “You think this is where he lives?”

“I don’t know. Looks like it.”

“Maybe he’s just dropping off the stuff.”

“Can you drive a stick?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to see. When I get out, get behind the wheel. Be ready to go.”

The Lexus turned past the dark shoulder of a camellia bush, then lights flashed across a lawn. I got out, and ran hard to the camellia at the head of the drive. A small ARMED RESPONSE security patrol sign stood beside the bush. The garage was open, and bright with interior light. His sedan shared the garage with a silver Lexus SUV. Marx was lifting the box from his backseat when I reached the camellia. An interior door from the garage into the house was open, and a woman wearing black pants and a loose T-shirt was waiting at the door. She was a nice-looking woman about Marx’s age, and interacted with him the way a wife would interact with her husband.

Marx placed the box on the trunk of his car, sat his briefcase on the box, then put the manila envelope on top of the briefcase. When the stack of goods was manageable, he carried the box into the house. The woman stepped to the side to let him pass, then touched a button on the wall. I wondered if she knew what was in the box. I wondered if she cared.

The light in the garage went off.

The door rumbled down.

Marx was home.

His secrets were with him.

I called Joe Pike.

32

I SLIPPED into the shadows beneath a pepper tree, then made my way alongside Marx’s house into his backyard. I took it slow, thinking there might be a dog or lights rigged to a motion sensor, but there was neither.

The backyard was lush and comfortable even at night, with a giant avocado tree spread over a patio. Fallen fruit littered the ground and filled the air with a pungent scent. The kitchen and what appeared to be a family room were on the garage side at the back of the house, and opened onto the patio. Marx had a very nice outdoor kitchen, with an enormous gas grill and a Big Green Egg smoker. The woman I took to be Marx’s wife was in the kitchen. Marx entered the family room from the opposite side of the house, then disappeared through a door. He wasn’t carrying the box or files or his briefcase, and no one else was visible inside the home.

Windows glowed with dim light on the far side of the house, so I moved past the patio. The first set of windows revealed a small bedroom that looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. A bathroom came next, then the corner room. Marx was using the corner room as an office. The light was on. I moved closer to see if the box and files were in his office, but Marx came in before I reached the window. He went to his desk, looked down at something, then abruptly stepped into a closet. I couldn’t see what was inside or what he did, but then he backed out, closed the door, and left his office. He turned out the light as he left.

I drifted back to the patio, saw that Marx was now in the kitchen with his wife, then returned to his office. I took out my penlight, cupped the lens with my hand, then turned it on, letting a sliver of light between my fingers. I examined the windows on both sides of his office, looking for alarm contacts. Most of the houses in the area had the ARMED RESPONSE sign like Marx, but most of them didn’t have wired alarms. Neither did Marx. Like most other people in upper-middle-class neighborhoods, Marx had subscribed to the patrol, but hadn’t popped for the hardware.

I shut the light, then continued around the house and made my way back to the street. When I reached the car, Starkey climbed over the console into the passenger seat.

“Jesus, what took you so long?”

“Marx brought the files inside. I wanted to look around.”

I started the engine, then one-eightied toward the freeway.

Starkey said, “Damn. I’d love to see what he took.”

I nodded, but didn’t respond.

She said, “What are we going to do?”

“Go home. I’m taking you back to your car.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you expect me to do, kick down the door and beat him until he confesses? I need to figure out what to do next.”

I made small talk as we drove back to Hollywood, and almost everything I said was a lie. I knew exactly what I was going to do, but I didn’t want Starkey to know and I didn’t want her to be part of it. She had already risked enough. And as with Pat Kyle, you have to protect your friends.

I dropped Starkey outside the Hollywood Station, let her believe I was heading home, then drove back to Altadena. Joe Pike had made good time. He was waiting at a mini-mart not far from Marx’s home, his spotless red Jeep glittering in the fluorescent light beside the gas pumps like a jewel.

I pulled up next to him. Headlights coming down from the hills approached, flickered on our faces in a momentary illumination, then passed.

“You know what I’m going to do?”

“Sure. You’re going to break into his house. Anyone inside with him?”

“His wife. We’ll wait until tomorrow when the house is clear, then I’ll go in. You okay with it?”

Pike didn’t hesitate.

“Sure. Does Starkey know?”

“No. Better if she doesn’t.”

“Okay. Let’s scout the area, then figure out how we’re going to do this.”

We planned our action at three that morning, huddled together over all-night mini-mart coffee and white-bread sandwiches of processed cheese. Then we crept into position and waited.

33

MARX BACKED out of his garage at ten minutes after eight the next morning. I was across the street, sitting behind a stunted fig tree at the corner of his neighbor’s house. I had moved into position when the first grey fingers of morning pushed off the night. Pike was parked two blocks away beside a house that was being remodeled. Marx would drive past him if he headed for the freeway.

I hit the speed-dial for Joe.

“He’s getting into his Lexus. He’s wearing his uniform and he’s alone. His wife is still home.”

I shut my phone and waited. Pike called back two minutes later.

“I’m three cars behind him, southbound. Looks like he’s heading for the freeway.”

“Okay.”

Pike would follow him to the freeway before turning back. Marx might have loaded the files back into his car, but I couldn’t know that until I entered his house, so I sat in the fig tree and waited. I figured Marx would be gone for most of the day, but I was concerned about his wife. I wouldn’t enter the house as long as she was present, and she might be one of those women who never left home. A housekeeper or guest might arrive, which would be even worse.

I waited.

My cell phone vibrated a few minutes later, making a soft buzz against my thigh. I thought it would be Pike, but it was Levy. He sounded excited and filled with interest.

“I think you’re right about Deputy Chief Marx, Elvis. He’s been virtually absent from his office this week. He’s turned his regular duties over to his assistants.”

“He’s been busy. Bastilla and Munson have been removing task force files and giving them to Marx. Marx has been bringing them home.”

Levy was quiet, then cleared his throat.

“Which files?”

“I’ll know when I see them. I’m outside his house.”

“Outside his home?”

“In a fig tree. I can’t speak any louder.”

Levy cleared his throat again.

“You shouldn’t be telling me this. I’m an officer of the court.”

