They called me to view the body on a lost spring morning when darkness webbed my house with threads of shadow. Some nights are like that; more now than before. Picture the World’s Greatest Detective, reluctant subject of sidebar articles in the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Magazine, stretched on his couch in an A-frame cave overlooking the city, not really sleeping at 3:58 A.M., when the phone rings with the terrible scream a phone can make only in those lonely hours.
I thought it was a reporter but answered anyway.
“Hello.”
“This is Detective Kelly Ruiz with LAPD calling for Elvis Cole. I apologize about the time.”
Her voice was guarded and coarse, reflecting the lateness of the hour. I pushed into a sitting position and cleared my throat. Police who call before sunrise have nothing to offer but bad news.
“This is Elvis Cole. How’d you get my number?”
I changed my home number when the news stories broke, but the reporters and cranks still called.
“One of the criminalists had it or got it from someone, I’m not sure. Either way, I’m sorry about calling you like this but we have a homicide. We have reason to believe you know the deceased.”
I swung my feet to the floor. The house was dark. I slid the glass doors open onto a deck that jutted like a diving platform into the darkness filling the canyon behind my house.
“Who is it?”
“Maybe you should come down here, see him for yourself. We’re downtown off Thirteenth near Figueroa. I could send a radio car if that would help.”
“I don’t know anything about it. What makes you think I know him?”
“He said some things before he died. Come down and take a look. I can send a car.”
“Am I a suspect?”
“Nothing like that. We just want to see if you can help with the ID.”
I was a suspect. Everyone who knows a homicide victim is a suspect until they’re cleared.
“What did he say, Ruiz? It’s four A.M., what happened down there?”
“What it is, we have a deceased Anglo male we believe to be the victim of a robbery. They got his wallet, so I can’t give you a name. We’re hoping you can help with that part. Here, listen—”
“Why do you think I know him?” A quick adrenaline rush pulsed through me. Who did I know who was now lying dead, surrounded by cops?
She plowed on with the description as if I hadn’t spoken.
“Anglo male, dyed-black hair thin on top, blue eyes, approximately seventy years but he could be older, I guess, kinda skinny, the way some men get when they’re older, and he has crucifix tattoos on both palms.”
She waited as if I would slap myself on the forehead when the flashbulb of recognition exploded behind my eyes.
“Why do you think I know him?”
“You don’t recognize the crucifixes? He has other tats of a religious nature. Jesus, the Virgin, things like that. None of this sounds familiar?”
“No. You told me he said some things, Ruiz, what did he say?”
She hesitated. I heard cop sounds behind her. She was probably standing outside; other cops were probably working the scene.
“You’re telling me you do not recognize this man’s description?”
“I don’t have any idea who you’re talking about. You want me down there, fine, I’ll come, but not until you tell me why.”
I heard more voices behind her, but not clearly enough to understand if they were speaking to her or not. When she spoke again, her voice was harsh, like she had made a difficult decision and didn’t much like it.
“Okay, what we have is a deceased male, as I’ve described, one gunshot to the chest. By his appearance and location, I would say he’s indigent, but we’re working on that. I’m the officer who found him. He was still conscious at that time and said things that suggested you would recognize his description.”
“What did he say?”
Ruiz hesitated, then spoke again.
“He said he was your father.”
I sat in my dark house without moving. I had started that night in bed, but ended on the couch, letting the canyon air flow over me to quiet my heart, but sleep had not come.
“Just like that, he told you he was my father.”
“He was dying. I tried to get a statement while I worked on him, but he took the stories from his pocket and told me he had been trying to find you—”
“What stories?”
“The newspaper stories. You’re the same Elvis Cole they wrote the stories about, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“He had these clippings. He pushed them at me and told me you were his son, but then he passed. That’s it. I figured you’d recognize the tats if you knew him, me thinking he was your father, but it sounds like you don’t.”
I didn’t answer.
“Mr. Cole?”
My voice came out hoarse, and the catch embarrassed me.
“I don’t know my father. I don’t know anything about him, and so far as I know he doesn’t know me.”
Ruiz was quiet for a while, then cleared her throat.
“Maybe you should come take a look. Just in case.”
“Yeah. Maybe I should.”
“I’ll tell you where we are.”
After I copied the address, I put down the phone but still did not move. I had not moved in hours. Outside, an owl flicked past the open glass doors. Three raccoons scratched across the deck, peered in without seeing me, then departed as quietly as a whisper. I must have been waiting for Ruiz to call. Why else would I have been awake that night and all the other nights except to wait like a child lost in the woods—a forgotten child waiting to be found.