A Darkness More Than Night

hill.
    McCaleb moved quickly to the slider and pulled it open. He held the letter opener at his side but with the point of the blade up. The man standing in the cockpit turned around.
    McCaleb lowered his weapon as the man stared at it with wide eyes.
    “Mr. McCaleb, I -”
    “It’s all right, Charlie, I just didn’t know who it was.”
    Charlie was the night man in the harbor office. McCaleb didn’t know his last name. But he knew that he often visited Buddy Lockridge on nights Buddy stayed over. McCaleb guessed that Buddy was a soft touch for a quick beer every now and then on the long nights. That was probably why Charlie had rowed his skiff over from the pier.
    “I saw the lights and thought maybe Buddy was here,” he said. “I was just paying a visit.”
    “No, Buddy’s overtown tonight. He probably won’t be back till Friday.”
    “Okay, then. I’ll just be going. Everything all right with you? The missus isn’t making you sleep on the boat, is she?”
    “No, Charlie, everything’s fine. Just doing a little work.”
    He held up the letter opener as if that explained what he was doing.
    “All right then, I’ll be heading back.”
    “Good night, Charlie. Thanks for checking on me.”
    He went back inside and down to the office. He found the magnifying glass, with a light attachment, at the bottom of the box of office supplies.
    For the next two hours he went through the paintings. The eerie landscapes of phantasmic demons surrounding human prey enthralled him once again. As he studied each work he marked particular findings such as the owls with yellow Post-its so that he could easily return to them.
    McCaleb amassed a list of sixteen direct depictions of owls in the paintings and another dozen portrayals of owl-like creatures or structures. The owls were darkly painted and lurking in all the paintings like sentinels of judgment and doom. He looked at them and couldn’t help but think of the analogy of the owl as detective. Both creatures of the night, both watchers and hunters – firsthand observers of the evil and pain humans and animals inflict upon each other.
    The single most significant finding McCaleb made during his study of the paintings was not an owl. Rather, it was the human form. He made the discovery as he used the lighted glass to examine the center panel of a painting called The Last Judgment. Outside the depiction of hell’s oven, where sinners were thrown, there were several bound victims waiting to be dismembered and burned. Among this grouping McCaleb found the image of a nude man bound with his arms and legs behind him. The sinner’s extremities had been stretched into a painful reverse fetal position. The image closely reflected what he had seen at center focus in the crime scene videotape and photos of Edward Gunn.
    McCaleb marked the finding with a Post-it and closed the book. When the cell phone on the couch next to him chirped just then, he bolted upright with a start. He checked his watch before answering and saw it was exactly midnight.
    The caller was Graciela.
    “I thought you were coming back tonight.”
    “I am. I just finished and I’m on my way.”
    “You took the cart down, right?”
    “Yeah. So I’ll be fine.”
    “Okay, see you soon.”
    “Yes, you will.”
    McCaleb decided to leave everything on the boat, thinking that he needed to clear his mind before the next day. Carrying the files and the heavy books would only remind him of the heavy thoughts he carried within. He locked the boat and took the Zodiac to the skiff dock. At the end of the pier he climbed into the golf cart. He rode through the deserted business district and up the hill toward home. Despite his efforts to deflect them, his thoughts were of the abyss. A place where creatures with sharp beaks and claws and knives tormented the fallen in perpetuity. He knew one thing for sure at this point. The painter Bosch would have made a good profiler. He knew his stuff. He had a handle on the nightmares that rattle around inside most people’s minds. As well as those that sometimes get out.

Chapter 15
    Opening statements in the trial of David Storey were delayed while the attorneys argued over final motions behind closed doors with the judge. Bosch sat at the prosecution table and waited. He tried to clear his mind of all extraneous diversions, including his fruitless search for Annabelle Crowe the night before.
    Finally, at ten forty-five, the attorneys came into the courtroom and moved