But another appealing Connelly character is dogged veteran reporter Jack McEvoy.
Here are the first two chapters of this fast-paced thriller, written by a master of the genre.
I had called the story The King of Con Artists.
At least that was my headline.
No, he doesn’t.
He stays in his lane and that means you’re gonna wanna stay in yours."
Since Myron was that editor, it would be hard to come back with any sort of defense.
But I sent in the story with the suggested headline anyway because it was perfect.
And this time it was the predator.
Arthur Hathaway, the King of Con Artists, was the best of the best.
I had infiltrated as one of his students and learned all I could.
They all fell victim and sent their money because Arthur Hathaway convinced them to send it.
The swindler school itself might be his greatest con of all.
The guy was truly a king with a psychopath’s complete lack of guilt.
We didn’t put anything up on the website that was not legally bulletproof.
Myron was founder, editor, reporter, and chief fundraiser for FairWarning.
It was an Internet news site with no paywall.
Twenty-five dollars a month keeps a kid fed and clothed in Appalachia.
It makes you feel good.
Myron stopped to listen to his potential investor and muted the phone before looking up at me.
“Just sent it, I said.
Also to Bill.”
“Okay, I’ll read it tonight and we can talk tomorrow if I have anything.”
“It’s good to go.
Even has a great headline on it.
You just need to write the deck.”
“You better be "
He took his phone off mute so he could respond to a question.
She was the only other staffer in the office at the moment.
“Cheers, she said in her crisp British accent.
We worked out of an office in a typical two-story plaza in Studio City.
Myron took the place at a heavy discount.
The plaza was L-shaped and had an underground parking garage with five assigned spaces for FairWarning employees and visitors.
That was a major perk.
Parking in the city was always an issue.
I checked it as I fired up the engine.
I had strayed 162,172 miles from the path I had once been on.
I lived in Sherman Oaks on Woodman Avenue by the 101 freeway.
It, too, had parking underneath.
Most of the apartment buildings on Woodman had names such as the Capri and Oak Crest and the like.
My building stood nameless.
It was a difficult transition.
One was white and middle fifties, the other a couple of decades younger and Asian.
I drove down into the garage and kept my eyes on the rearview.
They followed me down the slope and in.
I pulled into my assigned space and killed the engine.
By the time I grabbed my backpack and got out, they were behind the Jeep and waiting.
“Jack McEvoy?”
He had gotten the name right but had pronounced it wrong.
“Yes, McEvoy, I said, correcting him.
What’s going on?”
“I’m Detective Mattson, LAPD, the older of the two said.
This is my partner, Detective Sakai.
We need to ask you a few questions.”
“Okay, I said.
“Can we go up to your place?
Something more private than a garage?”
I pointed to the end of the garage.
My Jeep was parked in the middle and right across from the stairs leading up to the center courtyard.
“Stairs are good, Mattson said.
I headed that way and the detectives followed.
The whole way to my apartment door I was trying to think in terms of my work.
What had I done that would draw the attention of the LAPD?
But as soon as I thought of that possibility, I dismissed it.
If that were the case, they would have come to my office, not my home.
And it probably would have started with a phone call, not an in-person show-up.
“What unit are you from?
I asked as we crossed the courtyard toward apartment 7 on the other side of the pool.
“We work downtown, Mattson said, being coy, while his partner stayed silent.
“What crime unit, I mean, I said.
“Robbery-Homicide Division, Mattson said.
I didn’t write about the LAPD per se, but in the past I had.
“So then what are we talking about here?
Robbery or homicide?”
“Let’s go inside before we start talking, Mattson said.
I got to my front door.
His nonanswer seemed to push the answer toward homicide.
My keys were in my hand.
Before unlocking the door, I turned and looked at the two men standing behind me.
“My brother was a homicide detective, I said.
Sakai asked, his first words.
“No, I said.
Out in Denver.”
“Good on him, Mattson said.
He’s retired?”
“Not exactly, I said.
He was killed in the line of duty.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mattson said.
I nodded and turned back to the door to unlock it.
I wasn’t sure why I had blurted that out about my brother.
It was not something I usually shared.
People who knew my books knew it, but I didn’t mention it in day-to-day conversation.
It had happened a long time ago in what seemed like another life.
I got the door open and we entered.
I flicked on the light.
I had one of the smallest units in the complex.
