Charlie sat up.

I said, "Was Pike in it?"

Branford glanced at my cast. "Nope. Just a lot of his blood. The whole front seat was soaked. We've got the States out there doing a sweep."

They were staring at me like I had helped him park the car.

Bauman said, "You're not still going to prosecute Pike for this Dersh thing, are you, Branford?"

Branford just looked at him.

"Oh, for chrissake."

I said, "Krantz, you know better. You saw how Sobek was dressed, just like Pike. He's who the old lady saw."

Krantz met my eyes. "I don't know anything like that, Cole. Mrs. Kimmel saw arrow tattoos. Sobek didn't have tattoos."

"So he painted them on, then washed them off."

"I heard you ask Sobek if he did Dersh. I heard Sobek deny it."

Charlie waved his cigarette, annoyed. "You want a signed confession? What are we talking about here?"

"I want facts. We haven't been sitting on our asses with this, Bauman. We ran everything Pike said about his alibi through the system, and it came back just the way I thought it would: bullshit. No hits on a black minivan, Trudy, or Matt. We flashed Sobek's picture in a six-pack for Amanda Kimmel, but she still puts the finger on Pike."

Branford said, "We've got the murder weapon, the GSR, and the motive; that gives us Pike."

Charlie said, "Pike's statement wasn't a secret. Sobek could've tossed the gun off the pier to match with Pike's story. If Sobek didn't kill Dersh, why was Jesus Lorenzo killed just a few hours later? You writing that off as a coincidence?"

"I'm writing it off as something I can't ask Sobek because Sobek is dead. Look, Pike saved Krantz's life, and those two women's, but I can't just forget about Dersh because we owe him one. You give me some proof that he didn't do it, or that Sobek did, I'll think it over."

Charlie Bauman waved his cigarette like he didn't believe Branford for a second, then considered Krantz. "Tell me something, Lieutenant? You really draw down on Pike after Pike saved you?"

"Yes, I really did that."

"Even after he saved your life?"

"He murdered Eugene Dersh, and he's going to answer for it. What I feel doesn't matter."

"Well, at least you feel something."

No one said much after that, and pretty soon everybody left but Watts.

He said, "We buried Samantha this morning. Had over a thousand officers in the ranks. It was nice."

"I'll bet it was."

"We get any word on Pike, I'll let you know."

"Thanks, Stan. I appreciate it."

Thinking back, I'm sure the only reason Stan Watts tagged along with Krantz and Branford that day was to share Samantha Dolan's final moment with me, and to tell me that a thousand officers had seen her off.

I don't think he would've come for any other reason.

I wish I could have been there to see her off with them.

I left the hospital the next day.

The doctors raised hell, but I couldn't take lying in bed with Joe still missing. I hoped that Joe was alive, and thought that if anyone could survive it would be him, but I also knew that if Pike had found his way into the ravines and arroyos of the desert, his body might not be discovered for years.

I took too many painkillers, but still couldn't drive with the cast, so I hired a cab to take me out to the desert. I went back to Paulette's house, then up to Twentynine Palms, and tried to imagine what Joe might've been thinking, and where he might've gone, but couldn't.

I checked all the nearby motels and service stations, and ate so many Percocet that I threw up twice.

I went back to the desert the next day, and the next, but never found a trace. The cab fares totaled eight hundred dollars.

Perhaps if I were a better detective I could have gotten a line on him, or found his body, though not if Joe was alive and covering his tracks.

Telling myself that was better than thinking him dead.

When I wasn't at the desert I haunted Santa Monica, walking Joe's route both during the day and at night, talking to clerks and surfers and gang-bangers and bodybuilders and maintenance people and food vendors and the limitless armies of street people. I walked the night route so often that the hookers who worked Ocean Avenue brought home-baked pie for me and Starbucks coffee. Maybe it was the cast. They all wanted to sign it.

My friends at the FBI and the DMV ran still more searches for black minivans, and people named Trudy and Matt, and I even got them to badger their friends in other states to do the same. Nothing turned up, and after a while my friends stopped returning my calls. I guess our friendship had its limits.

Eight days after I left the hospital I phoned Stan Watts. "Is there anything on Joe?"

"Not yet."

"Has SID finished with Sobek's garage?"

He sighed. "Man, you don't give up, do you?"

"Not even after I'm dead."

"They finished, but you're not going to like it much. They got this sharp kid over there named Chen. He tied Sobek to all of the vics except Dersh. I'm sorry."

"Maybe he missed something."

"This kid is sharp, Cole. He lasered Dersh's place looking for fibers that could've come from Sobek's, but found nothing. He lasered Sobek's, looking for something that might've come from Dersh, but that was a bust, too. He doped both places, and ran gas chromes, but struck out all the way around. 1 was hoping he'd find something that put Sobek with Dersh, too, but there's nothing."

Chen was the guy who'd done the work up at Lake Hollywood. I remember being impressed when I'd read it. "Think you could send over these new reports?"

"Shit, there's gotta be two hundred pages here."

"Just the work he did on Dersh's place, and Sobek's garage. I don't need the others."

"You got a fax there?"

"Yeah." I gave him the number.

He said, "You really been taking a cab out to the desert?"

"How'd you hear about that?"

"You know something, Cole? You and Dolan were of the same stripe. I can see why she liked you."

Then he hung up.

While I waited for the fax, I reread Chen's Lake Hollywood report, and was again impressed with its detail. By the time I finished, the new reports had arrived, and I found them exhaustive. Chen had collected over one hundred separate fiber and soil samples from Dersh's home and property, and compared them with samples taken from Sobek's apartment, clothing, shoes, and vehicle, but found nothing that would tie the two together. No physical evidence tied Dersh to Joe Pike, either, but that didn't seem to bother Krantz.

I read the new report twice, but by the end of the second reading felt as if I was wasting my time – no matter how often I turned the pages, no new evidence appeared, and Chen's evidentiary conclusions remained unchanged. I was thinking that my time would be better spent looking for Trudy, or going back to the desert, when I realized that something was different between the work that Chen had done at Lake Hollywood and the work he'd done at Dersh's house.

I had read these reports hoping to find something exculpatory for Pike, but maybe what I was looking for wasn't something that was in the report. Maybe it had been left out.

I phoned the SID office, and asked for John Chen.

The woman who answered the phone said, "May I tell him what it's regarding?"

I was still thinking about what the report didn't say when I answered her.

"Tell him it's about Joe Pike."