Blood Work

12

YOU FORGOT, DIDN’T YOU?”

There was an easy smile on her face.

“No-I mean, I sort of forgot for the last five hours. I got lost in all of this paperwork I’ve been looking through. I meant to go over to the market and-”

“Well, that’s okay. We can do it another-”

“No, no, are you kidding? We’re going to have dinner. Is this Raymond?”

“Oh, yes.”

Graciela turned to the boy, who was standing shyly behind her at the stern. He seemed small for his age, with dark hair and eyes, brown skin. He wore shorts and a striped shirt. He carried a sweater in his hands.

“Raymond, this is Mr. McCaleb. The man I was telling you about. This is his boat. He lives on it.”

McCaleb stepped forward and leaned down with his hand out. The boy was carrying a toy police car in his right hand and had to transfer it to the other. He then tentatively took McCaleb’s hand and they shook. McCaleb felt an unexplainable sadness as he met the boy.

“It’s Terry,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Raymond. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Can you fish off this boat?”

“Sure you can. Someday I’ll take you out, if you want.”

“That would be good.”

McCaleb straightened up and smiled at Graciela. She looked lovely. She wore a light summer dress similar to the one she had worn the first time she had come to the boat. It was the kind that the breeze off the water easily pushed against her figure. She, too, carried a sweater. McCaleb was in shorts, sandals and a T-shirt that said Robicheaux’s Dock amp; Baitshop on it. He felt a little embarrassed.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Over there they’ve got a nice restaurant on top of the marine store. They’ve got good food and a great view of the sunset. Why don’t we have dinner there?”

“Sounds good to me,” Graciela said.

“All I have to do is change real quick and, Raymond, I have an idea. Why don’t we drop a line off the stern and you see if you can catch something while I go inside and show Graciela a few things I’ve been working on?”

The boy’s face brightened.

“Okay.”

“Okay, then, we’ll fix you up.”

McCaleb left them there and went inside. In the salon he took his lightest rod and reel out of the overhead storage rack, went to the tackle box under the chart table and got out a steel leader already set with a number eight hook and a sinker. He attached the leader to the reel line and then went to the cooler in the galley, where he knew he had some frozen squid. Using a sharp knife, he cut off a piece of squid skirt and drove the hook through it.

He returned to the stern with the rod and reel and handed the rig to Raymond. Crouching behind the boy with his arms coming around him, he gave him a quick lesson on casting the bait into the middle of the fairway. He then told him how to keep his finger on the line and to read it for nibbles.

“You okay now?” he asked when the lesson was completed.

“Uh-huh. Are there fish in here by the boats?”

“Sure, I’ve seen a school of sheepshead swimming right where your line is.”

“Sheepshead?”

“It’s a fish with yellow stripes. Sometimes you can see them moving in the water. You watch for them.”

“Okay.”

“Are you all right now if I go in and get your mother something to drink?”

“She’s not my mother.”

“Oh, yes, I-I’m sorry, Raymond. I meant Graciela. You okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“Okay, give a holler if you hook one. And then start reeling!”

He pointed a finger into the boy’s side and dragged it up his tiny rib cage. McCaleb’s father had done the same thing to him when he was holding a fishing pole, his sides unprotected. Raymond giggled and maneuvered away, never taking his eyes off the spot where his line disappeared into the dark water.

Graciela followed McCaleb into the salon and he closed the slider so the boy would not hear them. His face must have been red from the slip-up with the boy. She read him before he got the chance to apologize.

“That’s okay. It’s going to happen a lot now.”

He nodded.

“Is he going to stay with you?”

“Yes. I’m the only one but that doesn’t matter. I’ve been around since he was born. For him to lose his mother and then me, I think it would be too much. I want him to stay with me.”

“Where’s his father?”

“Who knows.”

McCaleb nodded and decided to step out of that area of questioning.

“You are going to be great for him,” he said. “You want a glass of wine?”

“ That would be great.”

“Red or white?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

“I can’t have any right now. In a couple months.”

“Oh, then I don’t want you to open a bottle of wine just for me. I can have-”

“Please, I want to. How about a red? I’ve got some good red and if I open it, I can at least smell it.”

She smiled.

