Lost Light

down there.”
    She let me go. I walked across the deck and looked down over the railing. Below, large crime scene lights had been erected. The slope was like an anthill with crime scene techs working all over the place. Crews from the medical examiner’s office were huddled over the bodies. Above it all the helicopters moved in a loud, multilevel choreography. I knew that whatever relationships I’d previously had with my neighbors were surely gone now.
    “Know what, Kiz?”
    “What, Harry?”
    “I think it’s time to sell this place.”
    “Yeah, good luck with that, Harry.”
    She took me by the arm and pulled me away from the railing.

41
    The North Hollywood station was the newest in the city. It was built post-earthquake and Rodney King riots. On the outside it was a brick fortress designed to withstand both tectonic and social upheavals. On the inside it was state-of-the-art electronics and comfort. I was sat in the center seat of a table in a large interview room. I could not see the microphones and the camera but I knew they were there. I also knew I had to be careful. I had made a bad deal. If a quarter century in the cops had taught me anything, it was not to talk to cops without a lawyer’s advice. And here I was about to do just that. I was about to open up to two people predisposed to believe me and to want to help me. But that wouldn’t matter. What would matter was the tape. I had to step carefully and make sure I said nothing that could come back on me when the tape was reviewed by those who were not my friends.
    Kizmin Rider started things off by entering all three of our names into the record, reporting the date, time and location, and then reading me my constitutionally guaranteed right to a lawyer and to hold my tongue if I wished. She then asked me to acknowledge both orally and in writing that I understood these rights and was willingly waiving them. I did so. I had taught her well.
    She then got right to it.
    “Okay, Harry, you have four people including a federal agent dead at your house, not to mention a fifth man in a coma. You want to tell us all about it?”
    “I killed two of them-in self-defense. And the guy in the coma, I did that too.”
    “Okay, tell us what happened.”
    I began the story at the Baked Potato and took it from there. I mentioned Sugar Ray, the quartet, the porter, the bartenders and their tattoos. I even described the cashier I had bought the coffee from at Ralph’s. I used as much detail as I could remember because I knew that the details would convince them once they checked it all out. I knew from experience that conversation was hearsay, it wasn’t provable one way or the other. So if you were going to tell a story about what people said and how they said it-especially people who were no longer alive-then you’d best salt the story with the things that could be checked and proven. The details. Safety and salvation were in the details.
    So I put everything I could remember on the tape, right down to the Marilyn Monroe tattoo. That one made Roy Lindell laugh but Rider didn’t see the humor in it.
    I walked them through the story, describing things as they had happened. I offered no background story because I knew that would come out in the questioning that would follow. I wanted them to have a moment-by-moment and detail-by-detail account of what had happened. I did not lie in what I told them but I didn’t tell them everything. I still wasn’t sure how to play the Milton angle. I would wait for a signal from Lindell on that. I was sure he had been given his orders long before he got to the station.
    I held the Milton details out for Lindell. The detail I held out for myself was what I had seen when I closed my eyes before pressing the shotgun’s trigger. I kept the image of Angella Benton’s hands to myself.
    “And that’s it,” I said when I was done. “Then the uniforms showed up and here we are.”
    Rider had been jotting down notes occasionally on a legal pad. She put her pad down and looked at me. She seemed stunned by the story. She probably believed I was very lucky to have survived it.
    “Thank you, Harry. That was certainly a close call for you.”
    “It was about five close calls.”
    “Um, I think we’re going to take a break for a few minutes. Agent Lindell and I are going to step out and talk about this and then I’m sure we will come back with some questions.”
    I smiled.
    “I’m sure you will.”
    “Can we get you