Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

“Mark it.”

The man went back to the trail, this time squatting. John jammed a wire into the ground by the casing, then hurried to join him. The man pointed. “Look. Here to the side.”

John looked, but saw nothing. “What?”

“Shoe.” The man pointed closer. “Here.”

John saw little bits and pieces of many prints, but couldn't imagine what this guy was talking about. “I don't see anything.”

The man didn't say anything for a moment.

“Lean close, John. Use the sun. Let the light catch it, and you'll see the depression. A three-quarter print.” His voice was infinitely patient, and John was thankful for that.

John rested with his belly in the brush alongside the trail, and looked for the longest time where the man pointed. He was just about to admit that he couldn't see a goddamned thing when he finally saw it: Three-quarters of a print, partially obscured by a runner's shoe print, and so shallow on the hard edge of the trail that it couldn't have been more than three grains of dust deep. It appeared to have been made by a casual dress shoe of some kind, like that worn by a cop, but maybe not.

John said, “The shooter?”

“It's pointing in the right direction. It's where the shooter had to be.”

John glanced back toward the shell casing. “So you figured an automatic? That's why you looked over there?” An automatic would eject to the right, and would toss a .22 casing about four feet. Then John thought of something and squinted at the man. “But what if the guy had used a revolver? A revolver wouldn't leave anything behind.”

“Then I wouldn't have found anything.” The man cocked his head almost as if he was amused. “All the people around, and no one heard it. Can't silence a revolver, John.”

John felt a blush creeping up his face again. “I know that.”

The man moved along the trail, dropping into his push-up position every few feet before rising and moving on. John thought that now would be an ideal time to run for the two uniforms, but instead jammed a wire into the ground to mark the print, and followed the man to a stand of leafy scrub sumac at the edge of the little clearing just up the trail. The man circled the trees, first one way, then another, twice bending low to the ground.

“He waited here until he saw her.”

John moved closer, careful to stay behind the man, and, sure enough, there were three perfect prints in the hard dirt that appeared to match the partial by the shell casing. As before, the prints were slight, and damn near invisible even after the man pointed them out, but John was getting better at this.

By the time John had taken it all in, the man was moving again. John hurried to wire the site before hustling to catch up.

They came to the chain-link fence that paralleled the road, and stopped at the gate. John guessed that the paved road would be as far as they could go, but the man stared across the road as if the slope on the other side was speaking to him. The radio car was to their left at the curve, but judging by the way the two cops were wrestling around in the back seat, they wouldn't notice an atom bomb going off behind them. Sluts.

The man looked up at the ridge. Off to their left were houses; to their right, nothing. The man's gaze went to a little stand of jacaranda trees at the edge of the road to their right, and then he was crossing and John was following.

John said, “You think he crossed there?”

The man didn't answer. Okay. He wasn't talkative. John could live with that.

The man searched the slope in front of the jacarandas and found something that made his mouth twitch.

John said, “What? C'mon?”

The man pointed to a small fan of loose dirt that had tumbled onto the shoulder of the road. “Hid behind the trees until people passed, then went through the gate.”

“Cool.” John Chen was liking this. Big time.

They climbed the slope, the shooter's prints now pronounced in the loose soil of the side hill. They worked their way to the ridgeline, then went over the top to a fire road. John hadn't even known that a fire road was up here.

He said, “I'll be damned.”

The man followed the fire road about thirty yards before he stopped and stared at nothing again. John waited, biting the inside of his mouth rather than again asking what the man was looking at.

But finally he couldn't stand it and said, “What, for chrissake?”

“Car.” The man pointed. “Parked here.” Pointed again. “Coolant or oil drips here. Tire tread there.”

John was already marking the spots with wire.

The man said, “Off-road tread. Long wheelbase.”

“Off-road? Like a Jeep?”

“Like that.”

John wrote notes as fast as he could, thinking that he'd have to call his office for the things he'd need to take a tire impression.

“He parked here because he's been here before. He knew where he was going.”

“You think he knew her?”

The man looked at John Chen then, and Chen reflexively stepped back. He didn't know why.

“Looked to be about a size-ten shoe, didn't it, John?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Pretty deep on the hard pack, which makes him heavier than he should be.” Pretty deep. Three grains of dust. “You can use the shoe size and his weight to build a body type. An impression of the shoe print will give you the brand of shoe.”

“I know.” John was annoyed. Maybe John wouldn't have found any of this evidence on his own, but he wasn't an idiot.

“Take an impression of the tires. Identify the size and brand. From that, you get a list of makes.”

“I know .”

The man stared down at the lake now, and John wondered what could be going on behind those dark glasses.

“You one of the detectives from downtown?”

The man didn't answer.

“Well, you gotta tell me your name and badge number for the report.”

The man angled the glasses back at him. “If you tell them this came from me, they'll discount it.”

John Chen blinked at him. “But … what do I tell them about all this?”

“I was never here, John. What does that leave?”

“ I turned the evidence?”

“If you'll play it that way.”

“Yeah. Well, sure. You bet.” His palms were damp with excitement. He felt his heart speed.

“Get the make of the tires and the list of cars. I'm going to call you. There won't be a problem with that, will there, John?”

“No, sir.” Automatic.

The man stared at him for a time, and then said something that John Chen would recall from time to time for the rest of his life, and wonder what the man had meant, and why he had said it. “Never turn your back on love, John.”

The man slipped downhill through the brush, gone almost before Chen knew he was leaving.

John Chen slowly broke into a huge white smile, and then he was running, crashing down through the brush, tripping, stumbling, rolling once, then coming to his feet as he ran past the radio car to his SID van as fast as he could, yelling for those horny fuckers to knock off the lip lock.

Suddenly, advancement seemed a lot closer.

Suddenly, the 'tang-mobile was already parked in his garage.

Coming out a second day had paid off after all.

Parker Center is an eight-story white building in downtown L.A., just a few blocks from the Los Angeles Times and two dozen bars. The bars are small, and see most of the cop business after the shift changes; their reporter business is steady throughout the day. Letters on the side of Parker Center say POLICE DEPARTMENT-CITY OF LOS ANGELES, but the letters are small, and the sign is obscured by three skinny palm trees like maybe they're embarrassed.

The lobby guard gave me a visitor pass to clip to my lapel, phoned up to Robbery-Homicide, and four minutes later the elevator doors opened. Stan Watts peered out at me like I was eye boogers.