A Darkness More Than Night (Harry Bosch Series #7 & Terry McCaleb Series #2) by Michael Connelly

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Independent elements from several earlier books come seamlessly together in Michael Connelly's ingenious, compelling novel, A Darkness More than Night. This one features both Terry McCaleb, last seen in the Edgar-nominated Blood Work, and Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch, the haunted hero of several of Connelly's finest novels. The lives of these two damaged, all-too-human figures intersect in a typically extravagant story that is at once a murder mystery, a legal thriller, and a psychological drama of considerable subtlety and power.

The novel begins when McCaleb, an FBI profiler forced into retirement following a successful heart transplant, agrees to lend his expertise to a particularly baffling murder investigation. The victim is Edward Gunn, an alcoholic lowlife with a violent past. He was once arrested -- by Harry Bosch -- for the murder of a Los Angeles prostitute but managed, despite Harry's best efforts, to avoid prosecution. McCaleb's analysis of the crime scene reveals a number of anomalies: an unexplained head wound, a phrase ("Beware, beware, God sees") written in medieval Latin, the replica of an owl placed in the vicinity of the corpse. Following his instincts, McCaleb locates mirror images of these arcane clues in a number of paintings by Harry's namesake, the 15th-century Dutch master, Hieronymous Bosch.

Harry, meanwhile, is serving as chief investigator and star witness in the sensational murder trial of a world-famous Hollywood director and has no idea that he's just become the primary suspect in an unrelated investigation. As the trial progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Harry's testimony is critically important and that any attempt to destroy his credibility will undermine the case against a vicious, well-connected killer.

Eventually, Harry learns about McCaleb's suspicions and forces a confrontation. McCaleb takes a second look at the accumulated evidence and begins to discern the outlines of a very different scenario. As new revelations come gradually into view, the disparate elements of the novel coalesce, and the narrative moves with increasing urgency toward a violent, thoroughly satisfying conclusion.

Connelly is only a moderately gifted stylist, but he is a devious, resourceful plotter and a world-class storyteller. His new book generates the kind of irresistible momentum that very few novelists ever manage to achieve. At the same time, it offers empathetic portraits of two memorably complex protagonists with more than their share of ghosts, griefs, and personal demons to contend with. A Darkness More than Night is an intelligent, compassionate, unfailingly entertaining thriller. It deserves the success it is doubtless about to achieve.

--Bill Sheehan

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).

From the Publisher

Terry McCaleb, the retired FBI agent who starred in the bestseller "Blood Work," is asked by the LAPD to help them investigate aseries of murders that have them baffled. They are the kind of ritualized killings McCaleb specialized in solving with the FBI, and he is reluctantly drawn from his peaceful new life back into the horror and excitement of tracking down a terrifying homicidal maniac. More horrifying still, the suspect who seems to fit the profile that McCaleb develops is someone he has known and worked with in the past: LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch.

USA Today

Michael Connelly is one of those masters who can keep driving the story forward in runaway locomotive style.

San Diego Union Tribune

No one is better at exploring the conflict between good and evil...than Michael Connelly...his characters are superbly drawn...and he tells their story skillfully...

Denver Rocky Mountain News

...this great thriller will keep you busy...Connelly is the best of a very large group...of thriller writers following in the footsteps of Raymond Chandler...

Free Lance Star

...contains the best elements of Connelly's work: distinct, dynamic characters, a deliberate plot and an understanding of police procedure that too many crime writers only imagine they possess...

USA Today

An intricate plot, rich characterization and deft dialogue play out our medieval moralities in modern dress in one of Connelly's most adept constructions...

Pilot

No one...knows more about police and criminals than Michael Connelly...filled with details...with the most completely r<%END%>ered vision of Los Angeles...frontrunner for best crime novel of the year...

Denver Post

Michael Connelly's mysteries exude the grit of their settings, but their real standout element is the haunted nature of the heroes...

New Yorker

...Connelly allows Bosch and McCaleb to regard each other critically in ways that sharpen the reader's perception of them...

Book Magazine

Terry McCaleb, who first appeared in Michael Connelly's Blood Work, is a retired FBI profiler and a legend in the bureau. A Darkness More Than Night marks his second appearance in a Connelly book.

Harry Bosch is a detective third grade with the homicide division of the Los Angeles Police Department. He's been around since shortly after his return from Vietnam. He's something of a legend himself—but mostly he's an administrator's nightmare. Bosch does things his way and doesn't stand for any bureaucratic baloney. This book marks his sixth appearance. He is the character, above all others, that Connelly has taken to national prominence.

And here they are together, sharing top bill, the ace profiler and the ace detective—at odds. McCaleb suspects Bosch of being a killer, perhaps even a serial killer. If this was a made-for-TV movie, the promo would read: Together Again for the First Time, Bosch and McCaleb Face Off; Only One Will Walk Away.

