Lost Light

double-drawer file cabinets standing next to the stacked washer and dryer. They were key-lock cabinets but the locks had been punched out on each. Lawton had probably picked them up used at a yard sale.
    There was no exterior labeling on the four drawers that could help me with my search so I bent down and opened the first drawer on the left. It contained no files. Rather, it held what looked like the contents of a top of a desk. There was a Rolodex file, its phone cards yellowed, a stand-up photo frame featuring Danny and Lawton Cross at some happier moment, and double-decked in and out trays. The only thing in the tray marked “IN” was a folded map of Griffith Park.
    The next drawer contained Cross’s files. I thumbed through the tabs looking at the names and hoping for connections to what I was working. Nothing. I went to the top drawer of the second cabinet and found more files. Finally, I found a file marked “Eidolon Productions.” I pulled it and put it on top of the cabinet. I went back to thumbing through the files, knowing that often cases expanded into many folders.
    I came across a file marked “Antonio Markwell” and remembered the case because it had played hotly in the media about five or six years earlier. Markwell was a nine-year-old boy who disappeared from his backyard in Chatsworth. RHD worked the case with the FBI. It lasted a week, until they found a suspect-a pedophile with a motor home. He led Lawton Cross and his partner, Jack Dorsey, to the boy’s body in Griffith Park. It had been buried up near the caves in Bronson Canyon. They would have never found it if they hadn’t turned the killer. There were too many places to hide a body in those hills.
    It had been a big case, the kind that made your name in the department. I imagined that both Cross and Dorsey thought that they were golden after that. They had no idea what the future was holding for them.
    I closed the drawer. There were no other files that seemed connected to my investigation. The bottom drawer, the last one, was empty. I took the file I had pulled over to the Malibu. I put the file down on the hood and opened it. I should have just put it under my arm and left with it. But I was excited. I was anticipating something. A new lead maybe, a break. I wanted to see what Lawton Cross had kept in the file.
    As soon as I opened it I knew the file was incomplete. Cross had copied some of the working documents of the case for use at home or on the road. The basic case reports were missing. There were no reports that specifically related to the investigation of the murder of Angella Benton. The file mostly contained reports relating to the movie set robbery and shoot-out. There were witness reports-including my own-and forensic reports. There was a DNA comparison between the blood found in the stolen movie van and the semen found on Angella Benton’s body; no match. There were interview summaries and a time and location spread sheet-a document on which the locations of various players in the case are charted at different times important to the case. These T amp;L reports were also known as alibi sheets. It was a way of sifting through multiple players in a case and possibly coming up with a suspect.
    I quickly went through the pages of this report and determined that Cross and Dorsey had been charting eleven different people and not all of the names were familiar to me. The T amp;L report was a good find. I put the document to the side because I would put it at the top of the stack in the file when I was finished my review.
    I moved on and had just picked up a copy of the currency report, which contained the serial numbers taken at random from the stolen money, when I heard Danny’s voice behind me. She had remained in the doorway to the house watching me and I hadn’t realized it.
    “Find what you were looking for?”
    I turned and looked back at her. The first thing I noticed was that the belt of her robe was untied and the robe had fallen open to reveal the light blue nightgown beneath.
    “Uh, yes, it’s here. I was just taking a quick look. I can go now if you want.”
    “What’s your hurry? Lawton is still asleep. He won’t wake up until the morning.”
    She held my eyes as she said the last line. I was trying to read what was said and what was meant. Before I could respond, the moment was broken by the sound and the lights of a car pulling quickly into the driveway.
    I turned and saw a standard government car-a