The Night Crew

'Yeah. Brutal.' The detective looked back at the house, and then said, 'Listen, I know this is a really horseshit time to ask you this, but I got a problem. I gotta come see you. About Lucy.'

'Gonna do it this time?'

'I gotta. She's crazier than a shithouse mouse. If I don't get out of there. but I can't leave the kids.'

'Call me,' Harper said.

'I'm hurtin' for cash.' The cop was embarrassed.

'We'll put it on your Sears card,' Harper said. He poked the cop in the ribs, and the cop nodded and said, 'I'll call youthanks.' He nodded at Anna, glanced at Wyatt and strolled away.

'What was all that about?' Anna asked Wyatt.

'Jake's a lawyer,' Wyatt said. 'He has about half the cop business in the county.'

'I thought you said he wasa cop.'

'Was. Ten years ago.'

The lead detective's name was Carrol Trippen, a tall, impatient, prematurely white-haired Anglo. He split them up, talked to each of them for a moment, compared their stories and finally sent them downtown to make statements.

'Are we in trouble? Should I get a lawyer?' Anna asked, as Trippen started back toward the house.

'Harper pisses me off, calling you guys,' Trippen said sourly. 'But it wasn't your fault, and I know where he's coming from. I got bigger things to worry about than hassling people who looked at a dead guy.'

The cops kept Anna, Harper, Creek and Louis apart until the statements were done. Anna was interviewed by a sleepy cop with bad breath and a yellow shirt with a new coffee stain.

When they finished, he peered at her over his coffee cup and said, 'Tell you what: You know this guy. The killer.'

'If it's me.' She'd been having second thoughts.

'C'mon. Even youthink it's you.'

'So what do I do?'

'First thing is, with this prowler you had, I'd move out of your house. Stay at a motel for a few days, don't tell anybody where you are. When you've got to work, meet your friends somewhere. You got a cellular, anybody can get in touch if they need to.'

'I'll think about it,' Anna said, but she wouldn't leave her house.

'Do that. And I need you back this afternoon, if you can make itwe got a shrink and a serial killer profiler, they're gonna want to talk to you.'

'You're sure he did both Jason and Sean?'

'Trippen talked to Wyatt, and they think so. He says there's a level of violence there. You don't see it on the average murder. And this Sean was tied to the Jason guy, and Jason was tight with you.'

'All right.' And she knew himbut who was it?

Harper and Creek were waiting in the lobby when Anna got out. Louis was wandering around with the truck, waiting. When Creek saw Anna step out of the elevator, he dug out his cell phone, pushed a speed dial, got Louis: 'We're ready.'

'Are you headed home?' Harper asked, as the three of them walked down to the exit.

'I guess,' Anna said. She glanced at her watch. 'The night's shot.'

'Are you moving out of your house?' Harper asked.

'No.'

Then I'd like to come by and look around,' he said.

'Bad idea,' said Creek.

Harper turned to him: 'Look, I used to do this for a living. I want to see where she liveswhat the place is like. If the news is bad, I want you to help get her out of there. I'd just as soon she didn't get carved up until I find the guy who did my kid.'

'That's very sentimental,' Anna said.

Harper shrugged: 'I've got priorities.'

Creek was nodding: 'And you've got a point.' To Anna: 'Maybe I should stay over.'

'Good idea,' Harper said.

Anna shook her head, said to Creek: 'You'd drive me nuts.' And to Harper, 'When he lays around the house, he lays aroundthe house.' Nobody smiled at the old vauderville line.

'This ain't a comedy routine,' Creek grumbled. Then: 'Maybe we could get the cops to send somebody over, protection.'

'Fat chance,' Harper said. 'You know how many serial killers are running around L.A. right now? Probably a half-dozen.'

Anna grunted, 'Huh,' and glanced at Creek. 'Half-dozen?'

'No,' Creek said, following her thought, shaking his head. 'We ain'tdoing no story on that.'

Anna sent Creek and Louis home in the truck. Louis was shook, having talked with the cops twice in two days, having had statements taken. Louis thrived in anonymitysought it, treasured it. 'Everything's gonna be okay, right?' He was anxious, twisting a shredded copy of the L.A. Readerin his hands.

'Yeah, for us,' Anna told him. 'You guys take the truck, go home, get some sleep.'

'I just don't want anything to happen to us. to you,' Louis said, eyes large. 'I mean, if anything happened to you. what'd happen to me?'

'It'll be okay, Louis,' she said, giving him a quick smile and a pat on the back. 'I promise.'

When she told him she'd ride with Harper, Creek took her aside to whisper furiously: 'What the fuck is this? You don't even knowhim, he could be, you know, the guy.'

'Nah, we know what he's doinghis kid,' Anna said.

'Oh, horseshit,' Creek said in exasperation. He added: 'You started acting perky as soon as we met him outside the house, and now you're starting again.'

'Perky?' That made her mad. She put her hands on her hips and started, 'What are you.'

'Figure it out,' Creek said, and he stalked off to the truck. When he got there he turned and said, 'And what about Clark?'

Smack.

But he was in the truck and kicking it over before she could think of a proper reply.

Harper drove a black BMW 740IL. The cockpit showed as many ant-sized instrument lights as a jumbo jet. A half-dozen golf putters cluttered the passenger side. Harper popped the passenger door for Anna and tossed the putters in the back.

'Nice car,' she said, when he climbed in the driver's side. Cars were about four-hundredth on her priority list of Important Things in Life.

'Freeway cruiser,' he said, indifferently.

'And you play a little golf, huh?'

He looked at her, cool, and said, 'I do two things: I practice law, and I play golf.'

'I mean, like. seriously?'

'I'm serious about both,' he said; and she thought he was a little grim. Good-looking, but tight.

'Chasing a little white ball around a pasture.'

He looked at her, still not smiling: 'If golf was about chasing a little white ball around a pasture, I wouldn't do it,' he said.

She turned toward him, her face serious, touched his arm. 'Would you promise me something?'

'What?' The sudden, apparent intimacy took him by surprise.

'Don't ever, ever, evertry to explain to me what golf is really about.'

This time he grinned and she thought: Mmm. Harrison Ford.

At her house, he took a flashlight out of the trunk and walked once around the outside, checked the bushes, said, 'Ouch, what the hell is that?' and a couple minutes later, 'Good.'

Inside, he looked at the windows, including the boarded-up back window, and said, 'Leave the board for the time being,' and, 'You need to get some empty beer cans or pop cans. Before you go to sleep at night, stack them up inside the door. If anybody tries to come through, it'll sound like the end of the world.'

'Okay.'

'Your bushes scratched the heck out of me.'

'That's what they're for.'

'Okay. You got a gun?' he asked.

'Yeah.'

'Let's get it.'

He followed her upstairs to the bedroom, and she took the gun from its clip behind the bed's headboard.

'Smith amp; Wesson,' she said, handing him the chromed revolver.

'Good old six-forty,' he said. He checked the ammo: 'With three-fifty-seven wadcutters. You're in good shape. Do you know how to shoot it?'

'I went through a combat class when that was the fad,' she said. 'I go up behind Malibu every year or so and shoot up a gully, like they showed us. Ten feet.'