A Darkness More Than Night

prepared the box after docking. Alternating gulps of orange juice and water, he downed the twenty-seven pills that made up his morning dosage. He knew their names by their shapes and colors and tastes; Prilosec, Imuran, digoxin. As he methodically went through the lineup he noticed a woman in a nearby booth watching, her eyebrows arched in wonder.
    He would never get rid of the pills. They were as certain for him as the proverbial death and taxes. Over the years some would be changed, some subtracted and new ones added, but he knew he would be swallowing pills and washing away their awful tastes with orange juice for the rest of his life.
    “I see you ordered without me.”
    He looked up from the last three cyclosporine pills he was about to take as Jaye Winston slid into the opposite side of the booth.
    “Sorry, I’m so late. Traffic on the 10 was a complete bitch.”
    “It’s all right. I was late, too. Dead battery.”
    “How many of those you take now?”
    “Fifty-four a day.”
    “Unbelievable.”
    “I had to turn a hallway closet into a medicine cabinet. The whole thing.”
    “Well, at least you’re still here.”
    She smiled and McCaleb nodded. The waitress came to the table with a menu for Winston but she said they had better order.
    “I’ll have what he’s having.”
    McCaleb ordered a large stack with melted butter. He told the waitress they would share one order of well-done bacon.
    “Coffee?” asked the waitress. She looked as though this might have been the one-millionth pancake order she had taken.
    “Yes, please,” said Winston. “Black.”
    McCaleb said he was fine with the orange juice.
    When they were alone McCaleb looked across the table at Winston.
    “So, you get ahold of the manager?”
    “He’s going to meet us at ten-thirty. The place is still vacant but it has been cleaned. After we released it, the vic’s sister came up and went through his things, took what she wanted.”
    “Yeah, I was afraid of something like that.”
    “The manager didn’t think it was very much – the guy didn’t have much.”
    “What about the owl?”
    “He didn’t remember the owl. Frankly, I didn’t either until you mentioned it this morning.”
    “It’s just a hunch. I’d like to take a look at it.”
    “Well, we’ll see if it’s there. What else do you want to do? I hope you didn’t come all the way across just to look at the guy’s apartment.”
    “I was thinking about checking out the sister. And maybe Harry Bosch, too.”
    Winston was silent but he could tell by her demeanor she was waiting for an explanation.
    “In order to profile an unknown subject, it’s important to know the victim. His routines, personality, everything. You know the drill. The sister and, to a lesser extent, Bosch can help with that.”
    “I only asked you to look at the book and the tape, Terry. You’re going to make me start feeling guilty here.” McCaleb paused while the waitress brought Winston’s coffee and put down two small glass pitchers containing boysenberry and maple syrup. After she went away he spoke.
    “You knew I’d get hooked, Jaye. ‘Beware, beware, God sees?’ I mean, come on. You’re going to tell me you thought I’d look it all over and phone in the report? Besides, I’m not complaining. I’m here because I want to be. If you feel guilty, you can buy the pancakes.”
    “What did your wife say about it?”
    “Nothing. She knows it’s something I have to do. I called her from the dock after I crossed. It was too late for her to really say anything by then anyway. She just told me to pick up a bag of green corn tamales at El Cholo before I headed back. They sell ’em frozen.”
    The pancakes came. They stopped talking and McCaleb politely waited for Winston to choose a syrup first but she was using a fork to move her pancakes around on her plate and he finally couldn’t wait. He doused his stack with maple syrup and started eating. The waitress came back by and put a check down. Winston quickly grabbed it.
    “The sheriff will pay for this.”
    “Tell him thanks.”
    “You know, I don’t know what you expect from Harry Bosch. He told me he’d only had a handful of contacts with Gunn in the six years since the prostitute case.”
    “When were those, when he got popped?”
    Winston nodded as she poured boysenberry syrup on her pancakes.
    “That means he would have seen him the night before he was killed. I didn’t see anything about it in the book.”
    “I