In My Dark Dreams (22 page)

As opposed to grubbing in the dirt with civil servants is the unstated but clear implication. Part of me is annoyed that she would take such an attitude—what I do with my life is none of her damn business. But another part of me can’t help but be flattered. The air Amanda Burgess breathes is rarified. She’s offering me a chance to climb up on the mountaintop with her.

“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” One more hand on mine. “Stay in touch, please. And allow me to do the same.”

Roberto Salazar and I have our final good-byes. “I usually tell my clients to stay out of trouble,” I say to him, “but with you, I don’t have to. I know it will be hard, because your inclination is always to be helpful, but the next time someone calls you in the middle of the night and asks for a favor, turn him down.”

He smiles back at me. “That will depend on who calls,” he chides me sweetly. “And what the favor is.”

I watch as he and his wife leave the courtroom, arm in arm. Lovebirds, they broadcast it to the world. It must be wonderful to be in such a soulful relationship.

“The system doesn’t always work.”

I look over my shoulder. Wayne Dixant is behind me, hovering like a turkey vulture. I don’t reply to his sour grapes. I could be magnanimous, throw him a bone of consolation, but he fucked with me too much for any post-trial civility.

“You won, that’s all that counts, right?” he says bitterly, with nary a grace note of conciliation. This guy is the sorest loser I’ve ever gone up against. “But we both know the truth.”

He spins on his heel and marches out. Loser.

I wait a few minutes until I presume the coast is clear; I don’t want to have to share a corridor or elevator with Dixant. But as I leave the courtroom, a couple of the jurors, both women, approach me. It’s obvious they have been waiting to talk to me, which is fine with me. I like to get jurors’ reactions, to find out what worked, what didn’t, and why.

Although they smile at me, they are clearly uncomfortable. “Mr. Salazar is a good, decent man,” one of them says by way of initiating our conversation. “You presented those qualities of his very well.”

“Thank you.” I accept their encomium with good cheer. “I agree—he is a good man. And thank you for the compliment.”

“You’re welcome.” They look around nervously, as if afraid someone (like Wayne Dixant) might be eavesdropping. The speaker leans in closer. “We had to find him not guilty,” she confides to me in a low hush, “even though he was.”

My body jerks involuntarily. “Excuse me?”

“The judge instructed us to reach our verdict based on the facts, not feelings or emotions,” she says, as if she has to remind me of what I know by heart, having heard it at every single trial I’ve been in or witnessed. Which Judge Rosen did, in her instructions to them. It’s what judges always tell juries:
Your job is to decide the facts of a case, not to cloud it with your own moral judgments.
(An instruction that often goes in one ear and out the other, because juries dance to their own music.) “But we couldn’t, because if we did, we would have had to find him guilty, and send him to prison.” she says. “Nobody wanted to do that.”

“Hmm,” I vamp. I want her to keep explaining, specifically.

She does, because on behalf of all of them, she needs to explain their motive for subverting the rules. “Anybody can make a mistake. And it wasn’t like he was selling drugs, or pulled a gun on someone. He got a little greedy. We all do. Him less than most, but still …” Her voice trails off, then starts up again. “Sending that man to jail wouldn’t have done anyone any good,” she tells me with staunch conviction.

“It was my idea,” the second lady horns in. “Everybody agreed, right off the bat.”

The first lady gives her a mild look of pique, then finishes what she wanted to say. “He deserved a second chance. He won’t do that again, we’re sure of it.”

She looks around the hallway again, then leans in conspiratorially. “And we didn’t want to disappoint you. You’re so nice.” Her face wrinkles in disgust. “Not like that Dixant man. He is foul. He had a good case, but he needs a personality transplant.”

I fight back a laugh; they might take it the wrong way. After all the preparation and trial, the whole ball of wax came down to who was likable and who wasn’t. I don’t always win those contests, because I can be prickly, but this time Salazar and I were the good guys and Dixant was the heavy, a role he was born to play. Which proves, once again, that appearances can be more important than truth.

I usually don’t like subjective qualities like character to win out over objective, verifiable truths, because to do so is a perversion of justice, and I believe in justice. But in this special situation I take comfort in knowing that character does matter, and that truth can sometimes be greater than a collection of dry and heartless facts.

