Pacific Beat

Chapter 20

On the day of Ann’s funeral, the ocean died, the first victims were the small fish that washed up before sunrise — anchovies, smelt, grunion, young bass. By nine, there were halibut, mullet, mackerel, bonita, stingrays, skates, mud sharks, sand sharks, blue sharks, and thresher, carried by the tide to shore, where, bloated, eyes protruding, bladders ejected from their mouths, they lay either dead or in final twitching demise. Half a dozen sea lions were beached, too, but still alive at first. They lolled in the shallows near Poon’s Locker, entangling themselves in mooring lines and issuing their last agonized groans before turning belly-up and silent in the dismal, fog-clenched afternoon. Last to go were the seabirds — the ducks, the gulls and pelicans, a few heron deep in the Back Bay — which floated, limp-necked and feet folded, onto the beaches around noon. By 2:00 P.M., the smell was getting strong.

The old-timers of the peninsula mumbled about a red tide — a deadly buildup of plankton that robs the fish of oxygen — but none of them had ever seen a sea gull die of too much air. Besides, the water wasn’t the telltale orange-brown of a plankton surge, but its usual gray and unassuming self. Charter trips were canceled and the harbor tours were postponed, but the Newport-to-Catalina ship weighed anchor at the usual 8 A.M., dividing with its prow the thousands of bobbing bodies that littered the bay. The ferryboat continued its rims, pushing through the carnage with the glum efficiency of a slow plow in winter. By noon, the EPA, the California Department of Fish and Game, the Coastal Commission, the Coast Guard, the County Sheriffs, the city Marine Department, the mayor, an aid to the governor, and the press had all arrived to evaluate the problem.

Jim saw it from the window of his old upstairs room in the big house. He had spent an aching night tossing on his bed, sweating, plagued by visions of lopping shears and, later in a state of light sleep, again by the dream of someone holding a single purple rose up to Ann’s trusting, lovely face. Before first light, he got up and read the files on Kearns and Blodgett, searching for something that had gotten through, something he hadn’t seen, something he hadn’t understood. The words danced on the paper in front of him, cloying and ineffable. When he finally looked up from the files, he saw the hundreds of pale, shining shapes lining the curve of shore to the south. In the first light of day, they looked like coins spilled from a treasure chest. To the north, he could see a crowd that had gathered on the sidewalk, just past Ann’s Kids. Becky Flynn stood off to the side, talking on a portable telephone. Some of the people were still in their robes. Downstairs, the phone started ringing.

And through it all, the hunt for Horton Goins continued. When he went down to the Locker for coffee, Jim saw a team of uniforms working the motels around the El Mar. When he sat in the window of the café and drank it, Tillis and Oswitz walked by with copies of Goins’s photograph in their hands. The morning paper said that south-county sporting-goods stores were reporting brisk gun sales; Goins’s picture ran again; a front-page article recounted the death of a fifteen-year-old Newport boy who was shot by his own father while trying to sneak back into his house — through his sister’s room — after a night away. Later when he drove Virginia and Raymond and Becky off the island toward the cemetery, they had to stop at the roadblock — with about a thousand other cars, it seemed — set up to find Goins. Officer Hoch, with a swollen purple nose and two black eyes, waved them through. Ray commented on it, but Weir said nothing. He was feeding his anger on silence. The Newport cops had taken him down a notch. So what? He’d quit their world and gotten a less-than-welcome back. The shoulder holster and Poon’s old .45 felt strange against his ribs, troublesome allies.

The helicopter hovered noisily, in and out of sight through the windshield, always audible, always there. An OCTD bus groaned ahead of them and cut straight into the cortege, Dennison’s face smiling back at them through clouds of black exhaust. Two young motor officers provided escort alongside his truck. They never once looked over.

