COLIN DIDN’T WANT TO HOLD PAYTON BISHOP’S JOURNAL EVEN THOUGH IT HAD been stuffed into a plastic bag. It now sat on his lap like a soiled adult diaper.
Drizzle from the platinum-colored clouds above spotted the windshield, and pedestrians already hoisted a rainbow of open umbrellas. Heart in my throat, I raced east on King Boulevard, shoving the Crown Vic between buses and cars, all Sunday drivers at twenty-five miles per hour.
“Put on some gloves,” I told my partner, “open the bag, and look for yourself. You shouldn’t take my word for it.”
Sam texted me back. Yes I’m here. Can we talk about last night now?
Colin glared at the journal. “I’m homicide, not … this shit.”
“You’re a cop,” I snapped. “Don’t know about training in the Springs, Detective Delicate Orchid, but I had to look at child porn, taste cocaine, and get blasted in the face with pepper spray, among other fucked-up things. Geez, Colin, make life nice and easy for once. Please?”
Colin opened the journal, still in the bag, to the picture of Peaches. “Aw, hell, Lou.” He closed the book. “So are we gonna arrest this Chester?”
At the sports arena, I made a left onto Figueroa. Five miles ahead, the city’s skyscrapers peeked from behind the veils of marine layer and rain clouds. “I’d like to make an informed decision first.”
The tall white building of the district attorney’s office looked dingy and lopsided beneath those stark gray clouds. Sam’s office was located on the fourth floor, and the only light came from the open window looking out to Temple Avenue. He sat at his desk in jeans and a gray T-shirt, and my breath caught seeing him there. He smiled when he saw me, but that smile strained as he saw Colin trundling behind me.
“So this visit is business,” he said as he moved manila folders from the chairs to the credenza. “Your text didn’t say.”
“Cuz I wanted to make sure you’d stay here,” I said.
He grunted, then moved back behind his desk. “So what’s up?”
“This.” I placed the bag with Payton Bishop’s journal in it on Sam’s desk. Then, Colin and I plopped into the guest chairs.
Framed pictures sat on Sam’s desk: his parents, his sister Phoebe, President Obama, his Jack Russell terrier, Roscoe. The note card I sent along with those sea-salt-caramel cupcakes now lived on the edge of his computer monitor.
“Remember when you told me to focus … somewhere?” I said.
Sam hesitated before saying, “Umhmm.”
I bit my lip, then stared at the journal.
Colin, eyes also on the journal, tossed a pair of latex gloves onto the desk.
Sam squinted at us, then picked up his coffee mug. He sipped slowly, then tugged on the gloves, pulled the book out of the bag, and flipped through the first pages. “Lesson plans, lists. And you got this where?”
“A student kinda stole it and gave it to us this morning,” Colin said.
Sam placed the book back on the desk. “Ah.” He clicked his nails against the coffee mug.
“Is it admissible in court?” I asked.
“Did you ask her to kinda steal it?” Sam asked, eyebrow cocked.
Both Colin and I shook our heads.
“Then, it may be admissible. No guarantee, though.”
“You should keep browsing, then,” I said.
Sam scratched his jaw. Then, he did as I asked, pausing at every school portrait he found, reading the salutation, freezing once he reached that five-by-seven bedroom shot. His jaw clenched, and his lips thinned into a grim line. “Does he know that you have this?”
I whispered, “No.”
He reached the page with the crossed-out words and the questionable URL. His eyebrows lifted and he grunted.
“So?” I held myself rigid, threatening to break in half if he said something I didn’t want to hear.
“Are you now one hundred percent he’s the one?” Sam asked. “Or even eighty percent?”
I shook my head. “Although this helps.” And then I told him about the postcards and figurines, and Bishop’s self-regard as an enlightened truth teller inspiring gifted girls.
“He’s supposed to come in and give DNA,” Colin added, “but he hasn’t yet.”
Sam rubbed his mouth, then turned to type into his computer.
Colin and I glanced at each other and shrugged.
Sam kept typing, stopping to read every now and then before typing again. Finally, he pushed away from the computer. “Three years ago, Payton Bishop was dismissed from his prior position as vice principal at a middle school over in Mount Washington. Improper conduct with one of the students.”
“What?” I yelped.
Sam held up a hand. “In some ways, the charge was hard to prove. He pled to a misdemeanor—soliciting a minor for lewd conduct. He got a demotion and a transfer.”
“A demotion?” Colin screeched.
“With the understanding that if another student came forward, we’d go nuclear on him.”
Awed, I shook my head. “What the hell, Sam? Did you all need to catch him in the act?”
“A lot was unclear,” he said. “And in a case like this, the plea made sense. It was his first offense, combined with murky details and an unreliable witness.”
I sighed. “Unreliable because …?”
“Because he married her as soon as she turned eighteen, which means she’d never testify against him. So we had nothing.”
“Okay,” I said. “You all slapped his hand, which meant …”
“He wasn’t required to submit DNA,” Sam said.
Colin scowled at him. “Are you kidding me?”
Sam shrugged. “You don’t like it, but it’s the law.”
“And the fox,” Colin said, “gets to stay in the henhouse.”
“So what do you want to do?” Sam asked.
I told him my plan and watched his face for any tells.
But there was no flushing. No twitching nerves. No clenched jaw. Sam was a poker-faced pro. Except for his eyes, which were now the color of stormy seas.
“Well?” I asked.
He sat back in his seat. “Defense could argue entrapment. Or his wife could back out of it after having second thoughts.”
“She’s young enough to be pissed off, though,” I said. “She thought she was the only one, and now she finds out that he’s messing around with other girls and possibly killed two?”
Sam squinted at me. “And if he catches on that she’s working with us?”
“Then …” I shrugged.
Sam sighed, then clicked his teeth together. “If you wanna grab him for this”—he pointed to the journal—“you can. But then hold your breath and hope that his attorney loses the motion to have his client’s little book of sick tossed out because of how it came into your possession. And unless you get hard evidence—hell, even circumstantial evidence—of him killing Chanita and Allayna, he’s only looking at a year or so for the picture. Your call.”