Thankfully, Connelly plays it low-key, though the reader is baited from the start; information is kept just out of reach so that we can keep in mind the possibility that Bosch has crossed the line. Crossing the line is what Connelly's books are about. He raises questions about it: What is at stake once the line is crossed? Are there circumstances that would force someone to cross the line in order to do the right thing? Can the line be stepped on without being crossed? Yikes, where do you draw the line with this stuff?

Both men have lived in the darkness—been embraced by the darkness—but have been changed differently by it. For Bosch, the son of a murdered prostituteand a man who spent his Vietnam tour as one of the notorious tunnel rats, crawling through tunnels looking for the enemy, the darkness is a fearsome place to tunnel through—to find the lost light, as he puts it. For McCaleb, an inspired profiler who, by all accounts, possesses an eerie ability to see more than is there to be seen, the darkness is a place where men do things that are usually kept in police records. For him, darkness is a place that needs illumination; that was his job as a profiler: to enter the darkness and describe the unseen.

McCaleb is enlisted by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Jaye Winston to draw up a profile of a killer in a difficult case that threatens to go unsolved. She asks him for assistance on the sly, out of channels. McCaleb—bored to tears on Catalina where he lives with his new wife, their baby and her son from an earlier marriage—grabs the opportunity to do something other than operate the on-again, off-again charter-boat business he runs from the island.

It takes him a few days of going over the crime-scene photos and data, as well as doing some legwork on his own, to come up with the conclusion that Detective Bosch is a prime suspect. Bosch had been after the victim, Edward Gunn, for years, for the murder of a prostitute that Bosch believes he got away with. Details missed by the earlier investigation jump out at McCaleb and point, he is certain, to Bosch. It is a startling conclusion, for all the obvious reasons: Cops do not go out of their way to finger other cops. And then there's all that unsettling business about going over the line.

Bosch, meanwhile, is in the middle of one of those Los Angeles media-event trials. A Hollywood director, David Storey, is accused of killing a young actress and making it appear as though she'd died accidentally. Bosch is the lead detective on the case and sits at the prosecutor's table during the trial. He is also a main witness: At one point Storey arrogantly confides to Bosch that he is indeed the killer and dares him to prove it. It is, of course, a confession unheard by anyone else.

The two cases come together in a surprising—and ultimately satisfying—way. When all appears to be set right, the book ends on a sharp note: McCaleb can see into the darkness but is not consumed by it; Bosch can see into the darkness because he has become one with it. The monster goes back into the darkness from which it came, as Bosch says, but these men will not be friends. While they share the same world of right and wrong, they do not share the same vantage point: One looks out from the shadows, the other looks in from the light.
—Randy Michael Signor

Publishers Weekly

Could Harry Bosch actually be a serial killer? That's the disturbing question Connelly poses in this hard-edged, smartly executed crime drama, pitting two of his most popular protagonists--grim L.A.P.D. detective Hieronymous ("Harry") Bosch (The Black Ice; Angels Flight, etc.) and Terry McCaleb, the crafty former FBI profiler of Blood Work--against each other. At center stage is McCaleb, forced into retirement on Catalina Island following a heart transplant. When approached by an old L.A.P.D. pal, McCaleb jumps at the chance to help on a baffling murder case, the ritualistic details of which suggest a serial killer. It doesn't take McCaleb long to focus in on a prime suspect: Bosch. Not only did Bosch carry a grudge against the dead man, a murderer who narrowly escaped prison six years before, but clues at the death scene implicate the detective. While McCaleb investigates, Bosch is busy with his own case, helping prosecutors convict David Storey, a well-known Hollywood director accused of strangling a starlet. McCaleb eventually begins to wonder if the two cases are connected. Did Bosch cross over to the dark side, or is he being framed? Readers familiar with Bosch's bend-but-don't-break morality won't be stumped for long, but Connelly's 10th novel is otherwise flawless, cleverly conceived, superbly plotted and morally complex. (Jan. 23) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Former FBI profiler Terry McCaleb is back in Connelly's latest thriller (following Void Moon). He has retired after his heart transplant and is running a charter fishing service. When he is brought in as a consultant to profile a killer for the LAPD, he finds that all of the clues from the gruesome killing point to a type McCaleb calls "an avenging angel." As he digs deeper, he is shocked to find that the most likely suspect is Connelly's regular hero, Detective Harry Bosch. Bosch himself is lead detective in a case going to trial that involves another grisly killing. Bosch's past relationship with the newest victim and his attitude toward the killing only increase McCaleb's suspicions. The reuniting of Bosch and McCaleb under these strained circumstances leads to a quickly paced and interesting story. As with all the Bosch thrillers, plot twists abound, but in this case the story itself carries the novel, and there is less gory detail to wade through than in previous books. Connelly is always popular, and this is Connelly at his best. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/00.]--Patrick J. Wall, University City P.L., MO Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Harry Bosch, the worn, pragmatic Los Angeles police detective, protagonist of a number of Connelly's earlier books, is joined by Terry McCaleb, former FBI crime-scene profiler, introduced in Blood Work (Little, Brown, 1998). Harry is immersed in testifying at the murder trial of a Hollywood film director, Jack Storey. When McCaleb, retired and living a quiet life with a new wife and two young children, is asked by a former colleague to look at the investigation materials of a recent gruesome homicide, he realizes just how much he misses his vocation. Terry alone has noticed some clues from the crime-scene video that point toward the influence of Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch. Despite pleas from his wife, Terry is drawn into the investigation and finds, to his dismay, that pointers lead straight to acquaintance Harry Bosch, whose real name is Hieronymus. Certain details in Harry's life fit in well with the profile Terry is developing of a ritualistic killer. The clues stemming from Bosch's paintings may lead readers straight to the Internet to view some of Bosch's well-known works to see the clues for themselves. The plot is intricate, and the twists and turns keep coming, but it is so well done, and the characters are so vivid, that confusion isn't a problem. Despite its length, this involving book is a fast read with "can't put it down" appeal.-Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Internet Book Watch