From the chapel in the hills, Weir could see the city below them, the Pacific beyond that, a faint horizon dotted with sails. The aroma of flowers was so heavy that he had trouble drawing breath. Everything seemed to be happening slowly and every movement brought him a rush of pain. The Cruz clan sat across from them, shapes in black, many already sobbing. Ernesto and Irena sat in the first pew on the left, motionless and reduced. Raymond remained erect in a black suit, his face locked safely around something terrible. When Irena turned to look at him, Jim was met by a sadness too complete to behold. He looked away, sat down beside Virginia, and took her big knotted hand in his.

The obituary was offered by the Rev. Matthew Martell, then eulogies by friends. Jim sat, sunk by the ballast of mourning, and considered the black-clad figure of Becky as she stood at the podium, looked out from behind a veil, and cleared her throat.

“One of the blessings of my life,” she said, “was to know Ann Cruz.” A blessing she counted as a great one. Her voice to Jim sounded brittle as glass, ready to crack. But he knew she wouldn’t: Becky was always toughest in a clinch. Behind the black netted veil, her eyes were a dark, wet brown, and her lips below were red as apples. To Jim’s mind, assaulted by the cruelty of reminiscence, staggered by the heavy smell of the flowers, surrounded by the people with whom he had grown up in this crowded small-town neighborhood, she seemed to be talking only to him. He lost himself in her.

“We were girls, then women together. When I was confused, Ann was clear. When I had doubt, Ann had certainty. When I was undecided and afraid, Ann had judgment and courage. And when there was something I had to do, and right and wrong weren’t clear, I could always ask myself what Ann would do, and know that that would be right. She loved me with generosity and good humor; she felt my sadness and shared my joy. There was something at the center of her that I came to realize was in her blood, the blood of Virginia and Poon, the blood that rims... that ran through all their children. If I had to say what it was, I’d say it was dignity, the refusal to be diminished by the things in life that try to diminish us all.” Becky looked out to the mourners, her eyes pausing on Jim. “That, and a willingness to put herself on the line, to commit herself to what she believed and act accordingly. In the time I knew her, Ann was never cruel for the sake of cruelty. She never laughed at someone who didn’t have what she had. She never assumed that she deserved what she had — there was no arrogance in her, no pride. The one person she could always laugh at was herself, and she did that often. You...” Becky wiped a tear away with a slender finger slid up under the veil. She took a deep breath. “You all know what an honor it was just to hear her laugh, to see the sparkle of her eyes and the sparkle of her soul coming through. I think that... I think that where Ann goes will be a better place for her presence, and that what she leaves us is a place much lessened by her loss. To say that there are no words for all of this would be a lie. There are words, too many of them, too many thousands of words used over and over to express what we feel. They are not designed to carry such weight. That burden is left to us. I will just say one more thing, that I hope God in heaven will treat her with the gentleness and respect that is due to Ann, that He didn’t... offer her on this earth. That is my hope and my comfort. In honor of Ann, I will love and smile and laugh, and consider her, forever and in perpetuity, among us.”

Jim sat, asking himself the usual huge questions: Was there something he could have done or should have noticed; why was there such misery for the people whom God is supposed to care about as much as He does the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; is Ann really going to a better place or is that a fiction told by the living for themselves?

Irena and Nesto Cruz were sobbing openly as Becky stepped down. She fixed her eyes on Jim’s, as if they were the sole known coordinates in a storm, following them to her seat.

Raymond’s head was bowed; he was so still that he seemed to be a statue of himself. Weir felt the tremoring of grief inside, the tectonic shelves of one emotion shifting against another. Becky wrapped an arm through his. He put his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees and felt the tears welling into his eyes from a part of him that seemed filled with them.

Then everyone filed out and watched as Ann was put into the ground. The fresh dirt was covered by a black tarp. The grave was neat, precise, deep. Through the flowers and perfume and sweat, Jim could smell the city below, the smell of death and sea and muted sun.

