Never Fear by Scott Frost

my father’s interrogation eighteen years ago was now working as an investigator out of the Antelope Valley office, sixty miles north of L.A. on the edge of the high desert.
    This was as far as you could get from the center of the city and still be within the county. Tract after tract of housing developments spread out in every direction where desert used to be. Lawns replaced tumbleweed. Ninety-minute commutes redefined the limits of community.
    From the parking lot of the DA’s offices you could see extinct cinder cones rising out of the sand to the north. To the south, the column of smoke from the fire threatening my house climbed thousands of feet into the air, dwarfing the San Gabriels.
    Outside of a few desert rats and dirt bikers, no one came to the high desert out of choice. You came because it was the last place you could afford, or you came for work. In every sense it was the end of the road before leaving L.A. entirely behind.
    The investigators’ windowless offices were on the ground floor, far from the views of the lawyers three and four floors up. Frank Cross met us in the hallway and walked us back to his small office. Cross was a large man, over six feet, powerfully built, though far from fit. Why a former lawyer for the DA’s office was now working as an investigator I suspected had something to do with his presence here at the outer edge of the system. His eyes had the tired look of a traveler stuck in an airport with no hope of ever reaching his destination.
    On a wall of the office was a marker board with a list of open cases. A quick glance suggested the majority of them were spousal abuse, hate crimes, and property theft. Not the stuff investigators’ dreams are made of.
    â€œYour call said you wanted to talk about the River Killer investigation?” Cross asked.
    â€œA portion of it,” I said. “You took part in the interrogation of the only suspect ever arrested.”
    Cross’s dull eyes appeared to focus.
    â€œManning,” he said without hesitation.
    â€œYou remember?”
    The corners of his mouth turned as if he had stepped on something sharp. “Do you fish, Lieutenant?”
    â€œNo.”
    He looked at Harrison, who responded without hesitation. “The one that got away.”
    Cross nodded. “The one you never forget . . . no one forgets.”
    â€œWas there a reason you were at the interrogation?”
    â€œI was a cop before I became a prosecutor.”
    Cross closed his right hand into a fist and flexed the muscles of his forearm. Then he got up from his desk and walked over and closed the door to the office.
    â€œVictoria Fisher worked in my office. I demanded to be there.”
    â€œYou knew her?” Harrison asked.
    Cross nodded. “I didn’t know her well. She was clerking for us during summer break from law school.”
    â€œWhat can you tell us about Manning?”
    He started to answer then stopped. “Why is Pasadena PD interested in this?”
    â€œWe’re investigating another crime that may be linked to the River Killings.”
    Cross stood up from his desk, started to walk across the room, then paused mid-stride. He put his hand on the back of his neck and began to massage the thick muscles. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œManning’s alive, that’s why you’re here?”
    â€œWe don’t know that for certain,” I said.
    â€œBut you think he’s killed again, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
    â€œHas anyone else questioned you about this recently?”
    Cross looked at me suspiciously and shook his head. “You have someone in mind?”
    â€œHis son may have been investigating the River Killings and was possibly murdered.”
    â€œHe didn’t talk to me.” Cross appeared to replay the words in his head several times. “My God, you want to know if I think it’s possible he could kill his