Frederick deleted the messages, then scrounged a box of trash bags from the cupboard, relocked the house, and returned to his truck for the shovel. He hurried around the side of the house into the woods, then followed a dry creek bed until he was at the base of a large rock. Frederick considered the trees both ways along the gulley, but wasn't sure if he was in the right spot or not. He felt confused and fuzzy, but also excited.

Frederick moved with increasing strength.

He climbed uphill behind the rock, then suddenly recognized his surroundings with a precision that made every leaf as familiar as old friends. He felt a rush of confidence.

"Yes, it is," he said, smiling. "Yes, it is."

He put his weight into the shovel, and levered up the earth. Frederick Conrad, which was the name he now used, worked with great purpose. The shovel struck something hard. He clawed away the dirt, and uncovered the first skull.

Chapter 7

S ix hours earlier, the streets had been empty, but now pedestrians churned the sidewalks, bike messengers whipped between cars like tweaked-out hummingbirds, and the shops along Grand and Hill had become an open bazaar. The police were gone. The yellow tape, area lamps, criminalists, and patrol cars had vanished, erasing all evidence that a murder had occurred. To the untrained eye, it was another flawless day in the City of Angels . I drove back to the crime scene, pulled to the curb outside the flower mart, and studied the mouth of the alley. I couldn't do any more than the police, and wasn't sure why I wanted to try. I never once-not then at the beginning-believed that John Doe #05-1642 was or could be the father I had never known. He was more like a client who had hired me, and the person I had been hired to find. Maybe I was bored after so many weeks not working; maybe I didn't want to go back to a house that felt pointless without Lucy and Ben. It was easier to lose myself in murder; it was merciful to focus my anger at someone else.

The Big Empty was a moldering area east of the convention center and south of the business district, unclaimed by the homeless, who tended to gather several blocks north at the parks and missions of Skid Row. The streets were lined with wholesale outlets, cut-rate office space, garment resellers, and businesses that closed at dusk; the bars, hotels, apartments, and missions were ten blocks or more to the north, and not an easy walk from the alley. John Doe #05-1642 either lived in the area or had been seeking a destination, though there wasn't much in the area to seek. I studied my Thomas Brothers map. I wanted to talk to the people who worked at the flower mart, then search the area for businesses that might have been open.