“I remember Glory was like that when she was pregnant. She used to sit right next to me and say she just wanted to smell the wine I was drinking.”

The smile turned sad.

“She was a good person,” McCaleb said. “I can tell that by the boy. That’s what you wanted me to see.”

She nodded. He went to the galley and got a bottle of red wine out of the sea rack. It was a Sanford pinot noir, one of his favorites. While he was opening it, she came over to the counter. He could smell a light scent of perfume. It was vanilla, he thought. It thrilled him. It wasn’t so much being close to her as feeling that something was awakening in him after a long dormancy.

“Do you have children?” she asked then.

“Me, no.”

“Were you ever married?”

“Yes, once.”

He poured her a glass and watched her taste it. She smiled and nodded.

“It’s good. How long ago was that?”

“What, when I was married? Let’s see, I got married about ten years ago. Lasted three years. She was an agent and we worked together in Quantico. Then, when it didn’t work out and we got divorced, we still had to work with each other and it… I don’t know, we were cool about it but it wasn’t a good thing, you know? About the same time my dad was getting sick out here. So I gave them the idea of sending someone from the unit out here permanently. I sold it to them as a cost-cutting move. I mean, I was flying out here all the time anyway. A lot of us were. I figured they ought to have a little outpost or something out here and save some of that dough. They agreed and I got the job.”

Graciela nodded, turned and looked out the slider to check on Raymond. He was staring intently into the water where he hoped the fish were.

“How ’bout you?” McCaleb asked. “You ever get married?”

“Once, too.”

“Kids?”

“No.”

She was still looking out at Raymond. Her smile was still in place but straining under the conversation. McCaleb was curious about her but decided to let it go.

“By the way, you were good with him,” she said, nodding in Raymond’s direction. “It’s a balance. You have to teach them and let them find out for themselves. That was nice with him.”

She looked at him and he shook his shoulders to indicate it was luck. He took her glass and held it up to his nose to savor its aroma and then handed it back to her. He then poured himself the last from the coffee pot and added some milk and sugar. They clicked mug to glass and drank. She said she liked hers. He said his tasted like tar.

“Sorry,” she said. “I feel so bad drinking this in front of you.”

“Don’t. I’m glad you like it.”

Silence filled the salon. Her eyes fell to the stacks of reports and videotapes on the galley table.

“What did you want to show me?”

“Uh, nothing specific. I just didn’t want to talk in front of Raymond.”

He checked on the boy through the glass. He was doing fine. His focus was still intently on the line cutting through the incoming tide. McCaleb hoped he would hook something but guessed it was unlikely. Below the marina’s beautiful surface the water was fouled with pollutants. Any fish that survived down there was a bottom feeder with the survival skills of a cockroach.

He looked back at Graciela.

“But I wanted to let you know I met with the sheriff’s detective this morning. She was a lot cooler about it than the LAPD guys.”

“She?”

“Jaye Winston. She’s good. We worked together before. Anyway, she gave me copies of everything on both cases. That’s what I spent all day looking through. There’s a lot.”

He summarized as best he could, trying to be gentle about details relating to her sister. He didn’t tell her he had a videotape of her sister’s murder there on the boat with them.

“In the bureau we have this thing called doing a full field,” he said at the end of the summary. “It means leaving nothing untouched, nothing to chance. The bottom line here is that the investigation of your sister’s murder was not a full field but at the same time there’s nothing that jumps out at me as a gaping hole in what was done. There were some mistakes made, maybe some assumptions that were made before all the facts were in but they weren’t necessarily wrong anyway. The investigation was thorough enough.”

“Thorough enough,” she repeated, looking down as she talked. McCaleb realized it had been a poor choice of words.

“I mean-”

“So this guy is just going to get away with it,” she said as a statement. “I guess I should’ve known this is what you were going to tell me.”

“Well, I’m not telling you that. Winston, over at the sheriff’s department-at least she’s still actively pursuing this. And I’m not done, either, Graciela. I’m not saying that. I have a stake in this, too.”

“I know. I don’t mean to sound unhappy with you. It’s not you at all. But I’m frustrated.”

“I understand that. I don’t want you to be. Let’s go have a nice dinner and we’ll talk more later.”

“Okay.”

