parked there with its lights off.
Nicole Kelleher and Steven Winslow had changed his life. What had made Till feel that he had to perform some kind of public service was killing Steven Winslow. What had made him know he should be a detective was Nicole Kelleher.
Years later, after he had made Homicide, he took a look at the murder book that the detectives of the time had made for the death of Steven Winslow. He opened the single looseleaf notebook and found that there was nothing much in it—no interviews with eyewitnesses, no motive, no suspects, not even a reliable time of death. The cause of death had been blunt trauma to the back of the head. Jack Till was surprised to learn that the blood found at the scene had all belonged to Steven Winslow, because he remembered his own bleeding hands. It was clear that the technicians had taken samples at a number of places at the scene, and had simply missed whatever drops had belonged to Till. Since those days, the search for DNA evidence at crime scenes had grown feverish, but at the time the blood had merely been sampled and typed.
He read with intense interest the police interviews with Nicole Kelleher. She had shown the detectives only the grieving young wife-to-be. She had been planning to see Steve at noon that day. He had told her they were going to look for a present for her, and she thought he was planning to take her to pick out her engagement ring. They were that kind of couple. Steve would never have bought her a ring in advance and slipped it on her finger when she had said yes to his proposal. In families like theirs, the ring would be a lifetime investment and cost a lot of money, so the shopping was a serious task.
Winslow’s father, Steve Senior, was the owner of a company that sold protective clothing for people who handled toxic substances, and he had done well. His son Steve would have taken over when he retired. Nobody in the family had anything helpful to say about Steve’s associates, his activities, or his habits. The detectives had left notes to indicate that Steve had been charged with assaulting a woman at the age of seventeen, but the charges had been dropped when the victim changed her mind about testifying. It was clear to Till that the father had paid off the victim. There had also been a record of speeding tickets, two disorderly conducts, and a DUI. The father said those were all just the result of high spirits, that Steve was a great source of pride, and that Nicole would always be considered a member of the Winslow family.
By then Till had learned a few more lessons about human behavior, and the assault charge and the disorderly conducts had made him consider the possibility that the reason Nicole had wanted Steven to meet Jack Till was that Steven had taken up hitting her when he was displeased. At that point, Till closed the murder book, returned it to the cold-case archives, and never looked at it again.
Jack Till and Ann Donnelly hiked across the derelict field toward the road. His legs were long, and he had moved a pace ahead of her, ostensibly so they could walk single file in the tire tracks instead of fighting through the tall weeds.
“Have you ever been married?” she asked.
“Not lately.”
“What does that mean?”
“I wasn’t very good at it.”
“I don’t think it’s about skills. I think it’s about attraction and connection. There’s no skill to those things.”
She walked on for a few steps, and Jack Till began to think she was satisfied for the moment. He was relieved. He had kept the story of Rose’s leaving him a secret for so long because he felt he needed to protect Holly. The story seemed to belong to her, not to him.
“So why did you really decide to come and bring me back?”
“Because Eric Fuller was arrested for your murder. Maybe I felt some responsibility.”
“And maybe you feel a connection with me.”
“Maybe. Maybe I think that you and I share the responsibility.” Lights were visible ahead, and Jack Till waved his arms over his head and trotted toward the highway. After a moment the police car stopped, and a bright spotlight swept the field and found him. He held his arms out from his sides, then half-turned to call to her. “Show him you have nothing in your hands. I don’t want any doubts about who the good guys are.”
HOURS LATER, Till stood by a tree on the edge of the dry creek bed and watched the oversized tow truck drag his rental car up the incline toward level ground. The winch tightened and he saw the hook slip and scrape the bottom of the car, but that hardly mattered. Somebody’s insurance company was going to be paying the cost of a new car. There wasn’t much glass left, the front end seemed to be cocked to the right, and there were bullet holes in the trunk and in some of the sheet metal at the rear of the car.
He turned away from the car when the older cop walked back to talk to him. Till could see that his partner was still sitting in the police car beside Ann Donnelly. The older cop said, “Well, she verified your crazy story in all its particulars. I guess that surprised me more than it surprises you.”
“Maybe a little,” Till agreed. “This has been pretty stressful for her.”
“I checked you with the LAPD,” the cop said. “It seems that maybe what I ought to be asking is just what we can do to help you.”
Till held his eyes on him. “I was trying to drive her to the DA’s office in Los Angeles without being spotted, but that didn’t work out. So I would appreciate it if you would do a couple of things for us.”
“What are they?”
“Get her fingerprints and take her picture—front and side mug shots ought to do it. That way, if for some reason we don’t make it, then at least Eric Fuller won’t get convicted of killing her.”
“We’d be happy to do that,” said the cop. “Just tell me where to send it.”
“If you’ll give me your notebook, I’ll write it down for you.”
The cop handed him a small notebook and a pen, and Till talked as he wrote. “Sergeant Max Poliakoff, Homicide Special. Here’s his number, and the address at Parker Center.”
The cop accepted the notebook and turned his flashlight on it. “You have a good memory.”
“Not that good. It was my desk before it was his.” Till looked over at the police car, where Ann Donnelly was still sitting with the other police officer, and turned away so she couldn’t read his lips. “The other thing you can do is drive me to a place where I can rent another car. I want to find a quiet place where she and I can stay out of sight for a day or two, then take her into Los Angeles when I think the time is right. And I’d appreciate it if nobody writes down where we went. The man who’s hiring these people won’t give up while she’s alive.”
27
SYLVIE DROVE THE CAR up the long, steep, curving grade, past a convoy of slow trucks climbing toward Los Angeles. Even in the predawn darkness she could feel the change in climate. At the bottom was Camarillo, where the air was cool and damp from the ocean, but up here at the top was Thousand Oaks, where the air was dry, still heated up by yesterday’s sunshine. She knew that if she could have stopped the car and put her hand on the pavement, it would feel warm. As she drove past the green sign at the Los Angeles County line, she hit an invisible wall of frustration.
They had failed. She said, “I assume you don’t want me to drive this car to our house. Would you like to dump it someplace before the sun comes up?”
“In time,” he said. “I figure checkout time at the hotel where we got the car is noon. The housekeeping people will go into the room and find the bodies around twelve-thirty or so. We’ll be fine for now.”
“If you say so.” She drove past the eternal tie-up at the junction with the San Diego Freeway, and took the Van Nuys Boulevard exit.
Paul said, “Pull into the mall and let me out.”
Sylvie pulled to the far end near the corner and sat there as though she were checking a road map while Paul walked the few blocks to their house and returned in the black BMW. He stepped close to Sylvie and handed her the keys. “I’ll drive that one, and you follow me.”
He drove the stolen car onto the 170 freeway to the Simi Freeway and up to Little Tujunga Road. He drove up