Along the right wall was a set of stairs leading up to a loft, which was my bedroom.
There was a full bath up there and a half bath on the first floor beneath the stairs.
Less than a thousand square feet in total.
I had turned the dining-room table into a work area.
A printer sat at the head of the table.
You been here long?
“About a year and a half, I said.
Can I ask what this "
“Why don’t you have a seat on the couch there?”
The decline of my fortunes was reflected in my housing and transportation.
Mattson looked at the two chairs, chose the one that looked cleanest and sat down.
Sakai, the stoic, remained standing.
“So, Jack, Mattson said.
We have "
“Who got killed?
“A woman named Christina Portrero.
You know that name?”
I spun it through all the circuits on high speed and came back with a blank.
“No, I don’t think so.
How did my name "
“She went by Tina most of the time.
Does that help?”
Once more through the circuits.
“Oh, wait, yeah, I knew a Tina Tina Portrero.”
“But you just said you didn’t know the name.”
It just, you know, out of the blue it didn’t connect.
But yes, we met once and that was it.”
Mattson didn’t answer.
He turned and nodded to his partner.
Sakai moved forward and held his phone out to me.
On the screen was a posed photo of a woman with dark hair and even darker eyes.
She had a deep tan and looked mid-thirties but I knew she was closer to mid-forties.
“That’s her, I said.
“Good, Mattson said.
How’d you meet?”
“Down the street here.
There’s a restaurant called Mistral.
I met her there.”
“When was this?”
So about a year ago.
Probably a Friday night.
That’s when I would usually go down there.”
“Did you have sex with her?”
I should have anticipated the question but it hit me unexpectedly.
“That’s none of your business, I said.
It was a year ago.”
“I’ll take that as a yes, Mattson said.
Did you come back here?”
But the questions about what happened between us a year ago seemed overly important to them.
“This is crazy, I said.
I was with her one time and nothing ever came of it afterward.
Why are you asking me these questions?”
“Because we’re investigating her murder, Mattson said.
We need to know everything we can about her and her activities.
It doesn’t matter how long ago.
So I will ask you again: Was Tina Portrero ever in this apartment?”
I threw my hands up in a gesture of surrender.
“Yes, I said.
A year ago.”
“She stay over?
“No, she stayed a couple hours, then she got an Uber.”
Mattson didn’t immediately ask a follow-up.
He studied me for a long moment, as if trying to decide how to proceed.
“Would you have any of her property in this apartment?
“No, I protested.
He ignored my question and came back with his own.
“Where were you last Wednesday night?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, we’re not.”
“What time Wednesday night?”
“Let’s say between ten and midnight.”
But I also knew that it was a seminar for con artists and therefore didn’t really exist.
No one would want to do this.
Especially after the story I just turned in was published.
Look, this is crazy.
I was with her one night a year ago and then neither of us kept in contact.
It was a no-go for both of us.
“You sure about that?
Both of you?”
“I’m sure.
I never called her, she never called me.
And I never saw her at Mistral again.”
“How’d that make you feel?”
“How did what make me feel?”
“Her not calling you back after?”
“Did you hear what I said?
I didn’t call her and she didn’t call me.
It just wasn’t going to go anywhere.”
“Was she drunk that night?”
“Drunk, no.
We had a couple of drinks there.
I paid the tab.”
“What about back here?
More drinks or right up to the loft?”
“No more drinks here, I said.
“And everything was consensual?
I’d had enough.
“Look, I’ve answered your questions, I said.
And you’re wasting your time.”
“We’ll decide if we’re wasting our time, Mattson said.
We are almost finished here and I would appreciate it if you would sit back down, Mr.
He pronounced my name wrong again, probably intentionally.
I sat back down.
“I’m a journalist, okay?
I’ve covered crime I’ve written books about murderers.
But it’s not going to happen, because I don’t know anything about this.
So could you like "
“We know who you are, Mattson said.
You think we would come out here without knowing who we’re dealing with?
You’re the Velvet Coffin guy, and just for the record, I worked with Rodney Fletcher.
He was a friend and what happened to him was bullshit.”
The cause of the enmity that was dripping off Mattson like sap off a tree.
“Velvet Coffin closed down four years ago, I said.
Mostly because of the Fletcher story which was one hundred percent accurate.
There was no way of knowing he would do what he did.
Anyway, I work someplace else now and write consumer-protection stories.
I’m not on the cop shop.”