Though retired due to medical reasons and happily married with a new baby in his family, former FBI profiler Terry McCaleb agrees to help the LAPD on a difficult murder case. Most of society would agree that the killing of Edward Gunn is no loss, but Terry and cohorts conduct a professional investigation anyway. This homicide and others very similar appear to be the work of a serial killer. Terry concludes that the killer seeks vengeance and knows his paintings as the deliberate clues left at the murder scene come from the works of Dutch master Hieronymous Bosch. The profile Terry draws up fits Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch, an associate on previous joint investigations. Adding to the picture is that Harry unsuccessfully once tried to put Gunn away for first degree murder. Has Harry taken the law into his on hands or is a killer so devious and cunning he can manipulate two old law enforcement pros into becoming enemies?Michael Connelly takes his two best characters, McCaleb (see Blood Work) and Bosch (see The Black Ice) and converges them as foes in a serial killer police procedural tale. The story line is fast-paced and filled with action though several references and other characters from other Connelly novels dot the landscape. That technique should please the author's die hard fans, but to many readers this seems more like an over-Spielberg gimmick that takes away from the prime confrontation. Still, Darkness More Than Night is a clever who-done-it starring two strong opponents whose personalities not only shine, but will send readers seeking their previous starring roles.

Kirkus Reviews

Connelly pits his latest series hero, FBI agent Terry McCaleb (Blood Work, 1998), against his veteran series op, LAPD detective Harry Bosch (Angels Flight, 1999, etc.), in this extraordinary excursion into good, evil, and the labyrinth of human motives. Enjoying the good life over a year after his heart transplant and blissfully happy with his wife, stepson, and new baby daughter, McCaleb thinks he's retired to run a fishing charter off Catalina Island. Actually, though, he's the one who gets hooked. His old partner, Jaye Winston, needs him to profile just one more killer, a vengeful sadist who binds his victim's legs to his throat, guaranteeing he'll be slowly strangled as he struggles to break free. As McCaleb starts to collect clues—the unsavory history of the victim, the minatory inscription on his corpse, the painted owl perched above the death scene—his profiler's instinct catches fire: he senses the handiwork of an avenging angel. But the fire turns to ice as the symbols his avenger chooses to decorate his crime lead McCaleb backward to a single, unexpected source: 17th-century painter Hieronymous Bosch, namesake of his LAPD counterpart Harry, who's on the trail of a cold-blooded 20th-century sex murderer. Bosch's style couldn't be more different from McCaleb's; where McCaleb uses intuition and psychological insight, Bosch uses legwork and logical inference. He's carefully crafted a case against David Storey, a jet-set killer who's sworn to Harry he'll get away with murder. Demolishing Storey's alibi, finding the witness Storey tried to bury, and discovering a possible second victim of Storey's lethal sex games take Bosch within inches of a conviction. But now,asStorey's trial draws near its close, the credibility of his testimony is imperiled by the growing suspicion against Bosch, and he must confront McCaleb—the physical vs. the metaphysical—or lose his chance to bring a killer to justice. Bosch fan or McCaleb fan, you can't lose with this chilling tour-de-force. Author tour Cooper, Bernard GUESS AGAIN: Short Stories Simon & Schuster (224 pp.) Nov. 9, 2000

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Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Bosch looked through the small square of glass and saw that the man was alone in the tank. He took his gun out of its holster and handed it to the watch sergeant. Standard procedure. The steel door was unlocked and slid open. Immediately the smell of sweat and vomit stung Bosch's nostrils.

"How long's he been in here?"

"About three hours," said the sergeant. "He blew a one-eight, so I don't know what you're going to get."

Bosch stepped into the holding tank and kept his eyes on the prone form on the floor.

