A Darkness More Than Night

City Police Department have to say about this, Detective Bosch?”
    “Based upon my inquiries they have reopened the case. But they are hampered.”
    “Why is that?”
    “The case is old. Because it was originally ruled an accidental death, not all the records were kept in archives. Because decomposition was advanced at the time of the body’s discovery it is hard to make definitive observations and conclusions. And the body cannot be exhumed because it was cremated.”
    “It was? By whom?”
    Fowkkes stood and objected but the judge said the argument had already been heard and overruled. Langwiser prompted Bosch before Fowkkes had even sat back down.
    “By whom, Detective Bosch?”
    “By her family. But it was paid for… the cremation, the service, everything was paid for by David Storey as a gift in Alicia Lopez’s memory.”
    Langwiser loudly flipped up a page on her legal tablet. She was on a roll and everybody knew it. It was what cops and prosecutors called being in the tube. It was a surfing reference. It meant they had ridden the case into the water tunnel where everything was going smoothly and perfectly and was surrounding them in glorious balance.
    “Detective, subsequent to this part of the investigation, did there come a time when a woman named Annabelle Crowe came to see you?”
    “Yes. A story had broken in the Los Angeles Times about the investigation and how David Storey was the focus. She read the story and came forward.”
    “And who is she?”
    “She’s an actress. She lives in West Hollywood.”
    “And what bearing did she have on this case?”
    “She told me that she had dated David Storey at one time last year and he choked her while they were having sex.”
    Fowkkes made another objection, this one without the force of his other protestations. But again he was overruled, as the testimony had been cleared by the judge in earlier motions.
    “Where did Ms. Crowe say this incident took place?”
    “In Mr. Storey’s home on Mulholland Drive. I asked her to describe the place and she was able to do so accurately. She had been there.”
    “Couldn’t she have seen the issue of Architectural Digest that showed photos of the defendant’s home?”
    “She was able to describe in accurate detail areas of the master bedroom and bath that were not shown in the magazine.”
    “What happened to her when the defendant choked her?”
    “She told me she passed out. When she awoke Mr. Storey was not in the room. He was taking a shower. She grabbed her clothing and fled from the home.”
    Langwiser underlined that with a long silence. She then flipped the pages of her pad down, glanced over at the defense table and then looked up at Judge Houghton.
    “Your Honor, that is all I have for Detective Bosch at this time.”

Chapter 26
    McCaleb got to El Cochinito at quarter to twelve. He hadn’t been inside the storefront restaurant in Silver Lake in five years but he remembered the place had only a dozen or so tables and they were usually taken quickly at lunchtime. And often those tables were taken by cops. Not because the name of the restaurant was a draw – the Little Pig – but because the food was of high quality and low cost. It had been McCaleb’s experience that cops were highly skilled in finding such establishments among the many restaurants in any city. When he had traveled on assignment for the bureau, he would always ask the local street cops for recommendations on food. He had rarely been disappointed.
    While he waited for Winston he carefully studied the menu and planned his meal. In the past year his palate had finally returned with a vengeance. For the first eighteen months of his life after surgery, his sense of taste had deserted him. He had not cared what he ate because it all tasted the same – bland. Even a heavy dousing of habañera sauce on everything from sandwiches to pasta only registered a minor blip on his tongue. But then, slowly, his taste started coming back and it became a second rebirth for him following the transplant itself. He now loved everything Graciela made. He even loved everything he made – and this despite his general ineptitude with anything other than the barbecue grill. He ate everything with a gusto he’d never had before, even before the transplant. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the middle of the night was something he privately savored as much as a trip overtown with Graciela to dine in style at Jozu on Melrose. Consequently, he