Somehow he got them back to the big house for the gathering. Three different radio stations reported that toxic levels of the solvent 1,1,1-trichloroethane had been found in Newport Harbor. Beaches were closed until further notice.

Weir, Virginia, and Ray greeted the mourners at the door. Jim clasped hands, returned embraces and kisses, mumbled his appreciation of whatever was said. Each condolence seemed to take something out of him, open up a new grief. The odd, slow motion of the funeral service was still upon him, as if the afternoon were taking its rhythm from a time signature he’d never heard. Everyone looked bigger when he met them at the door — the solemn faces, the moist eyes, the unsure chins. Raymond stood straight beside him, his voice calm but somehow disembodied. His smile was withered; his usual animation and quickness were gone. Of all the people in the room, thought Weir, Ray’s the only one who hates this more than I do. When most of the people had arrived, he joined them, went to the bar, poured himself a double shot of scotch, downed it, and took a beer from the cooler.

As he looked around the room, the world seemed to divide into two camps — them and us. Us was himself, Virginia, Raymond and his family, Becky. Them was everybody else. There they were, standing in his home, Ann’s home. There they were, drinking Virginia’s booze, eating her food. There they were, dressed up, talking of who knew what, advancing their own private ambitions, seductions, concealments, and betrayals under the same roof that had protected the child Ann. There they were, all doing what Ann would never do again, all honoring her in death in a way that they would never honor her in life. You hypocrites, he thought, you latecomers, you fakes. You dispensable, minor, alien fucks. It was a sacrilege. He caught the eye of every cop he could and sent his clearest message: You changed the game last night; you will pay. He was not exactly sure how. He finished off the beer and poured another scotch. Mayhem was calling.

He watched Dale Blodgett come through the door, find the law-enforcement contingent in a far corner, then head in the other direction. Dennison’s droop-eyed Judas, thought Jim, odd man out. Was he one of the six from last night? There was no certain way to tell. Clever to have brought along a Jaguar. He took another drink, watching Virginia trail across the room to meet Blodgett, where they hugged for a long, almost motionless moment. Blodgett’s big, thick-featured body somehow complimented the wiry, wind-burned Virginia.

Becky took his arm. “Watch that stuff,” she said, tapping his glass. “You’ve got that expression — all wound up and nowhere to go. Hang on to it, though. You’re going to need it.”

From across the room, Virginia gave him an odd look. He was about to head over when he realized it was for Becky, who excused herself and worked through the crowd toward her. Jim watched as Blodgett hugged her, his big hands open against the black back of her dress. Brian Dennison, Jim noted, was watching, too. Then Becky broke away and followed Virginia down the hallway and into Ann’s old room, where they shut the door. Politicos, thought Weir: They never stop.

Phil Kearns and Crystal from Oklahoma edged over to Jim. Kearns looked like a model — hair gelled back, face tan, a black linen suit with a black shirt buttoned to the top, no tie. Crystal was small, pretty, pink from her morning sun on Kearns’s deck. She gave Jim a small, somehow inviting smile.

Kearns talked on about Ann, and Weir sensed a genuine sadness in him. But Kearns wouldn’t use her name, as if he felt obliged to hold something he didn’t want to touch. When Crystal went for drinks, Weir stepped in front of Kearns, sealing him off from the rest of the room.

“You didn’t answer four calls from Dispatch that night, Phil. Between twelve-thirty and twelve-fifty. Explain.”

Kearns blushed, even though his eyes narrowed — A contradictory response, thought Weir.

“Not true. Dispatch calls my squad, I answer. If I was quiet for twenty minutes, that means she was quiet for twenty minutes. Jesus, Weir, this is a funeral.”

“The trouble is, I got a copy of the Dispatch tape. Carol tried to rouse you four times. What she got back from you was nothing. It’s all right there, on record.” He was bluffing. “I’ll play it for you anytime you want to hear.”

“Chief might like to hear his Dispatch tape is floating around Newport,” he said. “Unless he already knows.”

