“Ouch!” Bryce wished he could have found something more consoling than that, but it was the best he could do.
“Ouch is right.” This time, Bryce judged, Colin’s pause was for a nod. “I’ve known Caroline Pitcavage . . . gotta be twenty years now. Yeah, Mike beat me out for chief. Doesn’t mean I want to see him dead. Doesn’t mean I’d try to make him dead, either. She’s known me twenty years, too. If she doesn’t get that, she’s never known me at all.” Plaintive was the word, sure as the devil.
“She can’t be thinking straight right this minute.” Coming up with that made Bryce feel a little better. He hoped it helped Colin some, too. Whether it did or not, it was bound to be the truth.
“I know she can’t. I understand it. In my head, I understand it,” Colin said heavily. “In my gut . . . She might as well’ve kicked me in the gut when she said that. And she’s not the only one who feels that way, either. I don’t know what I can do about it. I don’t know if I can do anything, this side of quitting the force.”
“Don’t!” Bryce exclaimed. “If you do, they win.”
“I know. But if I don’t, they’re liable to win, anyway. Too damn many of ’em. Happy day, huh? Listen, good to talk to you and everything, but I’ve got to go back in there and make like I’m useful,” Colin said. “Take care.” Bryce started to answer, but found himself talking to a dead line.
* * *
A skeleton crew of uniformed cops patrolled the streets of San Atanasio. Some rode black-and-whites. More pedaled bicycles. There was talk of buying horses. The glut of rain in the L.A. basin had produced a glut of grass. Feeding them would be cheap. It would certainly be cheaper than buying gas for the police cars. But then, what wouldn’t?
And another skeleton crew of cops and clerical personnel kept the station open. The rest of the San Atanasio PD, along with the city council and the mayor, had gone to pay Mike Pitcavage their final respects.
Colin Ferguson sat at his desk. He wished he were at the funeral, even if Caroline and most of the other cops on the force screamed abuse at him there. That, at least, would be out in the open. He could have stood there and taken it or he could have screamed back at them. What he really wanted to do was scream at Darren Pitcavage, who’d got out of his cell to attend the services.
Instead, he had to stay here by himself and be miserable. Well, almost by himself. His secretary was one of the handful of clerical people who’d stayed behind to catch phone calls and do whatever else needed doing. Josefina Linares practically radiated indignation. “It’s not fair, Lieutenant, the way they treat you,” she said. “It’s not even close to fair.”
“Thanks, Josie. I appreciate that.” Colin meant every word of it. “But it’s the way things are.”
“Is it your fault Chief Mike had a kid who’s a dope pusher? I don’t think so!” Josie said. “Darren shoulda got in trouble a long time ago. He might’ve known not to be such a jerk then. But Chief Mike kept going to bat for him, so he decided he could get away with anything. I’m here to tell you, though, the world doesn’t work that way.”
“I don’t think it does, either. You’re right,” Colin said. With some Hispanics, he might have made that last Tienes razón. He spoke Spanish—not well, and with a horrible Anglo accent, but he did. It would only have annoyed Josie, though. She was American American, as she would tell you at any excuse or none. She had less sympathy for illegal immigrants than Colin did, and was more likely to call them wetbacks.
“But when Chief Mike had to see what kind of little shit he raised, when he couldn’t stick his head in the sand any more, he got too ashamed to live. That’s what happened. It’s not your fault.” Josie sounded positive.
That was how it looked to Colin, too. That was how he hoped it was. But he was less sure than Josie seemed. Mike Pitcavage hadn’t left behind any reason for killing himself. He’d just gone ahead and done it, damn him. That left plenty of room for people to blame Colin. And people, starting with Pitcavage’s widow, were blaming him.
Josie didn’t notice he hadn’t answered. “It will blow over, Lieutenant. You wait and see. Have faith, that’s all.”
If his having faith was a prerequisite, it would never blow over. After working with Colin so long, Josie had to know as much. She said it anyway. She had faith. Maybe that would do.
