Blood Work

17

JAMES NOONE TOLD his story as if McCaleb and Winston were there riding with him in his car, if not his head.

“I have the blinker on and I’m turning in. Here he comes! Brakes! He’s going to-he almost hit me, the asshole! I could’ve-”

Noone raised his left arm, made a fist and shot his middle finger up, an impotent gesture at the driver of the car that had blasted by him. As he did this, McCaleb looked closely at his face, noting the rapid eye movement behind his closed lids. It was one of the indicators he always looked for, a sign that the subject was deeply into the trance.

“He’s gone and I’m pulling in now. I see, I see the man. There is a man on the ground under the light. By the ATM. He’s down-I’m getting out and check to see… there’s blood. He’s shot-somebody shot him. Uh, uh, I’ve got to get somebody-I’m going back to my car for the phone. I can call and get him help. He’s shot. There’s blood on the… it’s everywhere.”

“Okay, James, okay,” McCaleb said, interrupting him for the first time. “That’s good. Now what I want you to do is take your special remote and back up the picture on the TV until the point that you first see the car coming out of the bank’s parking lot. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, now start it again, only this time run it in slow motion. Very slow, so you can see everything. Are you running it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I want you to freeze it when you get the best view of the car coming at you.”

McCaleb waited.

“Okay, I got it.”

“Okay, good. Can you tell us what kind of car it is?”

“Yes. Black Cherokee. It’s pretty dusty.”

“Can you tell what year?”

“No, it’s the newer kind. The Grand Cherokee.”

“Can you see the side of the Cherokee?”

“Yes.”

“How many doors?”

It was a small test to make sure Noone was reporting what he had seen, not what he had been told. McCaleb remembered from the crime scene tape that the deputy who had first interviewed Noone had told him the newer styling on the Cherokee indicated it was the Grand Cherokee model. McCaleb had to confirm the identification of the vehicle and he knew the Grand Cherokee came only in a four-door model.

“Um, two on the side,” Noone said. “It’s a four-door.”

“Good. Now come around to the front. Do you see any damage to the car. Any dents or noticeable scratches?”

“No.”

“Is there any striping on the car?”

“Mmm, no.”

“How about the bumper? Can you see the front bumper?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I want you to take your remote and zoom in on that bumper. Can you see the license plate?”

“No.”

“Why not, James?”

“It’s covered.”

“What’s covering it?”

“Uh, there’s a T-shirt on it. It’s wrapped around the bumper so it covers the plate. Looks like a T-shirt.”

McCaleb glanced over at Winston and could see the disappointment on her face. He pressed on.

“Okay, James, take your remote and zoom up into the car, can you do that?”

“Okay.”

“How many people are in that Cherokee?”

“One. The driver.”

“All right, zoom in on him. Tell me what you see.”

“Can’t really.”

“Why not? What’s wrong?”

“The lights. He’s got the brights on. The glare is too much, I can’t-”

“Okay, James, what I want you to do is take the remote and move the picture. Go back and forth until you have the best view of the driver. Tell me when you have that.”

McCaleb looked back at Winston and she looked back with raised eyebrows. They both knew that they would soon find out if this had been worth it or not.

“Okay,” James said.

“Okay, you’re seeing the driver.”

“Yes.”

“Tell us what he looks like. What color is his skin?”

“He’s white but he has a hat and the brim is down. He’s looking downward and the brim covers his face.”

“All of his face?”

“No. I see his mouth.”

“Does he have a beard or mustache?”

“No.”

“Can you see his teeth?”

“No, his mouth is closed.”

“Can you see his eyes?”

“No. That hat is in the way.”

McCaleb sat back and released his breath in frustration. He couldn’t believe this. Noone was a perfect subject. He was in a deep trance and yet they couldn’t get from him what they needed, a direct look at the shooter.

“Okay, are you sure this is the best view of him?”

“I’m sure.”

“Can you see any of his hair?”

“Yes.”

“What color is it?”

“Dark, like a dark brown or maybe black.”

“What length, can you tell?”

“It looks short.”

“What about the hat? Describe the hat.”

“It’s a baseball hat, and it’s gray. Washed-out gray.”

“Okay, is there any writing on the hat or a team logo?”

“There’s a design, like a symbol.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It’s like letters overlapping each other.”

“What letters?”

“It looks like a C with a line cut through. A one or a capital I or a small L. And then there’s a circle-I mean an oval-around the whole thing.”

McCaleb was silent for a moment thinking about this.

“James,” he then said, “if I give you something to draw on, do you think you could open your eyes and draw this design for us?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I want you to open your eyes.”

McCaleb stood up. Winston had already turned the pad she had on a clipboard to a fresh page. McCaleb took it and her pen and handed both to Noone.

Noone’s eyes were open and staring blankly at the pad as he drew. He then handed it back. The drawing was as he had described it, a vertical line slashing down through a large C. This design was then captured in an oval, McCaleb handed the pad back to Winston, who briefly held it up to the mirrored window so those watching on video could see.