"All right, you can close it."

"Let me know."

The door slid closed with a jarring bang and jolt. The man on the floor groaned and moved only slightly. Bosch walked over and sat down on the bench nearest to him. He took the tape recorder out of his jacket pocket and put it down on the bench. Glancing up at the glass window he saw the sergeant's face move away. He used the toe of his shoe to probe the man's side. The man groaned again.

"Wake up, you piece of shit."

The man on the floor of the tank slowly rolled his head and then lifted it. Paint flecked his hair and vomit had caked on the front of his shirt and neck. He opened his eyes and immediately closed them against the harsh over-head lighting of the holding tank. His voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

"You again."

Bosch nodded.

"Yeah. Me."

"Our little dance."

A smile cut across the three-day-old whiskers on the drunk's face. Bosch saw that he was missing a tooth he hadn't been missing last time. He reached down and put his hand on the recorder but did not turn it on yet.

"Get up. It's time to talk."

"Forget it, man. I don't want-"

"You're running out of time. Talk to me."

"Leave me the fuck alone."

Bosch looked up at the window. It was clear. He looked back down at the man on the floor.

"Your salvation is in the truth. Now more than ever. I can't help you without the truth."

"What're you, a priest now? You here to take my confession?"

"You here to give it?"

The man on the floor said nothing. After a while Bosch thought he might have fallen back asleep. He pushed the toe of his shoe into the man's side again, into the kidney. The man erupted in movement, flailing his arms and legs.

"Fuck you!" he yelled. "I don't want you. I want a lawyer."

Bosch was silent a moment. He picked up the recorder and slid it back into his pocket. He then leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands together. He looked at the drunk and slowly shook his head.

"Then I guess I can't help you," he said.

He stood up and knocked on the window for the watch sergeant. He left the man lying on the floor.

CHAPTER 1

"Someone's coming."

Terry McCaleb looked at his wife and then followed her eyes down to the winding road below. He could see the golf cart making its way up the steep and winding road to the house. The driver was obscured by the roof of the cart.

They were sitting on the back deck of the house he and Graciela had rented up on La Mesa Avenue. The view ranged from the narrow winding road below the house to the whole of Avalon and its harbor, and then out across the Santa Monica Bay to the haze of smog that marked overtown. The view was the reason they had chosen this house to make their new home on the island. But at the moment his wife spoke, his gaze had been on the baby in his arms, not the view. He could look no farther than his daughter's wide blue and trusting eyes.

McCaleb saw the rental number on the side of the golf cart passing below. It wasn't a local coming. It was somebody who had probably come from overtown on the Catalina Express. Still, he wondered how Graciela knew that the visitor was coming to their house and not any of the others on La Mesa.

He didn't ask about this-she'd had premonitions before. He just waited and soon after the golf cart disappeared from sight, there was a knock at the front door. Graciela went to answer it and soon came back to the deck with a woman McCaleb had not seen in three years.

Sheriff's detective Jaye Winston smiled when she saw the child in his arms. It was genuine, but at the same time it was the distracted smile of someone who wasn't there to admire a new baby. McCaleb knew the thick green binder she carried in one hand and the videocassette in the other meant Winston was there on business. Death business.

"Terry, howya been?" she asked.

"Couldn't be better. You remember Graciela?"

"Of course. And who is this?"

"This is CiCi."

McCaleb never used the baby's formal name around others. He only liked to call her Cielo when he was alone with her.

"CiCi," Winston said, and hesitated as if waiting for an explanation of the name. When none came, she said,

"How old?"

"Almost four months. She's big."

"Wow, yeah, I can see...And the boy...where's he?"

"Raymond," Graciela said. "He's with some friends today. Terry had a charter and so he went with friends to the park to play softball."

The conversation was halting and strange. Winston either wasn't really interested or was unused to such banal talk.

"Would you like something to drink?" McCaleb offered as he passed the baby to Graciela.

"No, I'm fine. I had a Coke on the boat."

As if on cue, or perhaps indignant about being passed from one set of hands to another, the baby started to fuss and Graciela said she would take her inside. She left them standing on the porch. McCaleb pointed to the round table and chairs where they ate most nights while the baby slept.

"Let's sit down."

He pointed Winston to the chair that would give her the best view of the harbor. She put the green binder, which McCaleb recognized as a murder book, on the table and the video on top of it.

"Beautiful," she said.

"Yeah, she's amazing. I could watch her all-"

He stopped and smiled when he realized she was talking about the view, not his child. Winston smiled, too.

"She's beautiful, Terry. She really is. You look good, too, so tan and all."

"I've been going out on the boat."

"And your health is good?"

"Can't complain about anything other than all the meds they make me take. But I'm three years in now and no problems. I think I'm in the clear, Jaye. I just have to keep taking the damn pills and it should stay that way."

