Robert Crais - Chasing Darkness

“Do you believe Byrd killed those seven people?”

“Looks that way, but I don’t know. The facts appear to be on their side.”

“It might look that way, but do you believe it?”

I hesitated, thinking back through everything Lindo and Starkey had told me, and also everything I had learned three years ago on my own.

“No. Maybe I should, but I don’t. I know Byrd. Not the way someone who knows him would know him, but I put everything I had into reconstructing his life on the night Yvonne Bennett was murdered. That night, I owned him. I had him by the places he went, the people he met, what he said to them, and how he said it. I knew how loud he talked, how little he tipped, where he sat, and how long he stayed before moving on. An A-list predator would have blended into the background, but Byrd was loud, crude, obvious, and drunk. I knew him on that night better than anyone, and I do not believe he killed Yvonne Bennett. Maybe he knew the murderer, I guess that’s possible, but he did not kill Yvonne Bennett. I do not believe it. I can’t.”

“Listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Even if the worst is true, what happened here is not your fault. You will feel bad, and you will mourn because something so ugly happened, but you have always acted with a good heart. If this terrible thing is true, do you know what you will do?”

I nodded, but didn’t answer.

“You will man up and ranger on. I will personally fly out on the L-jet, and hold you. Do you hear me?”

The L-jet was our personal joke. If Lucy had a private jet, it would be the L-jet.

I said, “You’re holding me now.”

“I’m not finished. Have you been drinking?”

“Yes.”

“Listen to me.”

“I miss you.”

“Shut up and listen. I want you to listen to me.”

“I’m listening.”

“Say something funny.”

“Lucy, c’mon-”

She raised her voice.

“Say something funny!”

“Something funny.”

“Not your best effort, but it’s a start. Now hang up.”

“Why?”

“Just hang up. I’ll call right back.”

She hung up. I held the phone, wondering what she was doing. A few seconds later it rang. I answered.

“Luce?”

She shouted.

“Answer like you mean it!”

She hung up again. I waited again. The phone finally rang, so I answered the way she wanted.

“Elvis Cole Detective Agency. We find more for less. Check our prices.”

Her voice came back as gentle as a kiss.

“That’s my World’s Greatest.”

“I love you, Luce.”

“As a friend.”

“Sure. Friends.”

“I love you, too.”

“We could be friends with benefits.”

“You never give up.”

“Part of the benefit package.”

“I’d better get going. Call me.”

“Call you what?”

She hesitated, and I knew she was smiling. I could feel her smile from two thousand miles away, but then my own smile faded.

I said, “Do you think I’m kidding myself?”

“I think you want to be convinced. One way or the other, you’ll have to convince yourself.”

I stared at the black canyon below, and the lights showing warm on the ridges.

“If Byrd didn’t kill them, then someone else did.”

“I know.”

She was silent for a while, then her voice was soft and caring.

“You told me the facts were on their side. If you don’t like their facts, find your own facts. That’s what you do, World’s Greatest. No one does it better.”

She hung up before I could answer.

I held the phone for a while, then called Pike. His machine picked up with a beep. Pike doesn’t have an outgoing message. You just get the beep.

I said, “You’re a good friend, Joe. Thanks.”

THE WIND died during the night, leaving the canyon behind my house still and bright the next morning. I brought in the paper, then went into the kitchen, where the cat who shared the house was waiting. He’s large and black, with delicate fur and more scars than an Ultimate Fighter after a bad run. He loves me, he worships Joe Pike, and he pretty much hates everyone else. All the fighting has had an effect.

I said, “How’s life in Cat Land?”

When your girlfriend lives two thousand miles away, you talk to your cat.

He was sitting by his dish where he waits for breakfast, only this time he brought his own. The hindquarters of a tree rat were on the floor by his feet.

The cat blinked at me. Proud. Like I should fall to and dig in.

He said, “Mmrh.”

“Good job, m’man. Yum.”

I cleaned it up with paper towels, then gave him a can of tuna. He growled when I threw away the legs, but the tuna helped him get over it.

I made a cup of instant coffee, then put on a pot of real coffee to brew while I read the newspaper’s coverage of Lionel Byrd: Killer Leaves Bloody Album of Death.

The Times had done a good job with so little time. The story was tight and direct, describing how uniformed officers had discovered Byrd dead by his own hand while evacuating Laurel Canyon during the recent fires. The “death album” and the pictures within it were described in tasteful detail. A photograph of Marx and Councilman Wilts appeared on page six, along with a sidebar article identifying the seven victims and showing the locations of their murders. Yvonne Bennett’s description left me feeling sad. She had draped herself in lies like summer scarves to convince people she was other than she was, but now a cold five-word phrase summed up her life: twenty-eight-year-old prostitute.

Only a single paragraph mentioned that Byrd had been charged with her murder, focusing more on his history of violence toward prostitutes than why the charges had been dropped. As with the newscast the night before, neither Levy nor I was mentioned. After the way Marx carried on when we met, I had expected him to publicly condemn us, but he had not.

I finished the story, but hadn’t learned much more than I already knew. Marx had spoken much about the album and Byrd’s criminal history, but presented no additional evidence linking Byrd to the victims or the crime scenes. No comment was made about DNA, witnesses before or after the fact, how Byrd selected and stalked his victims, or how he avoided detection.

I clipped out the article and map, then used the names and dates to search online for articles published at the times of the original murders. There wasn’t much to find. Only four of the seven murders had made the local papers, producing a total of nine published pieces spread over the seven years. I made notes as I read.

Sondra Frostokovich, the first victim, had been given six column inches in a single article. Described as an office manager in the city administration, her body was found in a downtown office building empty for renovation. She had been strangled only four blocks from the city administration building where she worked. The story ended with a pro forma plea that anyone with knowledge of the crime contact a Central Bureau Homicide detective named Thomas Marx. I wondered if it was the same Marx. Had to be. I wondered if he even remembered.

Janice M’Kele Evansfield was the second victim, whose arcing blood showed that she was still alive when the picture in Lindo’s book was taken. Her body had been discovered at the edge of the Brentwood Country Club in one of the richest parts of L.A., eleven months and sixteen days after the Frostokovich killing. A follow-up article two weeks later reported there were no suspects in the case and requested the public’s help.

Unlike Frostokovich and Evansfield, the third, fourth, and fifth victims were prostitutes. Chelsea Ann Morrow, Marsha Trinh, and Yvonne Bennett had not been covered by the local papers, but the sixth victim, a homeless woman named Lupe Escondido, made the front page because of the horrific nature of her murder. On a cooling night in October, she had been doused with gasoline while sleeping behind the Studio City Park and burned to death. In the picture Lindo showed me, she had been engulfed by yellow flames. I hadn’t even been able to tell she was human.