“Okay, James, that was good. Now close your eyes and look at the picture of the driver again. You got it?”

“Yes.”

“Can you see either of his ears?”

“One. His right.”

“Is there anything unusual?”

“No.”

“No earring?”

“No.”

“What about below the ear? His neck, can you see his neck?”

“Yes.”

“Anything unusual there? What do you see?”

“Uh, nothing. Uh, his neck. Just his neck.”

“This is his right side?”

“Yes, right.”

“No tattoo on his neck?”

“No. No tattoo.”

McCaleb blew out his breath again. He had just effectively eliminated Bolotov as a suspect after spending the day building him as one.

“Okay,” he said in a resigned voice, “what about his hands, can you see his hands?”

“On the steering wheel. They’re holding the wheel.”

“See anything unusual? Anything on his fingers?”

“No.”

“No rings?”

“No.”

“Is he wearing a watch?”

“A watch, yes.”

“What kind?”

“I can’t see. I see the band.”

“What kind of band? What color?”

“It’s black.”

“Which wrist is it on, his left or right?”

“His… right. His right.”

“Okay, can you see and describe any of his clothing?”

“Just his shirt. It’s dark. A dark blue sweatshirt.”

McCaleb tried to think of what else to ask. His disappointment in not being able to come up with a substantial lead so far was crowding his focus. Finally, he thought of something he had passed over.

“The windshield, James. Are there any stickers or anything like that on the glass?”

“Mmm, no. I don’t see them.”

“Okay, and take a look at the rearview mirror. Anything on that? Like hanging down or hooked to it?”

“Not that I can see.”

McCaleb now slumped in his chair. This was a disaster. They had lost this man as a potential court witness, eliminated a potential suspect and all they got from it was a detailed description of a baseball cap and a dentless Cherokee. He knew the last step was to take Noone forward to his last view of the Cherokee speeding away, but it was likely that if the front license plate had been covered, so too would be the rear plate.

“Okay, James, let’s hit fast forward to the point that the Cherokee is past you and you are shooting the guy the bird.”

“Okay.”

“Zoom in on the license plate, can you see it?”

“It’s covered.”

“With what?”

“A towel or a T-shirt. I can’t tell. Like the front.”

“Zoom back. Do you see anything unusual about the rear of the car?”

“Mmm, no.”

“Bumper stickers? Or maybe the car dealership’s name on the rear?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Anything on the window? Any stickers?”

McCaleb registered the desperation in his own voice.

“No, nothing.”

McCaleb looked at Winston and shook his head.

“Anything else?”

Winston shook her head.

“Do you want to bring the artist in?”

She shook her head again.

“You sure?”

She shook her head one more time. McCaleb turned his attention back to Noone though he couldn’t help but think about how this had been a gamble that had not paid off.

“James, over the next few days I want you to think about what you saw on the night of January twenty-second and if anything new comes to mind, if you remember any other details, I want you to call Detective Winston, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. Now I’m going to count backward from five and as I do this, you are going to feel your body rejuvenating and you will become more and more alert until I say, ‘One,’ and you become fully alert. You are going to have a high level of energy and feel like you’ve just had eight hours of sleep. You’ll stay awake all the way to Las Vegas but when you go to bed tonight, you won’t have any trouble sleeping. Okay on all of that?”

“Okay.”

McCaleb brought him out of the trance and Noone looked at Winston with expectant eyes.

“Welcome back,” McCaleb said. “How do you feel?”

“Great, I guess. How’d I do?”

“You did fine. You remember what we talked about?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good. You should. Remember, if anything else comes to the surface, you call Detective Winston.”

“Right.”

“Well, we don’t want to hold you up any further. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you.”

“No problem, I didn’t think I’d get out of here until after seven. You’re giving me a head start.”

McCaleb looked at his watch and then back at Noone.

“It’s almost seven-thirty right now.”

“What?”

He looked at his watch, surprise showing on his face.

“People in the hypnotic state often lose time,” McCaleb said.

“I thought it was only like ten minutes.”

“That’s normal. It’s called disturbed time.”

McCaleb stood up and they shook hands and Winston walked him out. McCaleb sat back down and clasped his hands together on top of his head. He was bone tired and wished that he could feel like he had just had eight hours’ sleep.

The door to the interview room opened and Captain Hitchens stepped in. He had a dour expression on his face that was easy to interpret.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked as he sat down on the table next to the scissors.

“Same as you. It was a bust. We got a better description of the car but it still only narrows it down to ten thousand or so. And we got the hat, which there may even be more of.”

“ Cleveland Indians?”

“What? Oh, the CI? Maybe, but I think they have a little Indian guy on their hats.”

“Right, right. Well… what about Molotov?”

“Bolotov.”

“Whatever. I guess we’ve painted him out now.”

“Looks it.”

Hitchens clapped his hands together and after a few uncomfortable moments of silence, Winston came back in and stood there with her hands in the pockets of her blazer.

“Where’s Arrango and Walters?” McCaleb asked.

