Michael Connelly - Blood Work

“It was a learning process. He learned from the mistakes of the first two, perfected it on the third.”

McCaleb folded his arms and waited for Winston to make the next jump.

“So we have to follow the harvest now,” she said. “One of the people who received one of the organs will be Mr. X. We have to go to BOPRA and get the-wait, you said you had a list of names?”

He nodded.

“From BOPRA?”

“From BOPRA.”

He went back to his bag and found the list Bonnie Fox had given him. He turned around and almost bumped into Winston, who had moved out of the galley. He handed her the sheet.

“There’s the list.”

She studied it intently, as if she was expecting to see that one of the names on it would actually be Mr. X or in some other way be readily identifiable as him.

“How did you get this?”

“Can’t say.”

She looked up at him.

“For the time being I have to protect a source. But it’s legit. Those people got organs from Gloria Torres.”

“Are you giving me this?”

“If you are going to do something with it.”

“I will. I’ll start tomorrow.”

McCaleb was fully aware of what he was giving her. Of course, it might be the key to his exoneration and the capture of the worst kind of killer. But he was also handing her an E-ticket ride. If she was successful in breaking the case while the bureau and the LAPD were heading down the wrong road, her professional future would have no bounds.

“How are you going to run them down?” he asked.

“Anyway I can. I’ll look for money, criminal records, anything that stands out. You know, the usual things, the full background. What are you going to be doing?”

McCaleb glanced over at his bag. It was bulging with documents, tapes and the guns.

“I don’t know yet. Will you tell me something? How did this all turn on me? What pointed all you people at me?”

Winston folded the list into a neat square and slid it into the pocket of her blazer.

“The bureau. Nevins told me they got a tip. He wouldn’t say from where. The tip was suspect-specific, though. He did tell me that. The source said you killed Glory Torres for her heart. They took it from there. They checked the autopsies of all three victims and found the blood matches. From there it was easy, everything fell into place. I have to admit they had me going. At the time, it all seemed to fit.”

“ How? ” McCaleb asked angrily, his voice rising. “None of this would have even happened if I hadn’t started looking into it. The ballistics match to Kenyon was made because of me. That brought the bureau in. You think that is what a guilty man would do? That’s crazy.”

He was angrily pointing at his own chest.

“All of that was considered. We sat around and hashed it out this morning. The theory that emerged was that you had this woman-the sister-who had come to you and you figured she wasn’t going to let this go. So you decided you better take the case before somebody else did. You took it and proceeded to sabotage it. You came up with this Bolotov goose chase. You hypnotized the only real witness and now he’s lost to us as far as court goes. Yes, the ballistics match was made because of you but maybe that was a surprise, maybe you were expecting it to come up empty since a Devastator had been used the first time.”

McCaleb shook his head. He wouldn’t allow himself to see their side of it. He still couldn’t believe they had turned the focus on him.

“Look, we weren’t sold on it one hundred percent,” Winston said. “We felt there was enough to get and justify a warrant for the search-and there was. We felt the search was make or break. We would find evidence and go further with it, or we would drop it. But then we find out you drive a black Cherokee and then sitting under that drawer are three very damning pieces of evidence. The only thing that could have been worse for you would have been to find the gun.”

McCaleb thought of the gun sitting in his bag, five feet away from them. Again he knew how lucky he had been.

“But like you said, it was too easy.”

“For me it was. The others didn’t see it that way. Like I said before, they started strutting. They saw the headlines.”

McCaleb shook his head. The discussion had sapped his strength. He stepped over to the galley table and slid into the booth.

“I am being set up,” he said.

Winston came over.

“I believe you,” she said. “And whoever he is, he’s done a good job of it. Have you thought at all about why it is you that’s been set up?”

McCaleb nodded as he drew a design in a spray of sugar that had been spilled on the table.

“When I look at it from the shooter’s view, I see why.”

He brushed the sugar off the table with his palm.

“After Kenyon didn’t work out and the shooter knew he had to go back to the list, he also knew he was doubling the risk. He knew there was an off chance that the cases might be connected through the blood. He knew he had to lay the groundwork for a deflection. He picked me. If he was in the BOPRA computer, then he knew I was next on the list for a heart. He probably backgrounded me like the others. He knew about the Cherokee I drove and used one himself. He took souvenirs from the victims so that he could plant them, if needed, here. Then it was probably him who made the tip call to Nevins when everything was set.”

McCaleb sat silently for a long moment, brooding about his situation. Then he slowly slid back out of the booth.

“I have to finish packing.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I’ll need to talk to you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

He started down the stairs, his hands gripping the overhead rails.

“Terry.”

He stopped and turned to look back at her.

“I’m taking a big chance. My neck’s a mile out there.”

“I know that, Jaye. Thanks.”

With that he disappeared into the darkness below.

McCALEB’S CHEROKEE HAD been impounded during the search earlier in the day. He borrowed Lockridge’s Taurus and drove it north on the 405. When he reached the 10 interchange, he went west to the Pacific and then continued north again on the coast highway. He was in no hurry and he was tired of freeways. He’d decided to drive along the ocean and then cut up to the Valley through Topanga Canyon. He knew Topanga was desolate enough for him to be able to tell if he was being followed by Winston. Or anybody else.

It was half past nine by the time he reached the shore and was skirting along the black water intermittently broken by the froth of crashing waves. The night fog was coming in heavy and pushing across the highway, butting into the sheer bluffs that guarded the Palisades. It carried with the strong scent and feel of the sea and it reminded McCaleb of night fishing with his father when he was a boy. It always scared him when his father throttled down and killed the engines so they could drift in the dark. His breath held tight at the end of the night when the old man turned the key to restart. He had nightmares as a boy about drifting alone in the dark in a dead boat. He never told his father about those dreams. He never told him he didn’t want to go night fishing. He always held his fears to himself.

McCaleb looked out to his left to try to find the line where ocean met sky but he couldn’t see it. Two shades of darkness blending somewhere out there, the moon hidden in cloud cover. It seemed to fit his mood. He turned on the radio and fished around for some blues but gave up and turned it off. He remembered Buddy’s collection of harmonicas and reached into the door pocket for one. He flipped on the overhead light and checked the etching on the top plate. It was a Tombo in the key of C. He wiped it off on his shirt and as he drove, he played with the instrument, mostly producing a cacophony that at times made him laugh out loud at how ugly it was. But every now and then he put together a couple of notes. Buddy had tried to teach him once and he’d gotten to the point where he could play the opening riffs of “Midnight Rambler.” He tried for that now but couldn’t find the chord and what he produced sounded more like a wheezing old man.