“Did you talk to Ivy Casik?”

“I couldn’t find her. I went to her apartment twice yesterday, but she wasn’t home. Do you know if Marx or his people reached her?”

“Not yet. Maybe I’ll know when I see the files.”

“Right. Well. Good luck.”

Levy sounded uncomfortable.

I ended the call and went back to waiting. Pike called again almost two hours later, at five minutes after ten.

“Want to switch places? Let you stretch your legs.”

“I’m good. I kinda like it here in the tree.”

“Your call.”

The day wore on with glacial slowness. The mail was delivered, cars passed, and UPS dropped off a package. I was beginning to think I should have hijacked Marx’s car when the garage door shivered open at twenty-six minutes after two and Marx’s wife got into her SUV. I pressed the speed dial as the engine started.

“She’s coming out.”

I had described her car the night before, but now I read off the license plate. The SUV backed into the street, then drove away in the same direction as Marx.

“Heading your way.”

“You going in?”

“Soon as she’s clear.”

I waited for three cars to pass, then stepped from beneath the fig tree and crossed the street. Mrs. Marx might be leaving for the rest of the day or only running out for a bottle of milk, but either way I didn’t hurry. I walked down their drive as if I were an old family friend, continued along the side of their house, and went directly to the kitchen door. The locks didn’t take long, a Master deadbolt and the inset knob lock, six minutes top to bottom. I called Pike again when the tension bar slid home.

“I’m good. I’m going in.”

I pulled on a pair of latex gloves and opened the door. I listened for a moment, then stepped inside. The house was cool and smelled of scented soap, but I didn’t like being there. I wanted to see what I needed to see, then get the hell out. I crossed through the kitchen, listened again, then hurried directly to the office.

A mahogany desk was angled in the corner, facing built-in cabinets, the closet, and a small TV. The unmistakable three-ring navy binder of a murder book sat on his desk. It hadn’t been on his desk last night, but now it was, as if he had looked at it this morning before leaving for work. The handwritten label on the spine read Trinh.

His desk and the area around the murder book were immaculate, with a desktop PC, a cordless phone, and a short stack of papers beside the keyboard. I fingered through the papers, but found nothing related to the case. Folders inside the desk drawers were labeled for personal things like insurance policies and utility bills. I went to the closet, and there was the rest of it. The box Munson gave to Marx was on the floor. Several thick folders held together by rubber bands were stacked on top, and two more murder books were on the floor beside the box. Repko and Frostokovich.

I felt a twinge of sadness when I saw them.

“Hello, Debra.”

I photographed the box and the murder books, then snapped a wider shot to establish the material was in the closet. I dragged the box into the room, put the murder books on top, then took more pictures from angles that included Marx’s desk and personal possessions, and the Trinh murder book on the desk. I wanted undeniable proof the missing files were in Marx’s home.

When I had enough pictures, I opened Sondra Frostokovich’s murder book. I was reading the first page, all good to go and work my way through the entire thing, when my cell phone vibrated.

Pike said, “Marx and Munson just passed, inbound. Thirty seconds.”

He didn’t waste time with more words. I had been in the house less than eight minutes, and now I was done. I had wanted to read through the material, photograph those things I found incriminating, and leave the files undisturbed to buy myself more time, but now I couldn’t play it that way. It was a lot of paper but I took it. The box was only half full, so I shoved in the loose folders and murder books, and carried it into the bathroom adjoining Marx’s office.

The garage door rumbled on the far side of the house as I stepped into the hall. I carried the box into the bathroom, set it on the toilet, and pushed open the window. The front door opened as I climbed out. Marx said something I didn’t understand as I reached back inside for the box.

I closed the window, slipped into the thick bushes between Marx’s house and the next, and hit the speed-dial for Pike. He answered like this:

“I’m here.”

“Never a doubt.”

I pushed through the hedges into the neighbors’ yard and saw Pike’s Jeep in the street. I probably should have walked, but I ran as hard as I could without looking back and without caring who saw me.

I jammed into Pike’s Jeep with the box in my lap, and Pike gunned away, the door snapping shut so hard it hammered my elbow.

Pike said, “Close.”

My eyes burned as I laughed. It was a stupid laugh, like a barking dog. I couldn’t stop until Pike gripped my arm.

34

THE CANYON behind my house was pleasant during the midday hours, with a slight breeze that brought out the hawks to search for rabbits and mice. Somewhere below, a power saw whined in the trees, punctuated by the faint tapping of a nail gun. Someone was always building something, and the sounds of it were encouraging. They sounded like life.

We put the file box and murder books on the dining table, then drank bottles of water. We ate muffins slathered with strawberry jam, standing over the murder books as if we were stealing time to eat like we had stolen the files.

We split the material between us. I skimmed the Frostokovich murder book first, and immediately saw that pages had been removed. Every murder book begins with an initial report by the original detectives who caught the case, identifying the victim and describing the crime scene. Marx and Munson had signed off on the opening crime scene report. Reports relating interviews with the workmen who discovered her body came next, followed by their initial interview with Sondra’s parents, Ron L. and Ida Frostokovich. If Marx and Munson interviewed Sondra’s girlfriends about the dinner they shared, the report of that interview was now missing. A twelve-page gap in the page-numbering sequence followed the interview with Sondra’s parents. The medical examiner’s six-page autopsy protocol was intact, but another three pages after it were missing. I didn’t bother to flip through the rest of the book.

“They gutted this thing. We’ve got missing pages all through here.”

Pike was fingering through the files in the box. He grunted, then lifted a ziplock bag containing a silver DVD. The name REPKO was written directly onto the DVD and clearly visible through the transparent plastic bag.

Pike said, “Your missing disk.”

A folded letter was stapled to the bag. Pike read it, then passed it to me.

“They sent it to the FBI. SID had it right. The Feds couldn’t get anything off the disk, either.”

The letter was from the FBI’s lab in San Francisco and was addressed to Deputy Chief Thomas Marx. It confirmed what Pike had just told me.

“But why send it at all? If Marx thought it would clear Byrd or implicate Wilts, why not just destroy it?”

Pike grunted again, and we went on with the files.

