"Time cards from thirty years ago? We wrote them by hand. I don't know if we keep them that far back."
"We do. They're in the records building, but you need to clear it."
He put the glasses back on, looked out toward Coast Highway, then back to her. "You still think we were the bad guys. Even back then."
"I'm just ruling us out."
"That's a weak argument. But from you, I'll accept it. Talk to Mel. He can authorize."
She took the cell phone from her belt, punched in the number and held it out to Brighton. "It's Records. Would you mind? They won't hustle it for Glandis or me."
Brighton looked at her from behind the dark glasses, then took the phone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Merci saw the news crews and uplink vans set up outside the head quarters entrance, so she put her head down and accelerated. She was already halfway through them by the time they realized who sho was. She brushed away the mikes and answered everything with the same three words: No damned comment. She lost them in the lobby where a uniformed deputy clicked her through the personnel door and that was that.
The detective pen was almost empty now, midday, the dicks either in the field or out to lunch. The thought occurred to her that with one of their own arrested for murder, now was a good time not to be seen. And everybody was dying to talk to everybody else. Cancun would be a beehive of gossip right now, she thought.
The box of time cards was on her desk. It smelled of old paper and the corners were crumpled. She signed the Records Section slip on top and set the slip in her routing box.
She lugged the box into the empty conference room, then went back for the Bailey file and a fresh cup of coffee. A lieutenant passed her in the hallway. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, but he said nothing.
Standing over the interview room table, Merci lifted out the time cards. They were organized by week. The assignment rosters were collected for each month, then stapled and put in manila folders.
To the left of the cards she set Patti Bailey's date book, opened to the last day of her life, August 4, 1969.
4SV/6CM/7DL/8:30FD/11KQ
One thing, she thought. Give me just one thing: the owner of the initials KQ. If he was a sheriff's deputy, he'll be in here.
It took her twenty minutes to strike out. She went through every time card filled out for the year and came up with no KQ. No Anybody Q, for that matter.
Code? It has to be.
She tried reversing them and looked through the time cards again.
No QK.
She tried using the letters before K and Q, thinking that Bailey might have just added one before she wrote.
The time cards again, but no JP.
She tried using the letters after K and Q, thinking that Bailey might have just subtracted one letter before she wrote.
LR.
Back to the time cards. Bingo. She found a deputy Lee Ripley who happened to be working the night shift on August 4. She checked the assignment roster and discovered that Ripley had worked patrol that night. Interesting. She'd assumed a whore killer wouldn't be working the night he killed, but why? On patrol he'd have opportunity. He could have met her at eleven, just like her date book said. He was out, free, working without a partner like they used to in the old days.
Merci had never heard of him.
So she tried the code against days when Bailey met known subjects—Ralph Meeks and Bill Owen.
No RM. No BO. Wrong code.
Frustrated and not a little angry, she stood, walked around the table three times, then sat back down again. The coffee was hot and horrible but she drank it anyway.
She looked down at the calendared entries, trying to imagine a simple way to disguise the initials. Something a loaded hooker could remember and use without thinking about it too hard. Merci noted the rare letter Q repeated in the Owen date and the murder date, but the first initials weren't the same. She walked around the table again three times in the opposite direction, on the vague notion that you always retraced your steps if you were lost. She sat down again, lost as ever. Vague indeed, she thought. She hooked her thumbs into her pants pockets, slumped back in the chair and looked down at the dizzying codes again.
And she began to admit that maybe this wasn't code at all, that maybe Meeks and Owens were off the books and KQ had nothing at to do with the Sheriff Department.
But she tried reversing the initials, then adding and subtracting letters. Using this formula she got neither BO nor RM, and it was so difficult she was almost furious by the time she got the last combination scrambled.
Merci thought: What a bunch of shit. Then she took a deep breath and murmured the hackneyed phrase about when the going gets tough
So she tried subtracting one letter from the first initial and two letters from the last. One from the first, two from the second—easy to remember.
She liked what she saw. She checked it, then rechecked it.
Under this code, CQ became BO—Bill Owen, visited by Bailey 3 p.m. on July 25. Confirmed by Bailey herself, in the tape recording she made.
The letters SO became RM—Ralph Meeks, visited by Bailey 5 p.m. July 9. Confirmed by Bailey again, on the same tape.
The letters KQ became JO. And the Sheriff Department had employed a man with just those initials.
With her head clearing and her heart speeding up, Merci opened the Bailey file and flipped through to the Coroner's Final Report. Bailey had died between 9 p.m. and one in the morning.
Next, she pulled the time cards for August 4, 1969. A total of ninety-three sworn Sheriff Department deputies worked that day: forty-one day shift, twenty-nine on swing, twenty-three on night.
There he was.
Jim O'Brien had worked swing shift. He'd clocked in at five-ten and back out at one-sixteen the following morning.
Checking back to June and forward to September, Merci found that Jim O'Brien had worked day shifts every week except for one—the week that Bailey died.
It took her another two hours to do it, but she managed to trace the odd shift patterns of two other deputies on duty the night Bailey died. Partners Rayborn and McNally had pulled swing shifts that week also. For the rest of the year in both directions, they had worked days.
