Michael Connelly - Blood Work

When he turned into Topanga Canyon, he put the harmonica down. The road through the canyon was a snake and he’d need both hands on the wheel. Fresh out of distractions, he finally began considering his situation. He first brooded about Winston and how much he could count on her. He knew she was capable and ambitious. What he didn’t know was how well she would stand up to the pressure she would certainly encounter by going against the bureau and the LAPD. He concluded that he was lucky to have her on his side but that he couldn’t sit back and wait for her to show up with the case wrapped up in a box. He could only count on himself.

He figured that if Winston did not convince the others, then at best he had two days before they had an indictment from a grand jury and would go to the media with their prize. After that, his chances of working the case would diminish rapidly. He’d be the lead on the six and eleven o’clock news. He’d have no choice but to give up the investigation, get a lawyer and surrender. The priority would then be clearing his game in the courtroom, never mind catching the real shooter and whoever it was who had hired him.

There was a gravel turnout on the road and McCaleb pulled over, put the ear in park and looked out at the blackness of the drop-off to his right. Far off he saw the square lights of a house deep in the canyon and he wondered what it would be like to be there. He reached over to the seat next to him for the harmonica but it was gone, slipped over the side during one of the turns of the snaking road.

Three minutes went by and no car passed him. He dropped the car back into drive and continued on his way. Once he crested the mountain, the road straightened out some and dropped down into Woodland Hills. He stayed on Topanga Canyon Boulevard until he reached Sherman Way and then he cut east into Canoga Park. Five minutes later he stopped in front of Graciela’s home and watched the windows for a few minutes. He thought about what he would say to her. He wasn’t sure what he had started with her but it felt strong and right to him. Before he even opened the door to the car, he was mourning the possibility that it might already be over.

She opened the front door before he reached it and he wondered if she had been watching him sitting in the car.

“Terry? Is everything all right? Why are you driving?”

“I had to.”

“Come in, come in.”

She stepped back and allowed him in. They went to the living room and took the same seats on the sectional sofa that they had taken before. A small color television on a wooden stand played softly in the corner. The ten o’clock news on Channel 5 was just starting. Graciela used a remote to turn it off. McCaleb put his heavy bag down between his feet. He had left the duffel in the car, unwilling to presume that he would be asked to stay.

“Tell me,” she said. “What is happening?”

“They think it was me. The FBI, LAPD, all of them but one sheriff’s detective. They think I killed your sister for her heart.”

McCaleb looked at her face and then glanced away like a guilty man. He winced at the thought of what this must show to her but he knew down deep that he was guilty. He was the beneficiary, even if he had nothing to do with the actual crime. He was alive now because Glory was dead. A question echoed through his mind like the slamming of a dozen doors down a dark hallway. How can I live with this?

“That’s ridiculous,” Graciela said angrily. “How can they think that you-”

“Wait,” he said, cutting her off. “I have to tell you some things, Graciela. Then you decide what and who to believe.”

“I don’t have to hear-”

He held his hand up cutting her off again.

“Just listen to me, okay? Where’s Raymond?”

“He’s asleep. It’s a school night.”

He nodded and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together.

“They searched my boat. While I was with you, they were searching my boat. They had made the same connection we made. The blood work. But they’re looking at me for it. They found things on my boat. I wanted to tell you before you heard it from them or saw it on TV or the paper.”

“What things, Terry?”

“Hidden under a drawer. They found your sister’s earring. The cross the shooter took.”

He watched her a moment before continuing. Her eyes dropped from his to the glass-topped coffee table as she thought about his words.

“They also found the photo from Cordell’s car. And they found a cuff link that was taken from Donald Kenyon. They found all the icons the killer took, Graciela. My source, the sheriff’s detective, she tells me they are going to go to a grand jury and indict me. I can’t go back to my boat now.”

She glanced at him and then away. She stood up and walked to the window, even though the curtain was closed. She shook her head.

“You want me to leave?” he said to her back.

“No, I don’t want you to leave. This makes no sense. How can they-did you tell the detective about the intruder? He’s the one who must have done this, who put those things in the drawer. He’s the killer. Oh my God! We were that close to my sister’s…”

She didn’t finish. McCaleb got up and went to her, relief coursing through him. She didn’t believe it. None of it. He put his arms around her from behind and pushed his face into her hair.

“I’m so glad you believe me,” he whispered.

She turned around in his arms and they kissed for a long moment.

“What can I do to help?” she whispered.

“Just keep believing. And I’ll do the rest. Can I stay here?

“Nobody knows that we’re together. They might come here, but I don’t think it will be to look for me. It might be just to tell you they think it’s me.”

“I want you to stay. As long as you need or want to.”

“I just need a place where I can work. Where I can go through everything again. I get this feeling I missed something. Like the blood work. There’s got to be some answers in all of that paper.”

“You can work here. I’ll stay home tomorrow and help look through-”

“No. You can’t. You can’t do anything unusual. I just want you to get up in the morning and take Raymond to school and then go to work. I can do this. This part is my job.”

He held her face in his hands. The weight of his guilt was lessened by her just being there with him and he felt the subtle opening inside of some passage that had long been closed. He wasn’t sure where it would lead but knew in his heart he wanted to go there, that he must go there.

“I was just about to go to bed,” she said.

He nodded.

“Are you coming with me?”

“What about Raymond? Shouldn’t we-”

“Raymond’s asleep. Don’t worry about him. For right now let’s worry about us.”

IN THE MORNING, after Graciela and Raymond were gone and the house was quiet, McCaleb opened his leather bag and spread all of the accumulated paperwork in six stacks across the coffee table. While contemplating it all, he drank a glass of orange juice and ate two untoasted blueberry Pop Tarts that he guessed were meant for Raymond. When he was done, he set to work, hoping his involvement in the paper would keep his mind off things beyond his control, mainly Jaye Winston’s investigation of the names on the list.

Despite that distraction McCaleb could feel the flow of adrenaline start to kick in. He was looking for the tell. The piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit before but would make sense now, that would tell him the story. He had survived in the bureau largely by following gut instincts. He was following one now. He knew that the larger the case file was-the larger the accumulation of facts-the easier it was for the tell to be hidden. He would go hunting for it now, in a sense looking for the perfect red apple in the stack at the grocery store-the one that when pulled brings the whole pile down and bouncing across the floor.