The Trinh murder book was also missing material, though not as much as Frostokovich, but the Repko book had been looted. Most of the documents and large sections of each report were missing.

I put the murder books aside and picked out a thin file marked REPKO-PDA/PHONE LOG. The first page was a letter from the president of a cellular service provider addressed to Marx regarding Debra Repko’s missing PDA.

Dear Chief Marx,

Per your personal request today and with the understanding that this communication is off the record until such time as our attomeys receive the proper court instruction, please find the call record covering the prior sixty-day period for the above referenced cell number, which is held in contract by Leverage Associates. As discussed, I am trusting in your good word and discretion that our cooperation will remain undisclosed.

If I can be of further assistance in this matter, please do not hesitate to call my personal line.

Sincerely.

Paulette Brennert, President

The date indicated that Marx had requested the call log almost a week before Byrd’s body was found.

I said, “Get this-Marx knew about Debra Repko’s PDA. Darcy and Maddux didn’t even know about it, but Marx knew and requested the call history.”

“Didn’t you ask Bastilla about it?”

“This is from before that. Bastilla must have been pretending.”

Pike moved closer and turned the page.

The next five sheets were the call logs listing the numbers to and from Debra’s PDA during the period prior to her death. Handwritten notes in blue or black ink were by each call and most of the calls were identified as being to or from Leverage employees. A few of the calls were simply marked as family, but six of the calls were highlighted in yellow marker. The six highlighted calls had all been made in the ten days prior to her death, and all were to or from the same number. The highlighted number had not been identified. I kept reading.

The next page was a spec sheet showing a picture of a simple basic cell phone manufactured by Kyoto Electronics. It was an inexpensive model that did not fold or take pictures, and likely offered very few features. An accompanying letter was attached to the spec sheet.

Detective C. Bastilla,

The cellular number in question is a prepaid number assigned to a cell phone (Model AKL-1500) manufactured by Kyoto Electronics. (See enclosed picture.) Our records indicate that the phone unit, cell-service activation, and additional talk-time minutes were purchased by cash. For this reason, we are unable to provide information about the purchaser.

Due to legal and liability requirements, we are unable to provide call-log records for the above-referenced number until in receipt of an appropriate court order. Once in receipt of such order, we will be happy to comply.

Sincerely,

Michael Toman

Operations Manager

Pike said, “She had two conversations with the highlighted number on the day she was murdered.”

“Joe. Bastilla was trying to identify the caller.”

“Looks that way. Looks like they were trying to identify someone else, too.”

Pike drew out a folder that was thick with documents about Wilts, but none of the reports and files were anything I expected. This file was labeled FBI, and contained a letter from Marx to the FBI director in Washington, D.C. It was marked PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL. A short list of phone numbers was attached, including the number that had been highlighted in yellow.

This letter will serve as my official request that your agency obtain the proper court instruction for, and initiate and maintain, recorded phone monitors on the attached Los Angeles area code phone numbers, and do so independent of and without the knowledge of my own agency, the Los Angeles Police Department, or any other local personnel, officials, or local judicial members. As Councilman Nobel Wilts is believed to have knowledge of or possibly have committed multiple homicides over a seven-year period, I cannot stress enough the need for utmost security in this matter.

I stared at the page, but the words had lost focus. I pushed past a growing sense of frustration and checked the date. Marx had faxed his request to the head of the FBI only eight days ago-two days before he told the world that Lionel Byrd had committed the murders.

I said, “Joe.”

I gave him the page.

“They aren’t protecting Wilts. They’re investigating him. It’s an active investigation.”

We were reading through the rest of the files when the first car arrived. They didn’t scream up Code Three with the lights and sirens, and SWAT didn’t rappel from hovering choppers. Gravel crunched outside my door, followed by the soft squeak of brakes.

Pike went to the window.

“It’s Marx.”

The Inner Circle had arrived.

35

MARX AND Munson unfolded from his Lexus. Bastilla eased up from the opposite direction with a black-and-white Metro car behind her. They saw me at the same time, but no one shouted or tried to knock me down.

Marx was calm, but somehow larger, as if swollen with tension.

I said, “You heartless sonofabitch. You told those people it was over.”

Munson flicked his fingers, telling me to move out of the door.

“Let’s go in, Cole. We need to have a little talk.”

“Do you have a warrant?”

Bastilla said, “You’re in no position. Act like an adult.”

The uniforms stayed in their car, but the rest of them came inside. Marx glanced at Pike, then frowned at the files and murder books spread over the table. He told Bastilla to gather their stuff, then frowned at me.

“Have you read these things?”

“Enough to know what you’re doing. I pushed this thing because I thought you were protecting him.”

“Now you know you were wrong. You should have just let it go, but no, you couldn’t mind your business.”

“Yvonne Bennett made it my business, Marx. So do the Repkos and Ida Frostokovich and the other families you’ve lied to. You told those people it was finished. They’ve buried their children, but they’re going to have to dig them up again. What in hell were you thinking?”

He hooked a thumb at Pike.

“How many people besides you and this one know what we’re doing?”

“A few.”

“Poitras is probably helping you, isn’t he?”

“Poitras doesn’t know anything.”

“We need their names.”

“Forget it, Marx. There’s no chance in hell.”

Munson had gone to the sliders.

“Sweet. You got your privacy, you got your view, you have your stolen police property. Not everyone would have the balls to break into a deputy chief’s house.”

“You have me confused with someone else.”

Munson laughed. He was probably a pretty good guy and I would probably like him if he was someone else.

“Please, Cole. Really. Who else could it be, the way you’ve been dogging us. Now we have this problem.”

Pike, floating between the dining room and kitchen, said, “We don’t have a problem.”

Munson hit Pike with the grin.

“Look at Pike here. Pike looks like he wants to shoot it out. What do you say, Chief? We could kill’m, say they resisted arrest.”

Bastilla glanced up from stacking the files.

“You’re not helping.”

“That was humor. They know I’m kidding.”

Marx looked at me with the unfocused eyes of someone who had considered it and hadn’t been kidding.