When she saw Colin didn’t feel like talking, she shrugged and walked away. He might sit there moping, her attitude declared, but she had work to do.
It was getting toward noon when Rodney Ellis came over to Colin’s desk. “Want to go to Heinrich’s for lunch?” the black detective asked. Caroline had also called to invite him to stay away from the funeral. He was getting the same kind of almost silent treatment Colin was, too. If anything, he was getting it worse. He’d run the Darren Pitcavage bust. And he was black, which sure didn’t make his life any easier.
“Hey, why not? I’m accomplishing so much here.” Colin grabbed his slicker. It had been raining when he pedaled in this morning. The minister would probably say the heavens were weeping for Mike Pitcavage. Ministers said that kind of stuff. Just because they said it didn’t make it so.
It was still raining—drizzling, anyhow. Luckily, the Hofbrau and Sushi Bar was close. On the way, Rodney asked, “So how do you like being a nigger, man?”
“Say what?” Colin wondered if he’d heard that right.
“How do you like being a nigger?” Rodney repeated. He laughed harshly. “Yeah, I know—if you called me that, I’d clock you. But it’s sure as hell how they’re treating you since Mike decided to punch out for good. They leave you out of everything. They do their best to pretend you aren’t around, even when you are. That’s what being a nigger in a white man’s world is all about, or part of what it’s about, anyway. Welcome to the club, dude.” He held out a hand.
Colin shook it. “Thanks. Thanks a bunch. If it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, I’d rather walk.”
If you had to be a restaurant these days, a Japanese-German restaurant was the right kind. You could still get raw fish, or squid and octopus if you couldn’t. And German cuisine ran to the kinds of things people raised in a cold country. Potatoes. Turnips. Pork if you happened to have a pig. It might not be exciting food, but it was there.
They took a long lunch. When they got back, the station had filled up. The cops and clerks and secretaries had returned from the memorial park. “How was it?” Colin asked Gabe Sanchez—somehow, Caroline had left him off her we-don’t-want-his-kind-here list.
“Not so good.” Gabe hesitated, then went on, “Better you hear it from me than from somebody else, I guess. The preacher didn’t quite come out and say you put the rubber band around Mike’s neck to hold the bag in place. Not quite—but he might as well have.”
“Christ! Just what I need!” Colin said. “Let me guess—a bunch of people bought it, starting with Caroline and Darren.”
“Right the first time.” Gabe nodded unhappily. “I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry as hell. No good deed goes unpunished, is what they say.”
“Yeah, that’s what they say, all right,” Colin agreed. The conventional wisdom wasn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss most of the time. This once, the multiheaded they monster had hit the nail right on the thumb.
* * *
Marshall Ferguson had told his father what he knew. Because he had, one man was in jail and another man was dead. When you were sort of on the edge of making your living as a writer, you thought you knew how powerful words could be. They could make people think. They could make people feel. And there you were at the strings, as if you had a violin or a guitar.
Words could make people die.
He’d never imagined that. If he hadn’t talked to his dad, Mike Pitcavage would still be wearing fancy suits and getting expensive haircuts. It wasn’t as if Marshall had had any great liking for the chief or his son. Gett
ing Darren busted didn’t break his heart. He wouldn’t have been bummed if Mike had resigned in disgrace. He might even have been proud, though he never would have shown it.
But when Mike Pitcavage killed himself . . . Marshall wasn’t proud of that. He’d always pretty much skated through life. The worst things that ever happened to him were grandparents passing away and his folks breaking up. He’d been little when his grandparents died one by one, and they hadn’t been young. He’d grieved, yes, but not enormously. And, while the breakup hurt like hell, he knew more people with divorced parents than with fathers and mothers who’d stayed together.
He didn’t know anybody else who’d driven someone to suicide. Vanessa might have wanted to, to show what a femme fatale she was. That was different, though. For one thing, it was bullshit. For another, even if it weren’t, dying for unrequited love was a long way from dying because your son was looking at a felony rap.
