Free Never Fear by Scott Frost

mother.”
    I nodded. “It didn’t go particularly well.”
    â€œShe denied it?”
    â€œBadly. Everything she said and didn’t say to me suggests I’m right.”
    The wheels in Harrison’s head turned for a moment.
    â€œEven if it’s true, that doesn’t make your father a killer, particularly a serial killer,” Harrison said. “They usually contain their rage from their everyday lives.”
    I nodded. “But it does make him violent.”
    I looked one more time at the mug shot, hoping to discover a detail, a window into some part of my father that would lead me in a different direction. It wasn’t there. I looked out the window at the strange orange light from the smoke. The line separating reality from nightmare seemed to be getting thinner by the moment.
    â€œI thought it was the dark I remember being afraid of as a little girl, but it wasn’t,” I said. “I think it was him.”

11
    Len Hazzard, the detective who led the investigation into the River Killer murders, had retired three years ago from Robbery Homicide and was living on the western edge of the San Fernando Valley in Chatsworth.
    The Santa Anas were gusting to forty miles an hour through the canyons where subdivisions had replaced chaparral. The fires to the east of Pasadena had produced a surreal glow but no danger. Driving into the canyons was like entering a city under siege. Burning embers were falling out of the sky from a fire two miles to the north and starting spot fires on roofs. The tops of palm trees would explode in flames as if hit by a bomb. Cars packed with family valuables streamed out of neighborhoods while convoys of fire trucks poured in.
    Harrison stopped the squad at a Highway Patrol roadblock and we showed our IDs, then turned into the subdivision. Detective Hazzard lived at the end of a cul-de-sac tucked into a rocky canyon. One side of the street was lined with palm trees that had been charred as black as charcoal.
    Hazzard was standing on his front lawn wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, holding an unlit cigarette and watching a slurry bomber make a run on a ridge a canyon away. He looked to be in his mid sixties, with thinning light hair, but was still powerfully built and tanned from hours in the sun every day. He shook our hands and invited us inside.
    The inside of the house looked as if it had been decorated by a committee of VFW vets intent on fulfilling all their boyhood dreams through this one house. The upholstery matched the colors of NFL and NBA teams. Autographed sports memorabilia and baseball cards covered nearly every wall. I noticed a Yankees jersey of Babe Ruth’s, another belonging to Jackie Robinson. From a quick glance at the rest of the collection, I imagined it was incredibly valuable. I wondered if I was the first woman other than a maid to set foot inside in a decade. We followed him into the dining room, where a large box sat in the middle of the table under a chandelier made of deer antlers.
    â€œIt’s all here—every report, note, everything, I copied it all before I left,” Hazzard said, staring at the box like he held a grudge against it. “I had it in the pickup when your chief called. It was going with me if I had to evacuate.”
    He looked out the window at the burnt trees across the street.
    â€œI’ll never be done with it,” he said. “You have a case like that, Lieutenant? The one you can’t let go of ?”
    I nodded.
    A helicopter passed overhead, shaking the house.
    â€œIt’s like the end of the fucking world,” Hazzard said.
    When the copter moved off, he turned to me. “Anything you want, it’s yours. All I ask is that you keep me informed of everything, and if you make an arrest, I be there when you do it.”
    I nodded my approval, and he motioned to the chairs and we sat down.
    â€œYou arrested a Thomas Manning. What can you tell me about him?” I