“We could have gotten the warrants and brought along some boys from Metro, but we didn’t. I can’t force you to cooperate, but we have to contain this. If Wilts finds out, we may never be able to make the case. That meant lying about our investigation, but now this is where we are, and you’re here with us.”

“You believe Wilts killed those women.”

“Yes.”

“Then why close the case on Byrd? Why tell those families it was over?”

“Because that’s what Wilts wants us to think.”

Munson pulled a chair from the table and swung his leg over it like he was mounting a horse.

“We believe he engineered Byrd’s death so we would close the Repko case-probably because he was scared we might find something on the security disk. He forced our hand with this damned death book. When we realized that’s what he wanted, we gave him Byrd to buy ourselves more time.”

Pike said, “Why Byrd?”

Munson shrugged.

“Byrd was already connected to one of the victims-Yvonne Bennett. He’s gotta be thinking, when we find Byrd with this picture of Bennett, we’ll think it’s a slam dunk. If you’re asking how Wilts and Byrd are connected, we don’t know. Wilts might have picked him because of the Bennett connection, but maybe they knew each other.”

I said, “That’s a helluva risk to take, thinking you’ll call it quits just because Byrd has the book.”

Marx’s lips pressed into a hard line.

“Well, Cole, I guess he thought it was worth the risk, didn’t he? Repko wasn’t some streetwalker-he screwed up by killing someone close to him, which was a mistake he hadn’t made since Frostokovich.”

A knot of anger grew in my shoulders.

“Have you bastards known he’s been killing people for seven years?”

Munson made a grunting laugh that caused Bastilla to glance up, but Marx glowered.

“Of course not. Only since the book.”

“You must have known since Frostokovich.”

“Goddamnit. I took care of some things for him, but nothing like this. He was a nasty bastard, all right, but I was investigating one of my friends. You never think someone you know could do something like this.”

“So you let it go? You fixed it for him?”

“Fuck off, Cole. The girl’s friends told us about running into him that night at dinner, so we questioned him. He told us he went to an apartment he kept over by Chinatown after seeing them at dinner. Alone. So we had the coincidence of the meetings, and we knew he was a prick, but that was it. We couldn’t clear him, but we couldn’t find anything solid. You can’t make a case on coincidence, so we all went on with our lives. After a while I told myself it was silly to suspect the guy. Hell, he was my friend, and all we had was the coincidental meeting.”

Pike said, “Until Repko.”

“Repko got us started, but it was really the book. When we saw Frostokovich everything came back. Wilts knew some of these girls. Wilts was the common demoninator.”

Munson picked up where Marx left off by explaining they had discovered a connection between Wilts and the fourth victim pictured in the book, twenty-five-year-old prostitute Marsha Trinh. In reviewing her arrest record, it was learned she was one of five prostitutes Wilts had hired for a private party to influence prominent supporters one month before her murder. This contact put Wilts with three of the seven victims. Three out of seven was convincing.

Munson said, “We still have a long way to go, Cole. We can’t have you drawing attention to this. The man has to believe he’s safe.”

“How close are you?”

“We would arrest him if we had something. We don’t.”

“You think he’s a flight risk?”

“You never know, but no, I don’t think so. People like this, they think they can beat you and some of them do. They get off by thinking they’re smarter than us. He wanted us to think Byrd is the guy, and right now he believes we bought it. That’s why we played it the way we did. As long as he believes he’s safe, we have a shot at making a case. You cannot kill seven people without making a mistake. It cannot be done.”

Munson nodded like he believed it, then stared at me.

“We’re busting our asses to make this case, but right now our biggest problem is you, asking around at Leverage, scaring the shit out of the Casik girl, getting Alan Levy worked up-”

I raised my palms, stopping him.

“Waitaminute. How did I scare Ivy Casik?”

Marx scowled at me.

“That’s why I hate goddamned private operators like you-you don’t know how to handle yourself.”

I looked at Bastilla.

“What’s this about, Bastilla? Did you find her?”

“I didn’t have to find her. She called. She wanted to file a complaint against you.”

“For what?”

“She said you accused her of being a drug dealer.”

“I asked if she picked up the oxys for Byrd.”

“She heard it as a threat.”

“What did she say about the reporter?”

“There wasn’t a reporter, you dipshit. She made it up to get rid of you. Then she got worried she might get into trouble, so she called us to straighten it out.”

I flashed on Ivy Casik. I wondered if Levy had found her and if she had told him the same thing. Then Bastilla put the last of the files in the box and stacked the murder books on top.

“That’s everything, Chief.”

Marx nodded, then studied me again. His brow was so deeply furrowed it looked like rows of midwestern corn.

“So what are you going to do? Can we get some cooperation here?”

I glanced at Pike, and Pike nodded.

“I don’t like it, but I understand what you’re trying to do. I’m not going to sit out the game, Marx, but I won’t spoil the play. I’m better than that.”

“We’ll see.”

Marx put out his hand. The gesture surprised me, and maybe I hesitated too long, but I took it. He left without saying anything else, then Munson followed with the files. Bastilla was trailing after Munson when I stopped her at the door.

“When you bust Wilts, everything about the chief’s prior relationship with him is going to come out. It isn’t lost on me that he knows that.”

She arched her eyebrows, and it was as cool a move as anything I had ever seen.

“How nice for you, Cole.”

We listened to them drive away, then I went to the phone and called Alan Levy. Jacob answered again.

“Sorry, Mr. Cole, he isn’t in. Would you like to leave another message?”

“This would be easier if you gave me his cell.”

Jacob wouldn’t give me the cell, but he promised to page Alan and then hung up.

I put down the phone and turned to Pike.

“Let’s go see Ivy. If I scared her, wait ’til she sees you.”

“You don’t think she lied?”

“I think she’s lying to someone. The question is who.”

We were moving for the door when Alan Levy returned my call. Jacob had come through with the page.

36

SPEAKING WITH Levy left me conflicted. Alan was trying to help, but I had given Marx my word and understood his need for secrecy, so I did not tell Levy that Wilts was a suspect. I told him about Ivy Casik instead.

“I spoke with Bastilla again. She told me Ivy made up the story about the reporter.”

“Where did Bastilla find her?”