I
N LESS THAN FORTY-EIGHT
hours I will run my marathon. It’s in San Diego. I’ll drive down tomorrow, Saturday afternoon, check into my hotel, go to the prerace dinner, where I’ll carboload like crazy, and try to get some sleep, although I’m sure I’ll be too restless to get much. I’ve been antsy about this for weeks; the anticipation is like an itch that can’t be scratched. It’s one of those experiences, so I’ve been told, that you can’t really understand until you do it. Like giving birth, my other major goal for the near future. Not that I’m equating the two, but both are a leap of faith into the unknown. You don’t know how you’ll handle these challenges until you’re actually doing them.

The only downer is that Jeremy won’t be waiting for me at the finish line with a cold drink and a hug. The orchestra left on its tour three weeks ago. Last night they performed in Krakow, Poland. The next few days they are in the Baltic countries, then Finland. Salonen is Finnish, so they’ll have a rousing reception in Helsinki. That would be a concert I’d love to make, but our schedules didn’t permit it. After that they’re going to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, then back into the heart of Europe. I’m flying into Prague a week from today. I can’t wait.

Tonight is the first night of the full moon. The police are on high alert. The killer hasn’t struck for the past two months; if he doesn’t claim a victim this go-around, the task force will be disbanded. The LAPD is understaffed, and they can’t tie up many of their elite detectives indefinitely. I haven’t seen my newly minted pal Cordova this month, but I’m sure he’s wound up super tight. He doesn’t want another murder on his hands, but he doesn’t want the killer to vanish into thin air, either. His ambition is to catch the killer before he strikes again, which is impossible, basically. I don’t know many of the specifics of the crimes—they are a tightly held secret known only by those directly working on the murders—but I do know that the victims weren’t murdered by some grotesque means. The scuttlebutt around the courthouse is that the women were killed by strangulation, probably with gloved hands—no fingerprints were found anywhere. The killer does not have a telltale signature, like a razor slash, bite marks, or foreign objects inserted into various cavities—the kinds of fetishistic markings these sick animals often leave in their wake, like animal scat.

They may have been raped; that’s less clear. Some of them exhibited bruising around their genitals, but there was no semen residue found in any of them, which means there was no DNA left behind. Either the killer used a condom, which seems bizarre, given the violent nature of the murders, or sex wasn’t involved, and the marks found on the victims were coincidental, from previous consensual sex. A technician looking for foul play could read more into the physical evidence than actually exists. People see what they want to see, especially when they are predisposed to come to a certain conclusion.

It’s seven-fifteen. The westbound traffic on the I-10 was brutal, bumper to bumper every car length of the way. It took me more than an hour to get home, the price you pay for living in the City of Angels. I change into my running outfit and hit the street. Tonight’s run will be short and slow, a three-mile jog along Palisades Park to keep my muscles loose and oily. Tomorrow I rest, Sunday I race. After that, who knows? I could give up running completely and take up kayaking, swimming in the ocean, or Tai Chi. Or maybe I’ll get hooked on long-distance running and start to plan the next one. They say pain has its own rewards if you can tolerate it and get beyond it. Pretty soon, I’m going to find out if that’s true for me.

Sunset isn’t for another hour, but the police are already out, melting into the Friday evening beehive of activity. They’re more inconspicuous this time around, in shorts, jeans, other casual clothing. Some are as gnarly looking as surfers or dealers. I can spot them, though, because I’ve seen some of them in the courthouse. A few have testified against clients of mine.

On impulse, I break off my jog and approach one of them. He sees me coming and gives me an almost-imperceptible head shake—don’t bust my cover. I look around to make sure no one is watching us, and approach him anyway. He’s cute, in a beach-bum dissipated way, wearing a Hawaiian shirt over OP cargo shorts. I could be a thirty-something groupie trying to turn his head, a not-uncommon variety of female seen along these beaches.

“I’ve seen you around,” I say, to break the ice. I finger his shirttail—rayon, the real deal. “I like this look. Suits you.” I smile at him flirtatiously. “I’m Jessica.”

If he had ever heard my last name, he wouldn’t remember it; there are thousands of us in the system. But he can’t help but flirt back at an attractive lady who is almost five-eleven, wears her black hair in a long braid down her back, and is wearing running shorts and a tight singlet. “I like yours too,” he lobs back at me, his eyes going to my legs. Not the most scintillating of come-ons, but he is a cop.