He smiled and he did appear to be the picture of health. As the sun had turned his skin dark, it had worked to the opposite effect on his hair. Close cropped and neat, it was almost blond now. Working on the boat had also defined the muscles of his arms and shoulders. The only giveaway was hidden under his shirt, the ten-inch scar left by trans-plantation surgery.

"That's great," Winston said. "It looks like you have a wonderful setup here. New family, new home...away from everything."

She was silent a moment, turning her head as if to take in all of the view and the island and McCaleb's life at once. McCaleb had always thought Jaye Winston was attractive in a tomboyish way. She had loose sandy-blond hair that she kept shoulder length. She had never worn makeup back when he worked with her. But she had sharp, knowing eyes and an easy and somewhat sad smile, as if she saw the humor and tragedy in everything at once. She wore black jeans and a white T-shirt beneath a black blazer. She looked cool and tough and McCaleb knew from experience that she was. She had a habit of hooking her hair behind her ear frequently as she spoke. He found that endearing for some unknown reason. He had always thought that if he had not connected with Graciela he might have tried to know Jaye Winston better. He also sensed that Winston intuitively knew that.

"Makes me feel guilty about why I came," she said.

"Sort of."

McCaleb nodded at the binder and the tape.

"You came on business. You could have just called, Jaye. Saved some time, probably."

"No, you didn't send out any change-of-address or phone cards. Like maybe you didn't want people to know where you ended up."

She hooked her hair behind her left ear and smiled again.

"Not really," he said. "I just didn't think people would want to know where I was. So how did you find me?"

"Asked around over at the marina on the mainland."

"Overtown. They call it overtown here."

"Overtown, then. They told me in the harbor master's office that you still kept a slip there but you moved the boat over here. I came over and took a water taxi around the harbor until I found it. Your friend was there. He told me how to get up here."

"Buddy."

McCaleb looked down into the harbor and picked out The Following Sea. It was about a half mile or so away. He could see Buddy Lockridge bent over in the stern. After a few moments he could tell that Buddy was washing off the reels with the hose from the freshwater tank.

"So what's this about, Jaye?" McCaleb said without looking at Winston. "Must be important for you to go through all of that on your day off. I assume you're off on Sundays."

"Most of them."

She pushed the tape aside and opened the binder. Now McCaleb looked over. Although it was upside down to him, he could tell the top page was a standard homicide occurrence report, usually the first page in every murder book he had ever read. It was the starting point. His eyes went to the address box. Even upside down he could make out that it was a West Hollywood case.

"I've got a case here I was hoping you'd take a look at. In your spare time, I mean. I think it might be your sort of thing. I was hoping you'd give me a read, maybe point me someplace I haven't been yet."

He had known as soon as he saw the binder in her hands that this was what she was going to ask him. But now that it had been asked he felt a confusing rush of sensations.

He felt a thrill at the possibility of having a part of his old life again. He also felt guilt over the idea of bringing death into a home so full of new life and happiness. He glanced toward the open slider to see if Graciela was looking out at them. She wasn't.

"My sort of thing?" he said. "If it's a serial, you shouldn't waste time. Goto the bureau, call Maggie Griffin. She'll -"

"I did all of that, Terry. I still need you."

"How old is this thing?"

"Two weeks."

Her eyes looked up from the binder to his.

"New Year's Day?"

She nodded.

"First murder of the year," she said. "For L.A. County, at least. Some people think the true millennium didn't start until this year."

"You think this is a millennium nut?"

"Whoever did this was a nut of some order. I think.

That's why I'm here."

"What did the bureau say? Did you take this to Maggie?"

"You haven't kept up, Terry. Maggie was sent back to Quantico. Things slowed downin the last few years out here and Behavioral Sciences pulled her back. No outpost in L.A. anymore. So, yes, I talked to her. But over the phone at Quantico. She ran it through VICAP and got zilched."

McCaleb knew she meant the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program computer.

"What about a profile?" he asked.

"I'm on a waiting list. Do you know that across the country there were thirty-four millennium-inspired murders on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day? So they have their hands full at the moment and the bigger departments like us, we're at the end of the line because the bureau figures the smaller departments with less experience and expertise and manpower need their help more."

She waited a moment while letting McCaleb consider all of this. He understood the bureau's philosophy. It was a form of triage.

"I don't mind waiting a month or so until Maggie or somebody else over there can work something up for me, but my gut on this one tells me time is a consideration, Terry. If it is a serial, a month may be too long to wait. That's why I thought of coming to you. I am banging my head on the wall on this one and you might be our last best hope of coming up with something to move on now. I still remember the Cemetery Man and the Code Killer. I know what you can do with a murder book and some crime scene tape."

The last few lines were gratuitous and her only false move so far, McCaleb thought. Otherwise he believed she was sincere in the expression of her belief that the killer she was looking for might strike again.

"It's been a long time for me, Jaye," McCaleb began.

