“Janie.” His voice cracked on the name, and he rocked gently in his wheelchair. “Oh, Lord, it was bad. Someone was holding a flashlight on her—Luke the Nuke—and the others were standing around, staring. They had her spread out on the ground, with her legs apart and her head was nothing but blood and she was all cut up and burned and dead cigarettes and blood was all over the ground.”

“Did you see a weapon?”

“Coury and Bobo Cossack were holding knives. Big hunting knives, like you’d get in an army surplus store. Garvey had the pack of cigarettes—Kools. Trying to be hip.”

“What about Brad Larner?”

“He was just standing and staring. And the other one—this big dumb-looking dude was behind him, freaked out, dead scared, you could see it all over his face. The others were more . . . frozen. Like they’d done something and now it was sinking in. Then Coury said, ‘We need to get the bitch outta here,’ and he told Brad to go to his car, get out these blankets he kept there. Then Aimee started retching out loud, and they all turned toward us, and Garvey said, ‘Oh, shit, you fucking moron!’ and I grabbed Aimee and tried to get the hell out of there. But Garvey had got hold of her arm and wouldn’t let go and I just wanted to be as far from there as I could so I left her with him and ran as fast as I could and got in my car and drove the hell out of there. I drove like a maniac, it’s a miracle no cop pulled me over. Went over to the Marina, then east on Washington, sped all the way east to La Brea, then south into the ghetto.”

He smiled. “Into the high-crime neighborhood. Watts. That’s when I finally felt safe.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. I kept a low profile, ran out of money and smack, did what I knew how to do, and got busted.”

“You never thought about reporting the murder?”

“Sure,” he said. “Rich kids from Bel Air and a black junkie felon tells the cops he just happened to see a white girl get carved up? Cops used to stop me for driving while black, run my license and reg, pull me out, have me do the spread for no reason. Even in my old Mercury Cougar, which was a piece of junk, appropriate for a black junkie felon.”

“That night,” I said, “you had better wheels. Late-model white Cadillac.”

“You know that?” he said. “You already know stuff?” Something new crept into his voice—an aftertone of menace. Hint of the man he’d once been. “You having me go through the motions?”

“You’re the first eyewitness we’ve found. I know about the Caddy because we located Melinda Waters, and she mentioned it. But she split from the party before the murder.”