“She didn’t. Ivy called her to complain about me.”

I related what Bastilla told me.

Alan made grunting noises as he listened, then sounded doubtful.

“She claimed you threatened her?”

“She was surprised when I approached her, but I didn’t threaten her or do anything to scare her. She told Bastilla she made it up to get rid of me.”

“Does Bastilla believe her?”

“It sounded that way. Ivy called Bastilla, not the other way around. She wanted to file a complaint.”

“Did she tell them anything new about Byrd?”

“I don’t think so. Bastilla didn’t say that she did.”

Alan fell silent for a moment.

“We should speak with this woman. I went over there again today and she still wasn’t home.”

“Pike and I were leaving for her apartment when you called.”

“Good. If you find her, let me know. I think this girl knows more than she’s telling.”

“I do, too, Alan.”

“Let me give you my cell number. You won’t have to go through Jacob.”

He gave me the number, then Pike and I locked up the house. We took both cars in case we had to split up, driving in a loose caravan down through the canyon and east to Ivy Casik’s apartment.

The modest apartment house held the same watchful silence it had on my earlier visits, as if the building and people within it were sleeping. The afternoon stillness trapped the scent of the gardenias in the courtyard, reminding me of the cloying smell of a funeral parlor.

Pike and I knocked on Ivy’s door, but, like before, she did not answer.

Pike said, “Creepy place.”

“Pod people live here.”

“Maybe she’s at work.”

“She’s a website designer. She works at home.”

Pike reached past me and knocked again. Loud.

I pressed my ear to the door, listening for movement inside her apartment. A large window was to the left of the door, but Ivy had pulled her drapes. I cupped my face to the window, trying to see through a thin gap in the drapes, but couldn’t see much. The lights were off, but my view was only a thin slice of the interior. The memory of Angel Tomaso’s body was fresh, and I suddenly feared I might find Ivy the same way.

“You with the noise again.”

We turned, and saw the pear-shaped manager in his door. He blinked at me, then saw Pike and blinked again.

He said, “Oh, my.”

The little pug waddled out between his feet and stood in the courtyard, panting.

I said, “Sorry. The sound really echoes in here, doesn’t it?”

“Is this about the police again?”

He wore the same thin cotton shirt and baggy shorts, and still held a cocktail glass. It might have been the same glass. His legs were lumpy with cellulite and very white.

I said, “That’s right. We need to see her.”

“You and everyone else. Someone was here earlier, too, banging away at the door.”

That would have been Levy.

“Was she home?”

“She travels a lot, you know. I don’t think she saw the note you left in her box.”

He tinkled the ice again, pissed off I had left the note in her mailbox instead of with him, and frowned at the dog.

“Go make piddle.”

The little dog’s round face curled into a smile, then it waddled back into his apartment.

“She doesn’t tell me when she’s coming and going. If you’d like to leave a note with me this time, I’ll make sure she gets it.”

I glanced back at her apartment, wondering what was behind the door.

Pike gestured at the surrounding apartments.

“She friendly with any of these people? Maybe they know where she is.”

He sized Pike up and down, and tinkled the ice again. He put out his hand.

“I’m Darbin Langer. Yours?”

“Pike.”

Langer hadn’t bothered to introduce himself to me.

He shook his head, answering Pike’s question.

“I doubt it. She isn’t the friendliest person, and we like our privacy here. We like a quiet home without all this coming and going and knocking. They’re all at work anyway, and I’d ask you not to pound on their doors.”

“How about I slip a note under her door. Maybe that would work better than leaving it in her box.”

He frowned, pissy again, then turned back into his apartment.

“Whatever. Just stop with the noise.”

Pike and I returned to her apartment but I had no intention of leaving a note. I left Pike by her door, then circled behind the building, trying to see inside.

Climbing roses trellised the walls, bracketing a tall hedge that formed a narrow path leading around the sides of the building. The rose vines drooped over the path, brushing my face like delicate fingers. The stillness and silence felt eerie. I followed the path around the building, peeping in Ivy’s windows like a neighborhood pervert, with the creeped-out feeling I was about to see something I didn’t want to see, like Ivy with a slashed throat.

The back and side windows were off her bedroom, and here she hadn’t been as careful when pulling the drapes. The first window was completely covered, but the drapes covering the second window hung apart with a gap as wide as my hand. The room inside was dim, but revealed a double bed and a doorway to the hall leading out to the living room. The room was bare except for the bed, with no other furniture, nothing on the walls, and no bodies in evidence. Ivy might have been hiding under the bed, but probably wasn’t.

The bathroom was next, with one of those high windows so neighbors can’t see you doing your business. I gripped the ledge and chinned myself. Being high the way it was, drapes weren’t necessary, so nothing covered the window. Ivy wasn’t crouching in the bathroom, either. I let myself down, went on to the living room, then returned to the bathroom. I chinned again, and squinted inside. The bathroom was old like the rest of the building, with a postwar tub and cracked tiles seamed by darkened grout. The floor was a dingy vinyl that had probably been yellowing since the sixties. Something about the bathroom bothered me, and it took a moment to realize what.

I let myself down and returned to the courtyard.

Pike said, “Clear?”

“She told me she rented the room on Anson because they found mold in her bathroom, but this bathroom hasn’t been touched in years.”

We went back to Langer’s apartment. He opened the door wide. Still with the glass in his hand.

“Oh. Back so soon?”

“Did you have a mold problem in Ivy’s apartment?”

He squinted as if we were trying to trick him.

“Mold?”

“Did you remodel her bathroom to get rid of mold?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ivy told me mold was found in her apartment a couple of months ago. She had to move out for a few weeks while it was remodeled.”

“We’ve never had mold. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Did she move out?”

“Well, she was gone for a while, but she didn’t move out. She was working.”

“I thought she worked at home.”

He wiggled the glass again, only now the ice was melted. The wiggle was silent.

“No, she works with the films. A makeup artist, I think, or doing their hair. That’s why she’s gone so much. The location work.”

Pike grunted.

“Websites, huh.”

I looked back at her closed apartment door. The little courtyard grew stifling hot and the gardenias smelled like ant poison.

“Mr. Langer, how long has Ivy lived here?”

