T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

"About a hundred yards south of the house."

"I mean exactly," said McMichael.

"I can do that."

"I'll drive."

"You'll have to. I walked here."

McMichael carried the bat back into the building, took it upstairs, asked Hector to book it into evidence ASAP, get it to Arthur Flagler in the lab and run an NCIC check on Lance Wood. He wrote down Wood's phone and address and hustled back downstairs.

When he came back down Wood was still sitting on the wall. McMichael led the way to his car. "How come you don't like the cop house?" he asked.

"I got busted for pot when I was nineteen. One joint. Cop shoved me and my girlfriend around more than he had to. A lot more. So I shoved back, and got the living shit beat out of me, right in front of her."

"That's rough."

"You're telling me."

Lance Wood had found the club on the beach, one hundred and eight McMichael steps from the south corner of the wall in front of Pete Braga's house.

"It was here," said Wood. "About fifty feet above the waterline, but the tide was low by then. It could have washed up, or it could have been dropped. Buried, maybe."

They stood on a pretty little beach, a spit of sand that swept gracefully into the bay. The remnant of an old seawall angled from the sand down into the water. A bright white gull stood on the wall and eyed them antisocially. To the south McMichael saw the boatyard cranes rising into the pale blue sky, a Coast Guard cutter on patrol, the barren tip of Coronado Island. A silver passenger jet lowered over the hills toward Lindbergh Field.

"Think it's the murder weapon?" asked Lance.

"We'll have to look at it," said McMichael.

He drove Wood to his Pacific Beach apartment, getting a message from Hector on the way: Wood had come up as a convicted drug offender on NCIC- possession of marijuana, nineteen ninety-eight, clean since.

McMichael asked him about it.

"I was just young and got caught," said Wood. "Everybody smoked grass. I guess you guys can find out anything about anybody."

"Just the bad stuff," said McMichael. "The computer won't tell anybody that you helped a cop. So, thank you."

Wood nodded, frowning. "No problem."

McMichael stepped into Pete Braga's trophy room. Again he pictured the silver-haired old man there, oblivious to the intruder as the wind kicked at the window glass. He pictured the man in the dark jogging suit, creeping straight toward the fireplace with the club he'd use on Pete. He pictured the club coming up in the gloved hand, and he heard the first shattering, pressurized concussion of aluminum on bone. He saw Pete's body vibrating as it slumped, the blood flying off the club every time it was raised, the roostertail of liquid splattering against the lights. Again and again. Sixteen times, at least.

You're tired and you're breathing hard, but you think you're smart, don't you? You see the tear in your glove, but you've planned for this- you know the wall club is clean and will stay clean, if you're just careful. And you are. You set down your weapon near Pete, go to the trophy wall and lift the Fish Whack'r off the nail between the dorado and the barracuda, gently, by the leather strap, and you rest it in the bloody pool next to Pete, then let it drop. This way, the cops will have the wrong one to work with from the start. This way, the murder weapon can go into the storm that will wipe it clean.

Yes, McMichael thought: you knew about the club on the wall and you got one just like it. To cover and confuse. To make things harder on us. You gave us the wrong murder weapon.

And you knew exactly when the nurse was gone. Because you watched her from your car, parked in the darkness on the street, figuring she'd have to leave him alone one of these nights? Because you'd seen her do it before? Or because she told you?

And you knew Zeke wouldn't be a problem because you took care of the little terrier once and for all on New Year's Eve. Eat, eat. Dance, dance. Pant, pant.

Maybe you fed him the poison from outside that night. Maybe you snuck up to the wall and tossed him a treat. Maybe.

Or maybe you were invited to the party. Because you are friend, or family, or an acquaintance valuable in business.

You thought you were smart and careful and clever, but you weren't smart enough to know your fingerprints would be inside the gloves. Or that your club would wash up on shore.

McMichael walked to the sliding glass door and unlocked all three locks. He pulled it open to a fresh blast of air, trotted across the sand, hopped the wall and headed south toward Aster Street. For a moment he stood there and looked back to where the street hit the beach- concrete steps with a rust-pitted handrail, steel warning stanchions with reflectors, a large Norfolk Island pine casting the end of the cul-de-sac into shade. Entirely possible, he thought, that the neighbors just didn't see the car.

He imagined the basher, breathing hard as he grabbed a handful of sand and ran it up and down the handle of the Fish Whack'r, then hurled it into the bay. Too dark to see it land. Too windy to hear it.

Then the gloves- jamming them into the wet sand to clean them, peeling them off from the back, stuffing them down into the warm-up jacket, then deep into the trash can. You can't be stopped or seen with the gloves on. You can't be stopped or seen with the bloody jacket.

Now he's running for the car. He knows he just has to drive away, and he'll never be caught. The storm makes him think everything's going to be covered, changed, erased. He doesn't know that the storm will trick him, wash his weapon onto the shore. He doesn't know that his prints are on the latex.

McMichael's cell phone vibrated against his side and Captain Don Rawlings's voice yanked him back to reality.

"We found Courtney Gonzalez down in the desert," he said. "Shallow grave, the coyotes got some of her. Had two hundred dollars and a CDL in her coat pocket."

"Angel," said McMichael.

"She is now," said Rawlings. "Rattlesnake Gorge Road. Two miles north of Highway Eight. Sheriff's are there."

Hector drove east, fast, a gumball on top to clear the traffic and the windows cracked for the good cool air. McMichael tossed aside the map book and watched San Diego turn into La Mesa, El Cajon, Alpine, Japutul, Pine Valley. They climbed into the huge rock formations of the San Vicente Mountains, tremendous tan boulders piled precariously skyward as if dumped there by a god with leftover material.

Rattlesnake Gorge Road looped north into Anza-Borrego State Park. McMichael could see a helicopter hovering above a glint of metal far out in the desert. Hector turned onto a dirt road, breaking the tires loose with a satisfied grin, rocks popping off the undercarriage of the Crown Vic as he gunned it to outrun the dust.

There were two INS trucks, three sheriff's cruisers and an evidence van parked in a line along the right side of the road. Hector slowed well in advance and rolled in behind the van. The helicopter was fixed in the sky as if painted on.

They trudged abreast through the rocky terrain. McMichael picked his way around the cholla cacti, their needles blond and brilliant in the raw desert sun. Tan sand. Tan boulders rising against the sky. Two vultures circling high as if this was old news to them, which, McMichael realized, it was.

They stood with the other men outside a rectangle of crime scene ribbon wrapped around a spindly ocotillo and three cholla. Before them a young woman lay facedown in a shallow hole. Black hair, dark skin, black remnants of clothing stuck to her swollen body, a black leather jacket caught on one wrist but otherwise pulled completely off and inverted. One hand had been chewed off. Her left boot lay ten yards away with part of her leg still in it. Large green flies droned above her without marked enthusiasm, strangely audible within the broader sound of the chopper.