Michael Connelly - Chasing the Dime

She backed away from the door and he stepped in. The living room was small, with barely enough room for a couch, a stuffed chair and a coffee table. There was a TV on a stand and it was tuned to one of the Hollywood news and entertainment shows. There was a small fireplace but it didn't look like it had seen a fire in a few years.

Pierce closed the door. He stepped further into the room and put the pizza box down on the coffee table and picked up the TV remote. He killed the tube and tossed the remote back onto the table, which was crowded with entertainment magazines and gossip rags and an ashtray overburdened with butts.

"I was watching that," Lucy said.

She stood near the fireplace.

"I know," Pierce said. "Why don't you sit down, have a piece of pizza."

"I don't want pizza. If I wanted it, I would have bought it from that guy. Is that how you found me?"

She was wearing cutoff blue jeans and a green sleeveless T-shirt. No shoes. She looked very tired to Pierce and he thought maybe she had been wearing makeup after all on the night they had first met.

"Yeah, they had your address."

"I ought to sue them."

"Forget them, Lucy, and talk to me. You lied to me. You said they hurt you, that you were too black and blue to be seen."

"I didn't lie."

"Well, you sure heal up fast then. I'd like to know the secret to -"

She pulled her shirt up, exposing her stomach and chest. She had deep purple bruising on the left side along the line where her ribs crested beneath her skin. Her right breast was misshapen. There were small and distinctly separate bruises on it that Pierce knew came from fingers.

"Jesus," he whispered.

She dropped her shirt.

"I wasn't lying. I'm hurt. He wrecked my implant, too. It might even be leaking but I can't get into the doctor until tomorrow."

Pierce studied her face. It was clear that she was in pain and that she was scared and alone. He slowly sat down on the couch. Whatever designs he had on the pizza were now long gone. He felt like grabbing it, opening the door and flinging it out onto the sidewalk.

His mind was clogged with images of Lucy being held by Six-Eight while Wentz hurt her. He clearly saw the joy on Wentz's face. He had seen it before.

"Lucy, I'm sorry."

"So am I. I am sorry I ever got involved with you. That's why you have to leave. If they know you came here, they'll come back and it will be a lot worse for me."

"Yeah, okay. I'll leave."

But he made no move to get up.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm batting zero tonight. I came here because I thought you were part of it. I came to find out who was setting me up."

"Setting you up for what?"

"For Lilly Quinlan. Her murder."

Lucy slowly lowered herself into the stuffed chair.

"She's dead for sure?"

He looked at her and then down at the pizza box. He thought of what he had seen in the freezer and nodded his head.

"The police think I did it. They're trying to make a case."

"The detective who I talked to?"

"Yeah, Renner."

"I'll tell him that you were just trying to find her, to make sure she was okay."

"Thank you. But it won't matter. He says that was part of my plan. I used you and others, I called the cops, all to cover that I did it. He says the killer often disguises himself as the Good Samaritan."

It was her turn but she didn't speak for a long while. Pierce studied the headlines of an old issue of the National Enquirer that was on the table. He realized he was far out of touch with the world. He didn't recognize a single name or photo of a celebrity on the front page.

"I could tell him that I was told to lead you to her place," Lucy said quietly.

Pierce looked up at her.

"Is that true?"

She nodded.

"But I swear to God, I didn't know he was setting you up, Henry."

"Who is 'he'?"

"Billy."

"What did he tell you to do?"

"He just told me that I would be getting a call from you, Henry Pierce, and that I should set up a date and lead you to Lilly's place. He said to make it seem like it was your idea to go there. That was all I was to do and that's all I knew. I didn't know, Henry."

He nodded.

"That's okay. I understand. I am not mad at you, Lucy. You had to do what he told you to do."

He thought about this, turning it and trying to see if this was significant information. It seemed to him that it was definitely evidence of the setup, though at the same time he had to acknowledge that the source of this evidence would not rate highly with cops, lawyers and juries. He then remembered the money he had paid Lucy on the night they had met.

He knew little about criminal law but enough to know that the money would be a problem. It might taint or even disqualify Lucy as a witness.

"I could tell the detective that," Lucy said. "Then he would know it was part of a plan."

Pierce shook his head and all at once realized he had been thinking selfishly, contemplating solely how this woman could help or hurt him, not for once considering her situation.

"No, Lucy. That would put you in danger from Wentz. Besides…"

He almost said that a prostitute's word would not count for much with the police.

"Besides what?"

"I don't know. I just don't think it would be enough to change the way Renner's looking at this. Plus he knows I paid you money. He'd turn that into something it's not."

He thought of something and changed tack.

"Lucy, if that's all Wentz told you to do with me, and then you did it, why did they come here? Why did they hurt you?"

"To scare me. They knew the cops would want to talk to me. They told me exactly what to say. It was a script I had to follow. Then they just wanted me to drop out of sight for a while. They said in a couple weeks everything will be normal again."

A couple weeks, Pierce thought. By then the play will be over.

"So I guess everything you told me about Lilly was part of the script."

"No. There was no script for that. What stuff?"

"Like about the day you went to her apartment but she didn't show up. That was just made up so I'd want to go there, right?"

"No, that part was the truth. Actually, all of it was true. I didn't lie to you, Henry. I just led you. I used the truth to lead you where he wanted you to go. And you wanted to go.

The client, the car, all that trouble, it was all true."

"What do you mean, the car?"

"I told you before. The parking space was taken and that was supposed to be left open for the client. My client. It was a pain in the ass because we had to go park and then walk back and he was getting sweaty. I hate sweaty guys. Then we get there and there's no answer. It was fucked up."

It came back to Pierce. He had missed it in the first go-round because he didn't know what to ask. He didn't know what was important. Lilly Quinlan didn't answer the door that day because she was dead inside the apartment. But she might not have been alone.

There was a car.

"Was it her car in the space?"

"No, like I said, she always left it for the client."

"Do you remember the car that was there?"

"Yeah, I remember because they left the top down and I wouldn't leave a car like that with the top down in that neighborhood. Too close to all the dregs that hang out at the beach."

"What kind of car was it?"

"It was a black Jag."

"With the top down."

"Yeah. That's what I said."

"A two-seater?"

"Yeah, the sports car."

Pierce stared at her without speaking for a long time. For a moment he felt light-headed and thought he might fall over on the couch, go face first into the pizza box. Everything came rushing into his mind at once. He saw it all, lit up and shining, and everything seemed to fit.

"Aurora borealis."

He whispered it just under his breath.