T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

In the top of the crowded hallway closet McMichael found two Dunhill cigar boxes containing what looked like about twenty thousand cash. And a small wadded paper bag containing Anna's hummingbird, once described by Sally as the most beautiful man-made thing she'd ever seen.

Sally Rainwater stared down at the collection, arranged by McMichael on the coffee table in her living room.

"I've never seen those things before," she said.

"What, they crawled in here and hid themselves?" asked Hector.

"I need a lawyer," she said.

"Lawyers are for people charged with crimes," said Barbara, the standard cop line for getting someone to talk without one. "You're not charged. Can you explain these things?"

Sally continued to stare at the evidence against her. The angle of her head suggested puzzlement, her tears suggested grief. But, as McMichael saw when she looked at him, her eyes were fury.

"I trusted you."

"Everyone's got a sad story," said Hector, while the uniform cuffed her hands. Hector Mirandized her, reading off the card to get it right.

McMichael and his son walked into Spellacy's at six, collected Gabriel off his stool and got a booth. The place was already busy, Friday night- darts and billiards in the back, the bar three deep and loud, waitresses squeezing through the crowds with serving trays while Celtic-rock-fusion music whinnied through the loudspeakers. Hugh wasn't tending the bar tonight, McMichael noticed, but his brother Clancy seemed to be handling things just fine.

McMichael sat across from his father and son and was momentarily lifted from his dark mood by the sight of them together. With Johnny, Gabriel was far lighter than McMichael ever remembered him. His father listened, which was nearly absent from McMichael's memories of boyhood. The two talked and joked and Gabriel gave Johnny liberties that McMichael rarely did- indulging some pretty bad manners, rolling with Johnny's puerile insults, encouraging Johnny's jokes: Under the Toilet Seat by Seymor Butts! Yellow River by I. P. Freeley! Brown Trail by Squat and Leavitt!

Another little boy came over and challenged Johnny to darts. McMichael watched them hustle to the bar to get darts from Clancy Spellacy, then edge through the crowd to an open board.

Gabriel waved a waitress over for another shot and a Guinness. McMichael stuck with his barely touched half-pint.

"We arrested the nurse," he said. "We're not sure exactly how she figures in, but somehow."

Gabriel blinked his clear blue eyes. "His caretaker, Tommy! Lots of that in the news these days- the younger generation preying on the older."

"Yeah."

"Drink up. You've got a whole weekend to forget about it and be with your boy. What you shouldn't forget is that Pete was shown the same mercy he showed your grandfather."

"I'll remember, Pop."

"Who was trying to feed a family."

"I know."

Gabriel eyed him with slightly drunken affection.

Tim Keller pulled up a chair while they ate dinner, tried to enlist McMichael in a Sons of Ireland pancake breakfast on Sunday after church. He said Irish cops always made the best breakfast chefs- Rourke and O'Grady from the sheriff's would be there. He studied McMichael with his cheerful, delinquent eyes.

After dinner McMichael and his son walked down to the waterfront, then south toward Broadway. They stopped in the Harbor Cruise coffeeshop for hot chocolate then fell in with the light foot traffic on the boardwalk.

Victor Braga shuffled along a hundred feet ahead of them, headphones on, carrying a heavy plastic bag in each hand.

"There's Victor Braga," said Johnny. "But Grandpa didn't do it."

The story- with Gabriel as the guilty attacker- had found Johnny's ears on his first-grade playground one day. Johnny had come home, excited that his grandfather was the star of a legend. McMichael and Stephanie had told him their agreed-upon version: Johnny's great-grandfather, Franklin, had been cheated out of money by a boat captain, and the captain had killed him. Someone- no one knows who - had beaten up the captain's son a little while later. Victor, the son, was never the same after the beating. Some people blamed the beating on Grandpa Gabriel. Others said he didn't do it. Tim Keller said he was with Grandpa that night and Grandpa didn't do it. Grandpa always said he was innocent, and we believe him . In this country you are innocent until proven guilty.

"How retarded is he?" asked Johnny, spooning the whipped cream into his mouth.

"Keep your voice down. Age ten, I heard."

"What grade is that?" whispered Johnny.

"Fifth, say."

"Fifth-graders get to walk around at night?"

"Not usually."

"How old is he, really?"

"Grandpa's age- sixty-three or so."

"How old is that in dog years?"

"About nine."

"I wish I had a dog."

"We'll get you one someday. That's a promise, John."

They turned up Broadway to the car, Johnny slopping the hot chocolate on his jacket while McMichael watched Victor trudge patiently southward toward Tuna Harbor.

After Johnny went to bed, McMichael poured an illogically large glass of tequila, added some ice and sank down into his couch. He turned on the local news, volume low. The tequila did nothing to clarify his thoughts so he drank more. All it really did was make him want to go back to the night he'd driven to Sally Rainwater's house to tell her that her prints weren't on the fish club and that her story checked and that she was, what, beautiful and he just wanted to look at her?- to go back to that drive down Silver Strand Boulevard, turn the damned Crown Vic around and drive it home. He leaned his head against the sofa, shaking it slowly. Too late. Too late for that. Too late for everything. Too late for him and Steffy. Too late for Gabe and Victor and Patricia and Garland. Too late for everybody, like we're all gears notched just wrong into the gears next to us- one giant clock, always off, too late, too late, too late.

In local news today, an Imperial Beach woman was detained in connection with the bludgeon murder of car dealer and former San Diego mayor Pete Braga. Sally Rainwater, twenty-eight, was taken into custody early this afternoon at her waterfront home. Police captain Don Rawlings said only that the woman- who was employed as a caretaker in the home of Braga – was arrested at her home and later charged with possession of stolen property. Braga, a former commercial tuna boat captain and a longtime fixture on San Diego's political scene, was found savagely beaten in his Point Loma home last Wednesday night. Police still have no motive for the killing. Braga was eighty-four. In other news…

McMichael still didn't know exactly what the district attorney would charge her with. They would take the weekend to decide. He was pleased that there was no mention of the caretaker's romantic involvement with the lead detective on the case. Yet. Just wait until her lawyer hears about that one, he thought. Bad cop. Bad arrest. Bad case.

He took another drink, clicked off the TV. He washed his face in the bathroom sink, looking at himself while he dried. He noted the red-brown curly hair, the dull blue eyes, the thick County Cork ears. He wondered how he could look like a regular mick on the outside, but on the inside feel like the African mask he'd seen earlier. Feel like hell.

It took him a long time to fall asleep. He lay there feeling that he'd sinned in doing his job. That he'd betrayed innocence. He couldn't fully believe that Sally Rainwater had been involved in Pete's death, though he thought it was possible. It was absolutely possible. Wasn't it?

The physical evidence was there, concealed in her house. They were lucky to have it. You base your decisions on the evidence. The evidence leads you to form opinions, not the other way around. A frame was possible, sure, but so were visitors from other galaxies and Bigfoot.