The Night Crew

quarter mile behind another runner, feeling the sun.
    When she started running, her brain was empty. The further along the beach she got, the more it filled up: Maybe go south tonight, haven’t been south for a while. Wonder what happened to that burned kid, at that house fire, the last time we went south? Kid was trying to save a cat, wasn’t he? Could be a feature on his recovery? It’d have to be the first item on the run. Louis could get a phone number . . . On the other hand, it might be a bone to throw to Channel Seventeen . . .
    Six miles, a little over forty-two minutes. When she got back, the linebacker was sitting on the bottom bench of the basketball bleachers, putting braces on his knees.
    ‘‘Hey, Dick,’’ Anna said. ‘‘How’re the knees?’’
    ‘‘Snap-crackle-pop, just like cornflakes,’’ he said.
    ‘‘Rice Krispies,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘Yeah, whatever; ain’t been gettin’ nothing but worse.’’
    ‘‘Gonna have to decide,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘I know.’’ He pushed himself up, hobbled around the edge of the court. ‘‘So stiff I couldn’t walk down to the water.’’
    ‘‘Take the knife, man,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Anything’s better than this.’’
    ‘‘Scared of the knife. They put me to sleep, I don’t think I’ll wake up. I’ll die in there.’’
    ‘‘Oh, come on, Dick . . .’’
    They talked for another five minutes, then Anna headed home. As she left, the sad linebacker said, ‘‘If I could run half as good as you, I’d still be playing.’’ The cell phone was chirping when she got home. Louis again, ready to set up for the new night? A little early for that. ‘‘Hello?’’
    Not Louis.
    ‘‘This is Sergeant Hardesty with the Santa Monica police.’’ He sounded a little surprised to be talking with someone. ‘‘Is this Anna Batory?’’ He pronounced her name ‘‘battery.’’
    ‘‘Ba-Tory,’’ she said. She spread her business cards around, and often got tips on the cell phone. ‘‘What’s happening?’’
    ‘‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident. One of the persons involved carried a card in his billfold that said you should be contacted in case of trouble.’’
    She didn’t track for a second, and then the smile died on her face: ‘‘Oh my God, Creek,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Is his name Creek?’’
    ‘‘I don’t know, ma’am,’’ the voice said, shading toward professional sorrow. ‘‘I don’t have an identification on the person. Could you go down there?’’ The body was on the beach, just at the waterline. If she’d run another five or six miles that morning, she would have tripped over it.
    A line of three cop cars, two with light bars and a plain white institutional Chevy, marked the spot; a medical examiner’s van sat ten feet above the water, the longest fingers of surf running up between its tires. At the back of the van, a cluster of civil servants gathered around what looked like a pile of seaweed: a body covered with a wet green blanket. Two uniformed cops kept a semicircle of gawkers on the far side of the cop cars.
    Out on the ocean, two Jet Skis chased each other in endless wave-hopping circles, their motors like distant chain saws; beyond them, a badly handled sloop pushed south toward Marina Del Rey, its jib flogging in the stiffening breeze.
    Anna trudged across the sand toward the cop cars with a growing dread. She’d tried to call Creek at home, but there’d been no answer. Creek was always out on the water. She’d thought, any number of times, that he would someday die there.
    One of the uniformed cops sidled along the line of cars, cutting off her line: ‘‘They called me,’’ she said, pointing toward the group on the waterline. ‘‘They think that’s a friend of mine.’’
    ‘‘If you could just wait here . . .’’
    She waited by the cars while the cop walked down to the group by the water and said something to a plainclothesman, who looked briefly at Anna and nodded. The cop waved her over, and passed her on his way back to the car. ‘‘Hot,’’ he said as he passed. And he added, ‘‘Hope it’s not your friend.’’
    Anna jerked her head in a nod, but the kind words did nothing to help the growing sourness in the back of her throat.
    At the water, a balding man in jeans and a t-shirt squatted beside the body, probing it. Two more men sat on the bumper of a medical examiner’s truck, chatting, one with a set of Walkman headphones around