Blood Work (1998)

by Michael Connelly

  "Find a phone."

  "There's one right there."

  He pointed to the Jack in the Box restaurant next door. There was a pay phone on the wall near one of the doors. McCaleb got out and slowly walked to the phone. He was careful to keep his eyes on the pavement in front of him, not wanting to set off another slide into vertigo.

  He called Jaye Winston's direct line, expecting to leave a message, but she picked up immediately.

  "It's Terry. I thought you had court."

  "I do but it's the lunch break. I have to be back at two. I was just about to call you."

  "Why?"

  "Because we're going to do it."

  "Do what?"

  "Hypnotize Mr. Noone. The captain signed off on it and I called Mr. Noone. He said sure. He just wants us to do it tonight because he's going out of town-back to Vegas, I guess. He's going to be here at six. You can do it then, right?"

  "I'll be there."

  "Then we're set. Why were you calling?"

  McCaleb hesitated. What he had to tell her might change the evening's plans but he knew he couldn't delay.

  "Can you get a photo of Bolotov by tonight?"

  "I already have one. You want to show Noone?"

  "Yeah. I just paid Bolotov a little visit and he didn't react too well to it."

  "What happened?"

  "Before I could ask him three questions, he jumped me and ran."

  "Are you shitting me?"

  "I wish."

  "What about his alibi?"

  "It's about as solid as a loaf of bread."

  McCaleb briefly recounted his interview with Toliver and then Bolotov. He told Winston she should put out a wanted notice for Bolotov.

  "For what, did you or Toliver make a police report?"

  "I didn't but Toliver said he was going to make a report on the window."

  "All right, I'll put out a pickup. Are you all right? You sound punchy."

  "I'm okay. Is this going to change things? Or are we still on for tonight?"

  "Far as I'm concerned, we're still on."

  "Okay. See you then."

  "Look, Terry, don't put too much stock in Bolotov, okay?"

  "I think he looks good for this."

  "I don't know. Lancaster's a long way from where Bolotov lives. You've got to remember, the guy's a convict. He could have and would have done what he did with you whether he's involved with this or not. Because if he didn't do this, then he did something else."

  "Maybe. But I still like the guy."

  "Well, maybe Noone will make our day and point him out in a six-pack."

  "Now you're talking."

  After hanging up, McCaleb made it back to the Taurus without a problem. Once inside he dug the travel kit he always carried with him out of the leather satchel on the floor. It contained a day's worth of medication and a dozen or so throw-away thermometers called Temp-Strips. He peeled the paper off one and put it in his mouth. While he waited, he signaled Lockridge to start the car. Once the engine had fired, McCaleb reached over to the air-conditioner controls and turned it on.

  "You want air?" Lockridge asked.

  McCaleb nodded and Lockridge turned the fan up higher.

  After three minutes McCaleb took the strip out and checked it. He felt a deep shard of fear cut into him as he looked at the thin red vein stretched past the one-hundred-degree mark.

  "Let's go home."

  "You sure?"

  "Yes. The marina."

  As Lockridge pointed the car south toward the 101 freeway, McCaleb turned the air vents on his side so that the cool air was flowing right into his face. He opened up another Temp-Strip and put it under his tongue. He tried to calm himself by turning on KFWB on the radio and looking out at the passing street scene. Two minutes later the second temperature reading was better than the first, but he was still running a low-grade fever. His fear eased back some and his throat relaxed. He banged his palms against the dashboard and shook his head, convincing himself in the process that the fever was an aberration. He had been perfect so far. There was no reason for this other than that he had gotten overheated while tangling with Bolotov.

  He decided to go back to the boat and take an aspirin and a long nap before preparing for the evening's session with James Noone. The alternative was to call Bonnie Fox. And he knew that such a call would result in his finding himself in a hospital bed for several days of testing and observation. Fox was as thorough at what she did as McCaleb liked to think he was at what he did. She wouldn't hesitate to bring him in. He would lose at least a week lying in bed in Cedars. He would certainly miss his chance at Noone and he would lose the momentum that was the only other thing he had going for him in this investigation.

  16

  TO THE UNINFORMED-and this included many cops and agents McCaleb had worked with over the years-hypnosis was often seen as a form of voodoo police work, a second-to-last resort just shy of consulting the local psychic. It was considered emblematic of a stalled or failed investigation. McCaleb firmly believed it was not. He believed it was a credible means of plumbing the depths of the mind. In the instances where he had seen or heard of it going wrong, it was usually at the fault of the hypnotist and not the science.

