Good Morning, Killer

the morning sun just creeping across the deck.

Hip, all right.

“Ana,” said the lab director, “I’ve been meaning to get back to you.”

“No problemo. I know you’re under it.”

“Hello? Am I talking to the real Ana Grey, or is this a clone? The nice clone, who doesn’t put your testicles in the wringer the minute you don’t have an answer in twenty-four seconds?” “Am I really that bad?”

“On a good day. On a bad day, you don’t want to know from it.”

“Speak to me of shoe prints.”

“Don’t you love shoe prints?”

“I do,” wondering if they were drinking mojitos over at the crime lab, too. Maybe everybody was. The entire Southland. Starting around breakfast. They contain lime juice, a good source of vitamin C. “Did you recover any shoe prints from the homicide in Mar Vista?” “Of course we got shoe prints. What do you think, we’re incompetent?”

“What size?”

He clicked computer keys. “Ten.”

“Like Ray Brennan.”

“Your guy, Brennan?”

I could hear the surprise. “Is it a match?”

More anxious clicks. “The problem is, the outsoles are different and we couldn’t get the wear characteristics off the impression on the skin of that first rape victim. It was a herringbone pattern from a tennis shoe we recovered in the park.” “But the same size?”

“Correct. And, obviously, he asphyxiated her, wasn’t that the ritual?”

“He did? The new victim?”

“Where have you been?”

“Out of town.”

I had called Dr. Arnie on the odds that news of my preliminary hearing situation had not yet reached Fullerton. Propellerheads live in a parallel universe from ours; parallel to most.

“We sent a full report to the Bureau last week.”

“Last week?”

“Sometimes we do our job.”

Jason’s look came back to me, the averted eyes behind the green lenses.

“But you’re not prepared to say it’s Brennan?”

“Not conclusively. Look, I’m sure it’s all up on Rapid Start.”

“I’m not in the office.”

“Want me to fax our report to you?”

“You’re an angel.”

I placed the glass with the spent mint leaves in the water and watched it float.

Three hundred tiny lights from three hundred candles grew brighter as the sun sank behind the gymnasium building. The memorial service of Arlene Harounian was held late on a cloudy afternoon in the football field of the high school, where a stage had been outfitted with microphones and floral arrangements. The stage was big enough to hold the school orchestra, which played with heartbreaking finesse. The kids were good. They had accomplished something.

Silently they stood and carried their instruments off and the madrigal singers filed to the microphones, like everyone else wearing ordinary teenage grunge, boot-cut jeans and wind pants and baggies and Tshirts, underdressed for the gathering chill. It had been sunny in the morning. The few dozen grown-ups there, old enough to have read the weather report, came wrapped in scarves and winter coats.

The singers lofted into “Ave Maria,” and I began rooting around in the pockets of my leather jacket for tissues. Man, why was I there? To tap into that spring of grief that ran underground, seemingly always just beneath my feet? There must be a river of sadness below the pavement of our cities. One after the other, for at least the past hour, friends and teachers had stood at the podium and universally described Arlene Harounian as a girl with unusual promise, whose smile “lit up the world,” who “wanted you to feel better.” White doves were released and her basketball jersey retired. The team showed it to us from the stage, horribly laid out flat inside a frame.

Her parents sat on folding chairs with the other siblings and did not speak. The father had a wild head of madly blowing black hair and big teeth that snapped shut like a nutcracker into a stupefied smile. The littlest sister read a poem Arlene had written in seventh grade called “I Am,” which they printed in the program: “I am purple sunsets / I am the sick child who wonders why / I am a bell / I am a big sister who sometimes wants to be a little baby / I am a leaf …”

A history teacher called for the study of nonviolence, a boy played a keyboard solo. Two girls holding each other for support took turns recounting how fine-looking Arlene was, but how practical about her gifts. She had determined to become a model in order to pay for college. They wanted to be models, too, but she was the one who actually went out and had a portfolio made. It was dark by then. The little paper cups on the end of the candles, which sheltered the flames from the wind, glowed in the evening like homespun orange lamps. My fingers were caked with melted wax from turning the candle to keep it alive. Here and there the cups would catch on fire and be stomped out. Nobody giggled. A screen had been raised, and someone clicked a laptop, and we were watching a montage of slides and rap songs that told us all about Arlene Harounian’s life, from a dark-haired tyke on a bicycle to a confident young woman in a lacy cutoff top holding on to a tree and arching her back, but whose look into the camera said, I’m in charge, not you.

Then it was as if that kid with the keyboard had come back for an encore, ringing out chords of dissonance and rage. I sat up straighter and straighter, as if the conviction growing inside would fill the stadium, as if everybody must know, as I knew then, that the amateur modeling photos we were looking at on the screen were the work of Ray Brennan. All the loveliness of Arlene swirled like a crescendo of discordant notes into an artifact not of her, but of what had taken her, and that was the greatest injustice of all.

Even before I reached my car, the cell phone was ringing.

“The judge handed down his decision,” Devon said.

I did not even hold my breath.

“The judge is holding you to answer. He has found reasonable suspicion that you committed this crime, and you are held to answer for attempted murder.” He paused. “Ana?”

“We’re going to trial,” I repeated.

“No surprise,” Devon rolled on smoothly. “We expected this. We’ve heard their witnesses, and now we punch holes in every single one. It’s clear Andrew Berringer was lying. And I have investigators going after Margaret Forrester, there’s obviously a screw loose there. You’ll be happy to know Mark Rauch has already come back and asked the judge to raise bail.” “On what basis?”

“Now that you know you’re facing trial, you’re supposedly a greater flight risk. It’s a bogus argument, of course—”

“Devon?” I said calmly. “I’m fairly certain of the fact that Ray Brennan killed Arlene Harounian. The girl who was found in the park. She was his most recent victim, and I’m sure there are more. Let me call you back.”

I stood unconcerned in the middle of the parking lot as cars zigzagged and honked. In the stadium they were taking down the screen and carrying off the floral arrangements. The father had stepped down, clutching his wife’s hand. Awkwardly tucked beneath his other arm was a basketball signed by the team.

Brennan had photographed both Juliana and Arlene. He had posed them the same way, according to his own ritualized and private reasons, holding on to a tree with their butts sticking out. The photo of Juliana we had up in the command center was identical to this one, of Brennan’s latest victim.

Juliana looked scared.

Arlene looked assured.