The Poet by Michael Connelly Page A

telling you or leaving some kind of record about who it was? Why’d he go alone?”
    “Who knows? We’ve gotten so many calls on that case, you could spend all day just writing notes. And maybe he didn’t know. Maybe all he knew was that someone wanted to talk to him. Your brother was so caught up on this one, he would have gone to meet anybody who said they knew something. I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s something that’s not in there because he didn’t want people around here thinking he was loony. But he went to see that psychic-the medium-that’s mentioned in there.”
    “What did he get?”
    “Nothing. Just some bullshit about the killer being out there wanting to do it again. I mean, it was like-yeah, no kidding, thanks for the tip. Anyway, that’s off the record, the psychic stuff. I don’t want people thinking Mac was a flake.”
    I didn’t bother to say anything about the stupidity of what he had just said. My brother had killed himself and yet Wexler was engaged in trying to limit the damage his image might suffer if it was known he had consulted a psychic.
    “It doesn’t go past this room,” I said instead. After a few moments of silence I said, “So what’s your theory on what happened that day, Wex? Off the record, I mean.”
    “My theory? My theory is he went out there and whoever it was who’d called him didn’t show. It was another dead end for him and it tipped the scale. He drove up to that lake and he did what he did … Are you going to write a story about him?”
    “I don’t know. I think so.”
    “Look, I don’t know how to say this but here goes. He was your brother but he was my friend. I might’ve even known him better than you. Leave it alone. Just let it go.”
    I told him I would think about it but it was only to placate him. I had already decided. I left then, checking my watch to make sure I had enough time to get out to Estes Park before dark.

6
    I didn’t get to the parking lot at Bear Lake until after five. I realized it was just as it had been for my brother, deserted. The lake was frozen and the temperature was dropping quickly. The sky was already purple and going dark. It wasn’t much of a draw for locals or tourists this late in the day.
    As I drove through the lot I thought about why he had picked this place to come. As far as I knew it had nothing to do with the Lofton case. But I thought I knew why. He parked where he had parked and just sat there thinking.
    There was a light on in the ceiling of the overhang above the front of the ranger shack. I decided to get out and see if Pena, the witness, was there. Then another thought struck me. I slid over to the passenger side of the Tempo. I took a couple of deep breaths, then opened the door and started running for the woods where they grew closest to the car. As I ran I counted by thousands out loud. I was at eleven thousand by the time I had gotten over the snowbank and reached the cover.
    Standing there in the woods, a foot deep in snow without boots on, I bent over and put my hands on my knees as I caught my breath. There was no way a shooter could have gotten into the woods to hide if Pena had been out of the shack as quickly as he had reported. I finally stopped gulping the air and headed toward the ranger’s shack, debating how to approach him. As a reporter or a brother?
    It was Pena behind the window. I could see the nameplate on his uniform. He was locking a desk when I looked through the window. He was calling it a day.
    “Can I help you, sir? I’m closing up.”
    “Yes, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
    He came out, eyeing me suspiciously because I obviously wasn’t dressed for a hike in the snow. I had on jeans and Reeboks, a corduroy shirt beneath a thick woolen sweater. I had left my long coat in the car and I was very cold.
    “My name is Jack McEvoy.”
    I waited a moment to see if it registered. It didn’t. He had probably only seen the name written in