“Good for you.
Can we get back to Tina Portrero?”
“There is nothing to get back to.”
“How old are you?”
“You already know, I’m sure.
And what’s that got to do with anything?”
“You seem kind of old for her.
“She was an attractive woman and older than she looked or claimed to be.
She told me she was thirty-nine when I met her that night.”
“But that’s the point, right?
She was older than she looked.
You, a guy in your fifties, moving in on a lady you thought was in her thirties.
Kind of creepy, you ask me.”
I felt my face turning red with embarrassment and indignation.
“For the record, I didn’t move in on her, I said.
She picked up her Cosmo and came down the bar to me.
That’s how it started.”
“Good for you, Mattson said sarcastically.
Must’ve made your ego stand at attention.
So let’s go back to Wednesday.
“It was a work meeting, I said.
“With people that we could talk to and verify if we need to?”
“If it comes to that.
But you are "
“Good.
So tell us again about you and Tina.”
I could tell what he was doing.
Jumping around with his questions, trying to keep me off balance.
I covered cops for almost two decades for two different newspapers and the Velvet Coffin blog.
I knew how it worked.
Any slight discrepancy in retelling the story and they would have what they needed.
“No, I already told you everything.
You want any more information from me, then you have to give information.”
The detectives were silent, apparently deciding whether to deal.
I jumped in with the first question that came to mind.
“How did she die?
“She had her neck snapped, Mattson said.
“Atlanto-occipital dislocation, Sakai said.
“What the hell does that mean?
“Internal decapitation, Mattson said.
Somebody did a one-eighty on her neck.
It was a bad way to go.”
I felt a deep pressure begin to grow in my chest.
“It’s like that movieThe Exorcist, Mattson said.
With the possessed girl’s head twisting around.”
That didn’t help things.
“Where was this?
I asked, trying to move on from the images.
“Landlord found her in the shower, Mattson continued.
Her body was covering the drain and it overflowed and he came to check it out.
He found her, water still running.
It was supposed to look like a slip-and-fall but we know better.
You don’t slip in the shower and break your neck.
Not like that.”
I nodded as though that was good information to know.
“Okay, well look, I said.
I didn’t have anything to do with this and can’t help you with your investigation.
We are only getting started with this investigation.”
“Then, what?
What else do you want to know from me?”
“Well, you being a reporter and all, do you know what digital stalking is?”
“You mean like social media and tracking people through that?”
“I’m asking questions.
You’re supposed to answer them.”
“Well, you have to be more specific, then.”
“Well, Tina told a good friend of hers that she was being digitally stalked.
She said it was like he knew all about her before he even started talking to her.”
“I met her in a bar a year ago.
This whole thing is wait a minute.
How did you even know to come here to talk to me?”
“She had your name.
And she had your books on the night table.”
I couldn’t remember whether I had discussed my books with Tina the night I met her.
But since we had ended up at my apartment, it was likely that I had.
“And on the basis of that, you come here like I’m a suspect?”
“Calm down, Jack.
You know how we work.
We are conducting a thorough investigation.
So let’s go back to the stalking.
For the record, was that you she was talking about with the stalking?”
“No, it wasn’t me.”
“Good to hear.
The question startled me.
“Was she raped?
Now you’re accusing me of rape too?”
“Take it easy, Jack, Mattson said.
No sign of rape but let’s just say we got some DNA from the suspect.”
I realized that my DNA was my quickest way off their radar.
“Well, that wasn’t me, so when do you want to take my saliva?”
“How about right now?”
Mattson looked at his partner.
I realized then that most likely the sole purpose of their visit was to get my DNA.
They had the killer’s DNA.
That was fine with me.
They were going to be disappointed by the results.
“Let’s do it, I said.
“Good, Mattson said.
And there is one other thing we could do that would help us with the investigation.”
I should have known.
kick off the door an inch and they push all the way through.
“What’s that?
“You mind taking your shirt off?
So we can check your arms and body?”
“Why would "
I stopped myself.
I knew what he wanted.
He wanted to see if I had scratch marks or other wounds from a fight.
The DNA in evidence had probably come from Tina Portrero’s fingernails.
She had put up a fight and taken a piece of her killer.
I started unbuttoning my shirt.
Excerpted fromFair Warningby Michael Connelly.
Available from Little, Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Unlock Access to AARP Members Edition
Already a Member?Login
