Hess was drawn to people more like himself: on the make for something they might understand but often didn't, either recovering from or searching out the next romantic disaster. It always seemed to work out that way, but it was never how he planned it. He saw that you needed to put aside that selfishness if you wanted to fit in with the department pack, otherwise you were perceived as a danger at some point. A family made you understandable, declared your values and your willingness to sacrifice.
Hess hadn't wanted children with Barbara—who was willing—because he was young and hogging his liberties. The world seemed huge then, though his place in it with Barbara—who was insecure and jealous as time went on— seemed constricted. He was stupid to leave her but only realized it later. His guilty conscience had left everything of value to her and to this day he was thankful for that.
He was willing and interested with Lottie when he was in his thirties, but she was young and enjoying her liberties. They drifted away from each other in the classic fashion and parted with minimum drama and no rancor. What amazed Hess more than the divorce was the way a decade could come and go so quickly.
Children hardly seemed to matter until he was halfway through his forties and married to Joanna. His paternal instincts crept up on him like a big cat: a bold but calm desire to guide his blood into the world, to give life. He actually began looking at other people's babies, thinking of names he liked, picturing himself with an infant in his arms. Doted on his nephews and nieces. Thought a lot about his father. And his mother. Something inside him was changing for the good.
Joanna was younger than him by fifteen years, quite beautiful and willing to have a family. These were three of the reasons he married her. Hess suspected a child would help keep them together because they actually shared little in common outside the bed. After five years of trying and failing to conceive, countless consultations and tests, then three increasingly heartbreaking miscarriages, Joanna gave up on doctors, children and Hess. On the dismal March night of his fifty-first birthday, both of them drinking at high velocity, Joanna surprised him with a tearful confession that she was in love with another man. With one of the doctors who had failed to help her, in fact. It was with extreme and surprising anger that Hess imagined this man with Joanna on his examination table. She said he had his own children and with him she felt less like a failed breeder and more like a successful woman. She took half of everything and dropped all contact with Hess. He rented a room to a young deputy so he could keep the house.
By the time he realized he had pretty much missed his chance to be a father Hess was three times divorced and pushing fifty-three years old. Did everyone know he was a fiickup? He felt like an ostrich with nowhere to hide his head.
Now, sitting in Chuck Brighton's office, Hess considered all of this to be nothing more than the ancient history of an everyday life. His. And this is where it had led him—semi-retired and sixty-seven years of age, alone again, afflicted by cancer and by treatments for cancer, shadowing a murdering phantom through what could have been one of Hess's golden years. So you don't always get what you want. But grace grows in the cracks sometimes.
You have work to do.
"That must have been bad this morning."
"I've never seen anything quite like it, Bright. I mean, it was so... deliberate. Deliberate and disgusting and just really mean. All at the same time. This guy's got some snakes in his head."
"He'll make a big mistake. You know that."
"When, is what bothers me."
"Tell me about Rayborn, Tim."
"There's not much to tell. I think she's doing well."
"Good, good. Do you get along with her?"
"She's honest and to the point."
"Like you."
Brighton could be obtuse and Hess figured it was his right.
"What about that sketch of hers?"
Hess shrugged. "The witness needed to be hypnotized. Merci got good results."
Brighton nodded. Old news.
"It was her call, Bright. That sketch is getting hits."
"What, the bus driver, that car thief out in Elsinore?"
"And a sporting goods store clerk said it looked like a guy who bought some hunting supplies out of season."
"The question is, why'd she wait so long to get it done— hypnosis or not?"
"Some time to consult with the DA. A day to do the hypnosis and the sketch. She thought it over, wanted to make the right move. More time to get copies, get them out to Press Information."
Hess understood that what kept Merci from acting quickly on the sketch was her doubt about Kamala Petersen's reliability. She'd hesitated on instinct. The margaritas seemed to have justified that doubt, but Hess said nothing. The booze was going to make Merci look bad.
"And Merci paid out of her own pocket for that psychiatrist to hypnotize her, didn't she?"
"I really don't know. But she told me she bought some Point Blank body armor with her own money."
"What's wrong with our PACAs? They're rated to threat-level Two-A."
"I guess she thinks they could get her killed."
Brighton raised his eyebrows. "She lost a potential witness."
"Yeah, she knows that. She knows it was a gamble."
Hess suddenly felt his tiredness slap up against him. It was like a big wave of cold water that sucked the warmth right out of you. It usually happened when he was sitting down. Like Friday, when Merci had to help him out of the chair. Maybe the secret of life was to keep moving. Hop 'til you drop.
"How did she miss those Jim marks on the car windowsV
"Well, they were below the door frame."
"That's absolutely not what I was asking."
"In that case, it was Kemp who missed them."
"I'd taken Kemp off the case by then, Tim. You were on
it."
"The damage was done. She couldn't redo every bit of his work. Ike would have found them sooner or later. Or she'd have thought it through and had a look for herself. Really, Bright, that wasn't the kind of thing you'd think of unless you'd run across it before."
