Michael Connelly - Blood Work

“I don’t think they’re going to find what they’re really looking for.”

“What are you-”

“Not on the phone, man. You want me to come get you now?”

McCaleb stopped. What was he saying? What was going on?

“Hang tight,” he finally said. “I’ll call you right back.”

McCaleb hung up and immediately dropped in another quarter. He called his own phone number. No one answered. The machine answered and he heard his own tape-recorded voice telling him to leave a message. After the beep he said, “Jaye Winston, if you’re there, pick up.”

He waited for a beat of silence and was about to say it again when the phone was picked up. He felt a slight sense of relief when he recognized Winston’s voice.

“This is Winston.”

“This is McCaleb.”

That was all. He figured he would see how she wanted to play it. He would be better able to judge where he stood by the way she handled the call.

“Uh… Terry,” she said. “How did you-where are you?”

“Whatever relief he was feeling now started to slip away. Its replacement was dread. He had given her the opportunity to talk to him obliquely, perhaps in code, acting as though she was talking to a fellow deputy or even Captain Hitchens. But she had used his name.

“Doesn’t matter where I am,” he said. “What are you doing on my boat?”

“Why don’t you come here and we’ll talk about it?”

“No, I want to talk about it now. I’m a suspect? That’s what this is about?”

“Look, Terry, don’t make this more complicated than it has to be. Why don’t you-”

“Is there an arrest warrant? Just answer me that.”

“No, Terry, there isn’t.”

“But I am a suspect.”

“Terry, why didn’t you tell me you have a black Cherokee?”

McCaleb was stunned as he suddenly realized how things fit together with him in the middle.

“You never asked. Listen to what you are saying, what you are thinking. Would I get involved in all of this, the investigation, bring the bureau in, all of it, if I was the shooter? Are you serious?”

“You got to our only witness.”

“What?”

“You got to Noone. You got inside the investigation and got to the only witness. You hypnotized him, Terry. Now he’s no good to us. The one person who might have been able to make the ID and we lost him. He-”

She stopped as there was a click as another phone was picked up.

“McCaleb? This is Nevins. What’s your location?”

“Nevins, I’m not talking to you. You’ve got your head up your ass. I’m only-”

“Listen to me, I’m trying to be civil. We can do this easy and quiet or we can go big time. You decide, my friend. You have to come in and we’ll talk about it and let the chips fall.”

McCaleb’s mind quickly went over the facts. Nevins and the others had come to the same conclusion that he had come to. They had made the blood work connection. The fact that McCaleb was a direct beneficiary of the Torres killing made him a suspect. He imagined them running his name on the computer and coming up with the registration of the Cherokee. It was probably the piece that sent them over the top. They got a search warrant and went to the boat.

McCaleb felt the cold hand of fear clasp his neck. The intruder from the night before. It began to dawn on him that it wasn’t a question of what he had wanted. It was what had he planted. He thought about what Buddy had said moments before about the agents not finding what they were looking for. And the picture was taking form.

“Nevins, I’ll come in. But you tell me first, what have you got there? What have you found?”

“No, Terry, we don’t play it like that. You come in and then we talk about all of this.”

“I’m hanging up, Nevins. Last chance.”

“Don’t go in any post offices, McCaleb. Your picture’s going to be on the wall. As soon as we get the package together.”

McCaleb hung up, held his hand on the phone and leaned his forehead against it. He wasn’t sure what was going on or what to do. What had they found? What had the intruder hidden in the boat?

“You okay?”

He jerked around and it was the girl with the pierced nose and lip.

“Fine. You?”

“I am now. I just had to talk to somebody.”

“I know the feeling.”

She left the phone alcove then and McCaleb picked up the receiver again and dropped another quarter. Buddy picked up on half a ring.

“All right, listen,” McCaleb said. “I want you to come get me. But you’re not going to be able to just walk out of there.”

“How come? It’s a free-”

“Because I just talked to them and they know someone tipped me that they were there. So this is what I want you to do. Take off your shoes and put your keys and wallet inside them. Then get your laundry basket and stick your shoes in it and cover them up with clothes. Then carry the basket out of there and make-”

“I don’t have any laundry in the basket, Terry. I did laundry this morning, before any of these people showed up.”

“Fine, Buddy. Take some clothes-clean clothes-and put them in the basket so it looks like you’ve got dirty clothes. Hide your shoes. Make it look like you are only going over to the laundry. Don’t close the hatch on your boat and make sure you are carrying four quarters in your hand. They’ll stop you but if you play it right, they’ll believe you and let you go. Then get in your car and come get me.”

“They might follow me.”

“No. They probably won’t even watch you once they let you go to the laundry. Maybe you should go to the laundry first, then to your car.”

“Okay. So where do I find you?”

McCaleb didn’t hesitate. He had grown to trust Lockridge. Besides, he knew he could take precautions on his end.

After hanging up, McCaleb called Tony Banks and told him that he would be coming by. Banks said he would be there.

McCaleb walked into Jerry’s Famous Deli and ordered a turkey sandwich with coleslaw and Russian dressing to go. He also ordered a sliced pickle and a can of Coke. After he paid for the sandwich, he took it out and crossed Beverly Boulevard back to Cedars. He had spent so many days and nights in the medical center he knew its layout by rote. He took the elevator to the third floor maternity ward, where he knew of a waiting room that looked out across the helipad to Beverly Boulevard and Jerry’s. It was not unusual to see an expectant father wolfing down a deli sandwich in the waiting room. McCaleb knew he could sit up there and eat and wait and watch for Buddy Lockridge.

The sandwich lasted less than five minutes but the wait for Buddy Lockridge went on for an hour with no sighting of Lockridge. McCaleb watched two helicopters come in with deliveries of transplant organs packed in red coolers.

He was about to call the Double-Down to see if the agents had held Lockridge up when he finally saw Buddy’s familiar Taurus pull up to the front of the deli. McCaleb walked to the window and looked long and far up and down Beverly Boulevard, then checked the sky for anything that looked like a law enforcement helicopter. He left the window and headed to the elevator.

A plastic laundry basket full of clothes was on the backseat of the Taurus. McCaleb got in, looked at it and then over at Lockridge, who was playing some unrecognizable tune on his harp.

“Thanks for coming, Buddy. Any problems?”

Lockridge dropped the harmonica into the door pocket.

“Nah. They stopped me like you said they would and asked their questions. But I played dumb; they let me go. I think it was ’cause I only had the four quarters on me that they let me go. That was a smart move, Terry.”

“We’ll see. Who was it who stopped you? The two suits?”