“They left,” she said. “They weren’t impressed.”

McCaleb stood back up and told Hitchens that if he got off the table he’d put it back in place and then put the light bulbs back into the ceiling. Hitchens said not to bother. He told McCaleb that he had done enough-which McCaleb took to mean in more ways than one.

“Then I guess I’ll be going,” he said. Pointing at the mirror, he added, “You think at some point I could get a copy of the tape or the transcript? I’d like to look at it at some point. Might get a few ideas for a follow-up.”

“Well, Jaye can make you a copy. We’ve got a transfer machine. But as far as any follow-ups go, I don’t see much of a need to pursue this. The guy clearly didn’t see our shooter’s face and the plates were covered. What else is there to say?”

McCaleb didn’t answer. They all left after that, Hitchens pushing his chair back toward his office and Winston leading McCaleb into the video room. She grabbed a fresh tape off a shelf and put it in a tape machine already attached to the one that had recorded the hypnotism session.

“Look, I still think it was worth the shot,” McCaleb said as she pushed the buttons that began dubbing one tape onto the other.

“Don’t worry, it was. I’m disappointed only in the lack of results and because we lost the Russian, not in the fact that we did it. I don’t know what the captain thinks and I don’t care about those LAPD guys, that’s how I look at it.”

McCaleb nodded. It was nice of her to put it that way and let him off the hook. After all, he had pushed for the use of hypnotism and it hadn’t paid off. She could have dumped all the blame on him.

“Well, if Hitchens gives you grief, just put it all on me. Tell him it was all me.”

Winston didn’t reply. She popped the dubbed tape out of the machine, slid it into its cardboard sleeve and handed it to McCaleb.

“I’ll walk you out,” she said.

“Nah, that’s okay. I know the way.”

“Okay, Terry, stay in touch.”

“Sure.” They were out in the hallway before Terry remembered something. “Hey, did you talk to the captain about the DRUGFIRE thing?”

“Oh, yeah, we’re going to do it. A package goes out FedEx tomorrow. I called your guy in D.C. and told him it was coming.”

“Great. You tell Arrango?”

Winston frowned and shook her head.

“Basically, I get the idea that any idea that comes from you, Arrango isn’t interested in. I didn’t tell him.”

McCaleb nodded, threw a salute her way and headed for the exit. He walked through the parking lot, his eyes scanning for Buddy Lockridge’s Taurus. Before he spotted it, another car pulled up alongside him. McCaleb glanced over and saw Arrango looking up at him from the passenger seat.

McCaleb braced himself for the detective’s gloating about the lack of success from the session.

“What?” he said.

He kept walking and the car stayed alongside him.

“Nothing,” Arrango said “I just wanted to tell you that was a hell of a show in there. Four stars. We’ll put a teletype out on the watchband first thing in the morning.”

“That’s funny, Arrango.”

“Just making the point that your little session in there cost us a witness, a suspect who probably should have never been a suspect, and didn’t get us squat.”

“We got more than we had before… I never said the guy was going to give us the shooter’s goddamn address.”

“Yeah, well, we already figured out what the CI on the hat means. Complete Idiots-that’s what the shooter probably thinks of us.”

“If he does, he was already thinking that before tonight.”

Arrango didn’t have an answer for that.

“You know,” McCaleb said, “you ought to think about your witness. Ellen Taaffe.”

“To hypnotize like that?”

“That’s right.”

Arrango barked a command at Walters to stop the car. He popped his door open and jumped out. He came up close to McCaleb, their faces inches apart. Close enough for McCaleb to smell his breath. He guessed that the detective kept a flask of bourbon in the glove compartment.

“Listen to me, bureau man, you stay the fuck away from my witnesses. You just stay the fuck away from my case.”

He didn’t back away when he was done. He just stayed there, his whisky breath burning McCaleb’s nose. McCaleb smiled and nodded slowly as if he had just come into possession of a great secret.

“You’re really worried, aren’t you?” he said. “You’re worried I’m going to break this. You don’t care about the actual case, about the people killed or hurt by this. You just don’t want me doing what you can’t.”

McCaleb waited for a response but Arrango said nothing.

“Then be worried, Arrango.”

“Yeah? Because you’re going to break this one?”

He laughed in a fake way that had far more venom in it than humor.

“Because I’ll let you in on a little secret,” McCaleb said. “You know Gloria Torres? The victim you don’t give a shit about? I’ve got her heart.”

McCaleb tapped his chest and looked back at him.

“I got her heart. I’m alive because she’s dead. And that cuts me into this in a big way. So I don’t care much about your feelings, Arrango. I couldn’t give a fuck about stepping on your toes. You’re an asshole and that’s fine, be an asshole. I’ll put up with that. But I’m not backing out of this till we get this guy. I don’t care if it’s you, me or somebody else. But I’m in this one for the whole ride.”

They just stared at each other for a long moment and then McCaleb raised his right hand and calmly pushed Arrango away from him.

“I gotta go, Arrango. See you around.”