A Darkness More Than Night

he doubted there would be any usable fingerprint or fiber evidence remaining on it. He lifted it off the air conditioner and headed back to the stairs.
    When McCaleb stepped back into Edward Gunn’s apartment he saw two crime scene techs getting equipment out of a toolbox. A stepladder was standing in front of the china cabinet.
    “You might want to start with this,” he said.
    He watched Rohrshak’s eyes widen as he entered the room and placed the plastic owl on the table.
    “You manage the place across the street, don’t you, Mr. Rohrshak?”
    “Uh…”
    “It’s okay. It’s easy enough to find out.”
    “Yes, he does,” Winston said, bending down to look at the owl. “He was over there when we needed him on the day of the murder. He lives there.”
    “Any idea how this ended up on the roof?” McCaleb asked.
    Rohrshak still didn’t answer.
    “Guess it just flew over, right?”
    Rohrshak couldn’t take his eyes off the owl.
    “Tell you what, you can go now, Mr. Rohrshak. But stay around your place. If we get a print off the bird or the cabinet, we’re going to need to take a set of yours for comparison.”
    Now Rohrshak looked at McCaleb and his eyes grew even wider.
    “Go on, Mr. Rohrshak.”
    The building manager turned and slowly headed out of the apartment.
    “And shut the door, please,” McCaleb called after him.
    After he was gone and the door was shut Winston almost burst into laughter.
    “Terry, you’re being so hard on him. He didn’t really do anything wrong, you know. We cleared the place, he let the sister take what she wanted and then what was he supposed to do, try to rent the place with this stupid owl up there?”
    McCaleb shook his head.
    “He lied to us. That was wrong. I almost blew a gasket climbing that building across the street. He could have just told us it was up there.”
    “Well, he’s properly scared now. I think he learned his lesson.”
    “Whatever.”
    He stepped back so one of the techs could go to work on the owl while the other climbed the ladder to work on the top of the cabinet.
    McCaleb studied the bird as the tech brushed on black fingerprint powder. It appeared that the owl was hand painted. It was dark brown and black on its wings, head and back. Its chest was a lighter brown with some yellow highlighting. Its eyes were a shiny black.
    “Has this been outside?” the tech asked.
    “Unfortunately,” McCaleb answered, remembering the rains that had swept off the mainland and out to Catalina the week before.
    “Well, I’m not getting anything.”
    “Figures.”
    McCaleb looked at Winston, his eyes portraying renewed anger with Rohrshak.
    “Nothing up here, either,” the other tech said. “Too much dust.”

Chapter 9
    The trial of David Storey was being held in the Van Nuys courthouse. The crime the case centered on was not remotely connected to Van Nuys or even the San Fernando Valley, but the courthouse had been chosen by schedulers in the district attorney’s office because Department N was available and it was the single largest courtroom in the county – constructed out of two courtrooms several years earlier to comfortably hold the two juries as well as the attendant media crush of the Menendez brothers murder case. The Menendezes’ slaying of their parents had been one of several Los Angeles court cases in the previous decade to capture the media’s and, therefore, the public’s attention. When it was over, the DA’s office did not bother deconstructing the huge courtroom. Somebody there had the foresight to realize that in L.A. there would always be a case that could fill Department N.
    And at the moment it was the David Storey case.
    The thirty-eight-year-old film director, known for films that pushed the limits of violence and sexuality within an R rating, was charged with the murder of a young actress he had taken home from the premiere of his most recent film. The twenty-three-year-old woman’s body was found the next morning in the small Nichols Canyon bungalow she shared with another would-be actress. The victim had been strangled, her nude body arranged in her bed in a pose investigators believed to be part of a careful plan by her killer to avoid discovery.
    The case’s elements – power, celebrity, sex and money – and the added Hollywood connection served to bring the case maximum media attention. David Storey worked on the wrong side of the camera to be a fully realized celebrity himself, but his name was known