Robert Crais - Sunset Express

The days grew warm again, and I decided to refinish the deck. It had been almost eight years since I'd last stained and sealed the deck, and the wood was showing its age. Joe offered his help, and we spent the core of each day sanding and staining and sealing. We listened to music as we worked, but from time to time we turned to the news. Twenty-three days after the events beneath the radio tower, the California Bar quietly closed its investigation, saying that all evidence pointed to wrongdoing by Elliot Truly and not by Jonathan Green. Twenty-five days after the tower, the District Attorney's office dropped all charges against Jonathan Green save one count of tampering with evidence. I was on a ladder beneath the deck when we heard the news, and Pike said, 'He's getting away with it.'

I went inside and called Anna Sherman, who said, 'It's the best we can do.' Her voice was faraway and sounded lost.

I said, 'This is crap. You know he was behind it.'

'Of course.'

'He set up Truly just like he set up Rossi and Pritzik and Richards. He ordered Lester's murder. They were going to kill Louise Earle. He did his best to destroy the life and career of a police officer who did nothing worse than do her job.'

She didn't say anything for a time, and then she said, 'He knows how to play the game, Elvis. What can I tell you?' Then she hung up.

Twenty-eight days after the towers, Pike and I finished sealing the deck. It was slick and gleaming and smelled of marine-grade varnish. After the varnish had cured, we put the deck chairs and the Weber and the little table back, and sat in the sun drinking cold Falstaff. We sat for a while, and then Pike said, 'Say something.'

I looked at him.

'You haven't said anything for three days. You've said next to nothing for almost two weeks.'

'Guess I'm getting like you.'

I smiled at him, but he didn't smile back.

I finished my Falstaff, crimped the can, then put it carefully onto the shining deck. Little rings of condensation beaded on the thick varnish. I said, 'I'm not sure that I want to do this anymore.'

'Be an investigator?'

I nodded.

'What do you want to do?'

I shrugged.

'You want to stop being what you've been for almost fifteen years because Jonathan Green is getting away with murder?' He frowned when he said it. Like maybe he was disappointed.

I spread my hands. 'I guess that's it. Elvis Cole, sore loser.'

Pike shook his head.

I went inside, brought out two fresh Falstaffs, and gave him one. I said, 'What would you say if I told you that I was thinking about moving to Louisiana to be closer to Lucy?'

Pike sipped some of the Falstaff, then gazed out at the canyon, then wet his lips and nodded. 'I'd say that I'd miss you.'

I nodded.

'I'd say that if that's what you needed to do, that I would help any way that I could.'

I nodded again.

'You talk to her about it?'

'Not yet.'

Pike shook his head. 'You're something.'

Four hours later Pike was gone and I was cooking a very nice puttanesca sauce when I decided to call Lucy Chenier. I was most of the way through a bottle of California merlot. In the course of my life I've been shot, sapped, slugged, stabbed with a broken beer bottle, and I've faced down any number of thugs and miscreants, but talking to Lucy about moving to Louisiana seemed to require fortification. She answered on the third ring, and I said, 'Guess who?'

'Have you been drinking?' Don't you hate smart women?

'Absolutely not.' Giving her affronted. Giving her shocked. Then I said, 'Well, maybe a little.'

She sighed. 'I heard on the news that the charges against Green were reduced. How's Angela?'

'Not great, but not bad, either. The public still thinks that she's rotten, but I've cleared her.'

'How nice for her children.'

'Green kept himself insulated so that there was always plausible deniability.'

'What about Truly's dying declaration?' I had told her about Truly weeks ago. 'That's legitimate evidence.'

'It is, but since it was witnessed only by me and Angela and Joe, the powers that be view it as questionable. Because I resigned from Green's employ, and because he accused Rossi, the powers that be feel that a jury would discount our version of events.'

She didn't say anything for a time, and then she said, 'Well, in this case the powers that be are probably right.'

I nodded, but she probably couldn't see it. 'I don't believe Truly had a secret agreement with Teddy Martin. Green fabricated that, just as he fabricated the business about Pritzik and Richards.'

'I'm sure you're right.'

'Truly was telling the truth.'

I'm sure of that, too.'

I didn't say anything. I was staring at the bubbles rising in the sauce and my shoulders felt tight and I was wishing that I hadn't drunk all the wine.

Lucy said, 'It hurts, doesn't it?'

I moved my tongue, trying to scrub away the wine's taste. 'Oh, God, yes.'

'You try so hard to make things right, and here's this man, and he's oozing through the system in a way that keeps things wrong.'

'He is defiling justice.' Defiling. That was probably the merlot talking.

She said, 'Oh, Studly.' I could see her smile. 'The law is not about justice. You know that.'

I finished the merlot and turned off the sauce. It was thick with chunks of tomatoes and black olives and raisins. I had cooked it without being hungry. Maybe I just wanted to give myself something worthwhile to do. 'Of course I know, but it should be.'

Lucy said, 'The law is an adversarial contest that defines justice as staying within the rules and seeing the game to its conclusion. Justice is reaching a conclusion. It has very little to do with right and wrong. The law gives us order. Only men and women can give us what you want to call justice.'

I took a deep breath and let it out. 'God, Lucille, I wish you were here.'

'I know.' Her voice was soft and hard to hear. Then she said, 'You're still the World's Greatest Detective, honey pie. They can't take that away from you.'

It made me smile.

Neither of us spoke for a time, and then Lucy said, 'Do you remember Tracy Mannos at Channel Eight? We met her at Green's party.'

'Sure. The program manager.'

'She called me last week. She arranged for the network affiliate here in Baton Rouge to shoot a test tape of me, and after she saw it she offered me a job as an on-air legal commentator.'

I said, 'In Baton Rouge?'

'No, Elvis. Out there. In Los Angeles.'

I couldn't say anything. The merlot seemed to be rushing through my ears.

Lucy said, 'It's more money, and we would be closer to you, but it's such a big move.' You could hear her uncertainty.

I said, 'You'd come to Los Angeles?'

'There's so much to think about. There's Ben. There's my house and my friends. I'm not sure what to do about Richard.'

'Please say yes.' It came out hoarse.

She didn't say anything for a time. 'I don't know just yet. I need to think about it.'

'I told Joe that I was thinking about moving to Baton Rouge.'

Another pause. 'Are you?'

'Yes.'

'Would you?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'You know why, Lucille. I love you.'

She didn't speak for another moment, and when she did her voice seemed lighter, somehow more at ease. 'I need to think.'

'Call me tomorrow.'

'I may not know tomorrow.'

'Call me anyway.'

She said, 'I love you, Studly. Always remember that.'

Lucille Chenier hung up, and I lay on my kitchen floor and smiled at the ceiling, and not very much later I knew that I had found the last and final way to bring Jonathan Green to justice.

Or, at least, a close approximation.

I called Eddie Ditko first. He came over that night, coughing and wheezing, but happy to eat spaghetti with the puttanesca sauce and listen to my account of the events in the maintenance shed while he recorded my every word. He grinned a lot while I talked, and said that he could guarantee a bottom half of the front-page position for the story. He said, 'Man, the shit's gonna hit the fan when this comes out.'