LA Requiem

Joe raised a hand in greeting, and Paulette felt herself smile.

Evelyn said, 'You know that guy?'

Paulette opened the door, then stepped back to let him inside.

'Hello, Joe.'

'It's good to see you, Paulette.'

She had thought of this moment—of seeing him again—in her dreams and over morning coffee and during long quiet drives across the desert. She'd imagined what she would say and how she would say it in every possible way, but all she managed to get out was so lame.

'Would you like some water? It's so hot out.'

'That would be fine. Thank you.'

Evelyn got that ugly sulk on her face, the one that said she was unhappy and everyone was supposed to know it. You had to know it and do something about it, else she'd get even sulkier.

Evelyn said, 'You called him Joe.'

Paulette knew what was coming. 'Joe, this is Evelyn. Evie, you remember Joe Pike.'

Evelyn crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. Her face grew blotched. She said, 'Oh, fuck.'

Joe said, 'Paulette, I need to talk to you. About Wo/, and about something that's going to happen.'

Before Paulette could say anything, Evelyn leaned toward Joe and shrieked, 'What could you possibly have to say? You killed him! Mother, he's wanted! He just murdered someone else!'

Paulette took her daughter by the arms, wanting to be gentle, but wanting to be firm, too.

'Evie. Go in the back. I'll talk to you later, but I want to talk with Joe now.'

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Evelyn pulled away, livid and furious from a lifetime of mourning her father. 'Talk to him all you want! I'm gonna call the police!'

Paulette shook her daughter with a fierceness she hadn't felt in years. 'No! You won't!'

'He killed Daddy!'

'You won V.'

Joe spoke quietly. 'It's okay, Paulette. Let her call.'

Evelyn looked as surprised as Paulette felt, the two of them staring at Joe for a moment before Evie ran back toward the bedrooms.

Paulette said, 'Are you sure? I saw on the news.'

'I'll be gone before they get here. You look good, Paulette.'

He spoke with the absolute calm at which she had always marveled, and secretly envied. As if he were so certain of himself, so secure and confident that there was no room left for doubt. Whatever came, he could handle it; whatever the problem, he would solve it.

She felt herself blush. 'I've gotten older.'

'You've grown more beautiful.'

She blushed deeper, suddenly thinking how odd this was, to be here with this man after all this time, and to blush like a teenager because of him.

'Joe, take off those glasses. I can't see you.'

He took off the glasses.

My God, those eyes were incredible, so brilliantly blue that she could just stare. Instead, she got him the water.

'Joe, I've seen the news. A friend of yours was here. What happened?'

'We can talk about it later.' He glanced after Evelyn and shrugged. 'The police are coming.'

She nodded.

'I didn't kill that man. Someone else did. The same person who killed another six people.'

'That's what your friend said.'

'His name is Laurence Sobek. He was one of Woz's informants. When the story is out, you're going to have the press

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and the police bring up everything that happened on that day. They're going to dig into Woz again. Do you understand?'

'I don't care.'

'It could hurt you.'

'It can't.'

Behind them, Evelyn spoke in a voice so soft that Paulette hadn't heard it since Evie was a child.

'Why could it hurt her, and why do you care?'

Paulette turned and looked at her daughter. Evelyn was peeking around the corner like a five-year-old, her face distant and smooth.

'Did you call the police?'

Evie shook her head.

Pike said, 'Go call. Your mother and I have to talk.'

Evelyn went to the bookcase and took down the picture of her father and Paulette and Joe Pike.

'She keeps this out where anybody can see it.' She looked at Paulette. 'Why do you keep this goddamned picture? Why keep a picture of someone who killed the man you loved?'

Paulette Wozniak considered her adult daughter for a time, then said, 'The man I love is still alive.'

Evie stared at her.

Paulette said, 'Joe didn't kill your father. Your father killed himself. He took his own life.' She turned back to Joe and looked at the placid blue eyes, the eyes that made her smile. 'I'm not stupid, Joe. I figured it out years ago when I went through his notebooks.'

Joe said, 'The missing pages.'

'Yes. He wrote about the Chihuahua brothers, and that whole mess. And then, later, just days before it happened, he wrote how he felt trapped. He didn't say he was planning on it. He didn't say what he was going to do or how, but he wrote that there was always a way out, and that a lot of cops had gone that way before.'

Evie was pulling at her fingers now, pulling and twisting like she was trying to rip them off.

'What are you talking about? What are you saying?'

Paulette felt a horrible pain in her chest. 'I didn't know for

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sure until I went through his books after he was dead, and then, I don't know, I just didn't want you to know the truth about him. You loved him so. I took out those pages and destroyed them so you could never find them, but I know in my heart what he was saying there. Joe didn't kill your father. Your father took his own life, and Joe took the blame to protect you, and me.'

Evie shook her head, and said, 'I don't believe you.'

'It's true, honey.'

Paulette tried to put her arm around Evelyn, but Evelyn pushed her away. Paulette looked at Joe then, as if maybe he would know what to do in the sure certain way of his, but that's when a large, muscular man wearing sunglasses stepped out of the kitchen behind Joe, aimed a black pistol, and pulled the trigger.

Paulette screamed, 'Joe!'

Her shout was drowned by a deafening sound that hit her like a physical blow and made her ears