Weir was surprised to see Dennison defending Blodgett, the only officer on his force actively working to defeat him in the election. Brian has a thin line to walk, he thought: Be thorough, be fair, but convincingly kick Becky’s ass on June 5. Maybe the sheer publicity of Blodgett’s dissension was what kept Dennison on the level — anything less than fair play on the chiefs part would alienate his men, and make good fodder for the press. “Blodgett wasn’t out long enough to shake much down. Fog. Middle of the night, out on the same bay where we found Annie. Why?”
Dennison considered, his eyes again moving from Jim to Raymond. “That’s all, Weir.”
“That’s enough, isn’t it?”
“You don’t understand me. You’ve done your part. It’s over. You’re done.”
Jim felt sucker-punched, a little rush of breath leaving his chest. “Kearns and—”
“You’re done, Weir. That’s all, and that’s it. You got enough for me to think about, so I’ll think about it, right?”
“Kearns and Blodgett have a lot of answers to give,” said Jim. “I can get those answers. Give me a few more days. I can—”
“You can’t do a damn thing that Internal Affairs can’t do better.” Dennison smiled at Jim with a wicked little nod that Weir supposed was to underscore the cunning of bringing in Internal Affairs. “That’s right. I’m taking this to them. It’s in our lap now.”
Raymond stepped back and looked down, nudging at something with his shoe. He glanced up to Jim with a look that asked for caution.
Dennison clapped his hand over Jim’s shoulder. “Nice work, Jim. Look, we had a go at Goins’s bedroom in Costa Mesa. There are some things you should see. Dwight?”
Innelman knelt again, pulled an envelope from his briefcase, and handed it to Raymond. Jim looked over his shoulder as Ray opened it and took out the photographs. The top two were of the peninsula ferry, the next of Poon’s Locker-taken early morning, Jim could tell from the angle of shadow — then a picture of Ann’s Kids taken after closing. The last shot was of the preschool during an outdoor break, the play area filled with toddlers on the move. Among them, bending over slightly to help a boy onto a rocking horse, her hair spilling down around her face, her smile calm and lovely, was Ann.
Jim felt a warm flush come to his face. He heard Raymond’s breathing deepen and slow.
“It’s a telephoto shot,” said Innelman. “She doesn’t know he’s out there, is my guess. He sniped her. Robbins ran the originals and got what you’d expect — Goins’s fingerprints on the edges. These are copies.”
“He shot from the water,” said Jim.
“Used the ferry,” said Ray.
“That’s our guess, too,” said Innelman. “Or he could have rented one of those little motor dinghys. Goins couldn’t have much money unless he’s been pulling some local jobs, so the ferry seems most likely.”
Raymond stared at the last picture. The silence widened. Ray looked first at Jim, then to Dennison and Dwight. “Where the fuck is this guy? How hard can it be to—”
“We’ve got extra men on a door-to-door right now,” said Dennison. “The newspapers will help. We’ll get him, don’t worry.”
“Who developed the originals?” Raymond’s voice had taken on a calm that Weir could vividly recall — the adrenaline cool of pursuit.
“He did. He moved out the hardware when he left the Island Gardens.”
Weir asked about a hair sample to match the one found I on Ann’s blouse.
“No match. Robbins already tried. But that hair could have been a floater, we know that. It doesn’t let Goins off the hook — not even a little.”
Innelman gently took the pictures back from Ray. “I’m having Robbins run my hair, and Roger Deak’s. We contaminate things sometimes, no matter how hard we try. You and Jim ought to give him a sample, too, just to save time. But the other physicals match up, Ray — blood type B positive, right-handed, same weight as the guy who left the prints at the crime scene, same size feet. We’ll run genetics as soon as we have him. I talked to Mrs. Connaught — the old woman that Kearns kicked up. I looked out her bedroom window. Where she saw the car was where someone would park to take the path down. She looked at a picture I shot of Goins’s car — from above — and she says it looks the same. We took soils from some of Goins’s shoes — Robbins says one pair has some salts and silicas that indicate a saltwater estuary. He was down there, we just haven’t established when. We’re building, we’re getting closer.”
