Robert Crais - The Two Minute Rule

Pollard had left the FBI eight years ago after she married a fellow agent named Marty Baum and became pregnant with their first child. She had left the job for all the right reasons: She had loved Marty, they both wanted her to be a full-time mom for their son (Pollard feeling the importance of full-time mom status maybe even more than Marty), and-with Marty’s salary-they had had enough money. But that was then . Two children, one legal separation, and-five years after the fact-Marty had dropped dead of a heart attack while scuba diving in Aruba with his then-girlfriend, a twenty-year-old waitress from Huntington Beach.

TOCK!

Pollard had been able to scrape by on Marty’s death benefits, but more and more she required help from her mother, which was humiliating and defeating, and now the AC had been out for almost a week. One hour and twenty-six minutes until her children, David and Lyle, seven and six, would arrive home from camp, dirty and filled with complaints about the heat. Pollard wiped more sweat from her face, scooped up her cordless phone, then brought it out to her car.

The nuclear crystal-sky heat pounded down on her like a blowtorch. Katherine opened her Subaru, started the engine, and immediately rolled down the windows. It had to be 150 degrees inside the car. She maxed out the AC until it blew cold, then rolled up the windows. She let the icy air blow hard on her face, then lifted her T-shirt to let it blow on her skin.

When she felt she was on the safe side of heatstroke, she turned on the phone and punched in her mother’s number. Her mother’s answering machine picked up, as Pollard expected. Her mother screened her calls while she played online poker.

“Mom, it’s me, pick up. Are you there?”

Her mother came on the line.

“Is everything all right?”

Which was the way her mother always came on the line, immediately putting Pollard on the defensive with the implication that her life was an endless series of emergencies and dramas. Pollard knew better than to make small talk. She steeled herself and immediately got to the point.

“Our air conditioner went out. They want twelve hundred dollars to fix it. I don’t have it, Mom.”

“Katherine, when are you going to find another man?”

“I need twelve hundred dollars, Mom, not another man.”

“Have I ever said no?”

“No.”

“Then you know I live to help you and those beautiful boys, but you have to help yourself, too, Katherine. Those boys are older now and you’re not getting any younger.”

Pollard lowered the phone. Her mother was still talking, but Pollard couldn’t understand what she was saying. Pollard saw the mail van approaching, then watched the postman shove the day’s ration of bills into her mailbox. The postman wore a pith helmet, dark glasses, and shorts, and looked as if he was on a safari. When he drove away, Pollard raised the phone again.

She said, “Mom, let me ask you something. If I went back to work, would you be willing to watch the boys?”

Her mother hesitated. Pollard didn’t like the silence. Her mother was never silent.

“Work doing what? Not with the FBI again.”

Pollard had been thinking about it. If she returned to the FBI a position in the Los Angeles field office was unlikely. L.A. was a hot posting that drew far more applicants than available duty assignments. Pollard would more likely find herself posted in the middle of nowhere, but she didn’t want to be just anywhere; Katherine Pollard had spent three years working on the FBI’s elite Bank Squad in the bank robbery capital of the world-Los Angeles. She missed the action. She missed the paycheck. She missed what felt like the best days of her life.

“I might be able to get on as a security consultant with one of the banking chains or a private firm like Kroll. I was good on the Feeb, Mom. I still have friends who remember.”

Her mother hesitated again and this time her voice was suspicious.

“How many hours are we talking about, me being with the boys?”

Pollard lowered the phone again, thinking wasn’t this just perfect? She watched the postman drive to the next house, then the next. When she lifted the phone again her mother was calling her.

“Katherine? Katherine, are you there? Did I lose you?”

“We need the money.”

“Of course I’ll fix your air conditioner. I can’t have my grandsons living in-”

“I’m talking about me going back to work. The only way I can go back to work is if you help me with the boys-”

“We can talk about it, Katherine. I like the idea of you going back to work. You might meet someone-”

“I have to call the repairman. I’ll talk to you later.”

Pollard hung up. She watched the postman work his way up the street, then went to retrieve her mail. She shuffled through the letters as she returned to her car, finding the predictable Visa and MasterCard bills along with something that surprised her-a brown manila envelope showing the FBI’s return address in Westwood, her old office. Katherine hadn’t received anything from the Westwood Feebs in years.

When she was safely back in her car, she tore open the envelope and found a white envelope inside. It had been opened and resealed, as was all mail that was forwarded to current or former agents by the FBI. A printed yellow slip accompanied the letter: THIS PARCEL HAS BEEN TESTED FOR TOXINS AND BIOHAZARDS, AND WAS DETERMINED SUITABLE FOR RE-MAILING. THANK YOU.

The second envelope was addressed to her care of the Westwood office. It bore a Culver City return address she did not recognize. She tore the end of the envelope, shook out a one-page handwritten letter folded around a newspaper clipping, and read:

Max Holman

Pacific Garden Motels Apartments

Culver City, CA 90232

She stopped when she saw the name and broke into a crooked smile, swept up in Bank Squad memories.

“Ohmigod! Max Holman!”

She read on-

Dear Special Agent Pollard,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I hope you have not stopped reading after seeing my name. This is Max Holman. You arrested me for bank robbery. Please know I bear no grudge and still appreshiate that you spoke on my behalf to the federal prosecutor. I have sucsessfully completed my incarceration and am now on supervised release and am employed. Again, I thank you for your kind and supportive words, and hope you will remember them now.

Katherine remembered Holman and thought as well of him as a cop could think of a man who had robbed nine banks. She felt no warmth toward him for his robberies, but for how she bagged him on his ninth caper. Max Holman had been famous for the way he went down even among the jaded agents of the FBI’s Bank Squad.

She continued reading-

My son was Los Angeles Police Officer Richard Holman, which you can read about in the enclosed article. My son and three other officers were murdered. I am writing you now to ask your help and I hope you will hear me out.

Pollard unfolded the article. She immediately recognized it was a piece about the four officers who had been murdered in the downtown river basin while drinking. Pollard had seen coverage on the evening news.

She didn’t bother to read the clipping, but she looked at the pictures of the four deceased officers. The last photograph was identified as Officer Richard Holman. A circle had been drawn around his picture. Two words were written outside the circle: MY SON.

Pollard didn’t remember that Holman had a son, but she also couldn’t remember what Holman looked like. As she studied the picture her memories returned. Yeah, she could see it-the thin mouth and strong neck. Holman’s son looked like his father.

Pollard shook her head, thinking, jesus, the poor bastard gets out of prison and his son gets killed, couldn’t the man catch a break?