Lost Light

name “Alejandro Penjeda.” Mrs. Molloy reached across and hit the ENTER key and the search began. In about five seconds I had the results on the screen. There were five hits. The first two were from 1991 and 1994 and the final three were all from 2000. I dismissed the first two as being unrelated to the Penjeda I was interested in. The next three were all from March 2000. I moved the mouse to the first one-March 1, 2000-and clicked on the READ button. The story filled the top half of the screen. It was a short report on the opening of the trial of Alejandro Penjeda, who was charged with the murder of a Korean jeweler named Kyungwon Park.
    The second story was also short and it was the one I wanted. It was the verdict story in the Penjeda case. It was dated March 14 and reported events from the day before. I took the notebook out of my pocket and completed that part of the chronology, putting the new information in the right time slot.

    Angella Benton-murdered-May 16, 1999
    Movie set heist-May 19, 1999
    Gessler/Dorsey-phone call-March 13, 2000
    Martha Gessler-missing-March 19, 2000

    I looked at what I had. Martha Gessler disappeared and presumably was murdered six days after talking to Jack Dorsey about the currency list anomaly.
    “If there isn’t anything else, I’m going to go back up front.”
    I had forgotten that Mrs. Molloy was still standing behind me. I stood up and signaled her to the seat.
    “Actually, this might be faster if you could do it,” I said. “I need to do a couple more searches.”
    “We are not supposed to do the searches. You are supposed to be proficient with the computer if you are going to use it.”
    “I understand. I am going to learn but at the moment I’m not that proficient and these searches are very important.”
    She seemed to be wavering on whether to continue to help me. I wished I’d had the small wallet-size copy of the private investigator’s license I had gotten from the state. Maybe that would have impressed her. She leaned backwards to look down the row of cubicles to the front desk to see if anyone was waiting for help. The Parenting Today guy was milling about, trying to act as though he was either waiting for someone or waiting for help.
    “I’ll come back after I ask this gentleman if he needs help,” Mrs. Molloy said.
    She walked off without waiting for a response from me. I watched as she asked Parenting Today if he needed something and he shook his head and then glanced back at me before walking off. Mrs. Molloy then came back down the aisle to me. She took the seat in front of the computer.
    “What is the next search?”
    She moved the mouse smoothly and quickly and got back to the key word template.
    “Try ‘John Dorsey,’” I said. “And to narrow it down, can you also add ‘Nat’s bar’?”
    She typed in the information and started the search. It came back with thirteen hits and I asked her to bring up the first one. It was dated April 7, 2000, and reported events from the day before.
    ONE COP DEAD, ONE HURT IN HOLLYWOOD BAR SHOOTING
    By Keisha Russell
    Times Staff Writer

    Two Los Angeles police detectives on a lunch break and a bartender were gunned down in a Hollywood bar yesterday when a man entered the establishment and attempted to rob it at gunpoint.
    The 1 p.m. shooting at Nat’s on Cherokee Avenue left Detective John H. Dorsey, 49, dead of multiple gunshot wounds and his partner, Lawton Cross Jr., 38, in critical condition with head and neck wounds. Donald Rice, 29, a bartender working in the lounge, was shot multiple times and also died at the scene.
    The suspect, who wore a black ski mask, escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash from the cash register, said Lt. James Macy, of the Officer Involved Shooting unit.
    “It appears this was about a few hundred dollars at most,” Macy said at a press conference staged outside of the bar where the shooting took place. “We can find no reason for this guy to have started shooting.”
    Macy went on to say that it was unclear whether Dorsey and Cross had attempted to stop the robbery, thereby causing the shooting to start. He said both detectives were shot while sitting in a booth in the dimly lit bar area. Neither had drawn his weapon.
    The detectives had been conducting an interview in a business near Nat’s bar when they decided to take a lunch break in the bar, according to Macy. There was no indication that either man had been consuming alcohol in the bar.
    “They went