Michael Connelly - Lost Light

“There you go. There probably was a record of her calling. It just disappeared with her.”

“I guess so. What about the time of the call? Can you remember anything more about that, about when it came in?”

“Ah, jeez, I don’t know, Harry. It was just one of those things. It was just a call. I’m sure Jack put it on the log.”

He was talking about the chronological log. Everything was always entered on the log. Or was supposed to be.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But I don’t have access to that. I’m on the outside, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“You told me you thought it was ten or so months into the case, remember? You said you were working other cases by then and Jack took over lead on Angella Benton. Her murder was May sixteenth of ’ninety-nine. Martha Gessler disappeared the following March nineteenth. That’s almost exactly ten months later.”

“So I remembered it right. What else you want from me?”

“It’s just that…”

I didn’t finish. I was trying to figure out what to ask and how to say it. Something wasn’t right about the chronology.

“It’s just what?”

“I don’t know. It seems to me if Jack had recently talked to this agent he would have said something about it when she went missing. It was a big story, you know? In the papers and on the TV every night. Is there any way the call could have come earlier? Closer to the beginning of the case? That way Jack might have forgotten about it and her by the time she hit the news.”

Cross didn’t say anything for a while as he considered this. I considered other possibilities, too, but kept hitting logic walls.

“Give me another shot of that stuff, would you, Harry?”

He tried to suck too much of it down and it backed up and burned his throat. When he spoke again his voice was hoarser than usual.

“I don’t think so. I think it was ten months.”

“Close your eyes for a second, Law.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just close your eyes and concentrate on that memory. Whatever it is that you have, that you’re keying on, concentrate on that.”

“You trying to hypnotize me, Harry?”

“I’m just trying to focus your thoughts, help you remember what Jack said.”

“It won’t work.”

“Not if you don’t let it. Relax, Law. Relax and try to forget everything. Like your mind’s a blackboard and you’re erasing it. Think about what Jack said about the call.”

His eyes moved under the thin, pale eyelids but after a few moments they slowed and stopped. I watched his face and waited. It was years since I had tried any hypnotic techniques, and that had been to draw out visual descriptions of events and suspects. What I wanted from Cross now was a memory of a time and place and the dialogue that went with it.

“You see the blackboard, Law?”

“Yeah, I see it.”

“Okay, go to the board and write Jack’s name on it. Write it at the top so you have room underneath it.”

“Harry, this is stupid. I -”

“Just humor me, Law. Write Jack’s name at the top of the board.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, Law, that’s good. Now look at the board and underneath Jack’s name write the words ‘phone call.’ Okay?”

“Okay, did it.”

“Good. Now look at those three words and concentrate on them. Jack. Phone call. Jack. Phone call.”

The silence that followed my words was punctuated by the barely discernible ticking of the new clock.

“Now, Law, I want you to concentrate on the black around those words. Around those letters. Go through the letters, Law, into the black. Go through the letters.”

I waited and watched his eyelids. I saw the retinal movement begin again.

“Jack is talking to you, Law. He’s telling you about the agent. He says she has new information on the movie set heist.”

I waited for a long moment, wondering if I should have mentioned Gessler by name, then deciding it was better that I hadn’t.

“What is he saying to you, Law?”

“There’s something wrong with the numbers. They don’t match.”

“Did she call him?”

“She called him.”

“Where are you when he is telling you this, Law?”

“We’re in the car. We’ve got court.”

“Is it a trial?”

“Yes.”

“Whose trial is it?”

“It’s that little Mexican kid. The little gangbanger who killed the Korean jeweler on Western. Alejandro Penjeda. It’s the verdict.”

“Penjeda is the defendant?”

“That’s right.”

“And Jack got the call from the agent before you went to court to hear the verdict?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, Law.”

I had gotten what I wanted. I tried to think what else I could ask him.

“Law? Did Jack say what the agent’s name was?”

“No, he didn’t say.”

“Did he say he would check out the information she gave him?”

“He said he’d do some checking but that he thought it was a bullshit call. He said he didn’t think it meant anything.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Law, I’m going to tell you to open your eyes in a moment. And when you open them, I want you to feel like you just woke up but I want you to remember what we just talked about. Okay?”

“Okay, yes.”

“And the other thing is I want you to feel better. I want you to be… okay about things in your life. I want you to be as happy as you can be, Law. Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Law, open your eyes now.”

The eyelids fluttered once and then they were open. They strafed the ceiling and then came to me. They seemed brighter than before.

“Harry…”

“How do you feel, Law?”

“Okay.”

“You remember what we were talking about?”

“Yeah, that little Mex. Penjeda. We called him PinHeada. He didn’t take the deal the DA floated. Life with. He took his chances with the jury and got snake eyes. Life without.”

“Live and learn.”

What sounded like what might have been a laugh gurgled from deep in his throat.

“Yeah, that was a good one,” he said. “I remember when we were going over to court that day was when Jack told me about the call from Westwood.”

“Right. You remember when that verdict came in on Penjeda?”

“End of February, beginning of March. My last trial, Harry. A month later I took the bullet in that shithole bar and I was history. I remember watching PinHeada’s face when he heard that verdict and knew he was facing life without parole. Fucker got what he deserved.”

The laugh came up again and then I saw the light go out of his eyes.

“What is it, Law?”

“He’s up there at Corcoran playing handball in the yard or getting his ass rented out by the Mexican Mafia on an hourly basis. And I’m here. I got life without, too, I guess.”

His eyes looked into mine. I nodded because it was the only thing I could think of to do.

“It’s not fair, Harry. Life isn’t fair.”

The downtown library was on Flower and Figueroa. It was one of the oldest buildings in the whole city. Therefore it was dwarfed by the modern glass-and-steel structures that surrounded it. Inside it was a beauty, centered around a domed rotunda with 360-degree mosaics depicting the founding of the city by the padres. The place had been twice burned by arsonists and closed for years, then restored to its original beauty. I had come after the restoration was completed, the first time back since I was a child. And I continued to come. It brought me close to the Los Angeles I remembered. Where I felt comfortable. I would take my lunch in the book rooms or the upper-level patios while reading case files and writing notes. I got to know the security guards and a few of the librarians. I had a library card, though I rarely checked out a book.