"Other than that thing with Graciela's sister, I haven't been involved in-"

"Come on, Terry, don't bullshit me, okay? You can sit here with a baby in your lap every day of the week and it still won't erase what you were and what you did. I know you. We haven't seen each other or talked in a long time but I know you. And I know that not a day goes by that you don't think about cases. Not a day."

She paused and stared at him.

"When they took out your heart, they didn't take out what makes you tick, know what I mean?"

McCaleb looked away from her and back down at his boat. Buddy was now sitting in the main fighting chair, his feet up on the transom. McCaleb assumed he had a beer in his hand but it was too far to see that.

"If you're so good at reading people, what do you need me for?"

"I may be good but you're the best I ever knew. Hell, even if they weren't backed up till Easter in Quantico, I'd take you over any of those profilers. I mean that. You were -"

"Okay, Jaye, we don't need a sales pitch, okay? My ego is doing okay without all the -"

"Then what do you need?"

He looked back at her.

"Just some time. I need to think about this."

"I'm here because my gut says I don't have much time."

McCaleb got up and walked to the railing. His gaze was out to the sea. A Catalina Express ferry was coming in. He knew it would be almost empty. The winter months brought few visitors.

"The boat's coming in," he said. "It's the winter schedule, Jaye. You better catch it going back or you'll be here all night."

"I'll have dispatch send a chopper for me if I have to. Terry, all I need from you is one day at the most. One night, even. Tonight. You sit down, read the book, look at the tape and then call me in the morning, tell me what you see. Maybe it's nothing or at least nothing that's new. But maybe you'll see something we've missed or you'll get an idea we haven't come up with yet. That's all I'm asking. I don't think it's a lot."

McCaleb looked away from the incoming boat and turned so his back leaned against the rail.

"It doesn't seem like a lot to you because you're in the life. I'm not. I'm out of it, Jaye. Even going back into it for a day is going to change things. I moved out here to start over and to forget all the stuff I was good at. To get good at being something else. At being a father and a husband, for starters."

Winston got up and walked to the railing. She stood next to him but looked out at the view while he remained facing his home. She spoke in a low voice. If Graciela was listening from somewhere inside, she could not hear this.

"Remember with Graciela's sister what you told me?

You told me you got a second shot at life and that there had to be a reason for it. Now you've built this life with her sister and her son and now even your own child. That's wonderful, Terry, I really think so. But that can't be the reason you were looking for. You might think it is but it's not. Deep down you know it. You were good at catching these people. Next to that, what is catching fish?"

McCaleb nodded slightly and was uncomfortable with himself for doing it so readily.

"Leave the stuff," he said. "I'll call you when I can."

On the way to the door Winston looked about for Graciela but didn't see her.

"She's probably in with the baby," McCaleb said.

"Well, tell her I said good-bye."

"I will."

There was an awkward silence the rest of the way to the door. Finally, as McCaleb opened it, Winston spoke.

"So what's it like, Terry? Being a father."

"It's the best of times, it's the worst of times."

His stock answer. He then thought a moment and added something he had thought about but never said, not even to Graciela.

"It's like having a gun to your head all the time."

Winston looked confused and maybe even a little concerned.

"How so?"

"Because I know if anything ever happens to her, anything, then my life is over."

She nodded.

"I think I can understand that."

She went through the door. She looked rather silly as she left. A seasoned homicide detective riding away in a golf cart.

Copyright (c) 2001 Hieronymus, Inc.

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

"Someone's coming."

Terry McCaleb looked at his wife and then followed her eyes down to the winding road below. He could see the golf cart making its way up the steep and winding road to the house. The driver was obscured by the roof of the cart.

They were sitting on the back deck of the house he and Graciela had rented up on La Mesa Avenue. The view ranged from the narrow winding road below the house to the whole of Avalon and its harbor, and then out across the Santa Monica Bay to the haze of smog that marked overland. The view had been the reason they had chosen this house to make their new home on the island. But at the moment his wife had spoken his gaze had been on the baby in his arms, not the view. He could look no farther than his daughter's wide blue and trusting eyes.

McCaleb saw the rental number on the side of the golf cart passing below. It wasn't a local coming. It was somebody who had probably come from overland on the Catalina Express. Still, he wondered about how Graciela knew that the visitor was coming to their house and not any of the others on La Mesa.

He didn't ask about this she'd had premonitions before. He just waited and soon after the golf cart disappeared from sight, there was a knock at the front door. Graciela went to answer it and soon came back to the deck with a woman McCaleb had not seen in three years.

Sheriff's Detective Jaye Winston smiled when she saw the child in his arms. It was genuine, but at the same time it was the distracted smile of someone who wasn't there to admire a new baby. McCaleb knew the thick green binder she carried in one hand and thevideo cassette in the other meant Winston was there on business. Death business.

"Terry, howya been?" she asked.

"Couldn't be better. You remember Graciela?"

