T. Parker: Cold Pursuit

Jerry Bland sat back. He was thick, rounded without being fat, and had a face like a steer watching you from a pasture. McMichael knew him to be an accomplished bowler. "So it's our fault Thigpen went bad?"

"I've got no opinion on that, sir," said McMichael. "But I know he had peach fuzz. Literally. And I know he did his six months at the Sheriff's Academy, but almost nothing else before we put him on the street. What, two months at the jail? No patrol. Nothing. On his twenty-second birthday he was behind the Las Flores Hotel getting beaten by four Arellano Felix cartel heavies. That was the one time he got blown. They kicked his balls halfway up his stomach. We had to use a towel to unhook his lips off his front teeth."

"Sure, we know about all that," said Huzara, taking off his glasses to inspect a lens.

"You saw no change in him at all, then?" asked Bland.

"None."

"Tom," said Bland, "did Jimmy ever tell you about any of this? Personal business with the working girls, maybe- dope and cash?"

"No, sir. Not one word."

"Did you ever overhear him say anything about those things?" asked Robb.

"No, Andrea."

"Overhear anyone talking about those things?"

"Never."

"Ever hear anything about a little group of cops, maybe thought they were extra special, extra cool?"

"Just IAD." Everybody smiled except for Robb.

"You're a funny guy, McMichael."

Silence, then, while Robb checked her tape recorder, Bland leaned back and crossed his hands behind his head, Huzara stared at McMichael.

"I hope Thigpen doesn't start naming other cops," said Bland. "Then we'd have a shitstorm like L.A. 's."

"This isn't L.A.," said Huzara.

There was nothing McMichael could say to that.

"I'm finished for now," said Robb.

"Over and out for me," said Bland, yawning.

"Not for me," said Huzara. "Sergeant, I saw Thigpen last night. He asked me to say hello to you."

"Say hello back when you see him."

"You guys pretty good friends?"

"I already told you we aren't."

"And he never told you about all the money and dope he was stealing?" asked Huzara.

"How many ways can I say no?" asked McMichael.

Robb looked at him, then at the still-running recorder, then back to McMichael. "Anything else, Sergeant McMichael?"

"Nothing."

"Do you realize that your statements here are binding, if not evidentiary?" asked Huzara.

"They're just the truth."

Robb clicked the machine with finality and McMichael stood. There was a long moment when all four of the cops became cops again- McMichael could feel the change in the air.

"So you got Pete Braga?" asked Bland. He often appeared to be chewing on something, then not to be. Department gossips had never been able to figure out what.

McMichael nodded. "Eighty-four, sitting by his fireplace. Bad scene."

"Eighty-four and still pulling strings on the Port Commission. Still selling cars by the million," said Bland.

"Thirty-something years of politics and Fords," said McMichael. "That was news to me about Jimmy working for him."

"I hear things," said Bland. "So, you walked right back into old bad blood."

"That was a long time ago, sir."

"Does it ever really go away?" Bland offered a Wattsaver smile.

"Some of it does."

"I heard there was a nurse involved. Worked for him," said Huzara.

"She says she was out buying firewood when it happened. Ralph's on Rosecrans. I'll check her alibi tonight with the night shift."

McMichael started out.

"So how do you like Homicide compared to Metro/Vice?" asked Robb. She stood and faced him. Her voice was chipper and she had offered McMichael his first smile. It was really something. The whole package was.

"Dead people are honest. You can really turn off your tape recorder now, Andrea."

Andrea Robb colored a little and the smile melted. She reached down as McMichael walked by on his way to the door.

A moment later she caught up with him by the elevator and tugged him into an empty hallway. McMichael was looking forward to her apology.

"Detective," she said, "I've lived on Point Loma for twenty years and there is no Ralph's on Rosecrans. Might save you a lot of driving around."

"Thank you."

"I'm a cop first, no matter who thinks what."

"Good to know."

She nodded and turned the corner for the elevator. McMichael let her go while he dialed the law offices of Grothke, Steiner & Grothke- Pete Braga's counsel.

Hector drove to Sally Rainwater's, looping onto Interstate 5 for the short run south. The second storm front had moved in behind the first, holding the city in a noisy gray torrent. The wipers couldn't keep up with the water. McMichael heard the rush of the tires and the roar on the roof and the metal shriek of a minivan that dreamily planed into the guardrail.

Hector finished his briefing on last night's possibilities- a couple of blonde beauties looking for love at the Sevilla bar. He'd gotten one phone number before the captain called him. "How'd IAD go?"

"They can't figure out why I didn't see it coming."

"Maybe because Jimmy's a sneaky little creep. You put somebody that green on the street, put him in with the dope and the girls, you're asking for it. They got to blame somebody. Bland Jerry- he'll pick you."

"How'd NCIC go?"

Hector shrugged. "Eight years ago, Sally Rainwater's boyfriend tried to kill her. Shot her in the throat with a twenty-two but it didn't hit anything too important. This was back in Miami. The boyfriend got out last month, skipped on his P.O. and dropped out. They don't know where he is and he's not supposed to know where she is. Dylan Feder, thirty-five- formerly employed as a lifeguard, model, actor, waiter and batterer. Beat her up in 'ninety-four but she didn't press. Stalked and shot her in 'ninety-five. She was twenty."

"Get mugs?"

Hector slipped a twice-folded sheet of paper from the pocket of his coat and handed it to McMichael. Feder was crybaby handsome: curly dark hair, pouty lips, bedroom eyes. Six three, two fifteen.

"I don't understand women like her," said Hector. "Could have any guy she wants, but she connects up with this loser, lets him beat her up. I'll never get that."

"It has to do with a low opinion of yourself."

"I don't get that, either. Total babe like her."

"It's not how you look."

"Yeah, yeah. All right. Mr. Female Insight understands what makes 'em tick but not the savage Hector."

"I've just known a few, they get hurt and think they deserve it. And they always think the guy's going to change. My sister's that way."

"Raegan? Really?"

"Somewhat."

"Whatever. I find that guy in San Diego I'll wrap his balls around his fuckin' neck."

Hector pulled onto the Imperial Beach Pier because he wanted to see the waves. They rolled along, the railings coming slowly past the windows and the rain shooting off the wooden deck in front of them. There were fishermen out, bundled in slickers and hats, staring at their rods. Hector drove halfway to the end and put the car in Park. The waves were huge and disorderly, looming in at competing angles, building on each other. And fast, with big plumes hissing backward off the tops. Walls of pale green water rose up and thundered in at them then passed out of sight under the car, and McMichael felt them explode through the pier caissons and the cement deck and the car tires and into the bones of his feet. Hector didn't surf but he liked the waves, the bigger the better, never drove past a pier in a storm that he didn't roll out and watch. McMichael did surf but not in anything like this. The savage power before him was hypnotic. It miniaturized you. He watched the storm but he thought of Johnny and Steff and wondered how he'd managed to lose so much so fast. Seven years of marriage and a perfect son- one gone forever, the other down to Wednesday nights and weekends.