last few years.'
He gives an approving nod. 'Good detective finds his own leads.'
'That old chestnut,' Callie says with faux scorn. 'You two have fun. Damien and I are going to the lab.'
'Stop calling me that, you drug addict,' James says. It's hard to tell with James. Is he poking fun at Callie? Or really trying to skewer her?
Callie takes it in stride.
'Touche, Priscilla. Now get those ruby slippers in gear and let's go to work.'
They head out the door insulting each other.
'He seems to be adjusting to Callie harassing him about being gay,' Alan observes.
'I think he'd be more disturbed if she didn't. This way he knows she really couldn't care less. Besides, he knows she'd never do it around anyone but us.'
'Yeah. You going to run those other errands?'
'Give me fifteen minutes and I'll meet you in the lobby.'
17
'NOTHING'S HIT THE NEWS YET ON LISA REID,' AD JONES tells me.
'I'm impressed. Even without the fact of her being a congressman's kid, murder mid-flight should have gotten someone's attention.'
'Director Rathbun knows how to handle the press. It won't last forever, though. Where are we at?'
I fill him in on everything that's happened since we last spoke, including the various theories that we're batting around.
'What's your feeling on this?' he asks me when I'm done. AD Jones got where he is by working his way up the ranks. He's done the work, put in the time. He'll never be a 'suit.' When he asks a question like this, he asks it because he respects my views and he wants the unvarnished truth.
'I think we're going to hit a dead end very soon unless we find a new lead or . . .'
'He kills someone else,' AD Jones finishes for me. There it is again, that pause in the earth's rotation. The killer is out there, and he's hunting. Maybe a woman died last night while I was sleeping. Maybe a woman died this morning while I drank my coffee and joked with Callie.
I force these thoughts from my head.
'Yes, sir. This is a very methodical individual. He's confident and a risk taker, but he's not crazy. He's not fighting sexual urges or hearing voices. He's pursuing a course in the direction of a known goal. Exactly what that goal is, we haven't figured out yet.'
He leans back in the brown leather chair that he's had since I've known him. It is worn and cracked in places. He's been told on more than one occasion to get rid of it, orders he's ignored. He can be stubborn like that. He gets away with it because he's good at what he does.
'Okay,' he says, 'then what's left? What's the plan of attack?'
'Callie and James are dealing with the trace. Perhaps we'll get a break there.'
'But you don't think so.'
'No, sir, but . . .' I shrug. 'Assume making an ass of u and me and all that.'
'And? What else?'
'Alan and I are returning to Father Yates. We're going to interview all of Rosemary's known associates and see where that takes us.'
He taps his fingers on the desk. Nods. 'I'll fill in the Director. Keep me in the loop.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And call Rosario Reid, Smoky. Keeping her in the loop and on our side is a good idea.'
'That was the very next thing, sir.'
'NOTHING NEW? NOTHING AT ALL?'
Rosario's voice sounds far away. I don't hear the strength I'd seen in her car that night.
'No, I'm sorry. But it's early, Rosario, very early. Sometimes this is how it goes.'
'And that other poor girl he murdered? Does she have a family too?'
'Not that we've found. She did have her church, though.'
Silence.
'Lisa's funeral is tomorrow.'
I hear the edge in her voice, the desire to crack warring with her own control.
'I'm sorry.'
'Can I ask you something, Smoky?'
'Anything you like.'
'How was it? Burying your Alexa?'
The question has scalpel precision; it cuts through my defenses in a blink.
How was it? The memory is as vivid now as then. I buried them at the same time, Matt and Alexa, my world. I remember that the day was beautiful. California sun lit up the coffins till the metal on them gleamed. The sky was cloudless and blue. I heard nothing, felt nothing, said nothing. I marveled at the sun and watched as my life was put into the ground, forever.
'It was like a horror movie that wouldn't end,' I tell her.
'But it did end, didn't it?'
'Yes.'
'And that was even worse, wasn't it? That it ended.'
'That was the worst of all.'
I promised her truth, always, and I have no qualms about delivering it. Rosario Reid and I are sisters in spirit. We don't really have it in us to take our own lives in despair, or to turn into raging alcoholics. We're built to grieve and scream and then, when it's over, to carry on. Changed and heavier, but alive. She wants to know what is going to happen; I'm telling her. I can't save her from it, I can only prepare her for it.
'Thank you for keeping me up-to-date, Smoky.' A pause. 'I know, you know, that finding him is not going to make it better. It's not going to bring her back to me.'
'But that's not the point, Rosario. I understand, believe me. He has to pay.'
He has to pay for what he did, not because it will bring Lisa back, not even because it will diminish any of the pain her death leaves behind, but because he killed Rosario's child. No other reason is needed, it stands alone. Eat a mother's children and pay the price, a law of the universe that must be enforced.
'Yes. Good-bye.'
'Good-bye, Rosario.'
I realize, after we hang up, that I had been lucky, in a way. I got to kill the man who killed my child. It changed nothing. My Alexa was still dead. But . . . when I think of him, dying at my hand, a lioness purrs inside me, satisfied and terrible. That blood on her whiskers always tastes divine.
18
THE SUMMER DIES HARD HERE, HOLDING ON TO SUNLIGHT with its last gasp. The air this morning had been crisp, cool but not cold, and now the temperature is heading into the high sixties. The traffic is not bad. Alan is able to keep the speedometer above seventy-five. This can be a minor miracle on the 405 freeway any time of day. You're never lonely on the 405, no matter when you drive. I watch as Los Angeles proper morphs into the San Fernando Valley. It's a subtle change but a change nonetheless. If Los Angeles were an apple, it would be rotting from the inside out, with downtown as its core. The Valley is blighted as well, but flowers still grow through the cracks in places. There is just a little bit more space, just a little less dirt.
We pull into the parking lot of the Holy Redeemer.
'Not much to look at, is it?' Alan observes.
I hadn't gotten a good look at the church last night; it was dark and I'd been tired. Alan is right. It's small, probably poorly funded. No rich parishioners to keep Father Yates in real butter, here. This place is strictly margarine. Water from a tap, not a bottle.
'I trust it more this way,' I say.
Alan smiles. 'I know what you mean.'
