Free Burning Man by Alan Russell Page B

park enter through the southern entrance at the bottom of the canyon, and from there they choose one of two walking trails. The clockwise route is the shorter and less strenuous route to the back of the canyon and the eastern ridge, which is Clouds Rest. The counterclockwise trail is longer and harder, with more ups and downs.
    What the other cops didn’t know was that there was a third and shorter route to Clouds Rest that started from the lower fire road. Their way would have taken them half an hour of walking; my route would cut that time in half. I parked along the bend in the lower fire road, and Sirius and I began our hike. The 130-acre park is designated as “urban wilderness.” It might not be Yosemite, but you don’t have to venture far into the canyon before you feelas if you’ve escaped from LA. The park’s southern entrance is just two blocks from Hollywood Boulevard, making it a popular getaway for Angelenos.
    We followed an upward path that went along a dry riverbed. Before bulldozers and development, LA was chaparral country and the park is a natural museum to LA’s former terrain. We made our way through sagebrush, flattop buckwheat, and laurel sumac. The muted greenery was typical of most drought-resistant plants, although occasionally we passed by some red-berried toyon, which all the locals call California holly.
    The last part of the hike was the hardest, a steep rise that had me using my hands in a few spots to steady myself. All the climbs throughout Runyon Park are worth it. Depending on your vantage point and the smog, you can see everything from Catalina Island to Griffith Observatory to the Capitol Records building, but today I didn’t stop to take in the view. I was thinking about what awaited me at Clouds Rest.
    “Why would you pick this spot to crucify someone?” I asked.
    It was out of the way but not that out of the way. Lots of people walked the trails every day. For some, it was part of a regular exercise regimen. The murderer wouldn’t have been able to get in or out easily. And if you dragged a cross up a hill, someone was likely to notice. No, it wasn’t the first spot I would pick for crucifying someone.
    Sirius’s ears perked up and his body went on the alert. He sniffed the air and got a preview of what was ahead. It was another half a minute before I saw the activity. A handful of people—forensics techs and the coroner’s people—were clustered around a coast live oak. The tree was typical of its kind: it had a gnarled trunk and contorted branches and was rather compact, at least as oaks went, but it was large enough to be supporting a body.
    The young man’s arms were spread out along two branches, and his torso was backed up by the trunk. As I came closer, I could see the odd angle of the victim’s toes. Because his ankles had beennailed into the tree, he looked as if he was pigeon-toed and walking on air. The victim wasn’t wearing the loincloth associated with every crucifixion tableau I had ever seen. He had on running clothes, with lightweight Speedo shorts and a tank top that said BHHS .
    I kept enough distance from the tree to not impact the lighting. Techs from Scientific Investigation Division were busy using digital and video cameras to record the scene. Everyone working the crime scene offered some form of acknowledgment to Sirius and me except for the two detectives from Robbery-Homicide. The detectives continued talking to each other and studiously avoided me. Normally it was RHD that took over any high-profile cases from other detectives, something known as “bigfooting.” They were used to having the shoe on the other foot—or bigfoot. In this instance, I was the perceived bigfoot.
    I knew one of the detectives, a longtime veteran named Worsley that everyone called Gump. The nickname didn’t come from Forrest Gump but from an NHL goalie named Gump Worsley whose main claim to fame was that he was the last NHL goalie to play without a mask.
    Gump