The Night Crew

the body, and felt herself tighten up: whoever had done that was far gone. But she wouldn’t fool herself, either: ‘‘C’mon, how many Annas do you know?’’
    Wyatt said, ‘‘All right. I don’t want to scare you any more than you are, but—remember the cuts on O’Brien’s face? I thought they looked like gang marks?’’
    ‘‘Yes?’’
    ‘‘They were like this, remember?’’ He made a quick slashing triangle design on the palm of his hand with the opposite index finger.
    ‘‘Triangles,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘Or A’s,’’ Wyatt said quietly. ‘‘Upside-down A’s.’’
    ‘‘Oh, no.’’ She put her hands to her cheeks. ‘‘Can’t be A’s.’’
    ‘‘Could be,’’ Wyatt said. ‘‘We gotta have a serious talk with the L.A. guys.’’
    ‘‘Are they upset?’’ She looked toward the house. ‘‘About us going inside?’’
    Wyatt glanced toward Harper: ‘‘Not as much as you might think.’’
    ‘‘Wasn’t her fault anyway,’’ Harper said, stepping into the conversation. ‘‘She didn’t know what she was gonna see. I took her in. I thought she might say something—might know the guy.’’
    ‘‘Did she?’’
    Harper glanced at her, then suddenly grinned, the first time she’d seen him smile. Nice smile, she thought. ‘‘No. She went outside and barfed.’’
    ‘‘Did not,’’ Anna said.
    Creek, looking past them, said apprehensively, ‘‘Uh-oh, here we go.’’
    An L.A. detective was headed their way, the languid, dangerous stroll affected by cops when they were being cool. He was carrying a rolled pamphlet. He glanced at Anna, nodded at Creek and said to Harper, ‘‘How are you, Jake?’’
    A movie line: one that should have been followed by a cigarette flicked into the street. Harper shrugged: ‘‘You heard about my kid.’’
    ‘‘Yeah. Brutal.’’ The detective looked back at the house, and then said, ‘‘Listen, I know this is a really horseshit time to ask you this, but I got a problem . . . I gotta come see you. About Lucy.’’
    ‘‘Gonna do it this time?’’
    ‘‘I gotta. She’s crazier than a shithouse mouse. If I don’t get out of there . . . but I can’t leave the kids.’’
    ‘‘Call me,’’ Harper said.
    ‘‘I’m hurtin’ for cash . . .’’ The cop was embarrassed.
    ‘‘We’ll put it on your Sears card,’’ Harper said. He poked the cop in the ribs, and the cop nodded and said, ‘‘I’ll call you—thanks.’’ He nodded at Anna, glanced at Wyatt and strolled away.
    ‘‘What was all that about?’’ Anna asked Wyatt.
    ‘‘Jake’s a lawyer,’’ Wyatt said. ‘‘He has about half the cop business in the county.’’
    ‘‘I thought you said he was a cop.’’ ‘‘
    Was. Ten years ago.’’
    • • •
    The lead detective’s name was Carrol Trippen, a tall, impatient, prematurely white-haired Anglo. He split them up, talked to each of them for a moment, compared their stories and finally sent them downtown to make statements.
    ‘‘Are we in trouble? Should I get a lawyer?’’ Anna asked, as Trippen started back toward the house.
    ‘‘Harper pisses me off, calling you guys,’’ Trippen said sourly. ‘‘But it wasn’t your fault, and I know where he’s coming from. I got bigger things to worry about than hassling people who looked at a dead guy.’’
    The cops kept Anna, Harper, Creek and Louis apart until the statements were done. Anna was interviewed by a sleepy cop with bad breath and a yellow shirt with a new coffee stain.
    When they finished, he peered at her over his coffee cup and said, ‘‘Tell you what: You know this guy. The killer.’’
    ‘‘If it’s me.’’ She’d been having second thoughts.
    ‘‘C’mon. Even you think it’s you.’’
    ‘‘So what do I do?’’
    ‘‘First thing is, with this prowler you had, I’d move out of your house. Stay at a motel for a few days, don’t tell anybody where you are. When you’ve got to work, meet your friends somewhere. You got a cellular, anybody can get in touch if they need to.’’
    ‘‘I’ll think about it,’’ Anna said, but she wouldn’t leave her house.
    ‘‘Do that. And I need you back this afternoon, if you can make it—we got a shrink and a serial killer profiler, they’re gonna want to talk to you.’’
    ‘‘You’re sure he did both Jason and Sean?’’
    ‘‘Trippen talked to Wyatt, and they think so. He says there’s a level of violence there. You don’t see it in the