After the Best Buy, I stopped at a True Value hardware store for two gallons of latex interior paint, a roller, and a package of disposable plastic drop cloths. The color was named Eggshell. The total for everything including the Best Buy came to $1,868.52. Anyone else would get jumped by criminals, rogue cops, or lunatics, but I got pounded by three angry brothers mourning the death of their sister.

When I got home, I filled two plastic bags with ice, stretched out on the couch, then called an old-school newsman named Eddie Ditko. Eddie had worked for every newspaper in Southern California, and most of them more than once. He knew the newspaper business inside and out.

I said, If a reporter was working on a particular story, and I knew the subject but not the name of the reporter, could I find out who the reporter is?

What paper?

Don't know. All I know is the story.

Jesus Christ, what story?

Patience wasn't one of Eddie's strengths.

Lionel Byrd.

You got no shot. Every paper in town is working on Byrd.

Eddie broke into a deep, shuddering cough. Eddie has smoked three packs a day for almost sixty years. I think he was born smoking. He made a gakking sound, then spit.

You okay?

It's these allergies.

Smoker's denial.

The reporter in question was working on Byrd before everyone else. He was supposedly doing a story on how Byrd had been prosecuted on the Yvonne Bennett murder with a bad confession. He told Byrd there might be a book or a movie in it.

You don't know where the guy works?

No.

The L.A. Times has something like eight hundred fifty writers, and that's just the Times. Toss in the Daily News, the L.A. Weekly, La Opini+|n, and all these little papers, you see what we're talking about?

Don't writers get assigned these things? Wouldn't his editor know?

Just because the guy was working the story doesn't mean it was assigned. That's called sniffing out the news. You do your research, then pitch your piece to your editor if you think it has heat. Some of these feature writers and columnists, they don't even pitch.

So you're saying there's no way to ask around. Even though this could lead to a blowout story.

Eddie was silent. I heard his lighter flick. I heard him inhale. Sniffing out the news.

What kind of blowout story?

Maybe the reporter was a reporter, but maybe he wasn't. Maybe this individual had a play with what happened to Lionel Byrd or with the murders.

I'm listening.

What if I told you even though this case has been publicly closed, the police are continuing to run DNA comparisons against a certain blind sample?

These tests are ongoing?

These tests are ongoing.

Eddie inhaled again.

Lemme see what I can find out.