The Brimstone Murders

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PENAL CODE SECTION 187: Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.

Robbie Farris was in jail. He’d be there a long time and there wasn’t a whole-hell-of-a-lot I could do about it. His professor was dead and there wasn’t a whole-hell-of-a-lot I could do about that either.

I threaded my way up the Santa Ana Freeway heading for the L.A. County Jail, going at a good clip until a couple of lunkheads, discussing their fenderbender on the side of the road, had traffic snarled all the way back to the 710. They were hammering away at each other, but a few quick jabs from the bigger guy seemed to quell the debate. I crept by in my five-year-old ’68 Corvette, steaming. My pants were pressed, shirt only worn once, shoes halfway shined, and I was even on time, but now the traffic would make me late-again.

My client Robbie Farris-charged with section 187, one count-was waiting at the jail. He wasn’t going anywhere. But I hated being late. I’d have to do better with these minor imperfections. Racking my brain, I could only think of a few, but the peccadilloes were part of my personality, and we wouldn’t want to change that. My main fault-if it was a fault-had to do with women. The first thought that crossed my mind when I met a woman, any woman, young or old, was what it would be like to sleep with her. I don’t mean to imply that I’m obsessed with sex, and sex certainly isn’t obsessed with me. But when you are thirty-five and divorced, a healthy male with an active libido, isn’t thinking about sex normal? Contrary to my married friends’ fantasies, bachelor life isn’t all that thrilling. It’s just lonely.

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