Brighton nodded, unconvinced. "It's basic car theft, is what it is."
"Well, she's Homicide."
"Maybe that's what worries me. Besides, it took you about thirty seconds." "I'm old."
"Tim, I'd like you to document what you think of her performance on this case so far, just something brief, in writing."
"What about it?"
"How she's handled it—the privately funded hypnosis, not taking the DA's advice about the legal fallout. The carwindows—whose decision it was to remove the glass and have a real thorough, old-fashioned look at it. Just a note for my files, nothing elaborate. A quick and dirty."
Interesting use of words, thought Hess. "I'm sure she'll put all that in her report," he said.
"Her reports are evasive, partial and uninformative."
"The kind I always wrote."
"Those were different days, Tim. We were small and tight and we hung together. Anyway, I want your angle on it."
"That wasn't exactly in my job description, Bright."
"It is now."
Hess said nothing.
"Is this LaLonde creep a suspect or notr'
"Riverside is watching him for us. So far, nothing unusual. My guts tell me no."
"How did Merci handle him?"
"Well. He built this override device for our man. It works on most car alarms, or so LaLonde says. He can ID our guy if we can deliver him."
"Nice work."
"Rayborn called the shots. I just held up a wall."
"She really carry a switchblade in her purser'
Hess looked at the sheriff, then slowly shook his head. "I don't know," he said quietly.
"I'd be curious. Look, Tim, I've got some problems here. Merci's lawsuit accuses Phil of potty-mouth and grab-ass, but it accuses me—between the lines—of looking the other way. In fact, if she wants some kind of monetary damages, she'll eventually have to na
me the department, and probably me."
"Then she must not want money, Chuck."
"You know me, Tim. I don't look the other way. I've worked hard to make this a good place for men, women, the best sheriff department in the state. Now Merci files this suit out of the blue and three more women have come forward, talking to the press, getting their own suits ready, I assume. One says Kemp raped her. Merci opened the floodgates."
"Damn it, Bright. Maybe you should be glad she spoke up. If you've got house to clean, you've got house to clean."
"And I'll clean it. But I feel like I got a gun to my head. And she never once came to me about any of this."
A long silence then.
"What does she want?" Brighton finally asked.
"How would I know? She hasn't said one word about Phil Kemp to me."
"Find out."
"That in my job description now, too?"
"Absolutely. Find out what she wanes, Tim. I'll accommodate her if I can get this snowball stopped."
Hess nodded. He felt exhausted.
"Ever heard of a friend of hers named Francisco?"
"She mentioned him."
A long pause then, during which Hess deduced he was supposed to make something of this friend. He sensed the amount of brainpower necessary for such a formulation would be a lot more than he wanted to spend.
"McNally told me she'd mentioned a guy, is all. Never introduced them. I'm curious if she might be sleeping with this man."
"I'm not."
"Find out about it and let me know. You can add that and the switchblade to your job description too, if you want to. Help me, Tim. I'm helping you."
Hess looked at him.
Brighton sat back. Hess felt the resentment stirring inside—resentment that his own stupid cigarette addictions had led him to this position, and resentment that Chuck Brighton had allowed peevishness to bloom in his old age. I got cancer and Bright got petty.
"How are you feeling, Tim?"
"Strong as an ox. A little tired now and then."
"I admire you."
"Thanks."
"And that has nothing to do with feeling sorry for you."
"I hope not," said Hess, but in fact he knew it did, and it broke his heart in a minor way to hear it from an old friend who was ordering him to piss on a fellow deputy half his age.
Hess stood and shook Brighton's hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Merci studied the two missing persons files that Casik had bird-dogged for her, then hovered around the unbelievably slow clerk who processed the purses into evidence. She estimated the guy had an IQ of about 50.
Six, she thought. Six. The idea made her furious.
By the time she got to the gym she was even more furious. And livid at Kamala for drinking on the night in question— then not admitting it until later.
But Merci knew she was primarily angry at herself for not hurrying up the hypnosis and the release of the sketch. If it had been all over the newspapers and TV two days ago, like it should have been, Ronnie Stevens might be working at Goldsmith's today. It was a grinding guilt she felt, tangible, right there in her throat. And now, by the looks of it, three more women had been taken by the Purse Snatcher. Six. Time to work off the rage.
The weight room was empty on Sunday. She looked at herself in the mirror when she walked in—face in a scowl, sweats disheveled, arms up, big hands twisting her hair into a wad and applying an elastic band and thought: Loser. You are a large dark-haired loser who belongs in Traffic.
She humped the stationary cycle for thirty minutes with the resistance up almost all the way. She was dripping sweat and standing on the pedals to make them move after eight minutes and the final twenty-two were actual torture. Blister time. Good, she thought. Let the pain bring the gain. She got off the bike and wobbled to the ab cruncher on legs that felt like petrified wood. Good again: hurt to learn, learn to hurt.