“Fuck the chief,” said Jim.

Kearns eyed him with a look of amusement.

“I want some answers, Kearns. If I don’t get them from you, Dennison will. If he listens to that tape, he’s going to haul your ass onto the carpet.”

Kearns’s face lost its self-satisfied glow for a moment. Without it, he had a hollow, hard expression. The expression, thought Weir, of someone capable of going through with things. “I’ll talk about that on two conditions. One, if you believe me, you won’t go to Dennison with it. Two, if you believe me, you’ll stay the hell out of my life.”

“Agreed.”

“You look like a guy who’d agree to just about anything to get what he wants.”

“That’s what I am. Talk, Kearns.”

The expression of amusement on Phil Kearns’s face turned to contempt. “I gave a citizen a ride home.”

Weir imagined said citizen, said ride. Would it jibe with Blodgett’s story of an out-of-beat squad car coming off the peninsula that night? “Did you use the bridge at midnight, come onto the mainland?”

“No. It was eleven-thirty and I didn’t stop off at the Back Bay. But don’t believe me, Weir. You want to talk to my alibi, she’ll tell you herself what happened. I’ll pick you up outside the Whale’s Tale tonight at ten. I want you to listen to her and listen good. Then I want you out of my face.”

“When did you make your play for Ann?”

A cool, predatory look came to Kearns’s face. “Never.”

Jim drank again, studying Kearns. “Why not? I think if I were you, I might have. I think you liked her a lot. I think it drove you crazy that she looked like an animal in a cage — your words — and you could let her out so easily. ’Cause you know what you saw when you looked at her? You saw a woman you could stand five of her next to” — Jim nodded toward Crystal — “and Ann would still add up to more. You saw a woman, not a girl. You saw someone in the same boat as yourself.”

The sergeant studied Jim’s face, then looked away toward Crystal. “You’re right. That’s what I saw. But I didn’t act on it, not once, not consciously.”

“Why not?”

“Ray.”

Kearns locked eyes with Jim. In the calm strength of Kearns’s expression, Weir believed he saw a man telling the truth.

“Tell me what you thought of her, Kearns. Just for me. I want to know what you thought of Ann.”

Kearns looked away. “I thought Ann Cruz was the most desirable woman I’d ever met.”

“But you never told her that.”

“Never.”

“What about Ray?”

Kearns sighed quietly. “No. Weir, what’s it fucking matter?” He watched Crystal coming back toward them, this pale lovely girl from Oklahoma willing to make him happy, two glasses of champagne in her red-nailed hands. He stared at her, a long moment of assessment, then at Weir. “I don’t know about you, but I’m here to mourn your sister.”

Kearns took the glass from Crystal and aimed her toward the cop corner. Weir caught Dennison watching. Doesn’t miss a trick, he thought.

He drank again, then worked his way over to Dale Blodgett, standing alone by the bar. Blodgett shook his hand and apologized for missing the service. His scarred, sun-lined face was all the more pronounced above the collar of his ill-fitting suit jacket. His heavy left eye bore into Weir. “I was with the EPA and Fish and Game people, trying to figure out how five hundred gallons of TCE got into the bay.”

“How do they know it’s five hundred gallons?”

“Just an early guess, from the damage. The ocean side isn’t touched yet — just the harbor. They said five hundred gallons would do it. Strong stuff. They’ll find out who dumped that shit. There’s only a few companies licensed to use it around here.”

“What’s it for?”

“Solvent. Breaks down just about anything. Grease, paint, rust.”

“Maybe it’ll give Becky an edge in the election. Get some more people out for the Slow Growth thing.”

“We’ll take it,” said Blodgett. He poured himself a vodka on the rocks, then lit a cigarette.

Jim heard the phone ring, then saw Virginia and Becky both moving down the hallway again.

Blodgett shook his head. “Lots of covert ops for a funeral,” he said.