"Of course. And who is this?"

"This is CiCi."

McCaleb never used the baby's formal name around others. He only liked to call her Cielo when he was alone with her.

"CiCi," Winston said, and hesitated as if waiting for an explanation of the name. When none came, she said, "How old?"

"Almost four months. She's big."

"Wow, yeah, I can see ... And the boy ... where's he?"

"Raymond," Graciela said. "He's with some friends today. Terry had a charter and so he went with friends to the park to play softball."

The conversation was halting and strange. Winston either wasn't really interested or was unused to such banal talk.

"Would you like something to drink?" McCaleb offered as he passed the baby to Graciela.

"No, I'm fine. I had a Coke on the boat."

As if on cue, or perhaps indignant about being passed from one set of hands to another, the baby started to fuss and Graciela said she would take her inside. She left them then, standing on the porch. McCaleb pointed to the round table and chairs where they ate most nights while the baby slept.

"Let's sit down."

He pointed Winston to the chair that would give her the best view of the harbor. She put the green binder, which McCaleb recognized as a murder book, on the table and the video on top of it.

"Beautiful," she said.

"Yeah, she's amazing. I could watch her all—"

He stopped and smiled when he realized she was talking about the view, not his child. Winston smiled, too.

"She's beautiful, too, Terry. She really is. You look good, too, so tan and all."

"I've been going out on the boat."

"And your health is good?"

"Can't complain about anything other than all the pills they make me take. But I'm three years in now and no problems. I think I'm in the clear, Jaye. I just have to keep taking the damn pills and it should stay that way."

He smiled and he did appear to be the picture of health. As the sun had turned his skin dark it had worked to the opposite effect on his hair. Close cropped and neat, it was almost blonde now. Working on the boat had also defined the muscles of his arms and shoulders. The only giveaway was hidden under his shirt, the ten-inch scar left by transplantation surgery.

"That's great," Winston said. "It looks like you have a wonderful setup here. New family, new home ... away from everything."

She was silent a moment, turning her head as if to take in all of the view and the island and McCaleb's life at once. McCaleb always thought Jaye Winston was attractive in a tomboyish way. She had loose sandy blonde hair that she kept at shoulder length. She had never worn makeup back when he worked with her. But she had sharp, knowing eyes and an easy and somewhat sad smile, as if she saw the humor and tragedy in everything at once. She wore black jeans and a white t-shirt beneath a black blazer. She looked cool and tough and McCaleb knew from experience that she was. She had a habit of hooking her hair behind her ear frequently as she spoke. He found that endearing for some unknown reason. He had always thought that if he had not connected with Graciela he might have tried to know Jaye Winston better. He also sensed that Winston intuitively knew that.

"Makes me feel guilty about why I came," she said.

"Sort of."

McCaleb nodded at the binder and the tape.

"You came on business. You could have just called, Jaye. Saved some time probably."

"No, you didn't send out any change of address or phone cards. Like maybe you didn't want people to know where you ended up."

She hooked her hair behind her left ear and smiled again.

"Not really," he said. "I just didn't think people would want to know where I was. So how did you find me?"

"Asked around over at the marina on the mainland."

"Overland. They call it overland here."

"Overland then. They told me in the harbor master's office that you still kept a slip there but you moved the boat over here. I came over and took a water taxi around the harbor until I found it. Your friend was there. He told me how to get up here."

"Buddy."

McCaleb looked down into the harbor and picked out The Following Sea. It was about a half-mile or so away. He could see Buddy Lockridge bent over in the stern. After a few moments he could tell that Buddy was washing off the reels with the hose from the freshwater tank.

"So what's this about, Jaye?" McCaleb said without looking at Winston. "Must be important for you to go through all of that on your day off. I assume you're off on Sundays."

"Most of them."

She pushed the tape aside and opened the binder. Now McCaleb looked over. Although it was upside down to him, he could tell the top page was a standard homicide occurrence report, usually the first page in every murder book he had ever read. It was the starting point. His eyes went to the address box.  Even upside down he could make out that it was a West Hollywood case.

"I've got a case here I was hoping you'd take a look at. In your spare time, I mean. I think it might be your sort of thing. I was hoping you'd give me a read, maybe point me someplace I haven't been yet."

He had known as soon as he had seen the binder in her hands that this was what she was going to ask him. But now that it had been asked he felt a confusing rush of sensations. He felt a thrill at the possibility of having a part of his old life again. He also felt guilt over the idea of bringing death into a home so full of new life and happiness. He glanced toward the open slider to see if Graciela was looking out at them. She wasn't.

"My sort of thing?" he said. "If it's a serial you shouldn't waste time. Go to the bureau, call Maggie Griffin. She'll"

"I did all of that, Terry. I still need you."

"How old is this thing?"

"Two weeks."

Her eyes looked up from the binder to his.

"New Year's Day?"

She nodded.