He looked from me to Pike, then back to me, and now his bald head wrinkled. He was getting nervous.

“About four months now. Why do you want to know that?”

Pike said, “We’d like to see her apartment, please.”

Langer’s eyes flickered to Pike, and he shifted from foot to foot.

“Just let you in? That wouldn’t be right. I don’t think I can let you in.”

He wiggled the silent glass nervously.

I said, “The police and I were here to question Ivy about a man involved in a multiple homicide-”

“A murder?”

“That’s why all these people have been coming around, only now it looks like Ivy’s been lying about some things. We can’t wait for her to come back.”

I glanced back at her apartment.

“She might already be back. She might be in there right now.”

He glanced at her apartment, too, and Pike stepped very close to him.

“Let us in, Mr. Langer.”

Langer hurried away for his key.

37

THE DAY I questioned Ivy Casik about Lionel Byrd, her apartment had seemed efficiently minimalist and neat, but now it felt empty, as if it were not a place where someone had ever lived. The couch, chair, and cheap dinette set were lifeless and anonymous like rental castoffs. The kitchen drawers held only three forks, three spoons, and a can opener. The double bed was as absent of life as an abandoned car, and the closet was empty. If there had been a hard-line phone, she had taken it.

Langer let us in, then clenched his hands as we searched.

Pike said, “She’s gone. Nothing here to come back to.”

Ivy Casik had lied to me and the kid at the store and Langer and Bastilla. She had lied well and thoroughly, and I wondered if she had also lied about her name.

I asked Langer if she paid the rent by check, hoping he might have one for the banking information, but he shook his head.

“Cash. First, last, and the security deposit. She paid six months in advance.”

“What about a rental agreement?”

Pike and I were still looking through her apartment when Langer returned with the agreement. He was so nervous now, his jowls were shaking.

“It has her cell phone number, but I called and it wasn’t her. I got somebody named Rami.”

Pike said, “She gave you a false number. Like everything else.”

Langer held out the rental agreement, as if we would understand just by seeing the number.

The contract was a form document you could buy in any stationery store, obligating the tenant to pay a certain amount every month and to be responsible for any damages. Spaces were provided for background information, prior residences, and references.

“Is this your handwriting, or hers?”

“Hers. It’s so much easier if you let them fill it in themselves. We sat at the table, talking.”

Her handwriting was slanted to the right and had been made with a blue ballpoint pen. An address in Silver Lake was the only former residence listed, and was probably false. Spaces for her driver’s license and Social Security numbers were filled in, but they, like the cell phone number, were probably false. I copied the numbers anyway. I planned to call Bastilla, and then Mr. Langer would have more people knocking on doors and filling his courtyard with noise.

The spaces for banking and credit information were blank.

“You didn’t require any of this?”

“She was paying with cash. She seemed so nice.”

The dog waddled in through the open door and wandered between us. Pike petted the little round head. The dog licked his hand.

Everything was written in blue ink, except for the make and model of her car. The information about her car was written in a cramped hand using black ink.

“Did you write this?”

“Uh-huh, that’s me. People never remember their license. I saw her getting into her car one day, so I went out later and copied it.”

Her car was a white Ford Neon with a California plate, and was likely the only true information we had unless she had stolen the car. I remembered seeing the Neon on the day we met.

“Are the police coming back?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

“You were lied to like everyone else.”

We thanked him for the help, then went to our cars to phone Bastilla. She didn’t seem particularly impressed.

“We talk to you about this a half hour ago, and you’re back on the case?”

“I told you I wouldn’t sit it out, Bastilla. Are you interested in this or not?”

“So she’s a liar, Cole. People lie all the time.”

“She’s the only person we’ve found with a confirmed relationship to Byrd, and she’s been lying to everyone, which means maybe she lied about Byrd, too. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Yes, it bothers me, but right now it doesn’t mean much one way or another. This guy you spoke with, the manager, is he still on the premises?”

“Yeah. In his apartment.”

“Okay. Tell him to stay put. I’ll see what the DMV has on her before we roll out.”

I closed my phone, then looked at Pike.

“They’re coming out to see Langer.”

“Cool. Let’s kick back and wait.”

I laughed, then opened the phone again and called a friend at the DMV. I read off the Neon’s plate, asked for the registration information, and had it in less than a minute. The Neon was registered to a Sara K. Hill with an address in a small community called Sylmar at the top of the San Fernando Valley.

“Does the vehicle show stolen?”

“Nope. No wants, warrants, or unpaid citations. Registration is in order and up-to-date.”

I put down the phone and told Pike.

He said, “Maybe that’s her real name.”

Sara K. Hill was listed with Sylmar Information. I copied her number, then dialed. A woman answered on the sixth ring, her voice sounding older and coarse.

I said, “May I speak with Ivy, please.”

“You have the wrong number.”

She hung up.

I called her again, and this time she answered after only two rings.

“Me, again. Is this Sara Hill?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to find Ivy Casik.”

“Well, good luck to you. I don’t know anyone by that name.”

She sounded more irritated than anything else.

“I think maybe you might. She’s driving your car.”

Sara Hill’s voice grew careful.

“Are you from the credit card?”

“No, ma’am. I’m not from the credit card.”

Her voice was still careful.

“Who did you want?”

“A tall girl, straight hair, in her mid-twenties-”

Sara Hill cut me off.

“I don’t know anyone like that! Don’t call here again!”

The line went dead again, but this time we didn’t call back. Pike went to his Jeep, I climbed into my car, and we drove north through the Cahuenga Pass toward Sylmar.

38

SYLMAR WAS a small rural community at the foot of the Newhall Pass, where the San Fernando Valley died against the mountains. The main streets were lined with outdated strip malls and fast-food outlets, but remnants of truck farms and plant nurseries were scattered across a landscape gone largely undeveloped thanks to the ugly convergence of freeways, railroad tracks, and power stations. It was the kind of area where signs offered FEED and TACK.

Pike followed me to a small house in a ragged neighborhood between the Golden State Freeway and the railroad. The yards were large the way they tend to be in rural areas, and burned dead by the heat. More than one house sported rusted-out cars and chain-link fences so old they sagged from the weight of the air. Even in that shabby neighborhood, Sara Hill’s house looked tired and sad.