“You go on out there with Raymond. I’ve got to change.”

After changing into a clean pair of Dockers and a yellow Hawaiian shirt with flying slices of pineapple on it, McCaleb led them down the docks to the restaurant. He hadn’t bothered reeling in Raymond’s line. He’d put the rod in one of the gunwale holders and told the boy they’d check on it when they got back.

They ate at the table with Graciela and Raymond on the side that afforded them a view of the sun just starting to set over the forest of sailboat masts. Graciela and McCaleb ordered the grilled swordfish special, while Raymond had fish and chips. McCaleb repeatedly tried to draw Raymond into conversation but was unsuccessful most of the time. He and Graciela mostly talked about the differences between living on a boat and living in a house. McCaleb told Graciela about how peaceful and restoring it was to be on the water.

“And it’s even better when you’re out there,” he said, pointing in the direction of the Pacific.

“How long before you have your boat ready?” Graciela asked.

“Not long. As soon as I get the second engine back together, it will be ready to run. The rest is all cosmetic. I can do that anytime.”

On the way back after dinner, Raymond walked quickly ahead of them along the seawall, an ice-cream cone in one hand and a flashlight in the other, his blue sweater on, his head bobbing this way and that as he hunted with the light for fiddler crabs scaling the walls. The light was almost gone from the sky now. It would be time for Graciela and Raymond to leave when they got back to the boat. McCaleb felt as though he was already missing them.

When the boy got far enough in front of them, Graciela brought up the case again.

“What else can you do at this point?”

“On the case? For one thing, I have a lead I want to follow, something they might have missed.”

“What?”

He explained the geographic cross-referencing he had done and how he came up with Mikail Bolotov. When he saw her getting excited, he quickly cautioned her against it.

“This guy’s got an alibi. It’s a lead but it may go nowhere.”

He moved on.

“I also am thinking about going to the bureau to get them involved in the ballistics.”

“How so?”

“This guy could’ve done this elsewhere. He uses a very expensive gun. The fact that he didn’t get rid of it between these two cases means he’s hanging onto it and so he might’ve used it before somewhere else. They have some ballistic evidence-the bullets. The bureau might be able to do something with it if I can get them the material.”

She didn’t comment and he wondered if her common sense told her that this was a long shot. He moved on.

“I’m also thinking about going back to a couple of the witnesses and interviewing them a little differently. Especially the man who saw part of the shooting up in the desert. And that’s going to take some finesse. I mean, I don’t want to step on Winston’s toes or make her feel I think she dropped the ball. But I’d like to talk to the guy myself. He’s the best witness. I’d like to talk to him and then maybe a couple of the witnesses to when your sister was… you know.”

“I didn’t know there were witnesses. There were people in the store?”

“No, I don’t mean direct witnesses. But there was a woman who drove by and heard shots. There are also a couple of people in the reports that your sister worked with that night over at the Times. I’d just like to talk to all of them myself, see if maybe anything changed in their memories about that night.”

“I can probably help you set that up. I know most of her friends.”

“Good.”

They walked along in silence for a few moments. Raymond was still well ahead of them. Graciela finally spoke.

“I wonder if you’d do a favor for me.”

“Sure.”

“Glory used to go see this lady in our neighborhood. Mrs. Otero. She also would leave Raymond with her if I wasn’t around. But Glory would go by herself sometimes to talk to her about her problems. I was wondering if you would talk to her.”

“Uh… I don’t… you mean, you think she might know something about this or is this, like, to console her?”

“It’s possible she might be able to help.”

“How would she be able to…”

Then it dawned on him.

“Are you talking about a psychic?”

“A spiritualist. Glory trusted Mrs. Otero. She said she was in touch with the angels and Glory believed it. And she’s been calling and saying she wants to talk to me and, I don’t know, I just thought maybe you’d go with me.”

“I don’t know. I don’t really believe in that sort of stuff, Graciela. I don’t know what I’d say to her.”

She just looked at him and it cut him that he thought he saw disapproval in her eyes.

“Graciela… I saw too many bad things and bad people to believe in that stuff. How can there be angels out there or up there when people do the kinds of things they do down here?”

She still didn’t say anything and he knew her silence was a judgment.

