Michael Connelly - Lost Light

She let me go. I walked across the deck and looked down over the railing. Below, large crime scene lights had been erected. The slope was like an anthill with crime scene techs working all over the place. Crews from the medical examiner’s office were huddled over the bodies. Above it all the helicopters moved in a loud, multilevel choreography. I knew that whatever relationships I’d previously had with my neighbors were surely gone now.

“Know what, Kiz?”

“What, Harry?”

“I think it’s time to sell this place.”

“Yeah, good luck with that, Harry.”

She took me by the arm and pulled me away from the railing.

The North Hollywood station was the newest in the city. It was built post-earthquake and Rodney King riots. On the outside it was a brick fortress designed to withstand both tectonic and social upheavals. On the inside it was state-of-the-art electronics and comfort. I was sat in the center seat of a table in a large interview room. I could not see the microphones and the camera but I knew they were there. I also knew I had to be careful. I had made a bad deal. If a quarter century in the cops had taught me anything, it was not to talk to cops without a lawyer’s advice. And here I was about to do just that. I was about to open up to two people predisposed to believe me and to want to help me. But that wouldn’t matter. What would matter was the tape. I had to step carefully and make sure I said nothing that could come back on me when the tape was reviewed by those who were not my friends.

Kizmin Rider started things off by entering all three of our names into the record, reporting the date, time and location, and then reading me my constitutionally guaranteed right to a lawyer and to hold my tongue if I wished. She then asked me to acknowledge both orally and in writing that I understood these rights and was willingly waiving them. I did so. I had taught her well.

She then got right to it.

“Okay, Harry, you have four people including a federal agent dead at your house, not to mention a fifth man in a coma. You want to tell us all about it?”

“I killed two of them-in self-defense. And the guy in the coma, I did that too.”

“Okay, tell us what happened.”

I began the story at the Baked Potato and took it from there. I mentioned Sugar Ray, the quartet, the porter, the bartenders and their tattoos. I even described the cashier I had bought the coffee from at Ralph’s. I used as much detail as I could remember because I knew that the details would convince them once they checked it all out. I knew from experience that conversation was hearsay, it wasn’t provable one way or the other. So if you were going to tell a story about what people said and how they said it-especially people who were no longer alive-then you’d best salt the story with the things that could be checked and proven. The details. Safety and salvation were in the details.

So I put everything I could remember on the tape, right down to the Marilyn Monroe tattoo. That one made Roy Lindell laugh but Rider didn’t see the humor in it.

I walked them through the story, describing things as they had happened. I offered no background story because I knew that would come out in the questioning that would follow. I wanted them to have a moment-by-moment and detail-by-detail account of what had happened. I did not lie in what I told them but I didn’t tell them everything. I still wasn’t sure how to play the Milton angle. I would wait for a signal from Lindell on that. I was sure he had been given his orders long before he got to the station.

I held the Milton details out for Lindell. The detail I held out for myself was what I had seen when I closed my eyes before pressing the shotgun’s trigger. I kept the image of Angella Benton’s hands to myself.

“And that’s it,” I said when I was done. “Then the uniforms showed up and here we are.”

Rider had been jotting down notes occasionally on a legal pad. She put her pad down and looked at me. She seemed stunned by the story. She probably believed I was very lucky to have survived it.

“Thank you, Harry. That was certainly a close call for you.”

“It was about five close calls.”

“Um, I think we’re going to take a break for a few minutes. Agent Lindell and I are going to step out and talk about this and then I’m sure we will come back with some questions.”

I smiled.

“I’m sure you will.”

“Can we get you anything?”

“Coffee would be nice. I’ve been up all night and at the house they wouldn’t give me any from my own machine.”

“Coffee coming up.”

She and Lindell got up and left the room. A few minutes later a North Hollywood detective I didn’t know came in with a cup of black coffee. He told me to hang in there and left.

When Rider and Lindell came back in I noticed that there were more notes on her pad. She kept the lead and started out doing the talking again.

“We need to clear up a couple things first,” she said.

“Okay.”

“You said that Agent Milton was already in your house when you came in.”

“That’s right.”

I looked at Lindell and then back at Rider.

“You said you were in the process of informing him that you believed you had been followed home when the front door was kicked in by the intruders.”

“Correct.”

“He stepped into the hall to investigate and was immediately hit with a blast from a shotgun, presumably fired by Linus Simonson.”

“Right again.”

“What was Agent Milton doing in your house if you weren’t there?”

Before I could speak Lindell blurted out a question.

“He did have permission to be there, didn’t he?”

“Hey, how about we take one question at a time?” I said.

I looked at Lindell again and his eyes turned down to the table. He couldn’t look at me. Judging by his question, which was really a statement disguised as a question, Lindell was revealing to me what he wanted me to say. I believed at that point that he was making an offer of trade. He was almost certainly in trouble with the bureau for his aid to me during my investigation. And as such, he now had his orders: keep the bureau’s nose clean on this, or there would be consequences for him and possibly for me. So what Lindell was saying to me was that if I told the story in a way that helped him accomplish that objective-without legally compromising myself-then we would both be better off.

The truth was I didn’t mind sparing Milton posthumous controversy and shame. As far as I was concerned he’d already gotten what he deserved and then some. Going after him now would be vindictive and I didn’t need to be vindictive to a dead man. I had other things to do and wanted to preserve my ability to do them.

There was Special Agent Peoples and his BAM squad but there was too much gray between them and Milton’s actions. I had Milton on tape, not Peoples. Using one to try to get to the other was a tough road to drive. I decided in that moment to let the dead man sleep and to live to drive another day.

“What was Agent Milton doing in your house if you weren’t there?” Rider repeated.

I looked back at her.

“He was waiting for me.”

“To do what?”

“I had told him to meet me there but I got delayed because I went and bought the coffee on my way home.”

“Why was he meeting you so late at night?”

“Because I had information that would clear some things up for him.”

“What was that information?”

“It was about how a terrorist involved in a case he was working ended up with a hundred-dollar bill that supposedly came from the movie set heist I was investigating and had been warned off of. I told him I had put things together and found that the two cases were actually unrelated. I invited him to come to my lawyer’s office in the morning when you two were going to come and I’d explain it all to everybody. But he didn’t want to wait so I told him to meet me at the house.”