T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

Proulx frowned and shook his head. McMichael saw the first signs of worry in his face. "Impossible. Ask Raegan."

"If her story is any different than yours," said Hector, "I'm going to throw you back in jail."

"That's okay," said Proulx.

"What is?" asked McMichael.

"She will drop me. Raegan will drop me, but that's okay."

"My heart's breaking," said Hector.

Proulx shot a look at him, and in it McMichael saw anger and control.

"I will tell her myself," he said.

"Too late for that," said McMichael.

They sat across the street at Bombay, drinking coffee outside and waiting for Andre to come hustling out, bound for Libertad and a scene with Raegan. McMichael called her on his cell phone and confirmed that Andre Proulx had indeed been in her company on the night in question. Raegan was unhappy to learn of Andre's past but did a cavalier job of hiding it. She had always fought pain with good humor.

Proulx came outside Provençal just once, to write the specials on the sidewalk menu in bright pink chalk. Squatting in front of the stand, he traced a line down the back of the hostess's calf and she bapped him with a handful of menus, giggling.

"Creep," said Hector. "See, that's what I was saying about women. Why they put up with guys like that while it takes me two, three nights of yapping to come up with a phone number. I don't get it."

"I guess Andre does."

"Hire them for sex, beat them, lie to them. And Raegan? She's smart. She's been around, knows the score."

McMichael didn't get it either.

Just before five o'clock, a disheveled Arthur Flagler came into the Team Three pen to announce that he'd found microscopic bone fragments on Fish Whack'r #2, and that Bob Harley had coaxed fingerprints and a "respectable partial palm print" from the handle using the bench laser.

"Unfortunately, there aren't many palm prints in the fingerprint registers," he said. "Give me three days for a DNA comparison on the bone frags. I did a visual comparison of Lance Wood's prints and the prints on the inside of the gloves. No match."

McMichael smiled. "You're amazing, Arthur."

"I know."

San Diego Times reporter Rob Skelton called a little after six.

"Can you help me round out a suspect profile on Sally Rainwater?" he asked.

McMichael told him he couldn't discuss an active case or ongoing investigation- department policy. Public Information might be able to help him.

"I really don't enjoy being nosy, but were you involved with her?" asked Skelton.

"I can't discuss an active case or ongoing investigation," McMichael said again, his heart plummeting toward the lobby four floors below.

"I'm going with what I have, then," said the reporter.

McMichael hung up. Gene Goldman, he thought- Sally's lawyer- loading the cannons for battle.

He called the women's jail out in Santee.

McMichael walked into the jail at seven-thirty and said he was there to see inmate Sally Rainwater. A few minutes later the amused deputy said that he would be allowed a contact visit, not the standard phoner between the glass. He was told there would be no touching of any kind- no hugging or shaking hands- nothing.

McMichael surrendered his weapon and was pat searched before being led into a glass-walled room.

Sally came in wearing the jail suit- blue, too big, the same plastic shower sandals Jimmy Thigpen had. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and her face looked caved and haunted.

They sat across a table from each other.

"You've got the wrong person," she said.

"Were you set up?"

"All the way."

"Do you know who?"

"I've got no idea."

"I'm doing what I can. Things aren't lining up just right."

"For you or for me?"

He nodded. "For anybody. Look, the press is onto us. I figure Goldman is trying to make the PD look bad. I thought we'd both be better off without bringing that in. What I'm saying is, we don't have to talk about it."

She shook her head. "I haven't told him."

McMichael saw a female deputy stroll by on the other side of the glass wall, trying to look disinterested.

"I haven't told anyone," she said. "So it had to come from your side."

McMichael felt cool pricks of sweat on his scalp. Bland. Rawlings. Barbara and Sergeant Hatter. IAD and their foot soldiers, the Professional Standards Unit. Right on down to Rob Skelton at the Times .

"Then I've got a problem," he said.

"It's going to be mine, too. Though Gene might not see it that way. I guess we could be a large embarrassment to the department."

McMichael looked straight into her dark brown eyes, saw exhaustion. "You should have told me about Florida," he said.

Sally shook her head. "It was an ugly thing and it made me ashamed, even though I had to do what I did. You know what it's like to carry around a memory like that? When I think of it, it all comes back. I can feel his body and smell his breath. I wasn't ready to go there. Not in front of you."

"It looks bad, the circumstances being similar."

"They weren't similar at all. That man in Florida came at me fast and hard. Stronger than hell. He was going to do it. He was going to rape me right there in the kitchen. It wasn't part of my job to get raped. Did you come to threaten me with that?"

"No, please. I didn't. I'm not."

"Why did you come?"

"I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine. You're pathetic."

McMichael nodded and went to the door.

"You don't know quality when you see it," said Sally.

He waited while the deputy moved toward the door to let him out.

"Anna's hummingbird," she said. "The one you found at my place? That wasn't from Pete's. Pete's was genuine. The one they planted in my home was fake. It was obvious."

"I'll have it examined."

"You do that."

The deputy let McMichael out. When he looked back through the glass the room was empty.

He sat with Hector in a corner of Libertad , lost in the smoke of a Churchill, a tumbler of tequila on the coffee table in front of him. He watched Raegan making her rounds. She looked waiflike as she moved through the crowded room, red hair bouncing and her eyes set like peridots in her fair, thrifty face. A group of pretty young women had taken Teofilo's Room and McMichael could see them through the glass, noting how absolutely they ignored him. A batch of young San Diego firemen occupied Papa's Place, and the Cuba Room was filled with a raucous birthday celebration featuring much howling and a dancer in a thong and silver heels. Through the big windows McMichael could see Fifth Avenue, busy for a post-stormy Monday, pedestrians hustling through the traffic and diners still waiting for tables at nine.

Raegan broke away and sat down with them, setting her martini glass on the table. McMichael knew it was only water, but Raegan floated a twist in it to set a festive tone for her establishment. She looked a little dark in the eyes.

"You handsome brutes behaving yourselves?"

"I'm trying my best," said Hector. "But it doesn't come naturally."

She glanced into Teofilo's. "Tom, I happen to know that one of those young ladies likes the way you look."

McMichael nodded but said nothing. You don't know quality when you see it.

"She have a friend?" asked Hector.

"Dozens. You guys look wrung out as I feel. Long day?"

McMichael nodded and sipped his drink. "Sorry about Andre. But his name came up and we had to check him out."

He told her about the sighting of the wine-colored SUV, and the list of new owners given to him by Charley Farrell. She squinted just slightly, McMichael able to trace this look of deliberation back as long as he had known her, held her on his lap, rocked with her, held her hand as she put one miniature shoe in front of the other and learned to walk.