The Podcast

Chapter 12

Thursday Afternoon

"I just don't understand—why didn't you tell her?"

Lucas twirls a toothpick, a light sheen of sweat on his face as heat rises up from the black asphalt of the LAPD parking lot. Melanie increases her pace to keep up with Lucas' long strides.

"You've already asked me that," Lucas scans the line of parked SUVs for his license plate before heading towards it, "three times I think."

"Well, call me crazy, but people usually ask questions until they get an answer!" Melanie lets out a small but frustrated laugh, somewhat resenting how much she respects Lucas. She spends half their time together trying to emulate what he does and the other half trying to understand it.

"Melanie," Lucas turns on her so quickly she almost runs into his broad back. He leans against his car, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. "You were in that room with me yesterday. You met Sumner West. Describe her to me."

"What?"

"Describe her." Lucas plucks the toothpick from his mouth, pinching it between his fingers.

"Um, okay, well she's skinny. Needs to put on a few extra pounds if you ask me. And she's pale. Really pale. Which is odd for LA—"

"Not how she looks, Detective Lopez." Lucas interrupts. "Describe her attitude, her disposition. Profile her."

"We hardly spent any time with her. Twenty minutes at best."

"Try anyway."

"Okay," Melanie blows out a breath before continuing. "Well, she seemed very professional, a bit standoffish maybe? Definitely a workaholic. And just going off our very limited interaction," Melanie tilts her head back and forth searching for the words, "like a bit of a control freak?"

"A bit?" Lucas chuckles, popping the nicotine toothpick back in his mouth. "That skinny pale girl has a 400-pound ego."

The first part of his statement isn't exactly how he'd describe Sumner West. Not that it wasn't true, in part. She was skinny, but not in an unhealthy way. More like lithe, delicate curves. She seemed to choose clothing that hid her figure, kept her looking slim and professional instead of overly feminine. And she was pale, her skin like something glowing and translucent, almost unnatural when she blushed. She didn't look like a typical LA girl, that was for certain. But she was beautiful, in a classic, haunting way. Pretty and delicate features, full lips, large eyes.

But the part about the ego—that rang true. The restrained arrogance, vibrating and powerful under a demure mask of professionalism and efficacy. He can imagine himself through her eyes. Brusque, uncouth, rough around the edges. Barreling into the ivory tower of her life, mocking everything she packaged so carefully into her personal identity: Type-A detail oriented, self-made success story, smartest in the room, better at investigating crimes than the police. That last part especially, the most critical insight he'd gleaned.

"Okay...but so what? Or rather, now what? What are we supposed to do with the fact that she's a control freak?"

"We wait." Lucas opens his car door, lounging into the driver's seat, his knee bent as one black boot stays planted on the asphalt. In this position he's almost at Melanie's eye level.

"If I had to guess, Detective Lopez, you were the kid in high school who let people copy your homework. I was the kid who cheated. Not because I didn't know how to do the homework," Lucas smirks but there's no humor in it, just truth. "But because I was too busy getting laid. Why try to do homework for a class I skipped all semester if there's someone I can cheat off of who's been attending everyday?"

Melanie eyes him suspiciously, earnestly trying to understand but equally convinced the great Detective Lucas Saba has damn near lost his mind. "Are you on something? Do I need to ask Chief Honey to make you piss in a cup?"

"If Chief Honey pissed in a cup this whole town would lose its shit."

"Those are just rumors." Melanie puts her palm flat on the hood of Lucas' SUV. She knows the rumors have merit, but she also knows that no one can take on the LAPD. And Police Chief Jack Honey is the LAPD.

"Look, I have no doubt we're dealing with a copycat killer here. I showed you the details, mapped them out one by one. Still can't believe it was my fucking niece who tipped me off to it, but it's there. The episode transcript is like the blueprint for the recent UCLA case file."

"I agree! But—"

"So," Lucas cuts her off, slowly closing his car door before leaning through the open driver's side window, "why don't we let the one person who knows more about this fucking podcast than anyone else in the world—who for whatever God-forsaken reason has dedicated her glitzy LA life to the cases featured on its episodes—to come to us. To prove she can uncover what we already know."

Melanie steps back from the car, her expression still doubtful but mulling it over.

"Do you trust me, Detective Lopez?"

"Yes. I probably shouldn't, but I do."

Lucas laughs, the sound deep and genuine. "If I had a dollar for every time a woman said that to me, I'd be richer than Sumner West."