The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin by Michael Craven Page A

ex-girlfriend, the burned ex–business partner. And of course the parents. The parents who still grieved profoundly, despite knowing the flaws of their offspring.
    So, where to go? You know? The cops had investigated and had ultimately come up empty. Did they do a bad job? Probably not. Look, they don’t always do a good job, but they often do, especially when Ott’s involved.
    So was one of the people I’d talked to hiding something? Sure, it’s possible. They all have tight alibis, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a nugget buried in one of those stories. Right? Yes, Greer was out in the middle of the ocean, Sydney was in Chicago, Craig was with his family, but any one of them could have been involved indirectly . They could have hired someone, or they could know something they aren’t telling me. And even if they didn’t do it or have it done, they might have been involved somehow in something that maybe wasn’t really even their fault. You know? They could have told an unsavory person about Keaton, and then that person found a reason to kill him.
    The other thought I had was, Okay, the people I’vetalked to so far—when I look at them, I don’t see it. I don’t feel it. I can’t see any one of them holding up a gun and firing a hollow-point bullet into the chest of a person they know, or hiring someone else to do it. But the thing is, I could be wrong. Because people can snap at any time. Any time. It’s such a mystery why and how that happens. Where the rage comes from, and why it comes when it does.
    There’s a story Ott and the guys down at the station tell about this very subject, and it goes like this. A guy is walking across the street in a really nice section of Santa Monica, Second Street and Wilshire, right by the Fairmont Hotel, right by the Promenade. Beautiful day. A Sunday. So this guy, normal guy, khakis, blazer, is walking across Second Street. And there’s a car at the stop sign right there, a guy behind the wheel, waiting for him to cross. Pedestrian’s got the right of way, and the guy’s walking along, kind of slowly. Just taking his time a bit on a Sunday as he crosses. So the guy in the car honks his horn at him. Not loud. Just a friendly honk. Beep, beep. Let’s get moving. And the guy walking across the street? You know what he does? This guy who’s never committed a crime in his life, pays his bills, has a family at home? He pulls out a gun and fires three times through the other guy’s windshield. Kills the driver. No, more than kills the driver. Unloads into the driver’s head until it’s nothing but a bunch of blood and brains and bones. Right out of the fucking blue. So where did it come from? The killer’s answer was: I’d had enough.
    That’s what he said.
    So, where to go? Where to go?
    Do round two on all parties involved to see if they giveme something new, something fresh, something that I can, you know, actually use? See if one of them gives me a reason to believe that they just went off the rails for some reason, like the guy in the story? Or hired somebody else to do it? Or something?
    Or maybe, maybe, one of the people I’d talked to had already given me something I could use.
    With a case like this, a case that never had a suspect and eventually went cold, you have to really look at the edges. You have to. After all, what choice do you have? The police had come up empty.
    I thought about all the things all the people I’d talked to had said. Had anyone given me anything? Had anything stood out as unusual, interesting, weird even? You had a guy running a marina wearing a puka-shell necklace, an ex-girlfriend play-fighting in her yard, an ex–business partner in a tragic insurance office in the Valley, Keaton dabbling in the tropical fish business . . .
    The tropical fish business.
    I mean, what the fuck is that? I’ve never heard of anyone being in the