Eyes Wide Open (aka Killing Hour)

Perokis picked up the file. He stared almost dumbly at the Vegas ME’s photo of the dollar bill, then paged quickly through the rest. “You have a motive?”

“I don’t know the motive. Just that something’s going on. And whatever it is, it somehow connects to this Erlich kid’s father-who isn’t exactly textbook when it comes to lucidity and isn’t doing a whole lot of talking to be sure. And who insists he wasn’t even there with Susan Pollack or Houvnanian at the time of the murders.”

Perokis folded his fingers in front of his face. Sherwood knew he didn’t like this. He was lucky Phil had made a place for him after the transplant. Otherwise he wouldn’t even have had this job. Otherwise, he’d have been on disability. Watching soaps during the day.

“So what do you want to do?” the lieutenant asked. “You want to find out if everyone else is crazy in this mess-or just you?”

Sherwood gave him a halfhearted smile. “Maybe that pastor’s liver is getting to me more than I know.

“Let me see it through, Phil. I know what my job is here. I know I’ve got, what, maybe a year left before the hatchet falls my way. Call it a good-bye gift. I’ve earned that, haven’t I? I need this.”

The lieutenant’s phone rang. He picked up and asked Carol out front to take a message. Sherwood knew no one in homicide would touch this thing any more than they would a pile of dog turd on the street.

This was his dog turd.

“You got three days,” Perokis said. “And don’t even think of putting in for mileage on this. And if it doesn’t pan out by then, I don’t want to hear of it ever again. Understood? ”

“Completely.” Sherwood closed the file and got up.

“So what’s the next step?”

“The next step?” Sherwood headed to the door. “The next step is I want to see Houvnanian.”

“Houvnanian? You must be joking, Don. You’ll need a judge’s order to get in to see him. If he’ll even see you. And where the hell is he these days anyway?”

“Pelican Bay.”

“Pelican Bay? ” The lieutenant rolled his eyes. The California super-max. About as hard to get into, even for a law enforcement officer, as it was to leave.

“I think he’ll see me…,” Sherwood said. “A wolf likes to eye his prey before he kills it. That’s why I’m bringing the doc.”

Chapter Forty-Four

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading through Greenway’s book, searching for any kind of connection between my brother, who wasn’t anywhere in the narrative, and Zorn.

I called in to my office. Even consulted on one of my cases. Finally I went back to my room and dozed a little in the afternoon.

I had a dream-my unconscious restlessly connecting images and dots.

I saw Paul Riorden’s estate in Santa Barbara. The ugly, awful crime scenes, blood on the walls. And I was at the dinner table-not Riorden-and my wife, Kathy, next to me. I had a fear that something truly terrible was about to take place. I kept saying to Kathy that we had to get out. Before it happened. Then there was a knock at the door. I went to open it and Russell Houvnanian stood in front of me at the door-the same chiseled face and probing eyes I had seen those years ago.

Except my brother Charlie was at his side.

And suddenly I heard my father, laughing-that same mocking tone with which he had humiliated Charlie with Phil. And I tried to warn him. “ Dad, ” I said, “ please, stop! ”

I screamed out loud: “ Stop! ”

But this time Houvnanian took out a blade.

And plunged it into my father’s gut. The laughing stopped. Lenny’s eyes bulged. He looked down. Blood ran into his hands.

And then Charlie was stabbing him too.

“Stop, stop! ” I cried. Over and over. “ Stop! ”

My father looked at me. Helpless. Like, Do something, Jay …

“Stop!”

I woke up, and I was sweating. Blinking and disoriented.

My cell phone was ringing.

I found it on the night table and looked. Sherwood was on the line. My heart beat like a metronome on speed. It took a second for me to regain my composure. To realize in relief that it had all been just a dream.

I put the phone to my ear and answered. “Yeah, Sherwood, it’s me.”

He didn’t even say hello. “You got a dollar on you, doc?”

“A dollar? You woke me up to ask me that?” I rolled over and dug into my khakis. “Is this a joke? Yeah, I have one here. Why? Things hurting that bad?”

“Flip it over,” the detective said without responding. “To the back.”

“Flip it over…?” I said, still a little fuzzy. I stared at the familiar words, In God We Trust. The bold, large “ONE,” spelled out. “Okay.”

“Now fold it in half. What do you see?”

“What do I see? An eagle. The seal of the United States. What am I supposed to see?”

“No,” he said, serious now. “The other half.”

Testily I blew out a breath and did what he asked me. “I’m really not into games like this. A pyramid,” I said. “A bunch of Latin…”

Then I saw it. What I was staring at. The metronome came to a stop. My whole body did.

“I see an eye!”

“That’s what the Vegas ME pulled out of Thomas Greenway’s stomach during his autopsy in 1988. A crumpled dollar bill. Or half a dollar. Like the one you’re looking at now.”

“Oh my God…”

“You were right, doc. All along. So what do you do when everything seems to point in one direction and you want to know how it all connects?”

“I don’t know. You’re playing games with me again, Sherwood. Go to the source?”

“Yeah, doc, let’s go to the source. Where it all connects. You’re not heading home on me again, are you?”

“No.” I sat up, my blood surging. “Of course not.”

“Good. You wanted your case reopened… I don’t know how the hell it happened or where in God’s name it’s going to lead, but consider it reopened. I’m in now, doc. I’m all in!”

I felt alive with validation.

“And the source is where ?” I asked, the hair rising on my arms. But I already thought I knew.