The Night Crew

Since eight o’clock, say.’’
    They all looked from Charles to Anna, then back to Charles, and then all simultaneously nodded.
    ‘‘Since seven,’’ blue-hair said. ‘‘Since ten after seven, I remember, I was putting the roast in . . .’’
    ‘‘Let’s go,’’ Anna said to Harper. Outside, Anna said, ‘‘We’re running out of time. I don’t know why he hasn’t called back. He’ll be calling. Let’s find the Bee. Maybe she can tell us . . .’’
    She was frantic: wanted to scream, she wanted to run somewhere, do something.
    ‘‘Anna, this is just like when I was chasing shadows on Jacob. We’re finding people, but not the guy. We’ve got to stop running long enough to think . And when I think about it, I think Wyatt might be right.’’
    ‘‘He’s in my neighborhood?’’
    ‘‘Something like that; that’s a possibility. He keeps coming to your house, fuckin’ with you.’’
    ‘‘Fucking with my house,’’ Anna said. She looked at her watch: He’d had Pam for at least a couple of hours now.
    ‘‘The other thing is . . .’’
    ‘‘Clark.’’
    ‘‘Yeah, that’s the other thing,’’ he said.

twenty-eight

    Clark’s apartment was in Westwood, six blocks from the music building. Halfway there, Anna said, urgently, ‘‘We’ve got no time for this, no time.’’
    ‘‘We should have made time,’’ Harper said. They were halfway to Clark’s apartment complex. ‘‘And what else can we do? I mean, we could still call Wyatt, and have the cops do it.’’
    ‘‘No.’’
    Anna fell back in her seat, looked out the window: If the cops got close to Clark, they’d tear him apart. Because Clark was odd—he was a composer of classical music, probably the least likely job in America. And he actually made money at it. And he had attitudes that had driven even his friends crazy: arrogant, conceited, charming, angry.
    Not violent. Not that she’d ever seen. When he got angry, he got sullen, a cool, withdrawing anger, not a hot, platethrowing tantrum. He’d never tear her house up.
    On the other hand, her house wasn’t really torn up. Just the broken window. And the guy had to break a window, if he wanted to get in the house. The destruction wasn’t wanton . . .
    Except for the pot. What had he done with that pot?
    Anna shook her head, pushed her glasses back up her nose: she was losing it. She was five minutes from a confrontation she dreaded as much as anything she could think of, and she was worried about a flowerpot.
    ‘‘Jake.’’ She grabbed his arm. ‘‘Jake: we gotta go back to my place. Now.’’
    Exasperated. ‘‘Anna, we’re two minutes away . . .’’
    ‘‘Jake, forget it, we gotta go back.’’
    ‘‘Why?’’
    ‘‘Something happened to my flowerpot.’’ The pot had been there earlier in the day. She didn’t remember seeing it, but she would have missed it. It was simply part of the landscape.
    Harper trailed Anna through the house, past the crimescene cops. Wyatt was on the telephone, said something, then put a hand over the receiver: ‘‘Find him?’’
    ‘‘Yeah. It’s not him,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Anything here?’’
    Wyatt shook his head and returned to the phone.
    At the back door, Anna flipped on the porch light, and went out to look at the spot where the pot had been. ‘‘It’s too big to carry anyplace,’’ she said. ‘‘It probably weighs fifty pounds.’’
    ‘‘I can’t see anything,’’ Harper said, scuffing around in the grass.
    ‘‘I’ll get a flashlight,’’ Anna said. She went inside, got a flashlight out of a kitchen drawer and went back out.
    The depression where the pot had stood was a clear ring of raw dirt in the grass going down to the canal. And two feet toward the canal, a lump of dirt that had probably been inside the pot.
    Anna pointed the light over the sea wall, into the murky canal water. The stuff looked like it might have come out of a radiator, a funny green, with gray depths to it. But down there in the water, was . . . something. Something that bobbed . . . up and down, up and down. Something with a round end. A head?
    She stepped back, shivered, turned and went up on the porch: ‘‘Hey, you guys,’’ she yelled. ‘‘You better come out here.’’
    She thought of Pam in the water, anchored by the pot; swallowed. Please don’t let it be. Please.
    One of the crime-scene cops came to the door. ‘‘What?’’
    Anna pointed the light into the water. ‘‘There’s