She ran the Nautilus circuit once light and once heavy, resting five seconds between each of the three sets and thirty seconds between each station. Her heart was beating fast and light as a bird's, fast as that wren's that was blown from its nest in a Santa Ana wind one year. She'd found it in the grass and cradled it home in her hands while its heart beat like some overcharged machine against the inside of her middle finger. The bird had died overnight and Merci prepared a tissue box to bury it, but her mother flushed it down the toilet. She'd never had luck with animals: her dog chewed the hair off its own body; her cats ran away; her parakeets died quick; her hamster bit her. Merci catalogued these failures as she struggled on the chin-up bar—twelve was more than she could do so she set her sights on fourteen and slid to a gasping heap on the ground after thirteen.
Up, loser. You have work to do.
Time for the free weights. She had just settled under the bench press bar when she heard some commotion near the door. She turned her head to the mirrored wall and watched in the distorting glass as Mike McNally and three of his deputy friends swaggered in, all muscles and mustaches and towels over their necks, smiles merry to the point of insanity. The atmosphere of the room changed instantly. Suddenly she was aware of herself, her body, her clothes, her sweat, what she might look like, what they might do. It was like having 30 percent of your energy sucked down some useless hole. Fucking great.
She did her best to will them out of her universe, turning to look up at the rusted bar above her nose, spreading her hands wide for a pec burn on her beginning weight of eighty pounds, digging the leather palms of her gloves against the worn checkering of the grip.
"Hi, Merci!"
"Hi, guys!"
"Need a spot.7"
"Sure don't!"
Then up with it. Ignore them. She liked the feel of the weights balancing above her. She moved her left hand over just a hair to get it right. Then the slow, deliberate motion— all the way down to her chest, then all the way back up again—ten times in all, not super heavy, really, but you could feel eighty pounds when your body weight was one forty. Three sets. Every rep was hotter and slower. Grow to burn, burn to grow.
At one hundred pounds she had to go a lot slower, but she got the ten. She heard the sweat tap-tapping to the plastic bench as she sat there breathing hard and deciding whether to max at one thirty-five or one forty.
She picked the lighter weight to look stronger in front of the men, a decision that angered her. She was ignoring them but aware of them in the mirrors, where she saw they were ignoring her but aware of her, too. They laughed suddenly then and two of them glanced over at her. Mike was looking down as if regretting something he'd just said. Merci wished she lived on a different planet. She thought again of Phil Kemp's ugly words and his touches and felt like all her strength was about to rush away.
Stay focused. Will away these things.
She heaved up on the bar and ground out five reps before she realized she wouldn't make ten. Six was a labor. Seven wasn't even up yet when she knew she'd had enough. The sweat popped off her lips as she exhaled. Kind of stuck, actually, not enough gumption to get it back up to safety on the stand, too much pride to set it down on her heaving chest and rest. Mike McNally now appeared in the north quadrant of her defocusing vision, looking down at her, a blond-haired Vikingesque once-upon-a-time boyfriend gritting "One more ... one more . . . one more, Merci" at her until she felt the bar rise magically with his help. Her breathing was fast and short. She felt lungshot. Then she felt McNally ceding the weight back to her and down she let it come, all the way to her sternum, pause, then halfway up, then a little more than halfway, arms and bar wobbling like crazy now and Mike's lift helping her get it up then suddenly one side shot down and the other shot up and iron crashed with a clang and the bar smacked into her rib cage as the weights slid off and chimed to the floor beneath her head.
She was aware of three more bodies around her, aware of Mike's cursing them away, telling them she was fine, aware of gripping his hand with hers and rising to a sitting position on the bench.
Little lights circled her vision like the stars around a cartoon character hit with a hammer.
"You know the circuit court's going to hear the scent-box case," he was saying.
"That's great, Mike." Merci wasn't positive what century she was in.
"I know it's going to be accepted. I know that a hundred years from now they'll be using those boxes in court all the time. A good scent box and a good dog. That's my answer to high-tech crime solving. Plus we're going to patent the thing and make a million. I don't know what I'll name it. Mike's Truth Box or something."
"Hope you're right. Wow."
"Light in the head?"
"Um-hm."
"Lay back."
"No way."
"Well, pass out then."
"I'll lay back."
"Better?"
"Um."
She lay back down on the bench and felt her chest rising fast, her back pressing into the pads, the air rushing in and out. Mike was gone. Just her and the white ceiling and the mirrors in the periphery of her vision and the ringing in her ears. Lots of red.
When her heart rate settled Merci dozed a few minutes. She awoke to the sounds of weights, male voices, the harsh light of the gym in her eyes. She sat up, looked around and yawned. Her muscles felt enlarged and stupid. The pile of spilled weights was still next to her bench.
She worked herself up and collected the weights, walking them one at a time back to the rack and sliding them onto the pegs. Then she lumbered on heavy legs over to the stationary bike and climbed on, setting the resistance lower than the first time, but still pretty darned high.
THE BLUE HOUR Page 18