A week of swings, and hell broke loose.
When the door opened she flinched. She turned, hoping nobody had seen her jerk like that.
Evan O'Brien stood there. "We're done with most of the McNally stuff. I can't tell you how it went, but I can smile."
He did. Then the smile disappeared.
"You okay?" "I'm fine," she said.
"I'll bet the press conference was a lot of fun."
"No."
"All right. I'll leave you alone. But Lynda and Gilliam and I are going to have a drink after work at Sal's. You're invited. Gilliam ordered me to tell you that."
Merci hesitated. Her thoughts flapped and hovered but they wouldn't land.
O'Brien waited, then spoke. "I'll drive us over if you want."
"No. But I do want to talk to you."
"Then come have a drink. We're just crime lab people, not lepers."
"I've got an errand to run. Will you come with me?"
He looked at her. "Sure. What's the errand?"
"I need to feed the dogs. At Mike's."
The look O'Brien gave her was like nothing she'd ever seen: It was hard to get such confusion out of a wiseass like Evan.
"I'll explain on the way there."
• • •
Merci gunned the Impala up Modjeska Canyon, tires chirping on the curves. The night was cold so she had the windbreaker buttoned all the way up and a pair of thin leather gloves on.
O'Brien wore a tan duster, his hands jammed deep into the pockets. He swayed when Merci took the turns and she realized he was small compared to the other men she'd driven in this car. Hess. Mike. Brighton. Clark.
"So, Sergeant, what did you want to talk about?"
"I think your father was wit
h Patti Bailey the night she was killed
O'Brien glanced across at her. "What do you mean, with? And how do you know?"
"As a customer. It's in her appointment book. Eleven that night. She died sometime between nine and one."
"A date and a murder are two different things."
"That's not what I said."
"It's what you meant."
She made a right turn, took it a little fast, saw O'Brien brace himself on the dash.
"Bailey made a tape," said Merci. "She had a county supervisor as a customer, she had Bill Owen, too—the old sheriff. She was going blackmail them with it."
"Don't try to tell me my father is on that tape."
"She left the recorder running the night she was shot. There's a long conversation with the man who did it."
She saw O'Brien look at her again, then back to the road. Merci slowed as she approached Mike's turnoff.
"Well, okay, Merci. You've got a tape of a murder, and I've got a deceased father you think did it. What am I supposed to do? Raise him from the dead for a voice comparison?"
"Do you have his voice on tape? A video, maybe?"
"Of course I do. He was my father. But the voice on mine won’t match the voice on yours. I can guarantee that."
"How?"
She pulled into Mike's driveway.
"Because he was a good man."
Merci pulled out the keys and looked at him.
"I'd appreciate a copy of that video, Evan."
He sighed and shook his head, then looked out at Mike's house. The dogs had started howling and again Merci thought she heard something plaintive in their voices.
"Looks like a miserable little place," he said, looking out the window.
"It's not that bad."
She still felt obliged to defend Mike, and she wondered why.
She let herself in and turned on the living-room lights. The house was even colder now. The fire had gone out and no one was there to start it up again.
"I didn't know he was a gun nut," said O'Brien, looking at the gun case by the kitchen.
"They're just guns, Evan. They don't make him a nut."
She went into the kitchen. Looking at the rinsed dishes in the rack, it felt like the old days with Mike. She would stand in this kitchen and assess the dinner damage and they would talk. She would wash and Mike would dry the pans, rack the dishes. Tim would be in his portable crib, or maybe on a blanket before he'd learned to crawl. The after-dinner part of the night was a good part, she thought now, when they yakked and cleaned things up and maybe had a drink.
Standing there now with a man close by reminded her of those past nights in a way that made her heart sink.
"I'll feed the dogs and we'll get out of here."
O'Brien looked at her with something like earnestness. "You know, Merci, just because a hooker's book says she was with a certain guy on a certain night, that doesn't mean she's telling the truth. What if he didn't show. What if she didn't? One thing that murdered people don't do too well is show up on time for appointments."
"I know. That's why I want the video."
"Then what? I mean, when the voices don't match, where do you go from there?"
A moment of silence, filled only with the jingle of big dogs against chain link.
"I don't know."
"Did you think that maybe he wanted to see Bailey for other reasons? Just because he was in her book doesn't make him a customer. Like, well, Mike and the Whittaker girl."
"Possible. The guy on the tape was a customer. There's no doubt about that."
She lugged the kibble bag out of the pantry, carried it to the kitchen slider and let O'Brien get the door for her. She hit the outdoor light and walked into the cold night. Then the deja vu tickled her again, as she looked down at the down at the dogs and realized that she'd forgotten the key.
"Damn, I forgot the kennel key."
A wicked little chill ran up her back, because that was exactly what she'd said to Mike one night when she was feeding the dogs with him. Those exact words. She was standing then where she stood now, speaking: in the same tone of voice. Mike had been standing where Evan now stood.
To be in Mike's home while he was in jail, asking another man fetch the key, felt to her like a betrayal worse than anything she'd done so far. The dogs were holy, if you were Mike. Mike's dogs. It was like she'd rewritten history—erased Mike, wrote in someone else.
