Michael Connelly - Blood Work

“It goes two ways. If I don’t hear from you by Monday, I’ll have to assume you are going on with this. I’ll have your records here at the office ready for you.”

She hung up. McCaleb sat still, the phone still to his ear until it started blaring its hang-up tone.

McCaleb got up and took a walk outside. From the cockpit he surveyed the marina and the parking lot. He saw no sign of Buddy Lockridge or anyone else. The air was still. He leaned over the stern and looked down into the water. It was too dark to see bottom. He spit into the water and with it went the misgivings he felt over Fox’s edict. He decided he would not be swayed.

The photo was there on the table waiting for him when he got back. He picked it up again and studied it once more, this time his eyes traveling up the body to the face. There was some kind of dark salve on the eyes and then he remembered that the eyes had probably been taken along with the internal organs.

He noticed the three small perforations running along the ridge of the left ear and down to the lobe. On the right lobe there was only one.

He was about to put the photo aside when he realized that earlier he had read through a property report listing the items removed from the victim at the hospital and then turned over to police.

Curious to make sure all details checked out, he went back to the stack of paperwork and dug out the property report. His finger ran down the list of clothing until he got to the subheading of jewelry.

JEWELRY

1. Timex watch

2. Three earrings (2 crescent moon, one silver hoop)

3. Two rings (birthstone, silver)

He thought about this for a long moment, remembering that on the video of the shooting it was clear that Gloria Torres was wearing a total of four earrings. The hoop, the crescent moon and the dangling cross on her left ear. On her right ear there had been only a crescent moon. This accounting did not fit with the property report, which listed only three earrings. Nor did it jibe with the perforation marks clearly visible on Gloria’s ears in the evidence photo.

He turned to the television, thinking that he would look at the tape again, but then stopped. He was sure. He did not imagine something like a cross. Somehow it was not accounted for.

A loose end. He tapped his fingers on the property report, trying to think about whether this was a notable detail or not. What had happened to the cross earring? Why wasn’t it on the list?

He checked his watch and saw it was ten minutes after twelve. Graciela would be at lunch. He called the hospital and asked to be transferred to the main cafeteria. When a woman answered, he asked if it would be possible for her to go to the nurse seated at the table next to one of the windows and give her a message. When the woman hesitated, McCaleb described Graciela and gave her name. The woman on the phone reluctantly asked what the message was.

“Just tell her to call Dr. McCaleb as soon as she can.”

About five minutes later he got the callback.

“Dr. McCaleb?”

“Sorry, I had to do that so she would be sure to give you the message.”

“What’s up?”

“Well, I’m going through the case files again and I’ve got a loose end here. The property report says that they took two crescent moon earrings and a hoop earring off your sister’s ears at the hospital after she was brought in.”

“Right, they would have needed to remove those for the CAT scan. They wanted to look at the wound track.”

“Okay, what about the cross earring she wore in her left ear? There’s nothing on the property report about-”

“She wasn’t wearing it that night. I always thought that was weird. Like it was bad luck, because that was her favorite earring. She usually wore it every day.”

“Like a personal signature,” McCaleb said. “What do you mean, she wasn’t wearing it that night?”

“Because when the police gave me her things-you know, her watch and rings and earrings-it wasn’t there. She wasn’t wearing it.”

“Are you sure? In the video she’s wearing it.”

“What video?”

“From the store.”

She was silent a moment.

“No, that can’t be. I found it in her jewelry box. I gave it to them at the funeral home so they could, you know, put it on for when she was buried.”

Now McCaleb was silent and then he put it together.

“But wouldn’t she have had two of them? I don’t know anything about crosses, but don’t you buy earrings in pairs?”

“Oh, you’re right. I didn’t think about that.”

“So the one you found was the extra one?”

He felt a stirring inside that he immediately recognized but hadn’t felt in a long time.

“I guess…,” Graciela said. “So if she did have one on in the store, what happened to it?”

“That’s what I want to find out.”

“But what does it matter anyway?”

He was silent for a few moments thinking about how he should answer. He decided that what he was thinking was too speculative at the moment to share with her.

“It’s just a loose end that should be tied up. Let me ask you something, was it the kind of earring that just hooked on or was there a hasp to make sure it didn’t fall off easily? You know what I mean? I couldn’t tell that from the video.”

“Yes. Um, I think there was like a hook that you sort of clipped after it was on your ear. I don’t think it would have fallen off.”

While she was speaking, McCaleb was looking through the stack for the paramedics’ report. He ran his finger down the lines of the information box until he found the squad number and names of the two paramedics who had treated and transported Gloria.

“Okay, I’m gonna go,” he said. “Are we still on for tomorrow?”

“Sure. Um, Terry?”

“What?”

“You saw the video from the store? I mean, all of it? You saw Glory…”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I had to.”

“Was she… was she scared?”

“No, Graciela. It was very quick. She never saw it coming.”

“I guess that’s good.”

“I think so… Listen, are you going to be all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The paramedics who had transported Gloria worked out of Fire Station 76. McCaleb called but the crew that had worked the night of January 22nd was off until Sunday. However, the station captain told him that under department policy governing what are called “crime transports,” any property left behind on a stretcher or found anywhere in an ambulance would have been turned over to police custody. This meant that if this had occurred following the transport of Gloria Torres, there would be a property-received report in the murder book. There wasn’t. The cross earring remained unaccounted for.

The irony that McCaleb carried inside of him alongside a stranger’s heart was the secret belief that he had been the wrong one saved. It should have been someone else. In the days and weeks before he received Glory’s heart, he had been prepared for the end. He had accepted it as the way it was to be. He was long past believing in a God-the horrors he had seen and documented had little by little sapped his stores of faith until the only absolute he believed in was that there were no bounds to the evil acts of men. And in those seemingly final days, as his own heart withered and tapped out its final cadences, he did not grasp desperately for his lost faith as a shield or a means of easing the fear of the unknown. Instead, he was accepting of the end, of his own nothingness. He was ready.

It was easy to do. When he had been with the bureau, he was driven and consumed by a mission, a calling. And when he carried it out and was successful, he knew he was making a difference. Better than any heart surgeon, he was saving lives from horrible ends. He was facing off against the worst kinds of evil, the most malignant cancers, and the battle, though always wearing and painful, gave his life its meaning.