“That’s Mom.”

“Fine woman. Tell me, Weir, how goes your investigation of the Newport cops?”

“It goes fine. You find out a lot of interesting things.”

“Like what?”

Jim didn’t answer. He watched as Becky came back up the hallway, without Virginia.

Blodgett grinned. “Tell me, Weir. Which one of us did it?”

Jim followed Blodgett’s glance toward the cop corner. Half of the men over there were looking at him now — Innelman and Deak, Tillis and Bristol, a few patrolmen that Jim had never met. Dennison stood in the middle of them, his attention fixed on Jim.

“I’m not sure yet. But I’m curious about a couple of things.”

“I don’t talk about those guys. I told you that in my driveway that night, and I’m telling you that now.” Jim noticed a couple more heads turning his way.

Weir saw how hard it was for Blodgett to be part of Dennison’s force and still stay loyal to his own politics. This little show is at my expense, he thought, to prove to the men that Dale’s really just one of them.

He spoke loud enough to reach the cop corner. “The only cop I’m curious about anymore is you, Blodgett. You and your big ugly face and your fishing boat without any rods in it. You and your buddy from Cheverton Sewer.”

Blodgett’s face went red; the heavy left eyelid faltered down a notch. He turned his back to the cop corner, screening them off. His crooked teeth revealed themselves. “You followed me? I take offense at that. Definite damned offense.”

“Let’s weep, fat man.”

Blodgett lit a cigarette, blew the smoke into Jim’s face. “I make an albacore run on my night off, and you follow me. I’m starting not to like you very much, Weir.”

“Funny albacore run, Blodgett. Can’t catch much in forty minutes with no rods, no tackle, no bait. The pole racks on Duty Free were empty. You didn’t catch any fish. You weren’t even trying to. What was under the tarp? Official police secret?”

Blodgett smiled, a wholly vicious exercise. He clasped Jim’s shoulder with a heavy, powerful hand.

“Step outside Weir?”

“Love to. And take that thing off my shoulder.”

They stood on the sidewalk outside the big house, up next to the seawall, staring out at the dead fish bobbing on the shoreline. The bodies stretched up the bay as far as he could see. The smell had risen in pitch.

Blodgett drew on his cigarette. “You ask too many questions that aren’t your business. You insult me. But I’ll tell you what we were doing, because you’re Virginia’s son, and because you’re the kind of guy who needs things spelled out real clear. That’s okay — your mother’s the same way. Weir, trichloroethane isn’t new here. The levels have been rising since last spring, when Fish and Game came out to test salinity and find out why the fish were croaking off. Not enough for anyone to notice — strictly trace. Virginia got the EPA on it, and they came back out every two weeks, figured the dumps were being made once a month or so. City council got the news in session; they budgeted Dennison an extra five hundred a month out of the general fund to have someone out there once in a while. That five hundred barely covers the gas for my boat, not to mention the wear and tear, or the head gasket I blew that night, or my precious goddamned time. I do it because it needs being done. I’m the entire goddamned Toxic Waste patrol, Weir — me and whoever I can get to lend a hand. We were on the bay, watching for whoever dumps that shit in my backyard. We missed them. One boat isn’t enough. Dennison can’t get any more money from the city, and he won’t budget us for another boat because a few dead fish don’t mean squat to him when he can get a new chopper or a few new uniforms on the street. That’s one of the reasons Becky Flynn should be the mayor of this town. And that’s the whole reason I took off fishing that night with no gear. My gear’s at home. When I fish, I fish, man, I go for days — down to Mexico. I wouldn’t eat anything out of the local ocean if you paid me, anyway. Nobody’s going to for a long time, now.”

“What was under the tarps?”

“Oh, for chrissakes, Weir — my fighting chairs. What else do you find on the stern deck of a fishing boat?”

“Who’s your buddy from Cheverton Sewer?”

