Michael Connelly: The Poet

In late January, when the case was a month old and had dropped out of the news, I made my move. And my mistake.

One morning I went in to see Greg Glenn, the city editor, and told him I'd like to do a take out on the Lofton case. That was my specialty, my beat. Long takes on the notable murders of the Rocky Mountain Empire. To use a newspaper cliché, my expertise was going behind the headlines to bring you the real story. So I went to Glenn and reminded him I had an in. It was my brother's case, I said, and he'd only talk to me about it. Glenn didn't hesitate to consider the time and effort Jackson had already put on the story. I knew that he wouldn't. All he cared about was getting a story the Post didn't have. I walked out of the office with the assignment.

My mistake was that I told Glenn I had the in before I had talked to my brother. The next day I walked the two blocks from the Rocky to the cop shop and met him for lunch in the cafeteria. I told him about my assignment. Sean told me to turn around.

"Go back, Jack. I can't help you."

"What are you talking about? It's your case."

"It's my case but I'm not cooperating with you or anybody else who wants to write about it. I've given the basic details, that's all I'm required to do, that's where it stays."

He looked off across the cafeteria. He had an annoying habit of not looking at you when you disagreed with him. When we were little, I would jump on him when he did it and punch him on the back. I couldn't do that anymore, though many times I wanted to.

"Sean, this is a good story. You have-"

"I don't have to do anything and I don't give a shit what kind of story it is. This one is bad, Jack. Okay? I can't stop thinking about it. And I'm not going to help you sell newspapers with it."

"C'mon, man, I'm a writer. Look at me. I don't care if it sells papers or not. The story is the thing. I don't give a shit about the paper. You know how I feel about that."

He finally turned back to me.

"Now you know how I feel about this case," he said.

I was silent a moment and took out a cigarette. I was down to maybe half a pack a day back then and could have skipped it but I knew it bothered him. So I smoked when I wanted to work on him.

"This isn't a smoking section, Jack."

"Then turn me in. At least you'll be arresting somebody."

"Why are you such an asshole when you don't get what you want?"

"Why are you? You aren't going to clear it, are you? That's what this is all about. You don't want me digging around and writing about your failure. You're giving up."

"Jack, don't try the below-the-belt shit. You know it's never worked."

He was right. It never had.

"Then what? You just want to keep this little horror story for yourself? That it?"

"Yeah, something like that. You could say that."

In the car with Wexler and St. Louis I sat with my arms crossed. It was comforting. Almost as if I were holding myself together. The more I thought about my brother the more the whole thing made no sense to me. I knew the Lofton case had weighed on him but not to the point that he'd want to take his own life. Not Sean.

"Did he use his gun?"

Wexler looked at me in the mirror. Studied me, I thought. I wondered if he knew what had come between my brother and me.

"Yes."

It hit me then. I just didn't see it. All the times that we'd had together coming to that. I didn't care about the Lofton case. What they were saying couldn't be.

"Not Sean."

St. Louis turned around to look at me.

"What's that?"

"He wouldn't have done it, that's all."

"Look, Jack, he-"

"He didn't get tired of the shit coming down the pipe. He loved it. You ask Riley. You ask anybody on the-Wex, you knew him the best and you know it's bullshit. He loved the hunt. That's what he called it. He wouldn't have traded it for anything. He probably could have been the assistant fucking chief by now but he didn't want it. He wanted to work homicides. He stayed in CAPs."

Wexler didn't reply. We were in Boulder now, on Baseline heading toward Cascade. I was falling through the silence of the car. The impact of what they were telling me Sean had done was settling on me and leaving me as cold and dirty as the snow back on the side of the freeway.

"What about a note or something?" I said. "What-"

"There was a note. We think it was a note."

I noticed St. Louis glance over at Wexler and give him a look that said, you're saying too much.

"What? What did it say?"

There was a long silence, then Wexler ignored St. Louis.

"Out of space," he said. "Out of time."

" 'Out of space. Out of time.' Just like that?"

"Just like that. That's all it said."

The smile on Riley's face lasted maybe three seconds. Then it was instantly replaced by a look of horror out of that painting by Munch. The brain is an amazing computer. Three seconds to look at three faces at your door and to know your husband isn't coming home. IBM could never match that. Her mouth formed into a horrible black hole from which an unintelligible sound came, then the inevitable useless word: "No!"

"Riley," Wexler tried. "Let's sit down a minute."

"No, oh God, no!"

"Riley…"

She retreated from the door, moving like a cornered animal, first darting one way and then the opposite, as if maybe she thought she could change things if she could elude us. She went around the corner into the living room. When we followed we found her collapsed on the middle of the couch in an almost catatonic state, not too dissimilar from my own. The tears were just starting to come to her eyes. Wexler sat next to her on the couch. Big Dog and I stood by, silent as cowards.

"Is he dead?" she asked, knowing the answer but realizing she had to get it over with.

Wexler nodded.

"How?"

Wexler looked down and hesitated a moment. He looked over at me and then back at Riley.

"He did it himself, Riley. I'm sorry."

She didn't believe it, just as I hadn't. But Wexler had a way of telling the story and after a while she stopped protesting. That was when she looked at me for the first time, tears rolling. Her face had an imploring look, as if she were asking me if we were sharing the same nightmare and couldn't I do something about it. Couldn't I wake her up? Couldn't I tell these two characters from a black and white how wrong they were? I went to the couch, sat next to her and hugged her. That's what I was there for. I'd seen this scene often enough to know what I was supposed to do.

"I'll stay," I whispered. "As long as you like."

She didn't answer. She turned from my arms to Wexler.

"Where did it happen?"

" Estes Park. By the lake."

"No, he wouldn't go-what was he doing up there?"

"He got a call. Somebody said they might have some information about one of his cases. He was going up to meet them for coffee at the Stanley. Then after he… he drove out to the lake. We don't know why he went there. He was found in his car by a ranger who heard the shot."

"What case?" I asked.

"Look, Jack, I don't want to get into-"

"What case?" I yelled, this time not caring about the inflection of my voice. "It was Lofton, wasn't it?"

Wexler gave one short nod and St. Louis walked away shaking his head.

"Who was he meeting?"

"That's it, Jack. We're not going to get into that with you."

"I'm his brother. This is his wife."

"It's all under investigation but if you're looking for doubts, there aren't any. We were up there. He killed himself. He used his own gun, he left a note and we got GSR on his hands. I wish he didn't do it. But he did."

In the winter in Colorado the earth comes out in frozen chunks when they dig through the frost line with the backhoe to open up a grave. My brother was buried in Green Mountain Memorial Park in Boulder, a spot not more than a mile from the house where we grew up. As kids we were driven by the cemetery on our way to summer camp hikes in Chautauqua Park. I don't think we ever once looked at the stones as we passed and thought of the confines of the cemetery as our own final destination, but now that was what it was to be for Sean.