LA Requiem

Joe found his feet and bolted through the door, running hard for the safety of 'the trees.

Nine-year-old Joe Pike ran as hard as he could, crashing through the low sharp branches, his legs no longer a part of him. He tried to stop running, but his legs were beyond his control, carrying him farther from the house until he tripped over a root and fell to the earth.

He lay therefor what seemed like hours, his back and arms burning, his throat and nose clogged with mucus, and then he crept back to the edge of the woods. Shouts and cries still came from the house. His father kicked open the door again and threw a pot of mashed potatoes into the yard before going back into the house to curse some more.

Joe Pike sat hidden in the leaves, watching, his body slowly

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calming, his tears drying, feeling the slow burn of shame that came every time he ran from the house and left his mother alone with his father. He felt weak before his father's strength, fearful before his rage.

After a time, the shouting stopped and the forest grew quiet. A mockingbird chittered, and tiny flying bugs spiraled through shafts of dimming sunlight.

Joe Pike stared at his house, and seemed to float free of time and place, simply being, existing invisible and unseen here at the edge of the woods, hidden.

Here, he felt safe.

The sky grew red and the forest darkened, and still Joe Pike did not move.

He took the hurt and the fear and the shame and imagined himself folding them into small boxes, and placing those boxes away in a heavy oak trunk at the bottom of a deep stair.

He locked the trunk. He threw away the key. He made three promises:

It won't always be this way.

I will make myself strong.

I will not hurt.

As the sun set, his father emerged from the house, got into the Kingswood, and drove away.

Joe waited until the Kingswood disappeared, and then he went back to his house to see about his mother.

I will make myself strong.

I will not hurt.

It won't always be this way.

11

Light from the morning sun shone through the glass steeple that is the back of my house and filled the loft. Lucy was naked, sleeping on her belly, her hair tangled from the hours before. I snuggled against her, fitting myself to the line of her hip, enjoying her warmth.

I touched her hair. Soft. I kissed her shoulder. The salty warmth good on my lips. I looked at her, and thought how lucky I was to have this view.

Her skin was a dark gold, the line of her legs and back strong even in sleep. Lucy had attended LSU on a tennis scholarship, and worked hard to maintain her game. She carried herself with the easy grace of a natural athlete, and made love the way she played tennis, with aggression and passion, yet with moments of shyness that moved me.

The cat was perched on the guardrail at the edge of the loft, staring at her. She was in his spot, but he didn't look upset. Just curious. Maybe he also liked the view.

Lucy murmured, 'Go back to sleep.'

Her eyes half opened, drowsy with sleep.

Hearing her, the cat bolted down the stairs and growled from the living room. You just have to ignore him.

'We never got to your surprise.'

She snuggled closer. 'You can look forward to it tonight.'

I touched my tongue to her back. 'I'm looking forward to it right now.'

She giggled. 'You're insatiable.'

'For you.'

'I've got to go to work.'

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'I'll call and tell'm you're busy making love to the World's Greatest Detective. They'll understand. They always do.' She pushed herself up on her elbows. 'Always?' 'A slip of the tongue. Sorry,' 'Not half as sorry as you're going to be.' She jumped on top of me, but I wasn't sorry at all.

Later that morning, I took Lucy back to her car, then drove down to Parker Center without letting Krantz know I was coming. I thought he would raise nine kinds of hell because I'd gone to see Dersh, but when I pushed through the double doors, he said, 'Hope you didn't get in trouble about the autopsy screw-up.'

'No, but the family wants the report.'

'We'll have it for you in a few minutes. You ready for the brief?' Like we were buddies, and he was only too happy to include me on the team.

'Sure. By the way, you get the criminalist's report yet?'

'Should be soon. Get you both at the same time.'

Then he smiled and disappeared down the hall.

Maybe someone had slipped him Prozac. Maybe his good humor was a ploy to get me into the briefing where he and Watts and Williams would beat me to death for having seen Dersh. Whatever the case, he was still lying to me about the report.

We assembled in the conference room where Stan Watts gave the brief, telling me that they had checked out the ex-husband (playing softball in Central Park at the time of Karen's murder), finished canvassing the homes surrounding Lake Hollywood (no one had seen or heard anything), and were in the process of questioning those people with whom Karen worked and attended school. I asked Watts if they had developed a theory about the shooter, but Krantz answered, saying they were still working on it. Krantz nodded at every point Watts ticked off, more relaxed than at any other time I'd seen him, and still none of them mentioned my visit to Dersh. They had to know, and I found that even more odd than Krantz's behavior.

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I said, 'When can I expect the reports? I'd like to get out of here.'

Krantz stood, reasonable, but all business. 'Dolan, see if you can chase down that paper. Get Mr. Cole on his way.'

Dolan flipped him off behind his back as she left.

After the briefing, I went back to the squad room looking for her, but she wasn't at her desk. Krantz wasn't the only one in a good mood. Bruly and Salerno high-fived each other at the Mr. Coffee and walked away laughing. Williams and the Buzz Cut came through the double doors, Krantz offering his hand and the Buzz Cut taking it. The Buzz Cut was smiling, too.

When I was here before, the fabric of the room had been stiff with tension, as if the place and the people were caught in the kind of electrified field that made their hair stand on end. But now something had happened to cut the juice. A sea change had occurred that had freed them from electric hair, and let them overlook the fact that I had interfered with their investigation by visiting Dersh. That is no small thing to overlook.

I got a cup of coffee, sat in the dunce chair to wait for Dolan, and wondered about it until the kid with the mail cart pushed his way in through the doors. Bruly slapped the kid a high five, the two of them laughing about something I