Blodgett jammed his finger into Weir’s chest. Jim leaned a little into it, gave no ground. “None of your business. It varies, though. Some nights, my buddy is Virginia Weir.”

Jim said nothing. He’s been expecting this. What he really wondered about was something else. “And some nights, it was Ann.”

Blodgett showed his equine teeth again. “Some nights, it was Ann and Virginia. Never Ann alone. Not once.”

“Was she with you when Virginia took the samples?”

“That’s part of what we do, and we do it every week. Annie was there for that a couple of times.”

“So Annie knew there were trace levels, someone dumping — out in the open ocean probably?”

“Ann knew that.”

Weir tried to figure Ann’s place in all of this. Had she found something more than what Blodgett and Virginia were looking for? “What else did she know? Why hide the tubes in her refrigerator?”

“She hid the tubes because Virginia told her to. What else did she know? I’ve got no idea.”

“When was the last time Ann went out with you?”

“Month ago or so.”

“Was it the night you took the samples?”

Blodgett looked hard at Jim. A tight smile came and went. “No. We got distracted. We saw the boat.”

“The dumpers?”

Blodgett nodded.

“What did it look like?”

“Not much in the fog. We couldn’t catch it.”

“Where?”

“Two miles straight west of the harbor mouth.”

Jim watched a halibut, eyes paired by eons of evolution, flipping disconsolately on the sand. “Did Ann see it, too?”

“We all did. Ann, Virginia, and me.”

It suddenly made sense, why Virginia hadn’t been forthcoming with what she’d seen. “You reported it all to Brian, but he wouldn’t go public with it because it makes him look asleep on watch.”

Blodgett nodded and grunted. “My watch, too, Weir.”

“He was hoping the problem would go away. Virginia was hoping it would get worse. Trace levels in the bay don’t get headlines. This does.”

Blodgett pointed his cigarette out to the dying harbor. “Now it’s a matter of who plays it best. My money is on Becky.” Blodgett eyed him silently for a long moment. “You’ve got an untrusting mind. I like that. But it’s not focused. You should get clear on some things.”

“Like what?”

“Like who your friends are, for one.”

“That’s supposed to make you a buddy of mine?”

“It’s supposed to let you back off and get to the heart of the matter.”

“Which is what?”

“Your sister was cheating on Ray. That’s where she was the night she got cooled. Find him, you find the perp. It doesn’t have anything to do with this ocean here.”

“How do you know she was cheating?” Jim said it and listened for the how.

“How much evidence do you need? Dressed up like that, driving around late at night? Some guy with flowers and a diamond fucking tie tack? No struggle getting her down there. No struggle later. Come on, Ann didn’t go down there with some freak like Horton Goins. She didn’t go down there with some cop working with Raymond, I don’t care what Mackie Ruff thinks he saw. Don’t you know your sister any better than that? I barely knew her but I could tell she was decent enough. Ann had a foot in another world. That’s the world that got her dead. It doesn’t have a thing to do with that Goins kid. The DA’s along for the ride with Dennison, for now, but things will look different after June fifth. Don’t forget, Frank D’Alba’s been district attorney here for eight years, and he’s up for reelection, too. It’s all just a fuckin’ headline grab for him and Dennison. They’re all after a piece of your sister.”

“What about the pictures Goins took? What about the girl in Ohio?”

Blodgett sighed and looked out across the dying bay. “I’m just saying what I think is right. I don’t think it was Goins.”

“I don’t, either, but he was following her. That’s more than just a coincidence.”

“Maybe you’re not as dumb as I thought.”

Blodgett leaned forward on the seawall, still looking across to the mainland. “What a fucking shame,” he said. Then he turned to Weir. “Jim, if I catch you doggin’ me, hanging around, I’ll bust you up real good. I don’t care who’s kid you are. Nobody follows Dale Blodgett, nobody sneaks around, nobody calls what I do into question. I got a sense of right and wrong that does all that for you. Back off and stay off. Other than that, I’ll help you with Ann, all I can. She seemed like a real good woman. It’s a goddamned shame — all of it. Everything.”

