Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

Karen said, “I'll finish spreading the blanket.”

Joe followed Paulette onto the track, and noticed that she stood so that she could see her husband. Her smile was gone, and her brow knitted into a tight line. Woz had stopped to speak with a black couple. She said, “Joe, is something going on with Woz?”

Pike didn't answer.

“Why is he working so many extra shifts?”

Pike shook his head, and felt himself falling inward.

She frowned at him, and he thought that he might do anything to stop that frown, but he didn't know what to do. He didn't think it his place to tell her things that Woz should tell her. She said, “Please don't play the voiceless man with me, Joe. I'm scared, and I'm worried about him.”

“I don't know what to tell you.” Not a lie. He didn't.

Her eyes went back to her husband, and she crossed her arms. “I think he has a girlfriend.” She looked back at Joe again, and there was a lot of strength in her now. The strength made him want to hold her, but as soon as he realized that, he took a half-step away. She didn't notice. “I want to know if he has someone.”

“I don't know anything about a girlfriend, Paulette.”

“Even when he doesn't work an extra shift, he leaves the house. When he's home, he's always pissed off. That isn't like him.”

Pike glanced over at Woz, and saw that he was looking at them. The black couple moved on, but Wozniak stood there. He wasn't smiling. Pike glanced over at the drink tables again, and saw two men he didn't recognize speaking with the Division commander. Behind them, another man was aiming a long-lens camera at them. The camera might've been pointing at the DC and the two strangers, but Pike knew it was pointing at him. Getting a shot of him speaking with Wozniak's wife. Even here at the Division picnic, they were watching.

Joe said, “Would you like me to speak with him? I'll talk to him if you want.”

Paulette didn't say anything for a time, and then she shook her head. When she touched Joe's arm again, he felt something electrical tingle through his arms and legs, and he forced himself deeper into the pool. Even more calm. More still. She said, “Thank you, Joe, but no. This is mine to deal with. Please don't tell him that I mentioned this to you.”

“I won't.”

“He's coming now. I'll tell him that I was inviting you and your girlfriend to the house. Is that all right?”

“Yes.”

“In fact, it's true. Because you are invited.”

Paulette Wozniak squeezed his arm, her hand lingering dry and warm, and then she walked across the field to meet her husband.

Joe Pike stood on the track, watching her walk away, and wished that the secrets they had weren't about this.

Karen smoothed the edges of the blanket, and listened to Marybeth Casey carry on about her twins (one of whom was a bed wetter), her husband, Walter (who didn't enjoy being an officer, but night school was just too much for them right now), and how these Division picnics were always such fun because you got to meet new people.

As Marybeth went on to describe the fibroid tumors in her left breast, Karen found that she was no longer listening. She was watching Joe and Paulette Wozniak, together on the run ning track. Karen told herself that she was being entirely too Latin at the flush of fear that surged through her when Paulette put her hand on Joe's arm. They were friends. She was married to Joe's partner, and she was so much older than Joe.

Karen stared at Joe so intently that her vision seemed to telescope, zooming close to his face, so that every pore seemed to stand out, every nuance exaggerated. Joe was the most difficult man to read she'd ever known. He was so enclosed that she thought he must've put himself in some small secret box that he kept deep within himself. That was part of why she was attracted to him, she knew. She'd read enough psychology texts to know that much. That she was drawn by the mystery, that some great and needing part of her wanted to open that box, to find his secret self.

She loved him. She'd even told her friends that she loved him, though she hadn't yet told Joe. He was so silent, she was afraid that he wouldn't respond in kind. He was so contained that she couldn't be sure.

Karen watched them talk, and felt the flush of jealousy when Paulette Wozniak touched him, but Joe was as unreadable with Paulette as he was with her. “You're being silly,” she thought. “He is like that with everyone.”

Paulette Wozniak touched Joe's arm again, then walked across the field toward her husband, and Karen knew then that she was wrong.

A sour wash of fear jolted through her as she watched Joe staring after Paulette Wozniak. Everything she saw in Joe's face and stance told her that his heart belonged to someone else.

On the morning that Karen Garcia was buried, I stood naked on my deck, stretching in the darkness. The sun had not yet risen, and, for a time, I watched the few stars brilliant enough to burn their way through the halo of light that floated above the City of Angels, wondering if, somewhere out there, a killer was watching them, too. I thought not. Psycho killers probably slept in.

Little by little, the stiffness of sleep faded as my body warmed, and I eased from the stillness of hatha yoga to the dynamic tension of tae kwon do katas , starting slowly at first, then moving faster until the movements became explosive and fierce. I finished the katas wet with sweat as the canyon below my house lightened with the first purple glimmers of sunrise. I let the sweat cool, then gathered my things and went inside. Once, I stayed out too long, and the woman who lives in the next house saw me and made a wolf whistle. Her husband came out onto their deck, and he made a wolf whistle, too. Life in L.A.

I was standing in my kitchen, drinking orange juice and watching eggs boil, when the phone rang. I grabbed it on the first ring so it wouldn't wake Lucy.

Samantha Dolan said, “I've got two guys who'll be at Forest Lawn with me.”

“Two. Wow, Dolan. There won't be room for the mourners.” I was still pissed off about Krantz.

“Save the attitude and keep your eyes open. You and Pike make five of us.”

“Pike will be with Frank.”

“He can still see, can't he? We're looking for a white male between twenty and forty. He may linger after, and he may approach the grave. Sometimes they leave something, or they'll take a souvenir.”

“Krantz's buddy at the Feebs tell you that?” It was typical behavior for a serial killer.

“The burial's scheduled for ten. I'll be there at nine-thirty. And, Cole?”

“What?”

“Try not to be such an ass.”

Forest Lawn Memorial Park is four hundred acres of rolling green lawns at the foot of the Hollywood Hills in Glendale. With immaculate grounds, re-creations of famous churches, and burial areas with names like Slumberland, Vale of Memory, and Whispering Pines, I have always thought of it as a kind of Disneyland of the Dead.

Since Dolan was going to get there at nine-thirty, I wanted to get there earlier. But when I turned into the grounds and found Karen Garcia's burial site, Dolan was already there, and so were a hundred other people. She was parked with an easy eyes-forward view of the crowd on the slope. A long-lens Konica camera rested in her lap. She would use it to take pictures of the crowd for later identification.

I slipped into the passenger side of her Beemer, and took a breath. “Dolan, I know you're doing what you can. I was a jerk this morning. I apologize.”