“My brother's got a white Dodge minivan,” Bernard's mother said.

“Was it like your uncle's, Bernard?” I asked.

“Sorta. Not really though.”

“Did you see the man who was driving it?”

He shook his head. “I was bringing out the garbage. I only saw it drive away.”

“Do you think you would recognize it again if you saw it?” I asked.

Bernard nodded.

“Because it looked like your uncle's?”

He hesitated. “No, because it had a picture on the back.”

“A picture? You mean like an insignia? Or some kind of advertising?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head; his moon-like eyes were searching around. Then they lit up. “I mean like that.” He pointed toward a pickup truck in a neighbor's driveway.

There was a sticker of a Cal Golden Bear on the rear bumper.

“You mean a decal?” I confirmed.

“On the door.”

I held the boy softly by the shoulders. “What did this decal look like, Bernard?” “Like Mufasa,” the boy said, “from The Lion King.”

“A lion?” My mind raced through anything that seemed likely. Sports teams, college logos, corporations... “Yeah, like Mufasa,” Bernard repeated. “Except it had two heads.”

Chapter 5

LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, I was pushing through a surging crowd that had built up on the steps of the Hall of Justice. I felt hollowed out and terribly sad, but knew I couldn't show it here.

The lobby of the tomb-like granite building where I worked was packed with reporters and news crews, shoving their microphones at anyone who came in wearing a badge.

Most of the crime reporters knew me but I waved them off until I could get upstairs.

Then a set of hands grasped my shoulders and a familiar voice chimed, "Linds, we need to talk.

I spun to face Cindy Thomas, one of my closest friends, though it also happened she was the lead crime reporter at the Chronicle. “I won't bother you now,” she said above the din. “But it's important. How about Susie's, at ten?”