No way could he talk to his friends about any of this. If they found out the chief’s suicide had rocked him, they would also have to find out why. He didn’t want them knowing he’d talked to his father.
He couldn’t talk about it with Dad, either. If anything, Dad was hurting worse than he was. A lot of the cops seemed to have decided it was his fault Mike Pitcavage no longer occupied the big office with the window.
“This really sucks, you know?” Marshall said to Kelly. He could talk to her, after a fashion. But she was bound to be hearing it from his father, too. Getting it in stereo was the last thing she needed, especially when she was taking care of Deborah, too.
“It totally sucks,” she agreed. “I’d like to go to the cop shop and bash their stupid heads together, you know?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Like we expected Pitcavage to do that, or wanted him to. No way!” When he said we, he meant I.
For a wonder, she got that. “You did the right thing, Marshall. You—” Deborah chose that moment to wake up with a yowl. “One moment, please,” Kelly said, like an old-time telephone operator.
She came back with the baby and started nursing her. For modesty’s sake, she covered her breast with a blanket. It didn’t bother her, but she’d discovered it did bother Marshall.
For a bigger wonder, she remembered what she’d been saying when she got interrupted, and picked up where she’d left off: “You did the right thing. You can’t help it if Mike Pitcavage did a back flip into an empty pool on account of it. That’s not your fault.”
Marshall desperately wanted to believe it wasn’t, but he couldn’t help asking, “Whose fault is it, then?”
“His. Or Darren’s, for dealing drugs to begin with. Or nobody’s. Sometimes stuff just happens. The supervolcano wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just happened.”
“People aren’t like that, though. I don’t think they are, anyhow.” Marshall believed in free will. But if he was predestined to believe in it, how much good would that do him?
“Well, I don’t, either,” Kelly admitted. “Would turning it into a story make it any clearer in your own mind? Or I guess I mean, would that make it any better for you? I know you’ve got some of your story ideas by taking off from things you went through.”
She paid enough attention to him to notice something like that! The only other person who did was his father, and Dad paid such close attention that half the time Marshall wished he wouldn’t. Right now he felt like that about the whole thing with the Pitcavages.
Which didn’t answer her question. Slowly, Marshall said, “When I do that, I, like, file the serial numbers off first, know what I mean? I don’t see any way to do that with this one. And it doesn’t look like the kind of story that’s got a happy ending for anybody.”
“No, it doesn’t, does it?” Kelly nodded. “Stories don’t have to, though.”
“No, they don’t. But the ones that don’t are a lot harder to sell.” Marshall wouldn’t have thought of it in those terms if not for the lessons from his still-struggling career. He’d sent out a couple of pieces he’d been proud of, to have them come back over and over with rejections that said something on the order of We’d like to see more from you, only not so gloomy next time.
Kelly raised an eyebrow. “I hadn’t looked at it like that. You don’t see many tragedies on TV, either.”
“Part of it, I guess, is that most people’s lives are pretty miserable a lot of the time. They don’t need stories to remind them about it—or editors sure don’t think they do,” Marshall said. “That’s always been so, I bet, but it’s got worse since the supervolcano blew.”
“Everything’s got worse since the supervolcano blew.” After two or three seconds, Kelly corrected herself: “Almost everything. I’m married to your father now, and I wasn’t before. And we’ve got this little portable air-raid siren here now, too.” She grabbed one of Deborah’s pajamaed feet. The baby hardly knew she had feet yet. Marshall remembered John Henry discovering his. Tiny people could be pretty goddamn funny. That was bound to be one of the things that kept their parents from booting them.
“You know what? I think she looks like you,” Marshall said. Talking about his half-sister was one way not to dwell on the bigger problems of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
“Babies look like babies, is what babies look like.” But Kelly went on, “You really think so?”
“I do,” Marshall said. “Dad’s face is kinda squarer than yours, and a kid with his nose would already have a bigger one than she’s got. Take a look at Vanessa’s baby pictures if you don’t believe me. He takes after Dad more than Rob or me.”