They looked for a moment out to the bay. Blodgett popped his cigarette into the water. For a moment, Weir was aware of the man studying him. Finally, Blodgett spoke. “That boat I saw? The dumpers? I haven’t told anyone this, because I figure I’m wrong. I want to be wrong. I figure it’s a coincidence, you know — lots of boats in Newport Harbor.”

Jim waited.

“It was a thirty-foot Bayliner, set up just like that one.”

Weir followed the line of Blodgett’s pointing finger, up the bay-front to Becky Flynn’s dock. Her boat — once our boat, Weir thought — rocked against her lines.

“I don’t understand anything anymore, Weir,” said Blodgett. “I’m getting to the point where there’s too many things I don’t want to know.”

They headed back into the house.

Dennison broke away from Ernesto Cruz and came over to Jim. His suit was a dark blue chalk-stripe, expensive, but cut too tight around his barrel chest. His eyebrows were furrowed, his face flushed. From captain to interim chief to mayor, all in one year, thought Jim. But Brian could pull it off. His confidence was astounding, contagious. And somehow — maybe it was his face, or his modest public demeanor, or maybe it was the perpetual air of the underdog that Dennison employed so disarmingly — you forgave him the sin of ambition. You wanted to root for him.

He rested a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “What a day. I’m awful sorry, Jim. It was a lovely service, for what it’s worth.”

“What have you gotten from the tie tack?”

“Ann’s blood, no prints. We’re still working on a trace, but nothing yet.”

Weir was aware of the men looking over at him again, trying to appear as if they weren’t.

“Kind of like yours, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I figured some genius would make that point. The difference is, mine wasn’t found with Ann.”

Dennison reached down and fingered his tie tack. It was a dark blue stone set in gold.

“God knows where Ruff really found it,” said the chief. “For right now, I’ll believe him. He’s a great witness, don’t you think?”

Jim followed his hooking thumb to where Ruff was attempting to stuff a bottle of rum down his pants. He wouldn’t put down his drink to do it, though: It sloshed in one hand as he aimed the bottle through his waistband with the other. He swayed like a man in a hurricane.

Weir caught the laughter from the cop corner as Dennison glanced with satisfaction toward his men.

Becky angled her way over to Jim and Dennison. Weir could feel the interim chief stiffen at her approach. Whatever she and Virginia had been hatching must have worked out, thought Jim; there’s a glow on her. The warmth of the room had brought a fine glistening to her upper lip and cheeks, and her wavy brown hair had loosened in the humidity. She offered her hand to Dennison, who took it with a formal smile. “Tough precinct for you,” she said.

“It sure is.”

“It’s the heart of the city.”

“It’s a big city, Ms. Flynn.”

“Really it’s just a small town, Chief. It needs to be treated that way, by people who care about it.”

“We’ll see what the people think in June.”

Becky made a show of looking out over the crowd, settling on the cop corner. “Which one of them did it?”

Dennison actually choked on something, washing it quickly down with a sip from his drink. “What?”

“Come on, Chief,” she said, turning an inquisitive smile on him. “Everybody knows what Ruff saw. Everybody knows you put Jim here on the case — the department’s case. Everybody knows your secretary copied the time cards and personnel files so Jim could take a look at your people. Like I said, this is a small town.”

Dennison’s unsure eyes found Jim, and Becky heard the unspoken line.

“He didn’t tell me a goddamned thing, Brian,” she said. “He kept his end of the deal. So I’m asking you.”

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I want to know if you’re going to continue investigating this case or not.”

“Of course we are.”

“After you get Goins?”

“It’s up to the DA after that. If he indicts, our work is done. You can’t prosecute two people if only one of them is guilty.”

“Exactly,” said Becky.

