When Holman looked up, a red-haired guy in sunglasses and plainclothes held up a badge.

“Los Angeles Police Department. You’re under arrest.”

Holman closed his eyes as their handcuffs shut on his wrists.

10

IT WAS FOUR plainclothes officers who hooked him up, but only two of them brought him to Parker Center, the red-haired officer whose name was Vukovich and a Latino officer named Fuentes. Holman had been arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on twelve separate occasions, and in every case except his last (when he was arrested by an FBI agent named Katherine Pollard) he had been processed through one of LAPD’s nineteen divisional police stations. He had been in the Men’s Central Jail twice and the Federal Men’s Detention Center three times, but he had never been to Parker Center. When they brought him to Parker, Holman knew he was in deep shit.

Parker was the Los Angeles Police Department’s main office: A white-and-glass building that housed the Chief of Police, the Internal Affairs Group, various civilian administrators and administration agencies, and LAPD’s elite Robbery-Homicide Division, which was a command division overseeing Homicide Special, Robbery Special, and Rape Special. Each of the nineteen divisions had homicide, robbery, and sex crimes detectives, but those detectives worked only in their respective divisions; Robbery-Homicide detectives worked on cases that spanned the city.

Vukovich and Fuentes walked Holman into an interview room on the third floor and questioned him for more than an hour, after which another set of detectives took over. Holman knew the drill. The cops always asked the same questions over and over, looking to see if your answers changed. If your answers changed they knew you were lying, so Holman told them the truth about everything except Chee. When the red-haired guy, Vukovich, asked how he knew Maria Juarez was with her cousins, Holman told them he heard it in a bar, some Frogtown paco bragging he screwed Maria in junior high, him and sixty-two other guys, the girl was such a slut, the paco spouting the cops Warren killed had probably been bagging the little slut, too. Covering for Chee was something he had done before and now it was the only lie Holman told. One lie, it was easy to remember even though telling it frightened him.

Eight-forty that night, Holman was still in the room, having been questioned on and off for more than six hours without being offered an attorney or being booked. Eight forty-one, the door opened again and Vukovich entered with someone new.

The new man studied Holman for a moment, then put out his hand. Holman thought he looked familiar.

“Mr. Holman, I’m John Random. I’m sorry about your son.”

Random was the first of the detectives to offer his hand. He wore a long-sleeved white shirt and tie without a jacket. A gold detective’s shield was clipped to his belt. Random took a seat opposite Holman as Vukovich leaned against the wall.

Holman said, “Am I being charged with anything?”

“Has Detective Vukovich explained why we pulled you in?”

“No.”

Holman suddenly realized why Random was familiar. Random had been part of the press conference that Holman had seen in the bar. He hadn’t known Random’s name, but he recognized him.

Random said, “When the officers ran your vehicle they found thirty-two unpaid parking violations and another nine outstanding traffic violations.”

Holman said, “Jesus.”

Vukovich smiled.

“Yeah, and you didn’t match the DMV description we got of the vehicle’s owner, you not being a seventy-four-year-old black male. We thought you had a hot car, bud.”

Random said, “We spoke with Mr. Wilkes. You’re in the clear so far as the car, even though you’ve been driving it without a license. So forget the car and let’s get back to Ms. Juarez. Why did you go see her?”

The same question he had been asked three dozen times. Holman gave them the same answer.

“I was looking for her husband.”

“What do you know about her husband?”

“I saw you on TV. You’re looking for him.”

“But why were you looking for him?”

“He killed my son.”

“How’d you find your way to Ms. Juarez?”

“Their address was in the phone book. I went to their house but the place was crawling with people. I started hitting the bars in their neighborhood and found some people who knew them, and pretty soon I ended up in Silver Lake and met this guy said he knew her. He told me she was staying with her cousins, and I guess he was telling the truth-that’s where I found her.”

Random nodded.

“He knew her address?”

“Information operator gave me the address. The guy I met, he just told me who she was staying with. It wasn’t any big deal. Most folks don’t have unlisted numbers.”

Random smiled, still staring at him.

“Which bar was this?”

Holman met Random’s eye, then casually glanced at Vukovich.

“I don’t know the name of the place, but it’s on Sunset a couple of blocks west of Silver Lake Boulevard. On the north side. I’m pretty sure it had a Mexican name.”

Holman had driven past earlier. Sunset was lined with Mexican places.

“Uh-huh, so you could take us there?”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely. I told Detective Vukovich three or four hours ago I could take you there.”

“And this man you spoke with, if you saw him again, could you point him out?”

Holman met Random’s stare again, but relaxed, not making a point of it.

“Absolutely. Without a doubt. If he’s still there after all this time.”

Vukovich, smiling again, said, “Hey, you busting my balls or what?”

Random ignored Vukovich’s comment.

“So tell me, Mr. Holman, and I am very serious in asking you this question-did Maria Juarez tell you anything that would help us find her husband?”

Holman suddenly found himself liking Random. He liked the man’s intensity and his desire to find Warren Juarez.

“No, sir.”

“She didn’t know where he was hiding?”

“She said she didn’t.”

“Did she tell you why he killed the officers? Or any details of the crime?”

“She said he didn’t do it. She told me he was with her when the murders were committed. They have a little girl. She said it was the little girl’s birthday and they made a video that proved Warren was with them at the time of the murders. She said she gave it to you guys. That’s it.”

Random said, “She admitted no knowledge of her husband’s whereabouts?”

“She just kept saying he didn’t do it. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“What were you planning to do when you left her?”

“Same thing I was doing before. Talk to people to see if I could pick up something else. But then I met Mr. Vukovich.”

Vukovich laughed and changed his position against the wall.

Holman said, “Mind if I ask a question?”

Random shrugged.

“You can ask. Not saying I’ll answer, but let’s see.”

“They really have a tape?”

“She gave us a tape, but it doesn’t show what she claims that it shows. There are questions about when that tape was made.”

Vukovich said, “They didn’t have to make their video at one A.M. on Tuesday morning. We had our analyst look at it. She believes they recorded the talk show, then played it back on their VCR to use it as an alibi. You watch her video, you aren’t seeing the talk show when it originally aired; you’re seeing a recording of a recording. We believe they made their tape the morning after the murders.”

Holman frowned. He understood how such a tape could be produced, but he had also seen the fear in Maria’s eyes when he grabbed her throat. He had been eye to eye with terrified people when he was stealing cars and robbing banks, and he had left her with the sense she was telling the truth.

“Waitaminute. You’re saying she conspired with her husband?”