The white Neon was not in her drive, so we cruised the area to see if it was parked nearby or hidden in someone’s yard. When we returned to the house, we parked on either side of the street, then Pike trotted down the drive to cover the rear. I found three letters and some throwaway flyers in the mailbox. The letters were addressed to Sara Hill. We had the right place.

I brought the mail to the door, rang the bell once, then knocked. A few seconds later, Mrs. Sara K. Hill called from behind the door.

“Who is it?”

“I phoned about Ivy Casik.”

“Go away. I don’t know anything about the credit, and I ain’t got nothin’ to say about it.”

“I have your mail.”

Her voice rose.

“Put it down. Stealin’ mail is a federal crime. I’ll call the police.”

“I’m the police. Open the door and I’ll show you my badge.”

Lying is often the best policy.

Sara Hill threw open the door. She was a large woman with angry eyes and swollen joints, and she filled the frame with her bulk. She wore a thin housedress frayed at the hem, and rested her weight on a cane. I tried to see past her, but couldn’t.

“You’re not from the credit?”

“I don’t know anything about the credit. See?”

I held up my license. It didn’t look anything like a badge, but she probably didn’t understand what she was seeing.

“You gimme that mail. I don’t like the look of you one bit. You look like your voice.”

I held up the mail but didn’t give it to her.

“The Neon.”

“You’re not from the credit?”

“No, I am not from the credit. I’m trying to find the woman who is driving your car. She may have knowledge of a crime and she might be in danger.”

The angry eyes softened into something fearful, as if she was used to bad news and figured she was about to get more.

“She didn’t have an accident, did she? I don’t think I could take that right now.”

“Do you know a young woman named Ivy Casik?”

“I don’t know any Ivy Casik. My daughter is Jonna Hill. She has the car, but I guess she could’ve loaned it out. What happened?”

I tried to see past her again, and held up my hand to indicate Ivy’s height.

“This tall. A big girl, athletic, with straight hair. A heart tattooed here on her arm.”

Her eyes fluttered with even more fear, then she pivoted on the cane and grabbed the wall for support as she headed into the house. She pointed the cane at something deep in the room I could not see, so I followed her.

The small living room was as ragged as the yard, with threadbare furniture that smelled of sour flesh and pickles. An ancient console television sat under the window, but it probably hadn’t worked in years. She was using it as a table. A small Hitachi portable was on the console, along with a couple of pictures. She jabbed the cane toward one of the pictures.

“That’s Jonna right there. Don’t you dare tell me something bad.”

The picture was yet another high school graduation portrait, the kind every school in America takes during senior year so they can sell different sizes to you and your family. Jonna was Ivy, of course, only younger, with naturally dark hair. I had seen a lot of these graduation pictures in the past week, but Jonna Hill’s picture was not the last. A picture of Yvonne Bennett was beside it.

I stared at Yvonne for a while, then looked at Sara Hill. The only part of her I saw in her daughters were the eyes. Seeds of anger were deep in their eyes.

Joe Pike stepped out of the kitchen, as quiet as air moving through air.

“She’s not here.”

Mrs. Hill staggered sideways in surprise, catching herself on her cane.

“Jesus Lord, what is this? Who are you?”

I gave her a gentle smile.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Hill. He’s the police, too. We just wanted to make sure everyone was safe.”

I glanced at Pike.

“See if she left anything.”

Mrs. Hill waved the cane after him as he disappeared.

“Where’s he going? What’s he going to do?”

“Look around. It’s a cop thing. We always look around.”

She jabbed at the picture again.

“You better not be from the credit and lied to get in here. Jonna warned me the credit might send a man looking for her.”

I kept my voice gentle, just like the smile.

“Did Jonna tell you she was hiding from a collection agency?”

“She got behind, is all. You know how these kids do with the plastic. She said they were getting mean about it and if anyone came I should say I don’t know where she is and haven’t heard from her.”

Then she studied me as if realizing what she was saying.

“That isn’t you, is it? If you’re lying I’ll get on the phone right now. I’ll call the police.”

“We’re not from the credit.”

“Then why do you want Jonna? She isn’t in trouble, is she?”

“Yes, I think she is.”

Sara clumped to the couch and eased herself down.

“Lord, please don’t tell me that. She told me she had the credit problems, but now something like this.”

I picked up the picture of Yvonne. Yvonne would have been five or six years older than Jonna, and though I could see a resemblance, they didn’t look much alike. Even in high school, the woman I knew as Ivy Casik looked humorless and dark. Even then, Yvonne’s mouth had already curled into a knowing grin absent of innocence.

“Is this Jonna’s sister?”

“I don’t talk about that one. That’s the bad one. She was always bad, and her bad ways caught up. I wouldn’t even keep it up there if it wasn’t for Jonna. She gets mad when I put it away.”

“Her name was Yvonne.”

Sara Hill was surprised.

“You knew her?”

“I worked on the case.”

“She was a tramp. Wasn’t no better than a cat in heat from when she was little.”

My right eye ticked and I fought to control it. I put the picture back in its place.

“They had different fathers to go with the different last names?”

“The good one and the bad one, just like the girls, and the good one wasn’t worth too damn much, either. He left like they all left, off to take up with tramps. Vonnie drove half of’m away, acting the tramp.”

Pike reappeared. He shook his head, telling me he hadn’t found anything. I sat beside Mrs. Hill.

“We need to find Jonna. She’s got worse trouble than bad credit.”

“Don’t tell me she’s turned into a whore. Jonna was always the good one, not like Yvonne. Just please don’t tell me that.”

“Remember Lionel Byrd?”

“I never heard of him.”

“Lionel Byrd was charged with Yvonne’s murder. You didn’t know that?”

She twitched her cane as if she didn’t give a damn either way.

“I washed my hands of all that. She was always bad, and her bad ways caught up to her. We parted company long before she was punished.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“You washed your hands.”