  McCaleb had been surprised when Winston said she was in favor of re-interviewing Noone under hypnotic conditions. She had told him that hypnotism had been suggested a couple of times during the weekly homicide bureau meetings when the stalled Cordell investigation came up. But the suggestion had never been acted on for two reasons. The first was the important one. Hypnosis was a tool used often by police until the early eighties, when California's supreme court ruled that witnesses who had memories refreshed through hypnosis could not testify in criminal proceedings. This meant that every time investigators decided whether to use hypnotism on a witness, they had to weigh whether the possible gain from it was worth losing that person as a witness in court. The debate had stalled the use of hypnotism in the Cordell case, since Winston and her captain were reluctant to lose their only witness.

  The second reason was that after the supreme court ruling, the Sheriff's Department stopped training detectives in the use of hypnosis. Consequently, the more than fifteen years since the ruling had seen the natural attrition of the detectives who had the skill. There was no one left in the department who could hypnotize Noone, meaning that they would have to go to an outside hypnotherapist. That would further complicate things and cost money.

  When McCaleb had told Winston that he had used hypnotism on bureau cases for more than ten years and would be willing to do it, she had brightened on the suggestion even more. A few hours later she'd had the session approved and set up.

  McCaleb arrived at the homicide bureau at the Sheriff's Star Center a half hour early. He told Lockridge that he would be a while and encouraged him to go get dinner.

  His fever had been trimmed to less than a half a point during an afternoon nap. He felt rested and ready. He was excited by the prospect of digging a solid lead out of the mind of James Noone and accomplishing something that would drive the case forward.

  Jaye Winston met him at the front counter and escorted him to the captain's office, talking quickly all the way.

  "I posted a wanted on Bolotov. Had a car go by his apartment but he was already gone. He's split. You obviously hit a nerve."

  "Yeah, maybe when I called him a murderer."

  "I'm still not convinced but it's the best thing we've got going at the moment. Typically, Arrango is not happy about what you did. I have to admit, I didn't say we talked about this beforehand. He thinks you were cowboying."

  "Don't worry about it. I don't care what he thinks."

  "Are you worried about Bolotov? You said he has your address."

  "No. He has the marina but not the boat. It's a big place."

  She opened the door and allowed McCaleb to enter first. There were three men and a woman waiting in the cramped office. McCaleb recognized Arrango and Walters from the LAPD. Winston
introduced him to Captain Al Hitchens and the woman, an artist named Donna de Groot. She would be available if needed to work up a composite drawing of the suspect, provided that Noone didn't identify Bolotov outright.

  "I'm glad you're early," Hitchens said. "Mr. Noone is already here. Maybe we can get this going."

  McCaleb nodded and looked at the others in the room. Arrango had the smirk of a nonbeliever on his face. A toothpick protruded a half inch from his tight lips.

  "This is too many people," McCaleb said. "Too much distraction. I need to get this guy relaxed. That won't happen with an audience like this."

  "We're not all going in," Hitchens said. "I'd like you and Jaye to be in the room. You bring Donna in at the appropriate time. We're going to videotape it and we have a monitor set up right here. The rest of us will watch from here. That okay with you?"

  He pointed to a monitor on a cart in the corner. McCaleb looked at the screen and saw a man sitting at a table with his arms folded in front of him. It was Noone. Even though he was wearing a baseball hat, McCaleb recognized the man from the crime scene and ATM tapes.

  "That's fine."

  McCaleb looked at Winston.

  "Did you make up a six-pack with Bolotov?"

  "Yes. It's on my desk. We'll show it to him first, in case we get lucky. If he makes the ID there will be no hypnosis, so we can save him for court."

  McCaleb nodded.

  "Woulda been real nice," Arrango began, "if we had shown Noone the pictures before the bird was flushed."

  He looked at McCaleb. McCaleb thought of a response but decided to keep it to himself.

  "Anything in particular you want me to ask him?" he asked instead.

  Arrango looked at his partner and winked.

  "Yeah, get us the license plate off that getaway vehicle. That'd be nice."

  He smiled brilliantly, the toothpick jutting upward from his lower lip. McCaleb smiled back.

  "It's been done before. The victim of a rapist once gave me a complete description of a tattoo on her attacker's arm. Before hypnosis she hadn't even remembered the tattoo."

  "Good, then do it again. Get us a plate. Get us a tattoo. Your pal Bolotov has enough of 'em."

  There had been a clear challenge in his voice. Arrango seemed to insist on putting everything on a personal level, as if McCaleb's desire to bring a multiple killer in was in some way a show of disrespect to him. It was ludicrous but McCaleb had challenged him simply by entering the case.

  "Okay, guys," Hitchens said, cutting it off and trying to diffuse tensions. "We're just taking a shot at this, that's all. It's worth the shot. Maybe we get something, maybe we don't."

  "Meantime, we lose the guy in court," Arrango said.

  "What court?" McCaleb said. "You're not going anywhere near court with what you guys have got. This is your last chance, Arrango. I'm your last chance."