“Well . . .” Kelly, Rob realized belatedly, didn’t want to look at Vanessa’s baby photo. She slid Deborah out from under the light blanket and raised her to a shoulder. “I sort of thought the same thing, but I wasn’t sure. I know my folks think she does, but they aren’t exactly objective.”
“No, huh?” Marshall said. They both laughed.
Kelly quickly sobered, though. “I hope this story has a happy ending. It’s eating up your father, too.”
So much for babies. So much for distraction. “Yeah, I know,” Marshall said. “He’d be even worse if it wasn’t for you.”
“Thanks. That’s one of the sweetest things anybody ever told me,” Kelly said. “I just wish I could do more. I wish anybody could do more. . . .” Deborah burped lustily, then spat up. Babies could be distracting in all kinds of ways.
* * *
Colin Ferguson chained his bike to the rack outside the San Atanasio Police Station. Some people made a point of greeting him as he walked to his desk. More made a point of pretending he didn’t exist. It had been like that ever since Caroline Pitcavage found her husband’s body. He kept hoping things would loosen up—a hope looking more forlorn by the day.
“Good morning, Lieutenant!” his secretary said loudly. She left no doubt about whose side she was on.
“Hey, Josie,” Colin answered, at a much lower volume. He wished there were no sides to be on. His wish seemed no more likely to be granted than his hope.
On his desk was a report about a home-invasion robbery from two nights before, at an old tract house near Sword Beach and 135th Street. The bad guys hadn’t shot anybody, but they’d had guns. Jesús Villarobles, the homeowner, was still at San Atanasio Memorial with a concussion from the pistol-whipping they’d given him.
He turned the page. Had they left fingerprints behind? Things would be easier if they had. Before he could find out, his phone rang. He picked it up. “Colin Ferguson, San Atanasio PD.”
“Hello, Lieutenant. This is Lucy Chen, over in the lab. Could I see you for a few minutes, please?”
“Sure,” Colin said, thinking Nice anybody wants to. “What’s cooking?”
“I’d rather talk about it here than over the phone, if that’s all right.”
“O-kay. Be right over.” Colin didn’t
scratch his head, but he wanted to. He felt eyeballs boring into his back as he got up and walked out of the big, communal office. He might have been doing nothing more dramatic than taking a leak. Those eyeballs skewered him anyway.
The lab was down the hall, a couple of doors past the men’s room. The air inside it held a faint chemical odor. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was always there.
“What’s going on?” Colin asked Lucy. Whatever it was, he felt sure it would be something he needed to know about and no one else did. The DNA tech didn’t get excited without a good reason, or sometimes even with one—yet another reason she reminded Colin of his wife.
“This is a DNA analysis I ran last night,” Lucy Chen said, handing him a printout. “Tell me what you make of it.”
Colin wasn’t a DNA expert. He wasn’t a fingerprint expert, either, but he made a pretty fair amateur. He made a pretty fair amateur at DNA patterns, too, also because his line of work had turned him into one. And the pattern on the printout looked familiar. He’d seen it, or one much like it, way too many times. He whistled softly. “Lucy, if this isn’t the South Bay Strangler’s DNA, it’s mighty darn close.”
“It isn’t.” She took another printout off the countertop and gave it to him. “This one is from the Strangler.”
He held one in each hand. Excitement tingled through him. They were close. A break! At last, a break! After so many years, a break! If you had a relative’s DNA, you at least knew who the perp’s relative was, which put you a hell of a lot closer to grabbing him, too. He hefted the printout that didn’t come from the Strangler. “So, who does this belong to?”
She looked at it. She looked at him. “Darren Pitcavage,” she answered.
“You’re kidding,” he said automatically. One look at her face told him she wasn’t. He floundered: “But that’s crazy. It’s impossible. If that one’s from Darren, who—?” He ran out of words, but waved the other printout.
Supervolcano: All Fall Down Page 39