Dennison took Raymond’s arm and moved off to Goins’s car. They stood examining the primer patch on the driver’s door, but Weir couldn’t hear what they were saying.
Innelman checked his watch, looked over at his boss, then came closer to Jim. His voice was flat and quiet. “You should know this. Blodgett got drunk at a party a few weeks back and said he’d seen someone dumping in the bay. He couldn’t catch up, or lost them, something like that. I know Ann had been out with him on Toxic Waste. Blodgett’s got a terrible temper. There were rumors he burned out a gill netter last year, just for the fun of it. At the party, he’s drunk and he says if he catches the dumpers, he’ll sink their boat with them in it. He hasn’t done that, yet, so far as anybody knows. But maybe Ann saw something. Knew something. I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this, I’ve known Blodgett for eight years and I don’t know him at all. Internal Affairs is a joke. Got me?”
“Got you. Why would a cop burn out a commercial fisherman?”
“Blodgett’s a fascist sportsman. He and the tree huggers don’t like the netters taking out so many fish, choking all those sea lions in the mesh. He volunteered for the Toxic Waste job. Blodgett’s got the same attitude about the water that all these so-called environmentalists have — he thinks it’s his.” Innelman glanced over toward the chief. “None of what I just told you is Dennison’s favorite topic, because if he gets in Dale’s face, it makes Brian look bad. Politics. Personally, I think Dale’s a loose cannon.”
“Thanks, Dwight.”
“There are people who know more about all that than I do. Your mother, for instance, or Becky Flynn. Just so you know, we haven’t kicked up Ann’s journal yet. Love to get my hands on that thing.”
Innelman turned and headed for the Crime Lab. Dennison left Raymond with a handshake and came back over to Jim. “Thanks, Jim. You helped me out — helped us all out.”
“Let me stay on Kearns and Blodgett for a few more days. No charge.”
“No way. It’s in our court now. Trust me, I’ll get the answers we all want.”
He walked off toward the helipad. A moment later, the NBPD chopper lifted into the air and angled west.
Sitting in the driver’s seat of his sister’s car, amidst the faintly lingering scent of her perfume, Jim was drawn into memories of Ann so specific and immediate, they frightened him. The all-night talks they’d had, when Ann dispensed her greater wisdom — greater by two entire years — regarding girls, guys, parents and how to get around them, school and how to keep it easy, church and how to get out of going. He could see a picture of her taken when she was a few days old, wrapped in a pink blanket with a bow taped to her bald head, and he could remember being astonished that his older sister could ever have been so young; he could see her in a pair of overalls sitting in her wagon, grinning with two front teeth bucked enough to open a beer bottle on; could see her waddling down to the water of the bay with a green plastic shovel in her hand; see her on that same beach a few years later, thin and dark and hard as a piece of wood — much the envy of Jim’s younger friends; see her on roller skates, flying down the peninsula sidewalk with a book in front of her face; see her tearfully boarding the plane one summer, bound for France, to, as Poon had put it, “get some Frog culture”; see her coming down the stairway in the big house in a blue dress for the junior prom — it was the first time that Jim realized she wasn’t actually a girl any longer, or perhaps that he was no longer actually a boy — and Raymond there at the bottom glowing with unabashed pride at this, his undeserved princess; he could see her folding helplessly into Virginia’s arms when they heard about Jake; could see the sudden fury in her that night she pushed Ray off the pier, then, in shock at her own act, jumped in after him; could see her later that same night wrapped in blankets in front of the fireplace in the big house, her hair slicked tight against her head and her eyes filled with a profound distance, as if she was still in France, and yes, there was something different about her when she came back, something experienced but unspoken; he could see her just a few nights ago standing at Virginia’s table in her silly, frilly skirt, bringing her own special class and dignity to a job that required neither; see her... see her... see her... fragments from the parade still going on inside him, if nowhere else.