T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

McMichael walked down Market Street in the early morning light, the collar of his bomber's jacket up, a Padres cap low. The storm clouds were black in the north, as if it were still night in that direction. He resolved to do something about his father, though he wasn't sure what. Move him in, maybe. Get Gabe on a monthly allowance so he wouldn't be busing and walking five miles for a handout on Wednesday nights. Check him into a detox program, but McMichael guessed that it would end up like the other two times: Gabriel would only stay sober under lock and key. Maybe he and Raegan could come up with something workable.

He tried to think of some way to help Victor, too. While McMichael had always suspected his father's guilt, to have it confirmed brought to him a fuller sense of his own responsibilities. He realized again that a truth can heal but a lie is an open sore, year after year, generation after generation.

The rain started hard and fast and McMichael felt his cell phone shake against his hip.

"Tom, Hector here. You got to see this. We're in the Property Room."

Hector met him at the door. In a brightly lit back storage room, Barbara and Hatter, the chief, Arthur Flagler and Assistant District Attorney Gerald Dale all stood around three large rectangular aluminum crates. A faint vapor rose slowly from them. A big man in a welder's suit stood like an executioner off to the side, his torch and bottle and helmet hung on a stand by the wall, his gloves still in his hand.

Lying near the crates were three gray duffels that McMichael saw were similar to those from last week's Tijuana run- same size and color.

"Here's our dope," said Hector. "It took us half the night to convince the Feds that this was our case and our evidence."

McMichael knelt and looked into one of the boxes. Four small coolers were arranged tightly inside; around them were blocks of dry ice. The coolers had been fitted with what looked like very small refrigerator racks. On the top rack rested a row of thick, nearly identical, organic items. Six, each sealed in a plastic bag filled with a clear fluid.

Staring down through the rack, McMichael saw another row.

"Kidneys," said Flagler. "Human. One hundred and forty-six of them."

McMichael stood. He felt a little dizzy. Scores of chaotic murder scenes had not prepared him for the neat mutilation before him now. "We need to talk to Jimmy."

"I'm prepared to offer him a deal," said Dale. "You can present it to him. You're the only one he'll talk to."

Module E, Professional Visits Room Five, had two seats for cops and lawyers on one side of a molded plastic table and one on the other side for the inmate. Four blank walls. It was smaller than a two-bunk jail cell. McMichael stood with his back to the windowed door. Jimmy Thigpen, down on hands and knees to inspect the table bottom, rose with a grunt and a shy smile.

"We're secure," he said. "Unless they've got a mike in the heater vent."

"They can't use anything you say here in court, Jimmy. You know that."

"They can use it a few other places, though."

"I've got a deal for you, straight from Gerald Dale's office. Simple, straightforward, a good one for you."

"Oh?"

"Everything you know about the organs- the Axelgaards, Bland, the people at the Mexico end and the people stateside. Everything you know about Pete Braga. You give me the basics right now and fill in the details later in sworn depositions, Jimmy. Dale will give you immunity, if he likes what he hears."

Thigpen looked at him matter-of-factly. "But you can't file on me in any of that border stuff. Everybody's dead, and you never saw me do a thing."

"Victor did."

Worry crossed Thigpen's face as he tried to guess the weight of Victor's testimony. "What about my money?"

"Asset forfeiture. You lose it."

Thigpen smiled his boy's smile. McMichael noted that he had put on even more jailhouse weight. His shirt was tight on him around the middle.

"Drop the grass and the solicitation?"

"No."

In fact, Dale had given McMichael the solicitation charge to bargain with.

"I've been in here for forty-five days, Tom."

"It all goes toward your time."

"Naw," said Jimmy. "I'll talk to walk."

"I want everything about those runs."

"Drop the women and dope, Mick."

McMichael nodded. "The women, okay. But you're stuck on the dope, Jimmy. It's our way of saving a little face. And making sure you don't get back into law enforcement."

"What's my guarantee?"

"You don't get one."

Thigpen studied McMichael, then nodded, his smile coming back faintly. He sat on one of the small benches. "I came into it late, when I got the job from Pete. Before, they were using a van. But if something went wrong with the schedules the van would be easy to search."

"In case you didn't get Martin Axelgaard as the inspector."

"Right."

"How'd you get started?"

"I got talking to Mason one night. We knew each other from the cop golf league. When I told him about taking the new cars down to TJ for budget leather, well… one thing led to another. Pete didn't care that I brought Mason along. To Pete, he was just another tough cop keeping the cars secure."

"Where did the organs come from?"

"Just from poor people. Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador. Places like that."

"How much were they worth?"

"We paid three hundred and fifty each. Only marked them up to a grand to undercut the Indian suppliers. That made us about a hundred thousand profit if we got twelve coolers' worth. The first five or six runs, it was less. The first time, we only had twenty-four and half of them went bad. Then we got the hang of it. The trick is this packing solution they invented at the University of Wisconsin. Viaspan. They had to be perfect organs- you couldn't sell a bad one. Young teenagers have the best."

"What was Bland's job?"

Thigpen shook his head. "He was just shaking us down. Pete ratted to Bland when Victor said something that made him curious. Pete hired a private eye, who followed us down and back. Stupid. They all figured drugs. Bland had us cold. I had to do something so I offered to cut him in. Said he'd think about it. I was surprised he took the deal. But it was a lot of money for doing nothing."

"How much?"

"Twenty thousand a week. He didn't actually do anything except bullshit Pete for as long as he could. He got Pete to believe they were working an interagency sting. And the sting was taking time."

"When Bland couldn't stall him any longer, what did he do?"

Thigpen shrugged. "The second I heard about Pete, I figured Bland for it."

"He never said anything about that?"

"Not to me, but I was in here, Tom. Maybe to the brothers."

McMichael thought of Sally Rainwater, sitting in the women's jail out in Santee. "Do you have any evidence at all that he killed Pete?"

"No. But I heard his wife might make it. She might know some things."

McMichael imagined questioning Mitzi Bland as to her husband's role in the murder of Pete Braga. Barbara Givens's early questions- asked as the doctors were shooing her out of the ICU- had led Barbara to believe that Mitzi knew something about her husband's second career. McMichael wondered what Mitzi had thought about putting the revolver in her robe pocket. I did what you told me to, hon. McMichael didn't look forward to interviewing Mitzi Bland. Another task of low order, he thought, another homicide shitpile to dig through.

"Who's this Dr. Morese?"

Jimmy's mouth hung open. "You got him, too?"

"Our helos forced him down on Imperial Beach."

Thigpen looked crushed, as if Morese were somehow infallible or superhuman.

"French Canadian," Thigpen said. "A medical doctor but didn't like medicine. Went into funeral homes, selling off parts mail order, but now he's got contacts at the hospitals and universities all over the world. Most of the things went over to the Middle East, is what I heard. We were competing with the Indian suppliers, like I said. Ours were cheaper and hardly any HIV or hepatitis. Better stuff."