Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais

have a current number. Could you give me a call back, please?”
    I left my cell and office numbers.
    Progress.
    Maybe.
    Doing something left me feeling better about things, though not a whole lot. I was heading for the door with Levy’s copy of the file when the phone rang. Maybe it was the lateness of the hour, but the ringing seemed unnaturally loud.
    I returned to the desk.
    The phone rang again.
    I hesitated, then felt stupid for waiting.
    â€œElvis Cole Detective Agency.”
    Silence.
    â€œHello?”
    All I heard was breathing.
    â€œHello?”
    The caller hung up.
    I waited for the phone to ring again, but the silence remained. I went home to watch the news.

7
    THE SUN was lowering as I traced the winding streets off Mulholland Drive toward home. I live in a house held fast to the steep slopes overlooking Los Angeles. It is a small house on the lip of a canyon I share with coyotes and hawks, skunks and black-tailed deer, and opossums and rattlesnakes. More rural than not, coming home has always felt like leaving the city, even though some things cannot be left behind.
    My house did not come with a yard the way flatland houses have yards. It came with a deck that hangs over the canyon and a nameless cat who bites. I like the deck and the cat a lot, and the way the lowering sun will paint the ridges and ravines in a palette of purple and brass. The termites, I can do without.
    When I rounded the final curve toward home, Carol Starkey’s Taurus was at my front door, but Starkey wasn’t behind the wheel. I let myself in through the kitchen, then on into the living room, where sliding glass doors open onto my deck. Starkey was outside, smoking, the hot wind pushing her hair. She raised her hand when she saw me. Starkey never just dropped around.
    I opened the sliders and stepped out. “What are you doing here?”
    â€œYou say that like I’m stalking you. I wanted to see how it went with Lindo.”
    She snapped her cigarette over the rail. The wind caught it, and carried it out into the canyon.
    â€œWe’re in the hills, Starkey. This is a tinderbox up here.”
    I studied the slope long enough to make sure we weren’t going to be engulfed by an inferno. She was watching me when I looked up.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œSo how did it go?”
    â€œThe leading theory seems to be I misread the time frame when Bennett was murdered. Not only me, but the original investigating detectives.”
    â€œUh-huh. That possible?”
    â€œIt’s always possible, but these guys don’t think it’s important enough to double-check the key witness. They decided it doesn’t matter.”
    â€œMaybe it doesn’t. What Lindo told me sounds pretty good.”
    â€œThat doesn’t excuse the loose ends. These guys are in such a hurry to close the case they’re not even waiting for all the forensics to come back.”
    We lapsed into silence for a moment, then Starkey cleared her throat.
    â€œListen, Marx might be a jackass, but Lindo’s good. A lot of the people working on this thing are good. Either way, that old man had the book. He was all over that book. You can’t forget that.”
    She was right. Either way, Lionel Byrd had an album of photographs that could only have been taken by a person or persons at the scene when the murders were committed. A book and pictures Byrd and only Byrd had touched.
    â€œStarkey, let me ask you something. What do you make of the pictures?”
    â€œAs in, what do I think the pictures mean or why do I think he took them?”
    â€œBoth, I guess. What kind of person takes pictures like this?”
    She leaned on the rail, staring out at the canyon. Starkey wasn’t a trained psychologist, but she had spent a large part of her time at CCS profiling bomb cranks. The people who built improvised explosive devices tended to be serial offenders. Understanding their compulsions had helped her build cases.
    She