“How ’bout I think about it and let you know?”

“Fine,” she finally said.

“Don’t be upset.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I got you involved in this and I know it’s a big intrusion. I don’t know what I thought. I guess I just thought you’d…”

“Look, don’t worry about it. I’m doing it now for me as much as you. Okay? Just don’t give up hope. Like I said, there’s still a few things I’m going to do and Winston isn’t going to let this drop, either. Give me a few days. If I get stalled out, maybe then we’ll go see Mrs. Otero. Okay?”

She nodded but he could tell she was disappointed.

“She was such a good kid,” she said after a while. “Having Raymond changed everything for her. She straightened up, moved in with me and just got her priorities right. She was going to school in the mornings at Cal State. That’s why she had that night job. She was smart. She wanted to get into the other side of the newspaper business. Be a reporter.”

He nodded and kept silent. He knew it was good for her to keep talking like this.

“She would have been good at it. I think. She cared about people. I mean, look at her. She was a volunteer. After the riots she went down to South-Central to help clean up. After the earthquake she came into the hospital to just be in the ER and tell people it would be okay. She was an organ donor. She gave blood-anytime any hospital called and said they needed blood, she came in. That rare blood… well, she was rarer. Sometimes I really wish I could’ve traded places and that it was me who went into that store.”

He reached over and put his arm around her shoulders in a comforting manner.

“Come on,” he said. “Look at all the people you help at the hospital. And look at Raymond. You’re going to be great for him. You can’t think about who was more worthy or about switching places. What happened to her shouldn’t have happened to anyone.”

“But all I know is Raymond having his own mother would’ve been better than me.”

There was no way to argue with her. He moved his arm and put his hand on her neck. She wasn’t crying but she looked like she might start. He wanted to console her but knew there was only one way he could do that.

They were almost to his dock. Raymond was waiting at the security gate, which was open a couple of inches as usual. The spring return was rusted and the gate never closed on its own.

“We should go,” Graciela said when they caught up to the boy. “It’s getting late and you have school.”

“What about the fishing pole?” Raymond protested.

“Mr. McCaleb can take care of that. Now thank him for the fishing and the dinner and the ice cream.”

Raymond put out his little hand and McCaleb shook it again. It was cold and sticky.

“It’s Terry. And look, we’ll do some real fishing soon. As soon as I get the boat going. We’ll take it out then and we’ll catch you a big one. I know a spot on the other side of Catalina. This time of year, we’ll catch calico bass. Lots of them. We’ll go there, okay?”

Raymond nodded silently as if he guessed it would never happen. It sent a shiver of sadness through McCaleb. He looked at Graciela.

“How about Saturday? The boat won’t be ready but you guys could come down in the morning and we could fish off the jetty. You could stay over if you want. Plenty of room.”

“Yeah!” Raymond cried.

“Well,” Graciela said, “let’s see how the rest of the week goes.”

McCaleb nodded, realizing the mistake he had just made. Graciela opened the passenger door of her Rabbit convertible and the boy got in. She came over to McCaleb after closing the door.

“Sorry about that,” he said in a low voice. “I guess I shouldn’t have suggested that in front of him.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’d like to do it but I might have to juggle some things, so let’s wait and see. Unless you need to know for sure right now.”

“No, that’s fine. Just let me know.”

She took a step closer to him and held out her hand to shake.

“Thank you very much for tonight,” she said. “He’s quiet most of the time but I think he enjoyed it and I know I did.”

McCaleb took her hand and shook it but then she leaned into him, brought her face up and kissed him on the cheek. As she stepped back, she brought her hand to her mouth.

“Bristly,” she said with a smile. “Are you growing a beard?”

“Thinking about it.”

This made her laugh for some reason. She walked around the car and he followed so he could hold open the door. When she was in her seat, she looked up at him.

“You know, you should believe in them,” she said.

He looked down at her.

“You mean angels?”

She nodded. He nodded back. She started the car and drove off.

Back at the boat, he went over to the corner of the stern. The fishing pole was still in the slot and the line was still in the water as Raymond had left it. But as he reeled the line in, McCaleb could tell there was no drag on it. When the line finally came out of the water, he saw the hook and weight but no bait. Something down there had cleaned him out.