Yesterday's Echo by Matt Coyle Page A

didn’t want to find out. Beyond that, I’d had enough police involvement for a lifetime.
    â€œIf you’re talking about a couple of guys roughing me up, it’s not a big deal. I’m fine. I don’t want to press charges.”
    â€œI’d still appreciate it if you’d come down to the station andtell me about it.” His voice, now full detective, brought back bad memories from Santa Barbara.
    â€œI have to be at work soon. It’s really not worth your time.”
    There was a pause and then a deep exhale. “Look, Rick, the woman who filed the report is the owner of
The La Jolla Lantern
. She’s making this a big deal. I’d really appreciate it if you’d come down.”
    The
Lantern
was the tiny local paper. Apparently its bite was bigger than its circulation. I didn’t want the one cop I had as a friend to join my long list of enemies in blue.
    The La Jolla Police Station was on Wall Street, just a few blocks from Muldoon’s. The cops called it the “Brick House” because it was constructed of white brick. It had been a library in its early days before the police took it over. I guess the “Library” wasn’t as intimidating as the “Brick House.”
    I hadn’t been there since my dad got kicked off the force twenty-five years ago.
    The two-story station house had polished wood floors and exposed wood-beam ceilings. I could see how it would have made a charming library, but my body tensed and my breaths quickened when I walked through the front door. It was a police station. A place where I used to belong, but never would again. A place where you were forced to face the truth, even when you lied.
    The desk sergeant, a blue sack of wrinkles with a gruff tone, phoned upstairs to Detective Coyote in Robbery/Homicide. This was La Jolla. They might as well have called it Robbery/Died of Natural Causes. The town averaged maybe a murder a year. Still, the murders were usually high profile and became grist for books and TV crime shows. Jilted ex-wife murders her rich husband and his new trophy wife, white-bread wannabe gangbangers beat to death a surfer buddy, rich kid murders his whole family. The murders probably got big publicity because of their rarity and locale.
    Just like Santa Barbara.
    Dan came downstairs to usher me up to the second floor andRobbery/Homicide. His greeting was professional and lacked the warmth of a first-tee handshake. He had less hair and more stomach than when we’d first met, but still had an athlete’s grace. His Native American ancestry showed in prominent cheekbones and dark hair. Tan slacks, a brown blazer, and a conservative tie made up his uniform. There were no jeans and T-shirt detectives on the La Jolla police force. Those were for TV cops and Levi’s commercials.
    Robbery/Homicide was housed in a square room that stank of day-old coffee. There were four low cut gray cubicles in the middle of the room adorned with computers and family photos. A large window faced the street and let in palm tree-filtered sunlight. An American flag hung on the wall opposite the window next to a map of La Jolla with red-and-black pushpins stuck in it.
    In the far-left corner of the room there was a large glass-enclosed office with “Police Chief Raymond Parks” stenciled on the front panel. I guess in a small PD like this, the chief had to slum it with the gold shields. Open blinds cut shadows across Parks’s face as he sat at his desk in his dress blues. He turned up dark eyes and gave me a flat-faced stare for an uncomfortable three count. My reputation preceded me. I wanted to get the hell out of there and back onto the streets where the tough guys didn’t have badges.
    The only other person in the room was the detective I’d seen talking to Heather Ortiz at the Shell Beach Motel earlier in the day. A nameplate on the outside of his cube opposite Dan’s read “Detective