I picked out the second file. Page after page of transcripted interviews with family members, teachers. Lots of stiff, wordy cop prose. Lots of pain seeping through but no revelations. I put it down.
“So,” he said. “Anything else?”
“A planner, a sneak. Maybe an outdoors type. Physically strong, possibly a history of child molestation, voyeurism, exposure. Smart enough to wait and watch and to sweep up. Maybe meticulous in his personal habits. He didn't assault her, so the thrill of the chase probably did it for him. Stalking and capture.”
Picking the weak one out of the herd… I said, “If he did choose Irit, why? With all those other kids, what made her the target?”
“Good question.”
“You don't think it could be something to do with her father's position?”
“The father claims no and my feeling is if it was political the Israelis would take care of it themselves.”
“Being a diplomat's daughter,” I said, “did she have any special security training? Did her disabilities cause her to be especially gullible?”
“Gorobich said he asked the father that but the guy brushed him off, kept insisting the murder had nothing to do with Irit personally, that L.A. was a hellhole full of homicidal nuts, no one was safe.”
“And because he was a VIP, no one pushed.”
“That and basically Gorobich and Ramos agreed with him. It didn't look like anything the kid had brought on herself. More like some twisted fuck watched her and snatched her and dispatched her and cleaned up afterward. Like you said, playing. Big fucking game. God, I hate when it's a kid.”
He got up and paced, opened the fridge, looked inside, closed it, peered out the kitchen window.
“Have you met the parents yet?” I said.
“I put a call in today, waiting for an appointment.”
“Three months with no progress,” I said. “The grief may have turned completely to rage. It may be even more difficult to approach them.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I'll tackle that later. Meanwhile, trees don't have feelings, so how about taking a look at the scene?”
4
It was less than a half-hour drive, a right turn off Sunset, past the Brentwood intersection with Pacific Palisades. No signs. Sometimes people who love nature don't think other people should disrupt it.
A suburban street lined with middle-sized ranch homes led to a brush-shaded single-lane road that kept narrowing. A school bus would be scraped by branches.
The gate was steel painted ballpark-mustard yellow, latched but not locked. The first sign, orange city-issue, specified visiting hours. Opening time was an hour away. I got out, released the latch, returned to the unmarked, and we drove through more foliage-banked asphalt. We pressed on, rolling on dirty hardpack, now, as the brush turned to pines, cedar, cypress, sycamore. Trees planted so close together they formed deep green walls, nearly black, just the faintest delineation of branch and leaf. Anyone or anything could hide back there.
The road ended in a spoon-shaped clearing. Faded white lines marked off a dozen parking spots and Milo slid into one. Behind the lot was a ten-foot strip of dry, clipped grass upon which sat three rickety picnic tables, a U-drive mower, and several fastened lawn bags, stuffed, shiny-black.
Beyond the grass, more forest.
I followed Milo over the lawn to two signs, one atop the other, marking the mouth of a dirt path that dipped into the trees. Above: NATURE HIKE, PLEASE STAY ON TRAIL. An arrow pointed left. Below, a picture board behind cloudy plastic displayed leaves, berries, acorns, squirrels, rabbits, blue jays, snakes. A warning under the western rattler that when the days grew long and hot, the serpents came crawling out for action.
We began descending. The drop was gentle and the trail was terraced in spots. Soon other paths appeared, steeper, skinnier, branching from the side. The trees remained so dense only short portions of walkway resisted the shadows.
We walked quickly, not speaking. I was imagining, theorizing, and the look on Milo 's face told me he was doing the same. Ten minutes later, he stepped off the trail and entered the forest. The pine smell was much stronger here- almost artificial, like room freshener- and the ground beneath our feet was littered with needles and cones.
We walked for a long time before he stopped at a small clearing that bore no distinction.
Not even a clearing, just the space between huge old pines with gray, corrugated trunks. Trunks all around, like Greek columns. The space felt enclosed, an outdoor room.
A crypt.
Someone's idea of a death chamber… I said so but Milo didn't reply.
I looked around, listened. Bird calls, distant. Insects scattering. Nothing to see but trees. No backroads. I asked him about that.
He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “The forest ends about three hundred yards back, though you can't see it from here. There's an open field, then roads, then mountains, and more roads. Some eventually link up with highways but most dead-end. I traipsed around all yesterday, walking and driving, saw nothing but squirrels, couple of big hawks. Circling hawks, so I stopped to check, maybe there was something else dead down below. Nothing. No other predators.”
I stared in the direction he'd indicated. No breaking light, not even a suggestion of exit.
“What happened to the body?” I said.
“Buried in Israel. The family flew over, stayed for a week or so, came back.”
“Jewish mourning rituals take a week.”
He raised his eyebrows.
I said, “I worked the cancer ward.”
He paced around the clearing, looking huge in the dark, vaultlike space.
“Secluded,” I said. “Only a mile from the bus but secluded. It had to be someone who really knew this place well.”
“Problem is, that doesn't narrow it down very much. It's public access, there are always hikers.”
“Too bad there were none around that day. On the other hand, maybe there were.”
He stopped pacing. “What do you mean?”
“The news blackout. How would anyone have known to come forward?”
He thought about that. “Gotta talk to the parents. Though it's probably too late.”
“Maybe you can get them to compromise, Milo. Report the murder without identifying Irit by name. Though I agree, it's unlikely to pay off after all this time.”
He kicked a tree hard, muttered, walked around some more, looked in all directions, said, “Anything else?”
I shook my head and we retraced our steps to the parking lot. The U-drive mower was in use now, a dark-skinned man in a khaki uniform and pith helmet riding back and forth on the grass strip. He turned briefly and kept riding. The brim of the helmet shaded his face.
“Waste of time?” said Milo, starting up the unmarked and backing out.
“You can never tell.”
“Got time to read some of the files?”
Thinking of Irit Carmeli's face, I said, “Plenty of time.”
5
The Observer
They hadn't paid him any attention, he was sure of that.
Waiting until the unmarked car had been gone for twenty minutes, he got off the mower, tied off the last of the leaf bags, got back on, and coasted down toward the park entrance. Stopping a short distance behind the yellow gates, he pushed the machine back to the side of the road. The park service had never missed it. Loose procedures.
Very loose. The girl's misfortune.
Good find, the mower a bonus added to the uniform.
As always, the uniform worked perfectly: Do manual labor in official garb and no one notices you.
His car, a gray Toyota Cressida with false plates and a handicapped placard in the glove compartment, was parked three blocks down. A nine-millimeter semiautomatic was concealed in a box under the driver's seat.