Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais

Mr. Byrd.”
    â€œDid you know him very well?”
    â€œI tried to avoid him. He was crude and offensive. The first time we met, he asked if I enjoyed anal sex. Just like that. Who would say something like that?”
    Welcome to Lionel Byrd.
    â€œWas he close to anyone here in the neighborhood?”
    â€œI doubt it. A lot of these people are renters and boarders, and most are just kids. They come and they go.”
    Which was pretty much what Starkey had told me.
    â€œYou must have been asked these things a hundred times.”
    â€œA thousand. Let me answer your other questions to save us both time—”
    She ticked off her answers, bending each finger back so far I thought it might snap.
    â€œNo, I never saw anything suspicious. No, he never threatened me. No, I did not know he had been arrested, and I did not hear the gunshot. And yes, I am surprised he killed all those women, but this is Laurel Canyon.”
    She crossed her arms with a smugness indicating she had answered every question I could possibly ask.
    I said, “Did he have many visitors?”
    â€œI never saw anyone.”
    â€œDo you know how he got his drugs?”
    The smugness vanished.
    â€œA quantity of nonprescribed oxycodone was found in his home. Do you know what that is?”
    â€œWell, of course I know, but I barely knew the man. There’s no reason I would know he was a drug addict.”
    â€œI understand. But we’re wondering where he got the pills.”
    â€œHe didn’t get them from me.”
    Defensive.
    â€œOn the day of the evacuation, it was you who told the officers he was housebound?”
    â€œThat’s right. I was concerned. He hadn’t been driving, what with his foot. He couldn’t press the brake.”
    â€œWhen was the last time you saw him driving?”
    â€œBelieve it or not, I have more to do than watch my neighbors.”
    â€œThis isn’t a test. I’m trying to get an idea how difficult it was for him to get around.”
    â€œWell, I don’t know. A few weeks, I guess. I know his foot had been getting worse. Some days he couldn’t even come for the mail, and it would pile up.”
    I couldn’t think of anything else to ask, so I thanked her and went down to the street. Gladstone was still being interviewed, so I knocked on the neighboring doors. No one was home at most of the houses, and the few people who were either had never met Byrd or had seen him only in passing. Only one person I interviewed had exchanged words with him, and she described him as crude, vulgar, and offensive, just like Tina Isbecki. Nobody had witnessed anyone visiting his house.
    By the time I finished knocking on doors, the news crew was leaving. I squeezed around the movers’ truck and climbed the steps just as Gladstone emerged from the house.
    Gladstone was locking the front door, and scowled when he saw me approaching.
    â€œCut me some slack, all right? I didn’t know the sonofabitch was a maniac.”
    â€œI’m not a reporter. I’m investigating the case.”
    I showed him the ID, but he had been looking at IDs all week. He waved me off.
    â€œI got nothing to say. The man paid his rent and never made trouble. Now I got a house with brains on the ceiling and people like you wasting my time. I gotta get this place cleaned out by the end of the day.”
    He ducked past me and hurried after his movers.
    I returned to my car, but didn’t leave. The moving crew locked their truck, then rumbled away with Gladstone behind them. When they were gone, I got out of my car and pushed past low-hanging cedar boughs onto the walkway alongside the garage. A black plastic garbage can blocked the walk, but a flight of stairs led up to a door.
    The can was filled with towels, bedding, old clothes, and plastic grocery bags bulging with discarded food and kitchen supplies. Gladstone had tossed things that would spoil—apples and oranges, a