“I’ve had better days.”
“Same here. I was going to call you in the morning.”
“Well, I’m here now.”
“And where are your friends?”
“They’re not my friends. And they definitely aren’t your friends, Terry.”
“Didn’t sound like it. So what’s going on? How come you’re here and they’re not?”
“Because every now and then one of us dopey locals turns out to be smarter than the bureau boys.”
McCaleb smiled without humor.
“You knew I’d have to come back for my medicine.”
She returned the smile and nodded.
“They figure you’re already halfway to Mexico if you’re not there already. But I saw that cabinet full of drugs and knew you had to come back. It was like a leash.”
“So now you get to take me in and get the bust and get the glory.”
“Not necessarily.”
He did not respond at first. He thought about her words, wondering how she was playing this.
“What are you saying, Jaye?”
“I’m saying my gut is telling me one thing, the evidence something else. I usually trust my gut.”
“Me too. What evidence are you talking about? What did you people find in here today?”
“Nothing much, just a baseball hat with the CI logo on it. We figured out it means Catalina Island and it matches the description James Noone gave of the cap the driver of the Cherokee was wearing. Then nothing else-until we opened up the top drawer of that chart table.”
McCaleb looked over at the chart table. He remembered opening the top drawer and checking it after the intruder had been scared off the night before. There was nothing in there amiss or that could hurt him.
“What was in it?”
“In it? Nothing. It was underneath. Taped underneath.”
McCaleb got up and went to the chart drawers. He pulled the top drawer out and turned it over. He ran his finger over the adhesive residue left by pieces of heavy tape. He smiled and shook his head. He thought about how quickly the intruder could have come in, taken a pretaped package and slapped it up under the open drawer.
“Let me guess,” he said. “It was a plastic-”
“No. Don’t say anything. You say anything and it could come back to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you, Terry.”
“I’m not worried about that. Not anymore. So let me guess. Under the drawer was a bag-a Ziploc type of bag. Inside it was the cross earring taken from Gloria Torres and a photograph of James Cordell’s family. The one taken from his car.”
Winston nodded. McCaleb returned to his seat.
“You left out Donald Kenyon’s cuff link,” she said. “Sterling silver, in the shape of a dollar sign.”
“I didn’t know about that. I bet Nevins and Uhlig and that asshole Arrango put on six inches apiece when they found that bag.”
“They were strutting all right,” she said, nodding. “It made them very happy.”
“But not you.”
“No. It was too easy.”
They sat in silence for a few moments.
“You know, Terry, you don’t seem very concerned that evidence linking you to three murders was found in your boat. Not to mention the obvious motive you have for those murders.” She nodded toward McCaleb’s chest. “No, you look like, at best, you are maybe moderately annoyed. You want to tell me why?”
McCaleb leaned forward, elbows on his knees. This brought his face more fully into the light.
“It was all planted, Jaye. The hat, earring, everything. Last night somebody broke in here. He didn’t take anything. So he must’ve left things. I’ve got witnesses. I’m being set up. I don’t know why, but it’s a setup.”
“Well, if you’re thinking Bolotov, forget it. He’s been in Van Nuys jail since his parole officer picked him up Sunday afternoon.”
“No, I’m not thinking Bolotov. He’s in the clear.”
“That sure sounds like a different tune.”
“Events have overtaken the possibility of him being a suspect. Remember, I figured him for that burglary near his work in which the HK P7 was taken. That would have given him the right gun to make him a suspect in Cordell and Torres. But that burglary occurred in December, near Christmas. Now add Kenyon. He was killed with a P7 in November. So it can’t be the same gun; even if Bolotov did the burglary. So he’s clear. I still don’t know why he went ape shit on me and ran, though.”
“Well, like you said, he probably is good for that Christmas burglary. You went in there and spooked him, made it sound like you were going to put a couple of murders on him. He ran. That’s all.”
McCaleb nodded.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“His boss is going to drop his complaint in lieu of restitution for the window that was broken. That’s it. They’ll release him after a hearing today.”
McCaleb nodded again and looked down at the carpet.
“So forget about him, Terry, what else have you got?”
He brought his eyes back up and looked intently back at her.
“I’m close. I’m just one or two steps away from putting this all together. I know who the shooter is now. And I’m just a few days away from knowing who hired him. I’ve got names, a list of suspects. I know the person we want is on that list. Trust your gut on this one, Jaye. You can hook me up now and bring me in and get the bust, but it’s wrong and it won’t fit. Eventually, I’ll be able to prove it. But in the meantime, we’ll miss the chance we’ve got right now.”
“Who is the shooter?
McCaleb stood up.
“I have to get my bag. I’ll show you.”
“Where’s your bag?”
“In a dryer in the marina laundry. I stashed it there. I didn’t know what to expect when I came in here.”
She thought a moment.
“Let me go get it,” he said. “You’ve still got the pharmacy here. I’m not going anywhere. If you don’t trust me, come with me.”
She waved him off.
“All right, go. Get your bag. I’ll wait.”
On the way to the laundry McCaleb met Buddy Lockridge, who was holding the leather satchel taken from the laundry.
“Everything okay? You told me to go get this if I saw anybody put the moves on you.”
“Everything’s fine, Buddy. I think.”
“I don’t know what she’s telling you, but she was one of them that was here today.”
“I know. But I think she’s on my side.”
McCaleb took the bag from him and headed back to his boat. Inside, he turned on the television, put the Sherman Market tape in the VCR, and started playing it. He fast-forwarded the image and watched the jerking motions of the shooter coming in, shooting Gloria Torres and the market owner, then disappearing. Then the Good Samaritan came in and McCaleb put the tape on normal speed. At the moment the Good Samaritan looked up from his work on Gloria’s stricken figure, McCaleb hit the pause button and the image froze.
He pointed at the man on the television screen and looked back at Jaye Winston.
“There. There’s your shooter.”
She stared at the tube for a long moment, her face betraying none of her thoughts.
“Okay, tell me, how is that my shooter?”
“The timeline. Arrango and Walters never saw this as anything more than a common robbery and shooting. That’s how it looked-who can blame them? But they were sloppy. They never bothered completing or verifying a timeline. They took what they saw at face value. But there was a problem between the time on the store video when the shooting went down and the time on the big clock downtown when the Good Samaritan called it in.”
“Right. You told me. What was the discrepancy, a half minute or so?”
“Thirty-four seconds. According to the store’s video, the Good Samaritan called in the shooting thirty-four seconds before it happened.”
“But you said Walters or Arrango said they couldn’t verify the accuracy of the video clock. They just assumed it was off because the old man-Mr. Kang-probably set it himself.”