Free Never Fear by Scott Frost Page B

us,” I said.
    Hazzard looked at the box for a moment as if it were a relative who had come for a weekend visit and never left.
    â€œI’ve lived with those files for eighteen years. It would be a relief to be rid of ’em.”
    â€œI’ll want to talk to you more,” I said.
    â€œAs long as I don’t burn to the ground, I’ll be right here.”
    I slipped the folders back into the box with the rest of the files, thanked Hazzard, and started for the door with Harrison.
    â€œYou never said why you’re interested, Lieutenant,” Hazzard said. “Manning’s son’s death is still a long way from Pasadena.”
    I stopped by the door.
    â€œWhat aren’t you telling me?” he added.
    â€œTwo witnesses may have seen the man who killed Manning’s son. A girlfriend who saw him leave the apartment with a computer, and a clerk at a Western Union office.”
    â€œAnd you’re wondering if Manning has come back from the dead and murdered his own child?”
    â€œThe LAPD detective in charge of the case was murdered last night.”
    â€œDetective Williams. I saw the news.”
    I nodded. “I think they’re after the wrong suspect.”
    â€œAnd why do you think that?” Hazzard asked.
    â€œBecause he told me he didn’t do it just before he attacked me with a bat.”
    â€œYou were the injured cop on the scene?”
    I nodded. “I think the man who killed Thomas Manning’s son also killed Williams, and I believe it’s possible that that individual is connected to the River Killer.”
    â€œWhy would a serial killer of young women suddenly kill two men?”
    â€œHe’s trying to protect himself. I’m guessing that Gavin and Manning’s son may have uncovered something about the River Killer.”
    â€œDo you have any proof of this theory?”
    â€œThe night Manning died he tried to contact me but wasn’t successful.”
    â€œYou tell LAPD this?”
    â€œLAPD is looking for a cop killer. They don’t want to know what I think,” I said.
    I glanced out the door. A shower of burning embers the size of golf balls were falling out of the sky, sending up puffs of smoke when they landed.
    â€œI think you might be right about it being the end of the world, Detective,” I said.
    Hazzard looked out the window, his face a mask of intensity.
    â€œJust a matter of time,” he said.
    I turned and looked at him. “You think Thomas Manning killed those girls, don’t you?” I asked.
    Hazzard smiled, but there was no joy in it. “I spend my days buying baseball cards and playing golf. What I think doesn’t matter anymore.”
    I imagined Hazzard was one of the saddest men I’d ever met in my life. His Hawaiian shirt, golf clubs, and the sports memorabilia were Band-Aids holding together a lonely house and a psyche that had been assaulted by years of violence.
    â€œThomas Manning was my father,” I said. “I’d like to know what you think.”
    A flash of surprise registered on Hazzard’s face— something I would have guessed wasn’t possible.
    â€œYou sure, Lieutenant?”
    I didn’t know the answer to that question. Until that morning my father had existed in a memory that was as faint and harmless as a thirty-year-old television show. Now I was asking to replace that with the knowledge that my father could be a monster.
    â€œI just want to know who killed my brother,” I said.
    Hazzard reached into a cooler I hadn’t noticed under the table, took out a can of beer, set it on the table, and just stared at it.
    â€œI hope that’s what you want,” Hazzard said.
    â€œBecause I’d bet everything I own, your father murdered those young women.”

12
    It was near dusk when Harrison and I finished laying out Hazzard’s case files on the conference room table and into some sort of recognizable