“We’ve already got a solid case against him, and we haven’t even talked to him yet,” said Dennison. “D’Alba’s given the green light to George Percy. Percy’s satisfied they can indict on what we’ve got now.”

Weir remembered George Percy, an Orange County assistant district attorney, from his days with Sheriffs. He was a lithe, good-humored man with thick black hair that cascaded down onto his brow like a cheap hairpiece, which it wasn’t. In court, he was courteous, disingenuous, and cunning when he needed to be. There was something about him of the front porch, the family picnic, the station wagon. Juries liked him because he reminded them that the state i was made up of people just like them: a little bewildered, a little overworked, and, of course, outraged at what had happened.

Becky laughed, curling her mouth up in a mocking smile. It was the look that, when turned on Jim, had always brought his blood to a boil. The sheer depth of its disdain made the ground shift under you. “Saying he can indict doesn’t mean he can, and pulling it off still leaves him with a long, hot jury trial to handle.”

“What’s this,” asked Dennison, “you think Goins is innocent?”

Becky shrugged. “Let’s include that on our debate topics.”

Dennison colored. “I’m looking into that.”

“Got to get Paris’s expert opinion on whether you should talk in public? You’re going to have to start guiding your own ship, Chief. Your hesitation on the issues is starting to show.”

No wonder he doesn’t want to argue with her in public, thought Jim; she’d cannibalize him.

“Don’t confuse hesitation with prudence and good judgment,” said Dennison.

“I don’t know how you got them into the same sentence, Chief.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Come on... let’s debate. Let’s fire up this election.”

“Politics isn’t a spectator sport for me, Ms. Flynn — it’s serious business.”

Becky nodded, a little condescendingly, Weir thought. “I should think that bringing a case against Horton Goins would be pretty frivolous business,” she said. “No physical evidence putting him at the scene; an eyewitness — undependable as he may be — who saw a cop. No motive except his own illness, which you can’t use because Goins already did his time and took his cure. We get a change of venue out of Orange County, half your steam goes out.”

Weir suddenly realized what Becky was saying. He felt himself blink. Becky Flynn had never, not once in her life, lost her ability to astonish him.

It took Dennison another moment to get it. “You’re going to defend him?”

“I intend to. If you catch him before you kill him, that is. I’ve already talked to his parents.”

What does she know, thought Weir. It’s an incredible risk, unless she knows something that we don’t.

Dennison’s battered expression indicated the scope of his discomfort. He looked toward his men again, a reflexive search for Paris, Weir decided. “Then I guess we don’t have a lot to talk about,” he said.

“I’ll get it through discovery anyway,” she said.

Dennison nodded, then bowed slightly, a gesture intended to be courtly but that came off instead as backwoods and clunky. “Good luck with the election, Ms. Flynn,” he said. “And the trial.” Weir could see the fury building in Dennison’s eyes.

“Give the people of this town a debate,” she said. “It’s the least you can do with Cantrell’s bankroll behind you.”

“My financing is no secret,” he said. “Everything’s above the board.”

“Except who that diamond tie tack belongs to.” Becky fingered the sapphire stone that held Dennison’s tie to his shirt. “Could be anyone.”

Dennison’s mouth parted for a beat, before he turned and walked away. Becky looked at Jim impishly, the same expression Ann used to get when as kids they’d put masking tape on the kittens’ feet. She took a sip of her drink, then a longer one, then finished it right down to the ice. She leaned up close to Jim. The musky smell of perfume and sweat enclosed him. “Virginia and I found out who ordered the roses for Ann,” she whispered. The end of her tongue, cooled by ice, slid very lightly along the outline of his ear.

Jim pulled back and waited, looking into the deep brown of Becky’s eyes. It crossed his mind that Counselor Flynn was a little drunk.

“And?”

“Talk to me, Weir. Please come talk to me.”

He offered his arm, which Becky took, and they headed for the back door.