Damn, I forgot the kennel key. A moment later Mike was back w it. A moment later, O'Brien was back with it.
"You okay?" he asked, handing it to her.
"Perfect. I love doing this."
She let the dogs out of their runs and collected their bowls, let them follow her to the feeding table, where she measured out extra big portions. Dolly, Molly and Polly all tried to butt each other out of the way, knocking into Merci and almost buckling her knees.
She laughed and tried to push them away, knowing she wasn't strong enough to budge the hundred-pound dogs with her knees, but it reminded her of the scores of times she'd tried, the scores of times she'd looked down at their dolorous faces with the hanging ears and mournful eyes and seen that spark of play, and it made her laugh. Because the laughter felt so foreign, the causes of it seemed so long ago and ruined, it broke her heart to do all this again without Mike, with Mike in jail for murder, with Mike very likely never to do this again so long as he should live,
Dolly, Molly and Polly had no idea.
She felt something hot on her cheek, silently cursed her weakness, made sure her back was to O'Brien, whom she suddenly regretted bringing into Mike's home.
"You used to do this a lot," said Evan.
"Yeah."
"Did you love him?"
"I tried to."
"Well, these dogs love you."
"Yeah, that's right."
"Sometimes things are better when you remember them. You make them better than they were."
"I'm doing that right now."
O'Brien said nothing then, and Merci finished filling the bowls. She carried them one at a time into the correct kennels, using the sit and stay commands that the girls were so eager to obey whenever food was involved. She shut them in, waved O'Brien through the gate ahead of her and set the food bag back on the pantry floor.
O'Brien looked at her.
"Shit, lady. All I wanted to do was have a drink with someone I kind of like, and next thing I know, she's accusing my father of murder and making me feed her boyfriend's dogs."
"You're a sport. Thanks."
"Don't get sincere on me. I wouldn't know how to take it."
"Thanks anyway."
"But you still want my video of Dad?"
She nodded.
O'Brien smiled wryly, shaking his head. "Know what I think? I think I've been had. But being had by you isn't really so bad."
On their way back out of the canyon, he was silent. She glanced at him twice, and each time she found him gazing out the windshield at nothing, or maybe at everything. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet and he still didn't look at her.
"You're not supposed to know this yet, but the chukka boots matched the prints in Whittaker's kitchen. The blood on them was Whittaker's blood. The toolmarks from the casing in the flower vase matched ones fired from the forty-five Wheeler and Teague brought in. And that thing wrapped up in female underwear was a homemade sound suppressor that fit nicely onto the Colt. It all lined up just right. It's a made case. Gilliam wanted to celebrate it tonight. He never liked McNally. He always liked you. I think he feels bad, pushing you out of the lab like he did."
• • •
Zamorra was the only one in the detective pen when Merci came back that night after dropping off O'Brien. It was almost eight.
He was cleanly shaven as always, dressed in a dark suit as always. He sat upright in his chair, both hands on the armrests, staring straight ahead. Merci could feel the emotion steaming off him, but she couldn’t tell what it was: sadness, hatred, ecstasy
, joy?
He said hello without looking at her, without even moving his lips, it seemed.
She sat down. "Janine?"
Zamorra said nothing, so Merci spun in her chair to face her desk, checked her routing bin to make sure the Records Section slip had be picked up, started to push the message button on her answering machine, then pulled her finger away and turned again to Zamorra.
"Paul, what is it?"
He seemed to snap out of his reverie. Then he looked at Merci like he'd just that moment become aware of her.
"I'm sorry," he said. "The uh . . . yes, Janine. The implants got infected. They're taking them out right now. Dangerous, because of the swelling."
"Go. Go be with her when she wakes up."
"She was in a coma when they took her away. They don't know she'll come out or not."
"Go anyway."
He looked at her, dark eyes hungry and haunted and somehow hopeless. Oh, I am. I just came here to see you. And to tell you I won't around tomorrow."
"You could have called, Paul."
"I'm sorry. I want you to know that. I want you to know you've got a partner."
"I've got a partner who shouldn't be here right now."
"Look, San Diego still hasn't finished the CAL-ID run on the kitchen prints from Whittaker's. My man down there said he'd work all night if he has to. I didn't give them any exclusionary parameters they're looking male and female, every race and age, law-enforcement, the works. So it's—"
"It's going to take time, Paul. Let it take time."
He sighed, closed his eyes. "Last thing she said to me before she went into the coma? 'I wish this was over, Paul. I wish this was all just over.”
Mike was sitting on his cot, an uneaten tray of food in front of him. He looked up at Merci and held her gaze, then he lowered his stare back to the tray.
He hadn't shaved. His hair was dirty. The orange jail jumpsuit was a size too small, and his big muscled arms looked wrong in it.
"How are the girls?"
"Just fine. They know you're gone."
"I'd expect that. Dad's going to feed them starting tomorrow. You're done."
"Okay then."
He looked at her again, then stood. "Arraignment tomorrow. Bob Rule said expect Brenkus to ask two million bail. I think I'll be here a while."
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