At one-fourteen that afternoon I packed up the file on Byrd, locked the office as best I could, and went down to my car. When I pulled out of my building, a black Toyota truck with tinted glass fell in behind and followed me.

Chapter 12

THE BLACK Toyota turned toward Laurel Canyon with me, but so did half a dozen other cars. No one shot at me or behaved in an overly aggressive manner, so I told myself I was being paranoid. Your office gets trashed, it's easy to imagine you're being followed.

But two blocks later I slid through a yellow. The driver of the Toyota busted the red to keep up, then jammed on his brakes as soon as he was clear of the light. So much for my imagination. Two men appeared to be in the cab, but I couldn't be sure with the heavily tinted glass.

I took an abrupt right turn without using my blinker, and the Toyota turned with me. When he came around the corner, I saw a sticker on his front bumper. It was a promotional sticker for a chick band called Tattooed Beach Sluts.

I turned again and pulled to the curb, but the Toyota didn't follow. When it still hadn't appeared five minutes later, I continued on into Laurel Canyon. If I didn't watch myself, I would become the new Chen.

Broken branches and leaves littered the streets in the canyon and were piled against parked cars and curbs like drifting snow. The big cedars and eucalyptuses hung motionless for the first time in days, drooping now as if resting from their fight with the wind. The smell of their sap was strong.

When I reached Byrd's house, the police and the crime scene tape were gone, but a news crew and a short-bed moving van were at the bottom of the steps. The news crew was up on the porch, interviewing an older man with dyed-black hair and liverish skin. A white Eldorado was parked behind the van. The Eldo probably belonged to the interviewee, who likely owned the house and had been Byrd's landlord. While they talked, two Latin guys lugged pieces of furniture down to the truck.

I was waiting for the reporter to finish when I saw the woman in the vine-covered house across the street. She was back at her window, watching the interview, so I decided to start with her.

I climbed her steps, but before I reached the top, she opened the window.

Go away. I've had enough of this.

I'm with Easter Seals. Don't you want to help dying children?

She slammed the window.

I continued to her door, then leaned on the bell until she answered. She had seemed older from across the street, with her grey hair up and frizzy.

I'm not really from Easter Seals. I just said that.

I know you're not, and I know you know I know. You're with the police. I saw you here yesterday, and you saw me.