Renner nodded.

"Okay, Mr. Pierce, you can go. For now. But let me say for the record that I don't believe for a moment you've told me the whole truth here. It's my job to know when people are lying and I think you're lying or leaving things out, or both. But, you know, I don't feel too bad about it, because things like that catch up with a person. I may move slow, Mr.

Pierce. Sure, I kept you waiting in here too long. A fine, upstanding citizen like you. But that's because I am thorough and I'm pretty good at what I do. I'll have the whole picture pretty soon. I guarantee it. And if I find out you crossed any lines in that picture, it's going to be my pleasure, if you know what I mean."

Renner stood up.

"I'll be in touch about that polygraph. And if I were you, I might want to think about going back to that nice new apartment on Ocean Way and staying there and staying away from this, Mr. Pierce."

Pierce stood up and walked awkwardly around the table and Renner to the door. He thought of something before leaving.

"Where's my car?"

"Your car? I guess it's wherever you left it. Go to the front desk. They'll call a cab for you."

"Thanks a lot."

"Good night, Mr. Pierce. I'll be in touch."

As he walked through the deserted squad room to the hallway that led to the front desk and the exit, Pierce checked his watch. It was twelve-thirty. He knew he had to get to Robin before Renner did but her number was in the backpack in his car.

And as he approached the front counter he realized he had no money for a cab. He had given every dollar he had on him to Robin. He hesitated for a moment.

"Can I help you, sir?"

It was the cop behind the counter. Pierce realized he was staring at him.

"No, I'm fine."

He turned and walked out of the police station. On Venice Boulevard he started jogging west toward the beach.

As Pierce went down the alley to his car he saw that Lilly Quinlan's apartment was still a nest of police activity. Several cars were clogging the alley and a mobile light had been set up to spray the front of the apartment with illumination.

He noticed Renner standing out front, conversing with his partner, a detective whose name Pierce did not remember. It meant Renner had probably driven right by Pierce on his way back to the crime scene and had not noticed him or had intentionally decided not to offer him a ride. Pierce chose the second possibility. A cop on the street, even at night, would notice a man jogging in full dress. Renner had purposely gone by him.

Standing -or maybe hiding -next to his car while he cooled down from the jog over, Pierce watched for a few minutes and soon Renner and his partner went back inside the apartment. Pierce finally used the keyless remote to unlock the door of the BMW.

He slipped into the car and gently closed the door. He fumbled with the key, trying to find the ignition, and realized the ceiling light was off. He thought it must have burned out because it was set to go on when the door was open. He reached up and tapped the button anyway and nothing happened. He tapped it again and the light came on.

He sat there looking up at the light for a long moment and considering this. He knew the light had a three-setting cycle controlled by pushing the button on the ceiling next to it.

The first position was the convenience setting, engaging the light when the door was open. Once the door was closed the light would fade out after about fifteen seconds or the ignition of the car, whichever came first. The second position turned on the light fulltime, even if the door was closed. The third position turned the light off with no automatic convenience response.

Pierce knew he always kept the light set on the first position so the interior would be lit when he opened the door. That had not occurred when he had gotten into the car. The light had to have been in the third position of the cycle. He had then pushed the button once -to position one -and the light did not come on, because the door had already been closed. He had pushed it a second time and the light came on in position two.

Opening and closing the door, he went through the cycle until he had confirmed his theory. His conclusion was that someone had been in his car and changed the light setting.

Suddenly panicked by this realization, he reached between the two front seats to the backseat floor. His hand found his backpack. He pulled it forward and made a quick check of its contents. His notebooks were still there. Nothing seemed to be missing.

He opened the glove box and that too seemed undisturbed. Yet he was sure someone had been inside the car.

He knew the most expensive thing in the car was probably the leather backpack itself, yet it had not been taken. This led him to conclude that the car had been searched but not burglarized. That explained why it had been relocked. A car burglar probably wouldn't have bothered to disguise what had happened.

Pierce looked up at the lit doorway of the apartment and knew what had happened.

Renner. The police. They had searched his car. He was sure of it.

He considered this and decided there were two possibilities as to how it had happened and how the mistake that led to his tip-off had occurred. The first was that the searcher opened the door -probably with a professional "slim jim" window channel device -and then hit the light button twice to extinguish the light so as not to be seen in the car.

The second possibility was that the searcher entered the car and closed the door, the overhead light going out on its timer delay. The searcher would have then pushed the overhead button to turn the light back on. When the search was completed he would have then pushed the button again to turn the light off, leaving it in the cycle position Pierce had found it.

His guess was that it was the latter possibility. Not that it mattered. He thought about Renner inside the apartment. He knew then why the detective had not given him a ride.

He had wanted to search the car. He beat Pierce back to the scene and searched his car.

The search would have been illegal without his permission but Pierce actually felt the opposite of angry about it. He knew there was nothing in the car that incriminated him in the Lilly Quinlan disappearance or any other crime. He thought about Renner and the disappointment he probably felt when the car turned up clean.

"Fuck you, asshole," he said out loud.

Just as he was about to finally key the engine he saw the mattress being removed from the apartment. Two people he assumed were crime scene specialists gingerly carried the bulky piece vertically through the door and down the stairs to a van marked LAPD SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION DIVISION.

The mattress had been wrapped in thick plastic that was opaque like a shower curtain.

The wide and dark blotch at its center clearly showed through. The sight of it being held up in the harsh light immediately depressed Pierce. It was as if they were holding up a billboard that advertised that he had been too late to do anything for Lilly Quinlan.

The mattress was too big and wide to fit in the van. The people from the Scientific Investigation Division hoisted it up onto a rack on top of the vehicle and then secured it with rope. Pierce guessed that the plastic wrapping would secure the integrity of whatever evidence would come from it.

When he looked away from the van he noticed that Renner was standing in the doorway of the apartment, looking at him. Pierce held his stare for a long moment and then started the car. Because of all the official cars clogging the alley, he had to back all the way down to Speedway before being able to turn around and head home.