“When the police called I told’m I wanted nothing to do with it. It liked to kill Jonna, though. My God, she carried on, going on and on about how this man got away with it, but I just wouldn’t hear of it, all that sordid mess, and I said this must stop, Jonna, Yvonne isn’t worth it. Yvonne has always been like this and she got what she deserved.”

Pike said, “I’ll wait outside.”

Mrs. Hill frowned as he left.

I said, “Did Jonna want to punish the man who murdered Yvonne?”

She waved the cane again.

“Don’t be silly. She got over all that, got herself a good job, and she’s doing just fine, thank you very much. Jonna’s my good baby. We don’t talk about Yvonne. She knows I won’t have it.”

“Where is she?”

“I guess she’s at home.”

“We just left her place. It looked like she moved out.”

Mrs. Hill seemed confused.

“Maybe she thought you were from the credit. She was here just a little while ago, and told me she was going right home.”

Something in her casual certainty made me wonder if we were talking about the same thing.

“She went back to Hollywood?”

“What’s down in Hollywood?”

“Her apartment.”

“She doesn’t live in Hollywood. She lives right over here by the reservoir.”

I could see it in the clarity of her eyes. Sara Hill was telling me the absolute truth as she knew it. Her daughter had successfully lied to everyone.

Then her eyes grew smaller and blinked.

“You’re not from the credit, are you? She was so afraid someone would come after her she thought she might have to hide.”

I gave her a smile I did not feel.

“I’m not from the credit. Tell me where Jonna lives. I’ll find out why she’s afraid.”

39

JONNA HILL had rented a small bungalow not much larger than Angel Tomaso’s garage, less than a half-mile from her mother. Pike stayed with Sara to prevent her from warning her daughter, so I drove to Jonna’s alone. I didn’t know what I expected to find, but she was getting ready to leave.

The white Neon was parked at the side of the house with its trunk open like a hungry mouth. The woman I knew as Ivy Casik was carrying an armful of clothes toward the car when I pulled into her drive. She didn’t recognize me at first because she stood with the clothes, staring, and then I got out.

“Hi, Jonna. Remember me?”

She dropped the clothes and ran toward her door. I closed on her fast, but she reached the door, and for no reason I knew then or now, she turned hard for the street. Maybe she was so scared all she thought was to run and keep running.

I tackled her in the front yard, and the two of us tumbled into the baked earth and dead grass. She punched and gouged, pumping her knees to get away until I locked her elbow.

“Stop it, Jonna-stop!”

“I told the police about you! I’ll call them again!”

“C’mon. I know you’re Yvonne’s sister. Stop.”

She finally stopped, sucking air with a whimpering sound that wasn’t quite crying.

I pulled her to her feet, then brought her inside, where she sat with her face in her hands. Several pictures of Yvonne Bennett were pushpinned to the wall, most showing the two of them as children together, Jonna much smaller because Yvonne was older, Jonna unsmiling even then, Yvonne with an arm protectively around her shoulders. Jonna had already taken down a few, but some were still up.

“Who helped you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Who helped you kill him?”

She shook her head.

“All I knew was Lonnie Jones. I didn’t know who he was until I saw the paper.”

“So Yvonne Bennett’s sister just happened to rent a room across the street from the man who was accused of murdering her?”

“Shit happens.”

“Where’d you get the pictures?”

“I don’t know anything. I’m going to call the police.”

Someone had given her the pictures. Someone had told her where to find Lionel Byrd and had put the plan in her head and convinced her she could finally make the man who murdered her sister pay. Someone had used her, and I thought it might be Wilts. If Wilts wanted to set up Byrd to stop the Repko investigation, it had to be Wilts, but I didn’t have proof.

“Was it Wilts?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did Wilts give you the pictures?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her eyes were clear and unafraid, and I knew she wasn’t going to admit to any of it. I called Pike on my cell.

“She’s here. I have her.”

“I’m on my way.”

I put away the phone, then looked through Jonna’s things. I was mostly checking for a gun or knife or something she might kill me with, but I found a copy of Lionel Byrd’s original arrest report and court documents relating to the dismissal of the charges against him.

I held them up to show her.

“This is what we call evidence.”

She raised her middle finger.

“This is what we call the finger. You don’t have shit.”

Her wallet, keys, sunglasses, and two cell phones were on the kitchenette counter. I didn’t pay attention to the phones at first, but one was familiar. It was a clunky, inexpensive knockoff, exactly the same phone pictured on the spec sheet I found in Marx’s file.

When I picked up the phone, Jonna shifted uneasily.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this to me, but I’m going to have you arrested. That’s no bullshit.”

I touched a finger to my lips. “Shh.”

“That isn’t my phone. I found it.”

“Shh.”

The more I examined the phone, the more certain I became. Jonna’s other phone was a nice little Motorola, but the Kyoto was identical to the disposable phone in Marx’s file. Debra Repko had received six calls from a prepaid number assigned to the same model phone. She had called a similar phone on her PDA.

Pike turned into the drive behind the Neon and let himself through the door. He nodded when he entered, but said nothing. Jonna’s eyes widened as if he were a cobra. I showed him the phone.

“Look familiar?”

“The disposable.”

“Uh-huh.”

I turned on the phone and watched the display as the phone found a signal. It took me a minute to figure out how to access the call list, then I scrolled through the outgoing calls. Maybe I smiled. All the outgoing calls had been placed to the same number, and it was a number I recognized.

Pike said, “What?”

“She’s been calling the same number Debra Repko called. All the incoming calls were from the same number, too.”

“Wilts?”

“Let’s find out.”

Jonna pushed up from the chair and tried to run, but Pike wrapped her in his arms. She kicked and whipped her head from side to side, but Pike held her close and covered her mouth. He squeezed just enough to make her stop squirming, then nodded at me.

I dialed the number, then waited through the rings. I didn’t wait long.

A voice said, “Jonna? Jonna, where have you been? I’ve been calling-”

I held my breath, and wondered if he could hear the pulse pounding in my ear.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

He raised his voice.

“Do we have a bad connection?”

I turned off the phone, then took a deep breath. I wanted to push it out and blow away all the terrible feelings, but I couldn’t move.

Pike said, “Was it Wilts?”

I shook my head.

“No. Not Wilts. It was Alan Levy.”