  Arrango swiftly stood up. Not to challenge McCaleb physically but to underline his next words.

  "Lookit, asshole, I don't need some washed-out fed to tell me how to-"

  "Okay, okay, that's it," Hitchens said, standing up also. "We're gonna do this thing and do it right now. Jaye, why don't you take Terry into the interview room and get started. The rest of us will wait here."

  Winston guided McCaleb out the door. He looked back over his shoulder at Arrango, whose face had turned dark with anger. Past him McCaleb noticed a quizzical smile on Donna de Groot's face. She had apparently enjoyed the testosterone show.

  As they walked through the squad room and past rows of empty desks, McCaleb shook his head with embarrassment.

  "Sorry," he said. "I can't believe I let him draw me into that."

  "It's okay. Guy's an asshole. It was going to happen sooner or later."

  After stopping by Winston's desk to pick up the file containing the photo lineup, they went down a hallway and Winston stopped outside a closed door. She put her hand on the knob but looked back at McCaleb before turning it.

  "Okay, any particular way you want to do this?"

  "The main thing is that it works best if only I do the talking once the session begins and I communicate verbally only with him. That way he won't get confused about who I am talking to. So if you and I need to communicate, we can either write notes or point to the door and we can come out here."

  "Fine. Are you all right? You look like shit."

  "I'm fine."

  She opened the door and James Noone looked up from table.

  "Mr. Noone, this is Terry McCaleb, the hypnotism expert I told you about," Winston said. "He used to work for the FBI. He's going to see if he can't work with you on this."

  McCaleb smiled and reached a hand across the table. They shook.

  "Good to meet you, Mr. Noone. This shouldn't take long and it should be a relaxing experience. Do you mind if I call you James?"

  "No, James is fine."

  McCaleb looked around the room and at the table and chairs. The chairs were standard government issue, with a half inch of foam padding on the seats. He looked at Winston.

  "Jaye, you think we can get a more comfortable chair for James? Something with arms maybe? Like the one Captain Hitchens was sitting in."

  "Sure. Hang on a minute."

  "Oh, also, I'm going to need a pair of scissors."

  Winston looked at him quizzically but left without a word. McCaleb took an appraising look around the room. There was an overhead bank of fluorescent lights in the ceiling. No other lighting. The glare from the overheads was magnified by the mirrored window on the left wall. He knew the video camera was set up on the other side of the glass, so he needed to keep Noone in a position facing it.

  "Let's see," he said to Noone. "I need to get up on the table to get at those lights."

  "No problem."

  Using a chair as a stepladder, McCaleb climbed onto the table and reached up to the light panel. He moved slowly, trying to avoid another bout of vertigo. He opened the panel and began removing the long light tubes, handing them down to Noone and engaging him in small talk, hoping to make the witness feel comfortable with him.

  "I hear you're going to Vegas from here? Is that work or play?"

  "Uh, work mostly."

  "What do you do?"

  "Computer software. I'm designing a new accounting and security system for the El Rio. Still working out the bugs. We'll be running tests for the next week or so."

  "A week in Las Vegas? Boy, I could lose a lot of money there in a week."

  "I don't gamble."

  "That's a good thing."

  He had taken out three of the four bulbs, dropping the room into a dim ambiance. He hoped that left enough light for the video. As he got off the table, Winston returned with a chair that actually looked like the one Hitchens had been sitting in.

  "You took that from the captain?"

  "Best chair in the place."

  "Good."

  He looked at the mirror and winked at the camera behind it. As he did this, he noticed the dark circles beginning to form under his eyes and quickly looked away.

  Winston reached into the pocket of the blazer she wore and carefully eased out a pair of scissors. McCaleb took them and put them on the table and then pushed it against the wall below the mirror. He then took the captain's chair and positioned it against the opposite wall. He put two chairs from the table facing the captain's chair but split them apart far enough so as not to block the camera's view of Noone. He directed Noone to the captain's chair and then Winston and he took the remaining seats. McCaleb looked at his watch and noted that it was ten minutes before six.

  "Okay," he said. "We'll try to do this quick and have you on your way, James. First off, any questions you have for us about what we're trying to do here?"

  Noone thought a moment before speaking.

  "Well, I guess I don't know much about it. What will happen to me?"

  "Nothing will happen to you. All hypnosis really is an altered state of consciousness. What we want you to do is go throu
gh some progressive stages of relaxation until you reach a point where you can easily move through the recesses of your mind to pull out some of the stored information. Kind of like turning through a Rolodex and pulling out the card you need."

  McCaleb waited but Noone asked nothing else.

  "Why don't we start with an exercise. I want you to tilt your head back slightly and look up. Try to roll your eyes upward as far as they can go. Maybe you should take off your glasses."