Sunset Express

The red-haired reporter turned and yelled for her camera operator to hurry up. She yelled that she wanted a shot of this.

The thin man kept shaking his finger. 'You're a prick. You should be ashamed of yourself.'

Joe Pike stepped to the gate and murmured something that I couldn't hear. Pike didn't seem threatening now. He seemed gentle and calming. The woman went to Rossi's front door. I guess she was the thin man's wife.

The red-haired reporter's camera operator hustled up behind us and began taping. The reporter asked if I had any additional information implicating or incriminating Angela Rossi. She asked if I was here to get a statement from Rossi or to follow up a line of inquiry. I kept my back to her. I stared at the hamper filled with Nerf balls. I stared at the red bike.

The thin man's wife came back and let us through the gate. The red-haired reporter tried to push through, but the wife shoved her back, yelling, 'Don't you dare!' The thin man wasn't happy that I was coming in.

Joe Pike rapped at the door once, then opened it, and we stepped through into Angela Rossi's life.

It was a nice place, roomy and spacious, though the furnishings weren't expensive, just a sofa and love seat arranged in an L, and a BarcaLounger. I guess she'd put all of the money into buying the place and hadn't had a lot left over for furniture. A woman and a man were standing behind the love seat, and another woman was sitting on the couch, and two little boys were sitting on the floor, the smaller sitting in the larger's lap. I guess the boys belonged to Rossi. I guess the adults were friends or family come to lend support. Off-duty cops, maybe, but maybe not. Everyone in the room was looking at me. Even the boys.

Angela Rossi was standing by the sofa with her arms crossed. Her cheeks looked hollow and her eyes were dark and haunted. I said, 'I wanted to tell you that I didn't have anything to do with this. I told Green that you were clean. He told me that he bought it. I don't know what happened.'

'Okay. 'Thanks.' Like she was numb.

Joe said, 'Angie.'

She shook her head. 'I didn't do those things. I didn't frame that guy.'

Joe said, 'I know.'

Angela Rossi looked confused. 'I don't know why she's lying. She seemed like such a nice woman.'

I said, 'We'll talk to her. We'll get this straightened out.'

Angela Rossi said, 'It won't matter. I'm done with the job.'

Joe stiffened and shook his head once. 'Don't say that, Angela. You're not.'

'So what kind of career will I have when it's over?' She walked past us to the window and peeked out. 'I can't believe that all these people have nothing better to do.' She looked back. 'Can you?'

All of them kept staring. I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what to say. My eye still hurt where she'd hit me, and I was thinking that maybe she ought to hit me again. 'I'm sorry.'

'Forget it.' She shrugged, no big deal.

Joe said, 'We'll help you fight it.'

'Nothing to help. I've decided to resign.'

Joe leaned forward. His dark lenses seemed to blaze. 'Don't resign. You're too good to resign.'

She said, 'Oh, Joe.'

Pike was leaning so far forward he seemed to sway.

'They've taken everything away, but that's okay. I just have to survive this, and I know I can.' She smiled when she said it, as if she were at peace with all of this.

Joe said, 'What's wrong with you?' His voice was so soft I could barely hear him.

Angela Rossi's left eye began to flutter, then grew wet, and I had the sense that if she were fine china there would be a webwork of spider-silk cracks spreading beneath her surface. She held up her right hand and said, 'Please go now.'

Pike nodded, and I started to say something else, but then she turned the hand to me, and I nodded, too.

CHAPTER 21

We left Angela Rossi's and walked out to the car. The whiny reporter who had once been a lawyer saw us first and ran toward us, shouting, 'They've come out! They've come out!' The rest of the reporters stayed back, shifting their feet and keeping their distance. Pike raised a palm at the whiny reporter, and he stopped, too. I guess word had spread, or maybe it was in our faces.

We drove slowly, neither of us speaking, and worked our way out of the Marina, up through Venice, and along the beach. It was automatic driving, going through the motions ^without conscious thought or direction, movement without destination or design. Pike hunkered low in the passenger's seat, his face dark in the bright sun, his dark lenses somehow molten and angry. It is not good to see Joe Pike angry. Better to see a male lion charge at close quarters. Better to hear someone scream, 'Incoming!' I said, 'Where do you want to go?'

His head swiveled sideways maybe half an inch.

'How about we just drive?'

His head moved up, then down. Maybe half an inch.

'Okay. We'll drive.'

We followed Ocean Avenue up through Venice and along the bluff above the beach, Pike as still as an undisturbed lake. We stopped for a light on Ocean Park, and I watched the joggers and bikers and smiling young women with deep tans who dotted the bike paths along the bluff. Everyone was smiling. Happy people having a great time on a beautiful day. What could be better than that? Of course, they could be happy because they hadn't just come from Angela Rossi's house. It's always easy to smile when you haven't helped destroy an innocent person's life.

The light turned green, and a red Toyota pickup filled with surfers and surf boards blew their horn behind us. The driver yelled for us to get out of the way, and Joe Pike floated up out of his seat and twisted around, and when he did the honking stopped and the Toyota jammed into reverse and sped away at high speed. Backwards.

I said, 'Well. I guess we'd better talk about this before we kill somebody.'

Pike frowned. His arms were knotted and tight, and the veins in his forearms were large. His dark glasses caught the bright sun, looking hot enough to sear flesh. The red arrow tattoos on his deltoids were as bright as arterial blood. I wondered if the idiots in the Toyota knew how close they'd come.

I said, 'It isn't just Angela Rossi, is it?'

Pike's head moved from side to side one time.

'You don't like the cops we know thinking that we're part of this. You don't like people thinking that you and I believe this garbage or had a part in destroying an innocent woman's life.'

Pike's head moved again. Just a bit. Just the smallest of moves.

'But that's the way it looks.'

Pike's jaw rippled with tension.

We went to a Thai place a few blocks up from the beach. It was still shy of noon when we parked at the curb and went in. Early. It's a tiny place with beat-up Formica tables, and it was empty except for two women sitting at the single window table. The young guy who greeted us said we could sit where we liked. An older woman who was probably his grandmother was sitting at the table nearest the kitchen, snapping the stems off an enormous pile of snow peas and watching a miniature Hitachi television. She smiled and nodded, and I smiled back. I have never been in their restaurant when she was not snapping peas. We took a table near her, ordered two Thai beers, squid pad thai, vegetable fried rice, and seafood curry. The little woman was watching the midday news as she worked. Something about the Middle East.

The beer came and I said, 'Joe, I'm thinking that there is something larger here than an attorney's zealous defense of his client.' The master of understatement.

Pike cocked his head toward me.

I told him about the connection between James Lester and Elliot Truly, and about Lester's record. 'Lester could be for real, and his tie to Truly could be a coincidence, but maybe it isn't. Pritzik and Richards were killed before Lester called the hotline.'

'Are you thinking he knew that?'

'Say he knew them better than he let on. Say he knew that they had gone to Arizona and were dead, and figured that they would be the perfect crash-test dummies to take the heat for Susan Martin's murder. Lester may have done a little homework and planted the evidence himself to take a shot at the reward.'