The Devil's Analyst Read Online Free PDF

press hound. But let him wait. Come inside. First thing this morning, I picked up some chocolate croissants at the bakery on Hillhurst. I knew your stomach would need more attention than Josh’s business.”
    “You certainly know how to please me,” he said. Kenosha gave him a playful swat, and he grinned. He loved having this woman as a friend, quirks and all.
    Soon they were seated on the patio outside the living room’s French doors. Strange, Danny thought, the way Josh and his two separate homes both had broad windows facing beautiful natural views. The terrace’s balustrade looked west toward the Griffith Observatory and a hint of the Hollywood sign. On days when Los Angeles held its smog in check, there was even an ocean view. Under nearly perfect conditions, one could squint out a distant dividing line between the light blue of the sea’s surface and the hazy tint of the darker sky. But on the most rare of perfect days, the view became a David Hockney painting where the sky, hills and distant sea transformed into a distinct geometry of lines. Today was not such a day.
    “Anything exciting while we were gone?” Danny asked.
    In the pattern of sunlight that dappled Kenosha’s face some wrinkle seemed to come and go as though she recalled a disturbing fact, considered mentioning it, and changed her mind. She wasn’t a good actress.
    “Kenosha Jayne Washington,” he liked using her full name when making a point. “I’ve known you since we were sophomores at USC. You never could fool me. What happened? Did something get Kiisa? Did she get out at night and run into a coyote?”
    Using the Finnish word for “cat” to name their pet seemed to amuse Josh, but the cat and its name often reminded Danny of his mother. It would have been fine with him if one of those mangy coyotes had made Kiisa a meal. Then he felt guilty for thinking such a dreadful thought.
    Kenosha made a show of being offended. She knew Danny secretly hated that cat. “You’d be happy if I let Kiisa be eaten. She’s only around because she showed up at your door half-dead and you’re too kind-hearted to ask a vet to put her to sleep. Sorry, though, there’s no missing cat. No coyote attacks. Not even a rampaging raccoon or tree rat. Although I did smell a couple of skunks.”
    “What then?” Danny knew there was something. Kenosha had made a half-hearted joke. It was a dead giveaway.
    “This house. It gives me the creeps with all its dark corners and levels. Who needs a projector room? The place is just overkill. You know I’m accustomed to the sleek and modern.”
    It’s true, Danny thought. Kenosha had been raised in one of those Case Study houses from the fifties. Everything was built-in with well-defined vertical and horizontal lines. Her parents couldn’t abide the Spanish baroque spirit that was so popular in the early twentieth century and still infused most of these early Los Feliz estates.
    In its initial days, the neighborhood had offered the height of style. The founder of the Los Angeles Times built a huge estate in the area, as did many celebrities during the beginning of the movie industry. Over the decades, the influential moved westward toward the favorable neighborhoods near the ocean, places like Brentwood where Kenosha was raised. A few years ago when Josh really began to make money, he wanted nothing to do with the Westside. He read in Variety that the popular singer Madonna had bought in the Los Feliz neighborhood and he predicted that her presence would revive the community as fashionable. As usual, he was right.
    When they first saw this house, it had been a wreck. The realtor even resisted showing it. On the market for over 200 days, the estate was a probate sale. Squabbles among the heirs kept the house from even being properly cleaned and staged. But there was another reason that the real estate listing was poison.
    Someone died on the premises. A once-famous director of horror movies, Augustus Cambrian, had