Vincent figured shootings of this scale weren’t common in Santa Barbara, but the six uniforms who showed up were competent if inexperienced. They put him in the back of a cruiser and cleared the house top-down. Once they felt the scene was secure, a sergeant came and asked him for his ‘version of events’. Sounding very sceptical, like they’d had a tip-off he was predisposed to bullshit. Vincent said he would wait for the detectives—he didn’t want to keep repeating himself—and that’s when they took him down to Department HQ, on Figueroa Street.

He’d heard them say they were bringing Erin in another vehicle, and he imagined she’d made it clear what happened. But they did a good job of making him feel like a murderer caught red-handed. They put him in an interview room by himself for an hour, and then a pair of detectives and a deputy US Marshal came in for a talk. The detectives—Wentworth and Harris—were moustachioed guys in their late fifties. Vincent figured they’d probably done thirty years in murder-per-week jurisdictions, and then transferred out here wanting something quiet.

The Marshal’s name was Colton Locke. He looked more suited to a tax audit than a murder investigation. He was slight and fiftyish, dapper in a grey suit and tie, wearing black horn-rimmed glasses a little big for his face. He didn’t say a lot and seemed happy to let the detectives run the interview: Wentworth and Harris at the table opposite Vincent, and the Marshal sitting in the corner with his legs crossed, raised toe bouncing as he listened, eyes holding on Vincent like he was committing everything to memory.

After they had established who he was and what he did, they wanted him to run through the whole morning. Vincent told them about Crow chasing the old man for two million dollars—money lost on a real-estate deal, or so Lamar claimed. Told them as well about the little Cuban and his gun in the Gelson’s bag—how he and the guy Lou had intended on a ride in the Lincoln, but had a change of heart when they got to the parking lot at the train station. He felt that was a good way to put it: change of heart. But it made the two detectives share a glance, and when he looked over at the Marshal, the guy had one eyebrow up, just a touch.

Wentworth looked back through the notes he’d been making and said, ‘This is the guy they called Andre? He pulled a gun on you?’

Vincent said, ‘It never came out of the bag, but he told me it was a Colt thirty-eight.’

‘And you thought you’d just keep that to yourself, not bother to report it?’ Saying it like the whole case would pivot on that one decision.