Langton’s expression was compact and aggressive. “I’m sure you asked your brother that.”

“Thought I’d ask you, too.”

“Janelle canceled us and went for dinner with some other guys. Pretty damned obvious, isn’t it?”

“Guys who looked like you and David.”

“What’s funny about that? There’s a million early-thirties white guys in Orange County who look more or less like us.”

“Just checking, Howard.”

“Ugly things,” Howard said softly. “I don’t want to be associated with her. I’ll admit that. Neither does David, I’m sure. Even though…I liked her. I really did.”

Nick sat back, looked around the office. Then at the locker room beyond the windows.

“What did you make of her and Roger Stoltz?”

Langton gave him a gloomy look. “He set her up with a place. Gave her money. Janelle said they were friends.”

“Ever see them together?”

“No,” said Langton. “She wasn’t open about that relationship. I mean, David and Barbara knew-I think they may have introduced her to Stoltz in the first place. We knew Stoltz was a financial supporter of Janelle.”

“He paid for that Newport Beach apartment.” Nick remembered the excitement in Andy’s voice a few hours ago. Five-thirty in the morning but Andy couldn’t wait another minute to call. Lynette and her gun. Janelle’s letters. Stoltz.

Howard Langton nodded but didn’t meet Nick’s eye.

“Do you know Cory Bonnett?” asked Nick.

“Bonnett? No.”

“Big guy. Long blond hair. Drugs and money, lives in Laguna.”

Langton shook his head. “Laguna’s full of guys like that.”

Nick looked out to the battered lockers. The old wall clock that still ran slow. The “Fear Ye Who Enter Here” placard that went on to boast of the Tustin Tiller defense. They called themselves the Harpies.

“This looks like a good thing you have here,” said Nick. “You play for the team, then a few years later you coach it.”

“It’s what I always wanted to do,” said Langton. “Now I’m thirty-three years old.”

Nick heard a door slam. Howard took a puff and ground out the cigarette. Stashed the ashtray and butt back in the desk drawer. Came up with a can, shot a half circle of room deodorant into the air and waved it with one hand. Not Orange Sunshine. A serviceman rolled past a dolly loaded with white towels, bundled and tied.

“Now that I think about it,” said Howard, “there’s no reason for you to call Linda.”

Nick had seen this coming. Too much Linda this and Linda that and he was pretty sure he had the reason. “Why’s that?”

Langton looked down at the desk. “Linda didn’t talk to Janelle. I did. About the dinner, I mean.”

“How come?”

“Guess, Nick.”

“Because you were hoping to go without your wife.”

“Yeah.”

“Because you wanted to be alone with Janelle.”

Langton shrugged again. “I don’t have to respond to that,” he said.

Nick picked up his notepad, drew a large question mark on the open page. Flipped the cover down and slipped it into his pocket.

“You’re not calling all the plays anymore, Howard. You’re a schoolteacher and a coach. So the next time I ask you a question, tell me the truth.”

“Sorry, Nick. It’s been difficult.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“She came nightclubbing up in Hollywood last month with me and some friends. Did the Whiskey and the Rainbow.”

“But I don’t need to talk to Linda about that.”

“I told her it was an offensive coordinator’s convention in Long Beach,” said Langton.

“What did you do that night? I’m talking about October the first. That’s the night Janelle was killed. Think about it if you have to because I want the truth the first time.”

Langton stood. “Home. All night. If you don’t believe it, call my wife.”

AT ELEVEN that morning Nick met Sharon Santos at Prentice Park in Santa Ana. It was a quiet little park down off First Street, not a place they’d see anyone they knew. They stood in front of the golden eagle cage, Sharon’s hair up in a scarf and her eyes hidden by dark glasses.

Nick told her they’d have to break it off. She said she understood but would miss him. Said don’t change your mind about this because I can’t go off and on like a faucet.

Nick wanted to thank her for everything but it seemed like a lousy thing to say. Wanted to say he was sorry but that was worse.

He tried to kiss her goodbye but she turned away and walked back toward her car.

JUST BEFORE lunch Nick stopped off at Representative Roger Stoltz’s office in Tustin. It was less than a mile from the SunBlesst orange packinghouse. Nick knew from yesterday’s paper that the congressman was in Washington. But Nick wanted his business card to be in Stoltz’s secretary’s hand when she called him on the phone to say that homicide detective Nick Becker had come to see him.

“May I tell him what this is about?” she asked.

“Janelle Vonn,” said Nick.

“Oh. Would you like to make an appointment? He’ll be in this office Friday afternoon, day after tomorrow.”

“Let’s do that.”

She swung open an appointment calendar, ran her pencil to the eighteenth.

Nick’s eyes went straight to the box for Tuesday, October first. Couldn’t make out the writing.

“How’s four o’clock, Mr. Becker?”

NICK SAT with Terry Neemal while the former Wolfman ate his lunch. Green bean gravy and red gelatin caught in the big mustache. Neemal avoided looking at Nick for a long time. Then he fixed Nick with tan blankness.

“What if I did it?”

Nick shrugged.

“What if I confessed?”

“Well, then you could either ask for a trial or waive your right,” said Nick. “If you waived the judge would sentence you. You’d probably get life. Maybe they’d commit you again. Talk to me, Terry.”

“Would I be a big story?”

“For the trial or sentencing, yeah. Then everybody would forget about you.”

“Seems reasonable.”

“You don’t confess for attention, Terry.”

“Who said anything about that?”

“You did. Between the lines.”

Neemal turned his face back to the tray and didn’t look up again for a long minute or two. “Your brother says God will forgive me if I just ask.”

“Forgive you for what?”

“Whatever I’ve done,” said Neemal. “Anything.”

“That’s a good deal for you, then, Terry.”

“He’s a fucked-up guy.”

“David or God?”

Neemal laughed. Tan eyes and teeth gleaming like a wet savanna, thought Nick.

“Your brother.”

“Oh yeah?”

Neemal nodded. “He’s close to God because he prays all the time. But you have to prove to me that that’s good. You get too close to some things, it’s bad. Fire. God.”

“Maybe being far away is worse.”

“God used to talk to me a lot,” said Neemal. “Directly to me. I knew His voice. Told me to do things. Told me to walk across Arizona and I did. On the highways, I mean. Not the desert. That’s a shitty way to live, God telling you what to do all the time. You’re better off far away. Where you can have your own thoughts. Your brother listens to God too much. Got to stand on your own two feet.”

“Maybe there’s some truth to that.”

“I masturbated on her. Whatever you found on her, that was mine.”

Nick said nothing for a beat. He lit two smokes, handed one to Neemal.

“Tell me about that,” said Nick.

“I just did.”

Nick studied him. “It pisses me off when you hold out on me.”

Neemal nodded without looking at Nick. He explained that his sexual desires overwhelmed him. Hadn’t happened since he was young. Had to do with the fires he set. Hoped Nick would forgive him for not bringing it up right away.

Nick listened. Remembered the half-burned pile of newspaper in the slanting packinghouse light. The smell of it. “You want to get something off your conscience?”

“I’m going to hold for right now.”