Michael Connelly - Blood Work

“Events have overtaken the possibility of him being a suspect. Remember, I figured him for that burglary near his work in which the HK P7 was taken. That would have given him the right gun to make him a suspect in Cordell and Torres. But that burglary occurred in December, near Christmas. Now add Kenyon. He was killed with a P7 in November. So it can’t be the same gun; even if Bolotov did the burglary. So he’s clear. I still don’t know why he went ape shit on me and ran, though.”

“Well, like you said, he probably is good for that Christmas burglary. You went in there and spooked him, made it sound like you were going to put a couple of murders on him. He ran. That’s all.”

McCaleb nodded.

“What’s going to happen to him?”

“His boss is going to drop his complaint in lieu of restitution for the window that was broken. That’s it. They’ll release him after a hearing today.”

McCaleb nodded again and looked down at the carpet.

“So forget about him, Terry, what else have you got?”

He brought his eyes back up and looked intently back at her.

“I’m close. I’m just one or two steps away from putting this all together. I know who the shooter is now. And I’m just a few days away from knowing who hired him. I’ve got names, a list of suspects. I know the person we want is on that list. Trust your gut on this one, Jaye. You can hook me up now and bring me in and get the bust, but it’s wrong and it won’t fit. Eventually, I’ll be able to prove it. But in the meantime, we’ll miss the chance we’ve got right now.”

“Who is the shooter?

McCaleb stood up.

“I have to get my bag. I’ll show you.”

“Where’s your bag?”

“In a dryer in the marina laundry. I stashed it there. I didn’t know what to expect when I came in here.”

She thought a moment.

“Let me go get it,” he said. “You’ve still got the pharmacy here. I’m not going anywhere. If you don’t trust me, come with me.”

She waved him off.

“All right, go. Get your bag. I’ll wait.”

On the way to the laundry McCaleb met Buddy Lockridge, who was holding the leather satchel taken from the laundry.

“Everything okay? You told me to go get this if I saw anybody put the moves on you.”

“Everything’s fine, Buddy. I think.”

“I don’t know what she’s telling you, but she was one of them that was here today.”

“I know. But I think she’s on my side.”

McCaleb took the bag from him and headed back to his boat. Inside, he turned on the television, put the Sherman Market tape in the VCR, and started playing it. He fast-forwarded the image and watched the jerking motions of the shooter coming in, shooting Gloria Torres and the market owner, then disappearing. Then the Good Samaritan came in and McCaleb put the tape on normal speed. At the moment the Good Samaritan looked up from his work on Gloria’s stricken figure, McCaleb hit the pause button and the image froze.

He pointed at the man on the television screen and looked back at Jaye Winston.

“There. There’s your shooter.”

She stared at the tube for a long moment, her face betraying none of her thoughts.

“Okay, tell me, how is that my shooter?”

“The timeline. Arrango and Walters never saw this as anything more than a common robbery and shooting. That’s how it looked-who can blame them? But they were sloppy. They never bothered completing or verifying a timeline. They took what they saw at face value. But there was a problem between the time on the store video when the shooting went down and the time on the big clock downtown when the Good Samaritan called it in.”

“Right. You told me. What was the discrepancy, a half minute or so?”

“Thirty-four seconds. According to the store’s video, the Good Samaritan called in the shooting thirty-four seconds before it happened.”

“But you said Walters or Arrango said they couldn’t verify the accuracy of the video clock. They just assumed it was off because the old man-Mr. Kang-probably set it himself.”

“Right, they assumed. I didn’t.”

McCaleb backed the tape up to the point that Chan Ho Kang’s watch was visible as his arm stretched across the counter. He played with it in slow motion, going back and forth until he had the time strip across the bottom at the right moment. He paused the image again. He then went to the bag and took out the hard copy of the video enhancement.

“Okay, what I did was triangulate the time to get an accurate fix on when exactly this went down. You see the watch?”

She nodded. He handed her the hard copy.

“I had a friend who used to do work for the bureau enhance this image. That’s the hard copy. As you can see, the time on the watch and the video match. To the second. Old man Kang must have set the camera clock right off his watch. You with me?”

“I’m with you. The video and the watch match. What does it mean?”

McCaleb held his hand up in a hold-on gesture and then got out his notebook and referred to his timeline notes.

“Now we know, according to the Central Communications Center clock downtown, that the Good Samaritan called in the shooting at 10:41:03, which was thirty-four seconds before the shooting took place according to the videotape. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He explained that evening’s trip to the store and then to the Kang home, where he had been allowed access to the watch. He told her that the watch’s setting had not been disturbed since the murders.

“I then called the CCC and got a time check and compared it to the watch. The watch is running only four seconds ahead of the CCC clock. Therefore, that means the video clock was running only four seconds ahead of CCC at the time of the murders.”

Winston narrowed her eyebrows and leaned forward, trying to follow his explanation.

“That would mean…”

She didn’t finish.

“It means that there is almost no difference-just four seconds-between the video clock and the CCC clock. So when the Good Samaritan called in the store shooting at ten forty-one oh three on the CCC clock, it was exactly ten forty-one oh seven on the store clock. There was only four seconds difference.”

“But that’s impossible,” Winston said, shaking her head. “There was no shooting at the time. That’s thirty seconds too early. Gloria wasn’t even in the store yet. She was probably just pulling in.”

McCaleb was silent. He decided to let her make the conclusions without having to be told or prompted. He knew it would have a stronger impact if she came to the same spot he was at on her own.

“So,” she said, “this guy, this Good Samaritan, had to have called in the shooting before the shooting took place.”

McCaleb nodded. He noted the deepening intensity in her eyes.

“Why would he do that unless… he knew. Unless he knew the shooting was going down? He’s-damn!-he’s got to be the shooter!”

McCaleb nodded once more, but this time he had a satisfied smile on his face. He knew he had her in his car now. And they were about to hit the gas pedal.

HAVE YOU HASHED this around, figured out how it all plays?”

“A little bit.”

“So then tell me.”

McCaleb was standing in the galley now, pouring himself a glass of orange juice. Winston had passed on a drink but was standing in the galley also. Her adrenaline would not allow her to sit. McCaleb knew that feeling.

“Wait a second,” he said.

He gulped down the orange juice in one tilt.

“Sorry, I messed with my blood sugar today, I think. Ate too late.”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

He put the glass in the sink, turned and leaned against the counter.