Michael Connelly - Blood Work

“Look, Terry, don’t put too much stock in Bolotov, okay?”

“I think he looks good for this.”

“I don’t know. Lancaster ’s a long way from where Bolotov lives. You’ve got to remember, the guy’s a convict. He could have and would have done what he did with you whether he’s involved with this or not. Because if he didn’t do this, then he did something else.”

“Maybe. But I still like the guy.”

“Well, maybe Noone will make our day and point him out in a six-pack.”

“Now you’re talking.”

After hanging up, McCaleb made it back to the Taurus without a problem. Once inside he dug the travel kit he always carried with him out of the leather satchel on the floor. It contained a day’s worth of medication and a dozen or so throw-away thermometers called Temp-Strips. He peeled the paper off one and put it in his mouth. While he waited, he signaled Lockridge to start the car. Once the engine had fired, McCaleb reached over to the air-conditioner controls and turned it on.

“You want air?” Lockridge asked.

McCaleb nodded and Lockridge turned the fan up higher.

After three minutes McCaleb took the strip out and checked it. He felt a deep shard of fear cut into him as he looked at the thin red vein stretched past the one-hundred-degree mark.

“Let’s go home.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. The marina.”

As Lockridge pointed the car south toward the 101 freeway, McCaleb turned the air vents on his side so that the cool air was flowing right into his face. He opened up another Temp-Strip and put it under his tongue. He tried to calm himself by turning on KFWB on the radio and looking out at the passing street scene. Two minutes later the second temperature reading was better than the first, but he was still running a low-grade fever. His fear eased back some and his throat relaxed. He banged his palms against the dashboard and shook his head, convincing himself in the process that the fever was an aberration. He had been perfect so far. There was no reason for this other than that he had gotten overheated while tangling with Bolotov.

He decided to go back to the boat and take an aspirin and a long nap before preparing for the evening’s session with James Noone. The alternative was to call Bonnie Fox. And he knew that such a call would result in his finding himself in a hospital bed for several days of testing and observation. Fox was as thorough at what she did as McCaleb liked to think he was at what he did. She wouldn’t hesitate to bring him in. He would lose at least a week lying in bed in Cedars. He would certainly miss his chance at Noone and he would lose the momentum that was the only other thing he had going for him in this investigation.

TO THE UNINFORMED -and this included many cops and agents McCaleb had worked with over the years-hypnosis was often seen as a form of voodoo policework, a second-to-last resort just shy of consulting the local psychic. It was considered emblematic of a stalled or failed investigation. McCaleb firmly believed it was not. He believed it was a credible means of plumbing the depths of the mind. In the instances where he had seen or heard of it going wrong, it was usually at the fault of the hypnotist and not the science.

McCaleb had been surprised when Winston said she was in favor of reinterviewing Noone under hypnotic conditions. She had told him that hypnotism had been suggested a couple of times during the weekly homicide bureau meetings when the stalled Cordell investigation came up. But the suggestion had never been acted on for two reasons. The first was the important one. Hypnosis was a tool used often by police until the early eighties, when California ’s supreme court ruled that witnesses who had memories refreshed through hypnosis could not testify in criminal proceedings. This meant that every time investigators decided whether to use hypnotism on a witness, they had to weigh whether the possible gain from it was worth losing that person as a witness in court. The debate had stalled the use of hypnotism in the Cordell case, since Winston and her captain were reluctant to lose their only witness.

The second reason was that after the supreme court ruling, the Sheriff’s Department stopped training detectives in the use of hypnosis. Consequently, the more than fifteen years since the ruling had seen the natural attrition of the detectives who had the skill. There was no one left in the department who could hypnotize Noone, meaning that they would have to go to an outside hypnotherapist. That would further complicate things and cost money.

When McCaleb had told Winston that he had used hypnotism on bureau cases for more than ten years and would be willing to do it, she had brightened on the suggestion even more. A few hours later she’d had the session approved and set up.

McCaleb arrived at the homicide bureau at the Sheriff’s Star Center a half hour early. He told Lockridge that he would be a while and encouraged him to go get dinner.

His fever had been trimmed to less than a half a point during an afternoon nap. He felt rested and ready. He was excited by the prospect of digging a solid lead out of the mind of James Noone and accomplishing something that would drive the case forward.

Jaye Winston met him at the front counter and escorted him to the captain’s office, talking quickly all the way.

“I posted a wanted on Bolotov. Had a car go by his apartment but he was already gone. He’s split. You obviously hit a nerve.”

“Yeah, maybe when I called him a murderer.”

“I’m still not convinced but it’s the best thing we’ve got going at the moment. Typically, Arrango is not happy about what you did. I have to admit, I didn’t say we talked about this beforehand. He thinks you were cowboying.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t care what he thinks.”

“Are you worried about Bolotov? You said he has your address.”

“No. He has the marina but not the boat. It’s a big place.”

She opened the door and allowed McCaleb to enter first. There were three men and a woman waiting in the cramped office. McCaleb recognized Arrango and Walters from the LAPD. Winston introduced him to Captain Al Hitchens and the woman, an artist named Donna de Groot. She would be available if needed to work up a composite drawing of the suspect, provided that Noone didn’t identify Bolotov outright.

“I’m glad you’re early,” Hitchens said. “Mr. Noone is already here. Maybe we can get this going.”

McCaleb nodded and looked at the others in the room. Arrango had the smirk of a nonbeliever on his face. A toothpick protruded a half inch from his tight lips.

“This is too many people,” McCaleb said. “Too much distraction. I need to get this guy relaxed. That won’t happen with an audience like this.”

“We’re not all going in,” Hitchens said. “I’d like you and Jaye to be in the room. You bring Donna in at the appropriate time. We’re going to videotape it and we have a monitor set up right here. The rest of us will watch from here. That okay with you?”

He pointed to a monitor on a cart in the corner. McCaleb looked at the screen and saw a man sitting at a table with his arms folded in front of him. It was Noone. Even though he was wearing a baseball hat, McCaleb recognized the man from the crime scene and ATM tapes.

“That’s fine.”

McCaleb looked at Winston.

“Did you make up a six-pack with Bolotov?”

“Yes. It’s on my desk. We’ll show it to him first, in case we get lucky. If he makes the ID there will be no hypnosis, so we can save him for court.”

McCaleb nodded.

“Woulda been real nice,” Arrango began, “if we had shown Noone the pictures before the bird was flushed.”