True Detectives

Mom and Jack had tied the knot three months after the funeral. Civil ceremony, probably one of those deals where couples waited in line to get their ninety seconds of semi-attention from a half-asleep judge.

Despite that, he'd never think of it as anything but the next damned day. That was the point. A four-year-old needed to construct his own reality and hell if he hadn't coped. Never opening a fresh mouth to Jack, even when Jack nodded off in the middle of a chess game or Monopoly or watching TV.

Never ratting Jack out when he picked Aaron up from school, stinking of booze.

Poor little Aaron had a new daddy, everything was going to be just fine. Meanwhile, poor little Aaron's waking up in the middle of the night, sweaty and shivering, seeing his real daddy's smiling face. Getting tossed up in the air by his real daddy, tossing the football, man this feels so good, feels so damned damned good.

Then: Real daddy lying in a pool of rich, deep blood.

Smiling up at Aaron, despite the blood and the pain. Mouthing Good-bye, little man.

Aaron lived with the dream for years, never told anyone about it because that would be chickenshit.

New daddy.

New baby.

Pink and freckled as Jack, unable to do nothing but squall and crap and suck on Mom's…

As Aaron grew older, he craved details about Dad. Mom had no problem pulling out the photo albums, talking about the love they shared, what a wonderful man, a handsome man, a smart man. Jack, sitting off by himself, watching the tube, able to hear but it didn't even bother him. What kind of man was that?

When Aaron was seven, he built up his courage, got Jack alone, asked Jack what had happened.

Jack avoided looking at him. “That's just a real sad story, son.”

I'm not your son!

Jack reached for his glass of vodka. Or scotch. Or whatever was on sale at the liquor store.

Aaron walked away and Jack didn't follow. That decided it for Aaron.

He's a coward. Maybe that helped kill Dad.

Freeze him out.

Jack dealt with Aaron's rejection by being super-permissive, sometimes indulging Aaron behind Mom's back. That only decreased Aaron's respect for the intruder who slept with his mother.

No spine. The way he'd corroded his own liver was proof positive of that.

When Aaron was thirteen, Jack went out with no style.

Falling off a damned stool. No bagpipes.

Mom crying, but in a different way.

When Aaron had a year of patrol under his belt, he went looking for the original case file, finally found it at Parker Center, stashed like any other hopeless unsolved on a dusty metal rack.

Waiting until the records clerk left, he pounced, dry-mouthed, wet-eyed, heart churning like a drill-bit.

What he found was two pages of poorly punctuated cop-prose describing the basics of Patrolman Darius Fox's untimely demise, and an unsigned paragraph at the end blaming Dad and Jack for being careless.

Sitting on the cold, concrete floor of the records vault, crying silently and hoping to God no one walked in, Aaron pored over the arid memorial. Went over it again. Again.

The anonymous author of the blame-conclusion suggested that August 9, 1979, be used as a teaching tool but the case had never come up during Aaron's training.

Aaron nosed around the academy library in Elysian Park, finally unearthed a fifteen-year-old manual that included the case among several examples where “failure to observe procedure produced disastrous results.”

Most of the blame visited on Dad, for letting his guard down.

But that was based on Jack's report that Dad had let his gun drop when the Cadillac's driver's window rolled down.

So where the hell were you?

Aaron returned to the vault, pla

A seasoned cop relaxing meant he'd faced someone he didn't consider threatening.

Or knew.

Suddenly the file was nothing but paper and ink. He stuck it back and left without copying.

One day, he'd work the case. When he had enough money to kick back for an extended stretch of time, really concentrate.

He was doing great financially, each year better than the previous, his retirement fund was looking okay, and his equity in the house was growing. So maybe sooner rather than later.

How would Mom react?

How would Moe react?

Let the damned chips fall.

At twelve forty-six a.m. headlights slapped him alert.

White Jag with the top down driving down Swallowsong. Middle-aged couple, woman at the wheel, man looking grim. Six minutes later, a painfully slow-moving dark Range Rover rolled down and passed.

Two gay-looking guys, the passenger mussing the driver's hair, causing the SUV to swerve toward the Opel, then correct jerkily.

Hoots as the SUV rolled away. Must be nice to enjoy your own stupidity.

Aaron stretched as much as the Opel's seat would allow. His eyes felt like they'd been rubbed with beach sand. He moistened with the drops he carried in his Dopp kit. Popped another can-Coke, not Jolt, let's not push the endocrines too hard.

He'd taken two sips when the black Ram pickup appeared.

Ru

Moments later Aaron was easing back and forth in light west-moving Sunset traffic, playing the Opel like a trombone slide. Sneaking in split-second stares that coalesced into a single image, like pictures in a flip book.

Ax Dement, wearing a black leather jacket despite the heat, greasy hair tied back in a tail, broke the speed limit by ten mph as he puffed a doobie in plain sight.

Lynyrd Skynyrd thumping out the driver's window, all bass-enhanced.

Rch kid really piling on the outlaw thing. Where was the Confederate flag and the gun rack?

They were in Beverly Hills, now, a city teeming with cops, but illegal smoke was still blowing out the truck's window. So Ax was a serious risk-taker. Maybe because Daddy's dough had buffered life's sharp edges. Or he was just too stupid to be afraid.

Aaron shifted to the right, hazarded another look at Mason Book.

The actor sat low, stared straight ahead, mouth small and tight.

Indulging in nothing but misery.

The Ram continued west.

All the way to the beach, and down the ramp to PCH, big surprise.

Here we go again. Mason Book craving ocean breeze, had found himself another chauffeur.

For all his outward depression, Book was the star, Ax just a pseudo-macho hanger-on who came panting like a puppy when Book commanded.

Ax had his foot to the pedal and keeping up with him worried Aaron; all he needed was some Highway Patrol hotshot pulling him over.

Black man at the beach.

As they neared the Colony, Aaron braced himself for a turnaround. But this time, the truck kept on going, picking up even more speed past the Pepperdine campus, where Caitlin had once studied and Rory still did. Where Malibu began turning rural.

Heading to Daddy's spread in Solar Canyon? Late-night mass at the family church?

But the Ram zipped right past Solar, Kanan Dume, Zuma, Broad Beach. Hooked a quick right that caused Aaron to kill the Opel's lights as he downshifted.

He watched from twenty yards back as the truck pulled off at the land-side entrance to Leo Carrillo State Beach.

About a mile before L.A. County gave way to Ventura, and some of California's prettiest sand and water.

On the land side, where the truck was, were trails leading to campground and wilderness hikes. A couple of years ago, a cougar had mauled a mountain biker to death not far from here.