"First murder of the year," she said. "For L.A. County, at least. Some people think the true millennium didn't start until this year."

"You think this is a millennium nut?"

"Whoever did this was a nut of some order. I think. That's why I'm here."

"What did the bureau say? Did you take this to Maggie?"

"You haven't kept up, Terry. Maggie was sent back to Quantico. Things slowed down in the last few years out here and Behavioral Sciences pulled her back. No outpost in L.A. anymore. So, yes, I talked to her. But over the phone at Quantico. She ran it through the computer and got zilched. As far as a profile goes or anything else, I'm on a waiting list. Do you know that across the country there were thirty-four millennium inspired murders on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day? So they have their hands full at the moment and the bigger departments like us, we're at the end of the line because the bureau figures the smaller departments with less experience and expertise and manpower need their help more."

She waited a moment while letting McCaleb consider all of this. He understood the Bureau's philosophy. It was a form of triage.

"I don't mind waiting a month or so until Maggie or somebody else over there can work something up for me, but my gut on this one tells me time is a consideration, Terry. If it is a serial, a month may be too long to wait. That's why I thought of coming to you. I am banging my head on the wall on this one and you might be our last best hope of coming up with something to move on now. I still remember the Cemetery Man and the Code Killer. I know what you can do with a murder book and some crime scene tape."

The last few lines were gratuitous and her only false move so far, McCaleb thought. Otherwise he believed she was sincere in the expression of her belief that the killer she was looking for might strike again.

"It's been a long time for me, Jaye," McCaleb began. "Other than that thing with Graciela's sister, I haven't been involved in"

"Come on, Terry, don't bullshit me, okay? You can sit here with a baby in your lap every day of the week and it still won't erase what you were and what you did. I know you. We haven't seen each other or talked in a long time but I know you. And I know that not a day goes by that you don't think about cases. Not a day."

She paused and stared at him.

"When they took out your heart, they didn't take out what makes you tick, know what I mean?"

McCaleb looked away from her and back down at his boat. Buddy was now sitting in the main fighting chair, his feet up on the transom. McCaleb assumed he had a beer in his hand but it was too far to see that.

"If you're so good at reading people, what do you need me for?"

"I may be good but you're the best I ever knew. Hell, even if they weren't backed up till Easter in Quantico, I'd take you over any of those profilers. I mean that. You were."

"Okay, Jaye, we don't need a sales pitch, okay? My ego is doing okay without all the."

"Then what do you need?"

He looked back at her.

"Just some time. I need to think about this."

"l'm here because my gut says I don't have much time."

McCaleb got up and walked to the railing. His gaze was out to the sea. A Catalina Express ferry was coming in. He knew it would be almost empty. The winter months brought few visitors.

"The boat's coming in," he said. "It's the winter schedule, Jaye. You better catch it going back or you'll be here all night."

"I'II have dispatch send a chopper for me if I have to. Terry, all I need from you is one day at the most. One night, even. Tonight. You sit down, read the book, look at the tape and then call me in the morning, tell me what you see. Maybe it's nothing or at least nothing that's new. But maybe you'll see something we've missed or you'll get an idea we haven't come up with yet. That's all I'm asking. I don't think it's a lot."

McCaleb looked away from the incoming boat and turned so his back leaned against the rail.

"It doesn't seem like a lot to you because you're in the life. I'm not. I'm out of it, Jaye. Even going back into it for a day is going to change things. I moved out here to start over and to forget all the stuff I was good at. To get good at being something else. At being a father and a husband, for starters."

Winston got up and walked to the railing. She stood next to him but looked out at the view while he remained facing his home. She spoke in a low voice. If Graciela was listening from somewhere inside, she could not hear this.

"Remember with Graciela's sister what you told me? You told me you got a second shot at life and that there had to be a reason for it. Now you've built this life with her sister and her son and now even your own child. That's wonderful, Terry, I really think so. But that can't be the reason you were looking for. You might think it is but it's not. Deep down you know it. You were good at catching these people. Next to that, what is catching fish?"

McCaleb nodded slightly and was uncomfortable with himself for doing it so readily.

"Leave the stuff," he said. "I'II call you when I can."

On the way to the door Winston looked about for Graciela but didn't see her.

"She's probably in with the baby," McCaleb said.

"Well, tell her I said goodbye."

"I will."

There was an awkward silence the rest of the way to the door. Finally, as McCaleb opened it, Winston spoke.

"So what's it like, Terry? Being a father."

"It's the best of times, it's the worst of times."

His stock answer. He then thought a moment and then added something he had thought about but never said, not even to Graciela.

"It's like having a gun to your head all the time."

Winston looked confused and maybe even a little concerned.

"How so?"

"Because I know if anything ever happens to her, anything, then my life is over."

She nodded.

"I think I can understand that."

She went through the door.  She looked rather silly as she left.  A seasoned homicide detective riding away in a golf cart.