I check around us again. We are two pebbles in the ocean here, nothing more. “How’s my pal Lieutenant Cordova?” I ask him.

He stares at me with suspicion, and some nervousness. “How do you know Cordova?”

“From work,” I placate him. “That’s all. I know he’s in charge of the task force.”

He relaxes. “He’s wound up tight as a nun’s you know what. We all are. Waiting for lightning to strike, when you don’t know where, when, or if—that’s the worst.”

I nod in understanding. He’s a cop. Cops live for action.

His cell phone rings. He flips it open. “This is Cavanaugh.” He listens. “Nothing yet. Later.”

As he’s about to hang up, he interjects, “You near Lieutenant Cordova? Hey, put him on.”

He waits a moment, then says, “Talking to a friend of yours, Lieutenant.” He thrusts the phone at me. “Here.”

I take his cell reluctantly. “Hello?” He asks who this is. “Jessica Thompson,” I tell him. “You know, the runner,” I say, trying to make light of what is an embarrassing moment to me. These men are out here on a very serious mission, and I’m playing games with one of them. “Ocean at Wilshire,” I answer, when he asks where we are. Feeling stupid, I add, “Your officer is really on the ball. No one would ever spot him.” I listen again. “Only because I know him from the courthouse. If he was any funkier, you’d arrest him.” I pause for a moment as I listen again. “Sure,” I tell him reluctantly.

I hand the phone back to Cavanaugh. “He’s swinging by to say hello.”

The detective scowls. He’s opened a can of worms that should have been kept shut.

We stand in awkward juxtaposition, with nothing more to say to each other. The evening throng flows slowly around us like a clogged river. Cordova drives up in his plain wrap, gets out, and walks over to us. He’s dressed casually, as he was the first night I saw him in this part of town. Jeans, an alligator-logo golf shirt, K-mart running shoes. He waves to Cavanaugh in greeting. “I dig the threads,” he says, teasing his subordinate. He’s not a prima donna, I like that about him. “What’s the shirt,” he asks, “Nat Nast?”

Cavanaugh grins as he shakes his head. “Tommy Bahama, on sale at Costco.”

“You must be pulling a shitload of overtime to afford those shirts,” Cordova quips. “Even at Costco. You had dinner?”

“Not yet.”

“Grab some now, while it’s still light out. Gonna be a long night, I’m afraid.”

“Okay, Chief.” Cavanaugh is happy to be let off the leash. “See you,” he says to me, keeping his guard up with his boss right there.

“See you,” I respond.

He walks away, disappearing into the crowd. Cordova gives me the eye. “You’re like a bad penny, always turning up,” he says dryly. I can’t tell if he’s pulling my chain or not.

“I live here,” I say in my defense. “What’s your excuse?”

He shakes his head. “Wrong joke, wrong time.”

I feel chastised. “Sorry.”

“You’re not going to be out later tonight, I hope. You of all people should know better.”

“No,” I tell him. I can’t help feeling as if he’s the principal and I’m the first-year English teacher. He wears the weight of authority like a second skin. “Or the next two nights, either. I won’t be here.”

He cocks a questioning eyebrow.

“I’m going to San Diego. My run.”

He’s slow on the uptake, but then he gets it. “Your marathon is this weekend?”

“Yes. Sunday.”

He whistles in appreciation. “You’re really gonna do it.”

“I’m going to try.” Of course I’m going to do it; I’ll crawl across the finish line on two broken legs if I have to.

“Good on you.” He pats his gut. It’s big, but firm, like the rest of him. I’m sure he’s fit, but a man his size would have hell to pay running twenty-six miles. He’s more the shot-putter type.

“Do you think …” I catch myself. I don’t want to interfere in this.

“Don’t know.” His eyes are restless, scanning the crowd. “He’s missed the last two …” He doesn’t finish his thought. He doesn’t have to.

There is nothing further to say. I need to finish my run before I stiffen up. That’s all I need, to pull a muscle the day before the race of my life. “Good luck,” I tell him.

“Thanks. Same to you.” He smiles. “You’ll do good.”

He’s saying that to be kind, because he has no idea how hard I’ve trained, or my fierce resoluteness; but it’s a nice gesture. I know his mind is elsewhere, but he looks me in the eye when he says it, and he seems to really mean it.