"Pete's dog died from poisoning," said Barbara Givens. "He had a large amount of undigested strychnine in his stomach, and enough in his blood to kill him."
It was nine in the morning, a stiff wind coming off the water and a dark wall of clouds advancing from far north. McMichael stood in the Team Three pen, his leather jacket still zipped against the cold, and took Arnold Stiles's toxicology report from Givens.
"Steak," she said. "That was in his stomach, too. It looked like some of the strychnine had been put in capsules for a slow dissolve, some left loose to do the job quick. The guy used an oral tranq, too, so the animal wouldn't make too much noise while he died- meperidine, active ingredient of Demerol."
The tox report put the time of ingestion and death somewhere between December 30 and January 2.
"Rainwater saw the dog alive on New Year's Eve," said McMichael. "Pete had a party."
"Like to see that guest list," said Barbara.
"I can get it." McMichael called Patricia's number and told her what he needed. Then he called Jimmy Thigpen's lawyer. The lawyer said absolutely no visits from law enforcement, until McMichael told him- in slightly more than general terms- why he needed to see Jimmy somewhere they could talk without being heard.
"I'll arrange it," said the attorney.
McMichael was escorted into the protective custody exercise yard at eleven-fifteen.
Thigpen looked plump and pale, his hair a mess, his blue jail pants rolled into thick cuffs but still too long. He squinted in the true sunlight of the yard, looking up at the cold white sky. The yard was a hundred feet square with walls on four sides and a chain-link roof. There was a backboard and hoop. Near the west wall a timid rhombus of sunlight angled onto the concrete. The yard was empty now, with a deputy on the other side of a Plexiglas observation window looking at them while he drank his coffee.
They walked counterclockwise, McMichael on the inside.
"I got a look at your part-time job," said McMichael. "TJ."
Thigpen didn't look at him. "The upholstery? How did you manage that?"
"Victor and Axelgaard One to Diaz Leather Artists to Axelgaard Two. New cars, easy passage, three duffels. Axelgaard- brothers or cousins or what?"
Thigpen peered at McMichael. "Funny, walking in a circle like this," said Thigpen. "Makes me feel like a lab rat."
McMichael didn't answer.
"Look, Mick," said Thigpen. "I don't know what you're talking about. I have to say that. You know how it works. My lawyer's trying to work a deal with the DA. There's no profit in me talking to you."
"That's not quite true."
"Then what's your offer?"
"I'm after Pete's killer. Not you."
"That's not much of a help to me," said Thigpen.
"Heck and I are the only ones who know what Auto Leather International is all about. I can keep you out of my version for right now. I can tell Narco that we stumbled onto the Axelgaards through Victor. It would be almost the truth, because I didn't see you do squat."
Thigpen said nothing.
"Internal Affairs knows you were moonlighting for Pete Braga Ford," said McMichael. "That's all they know, so far as I can tell- they think it was legit. I can leave it to them to connect you up to it or not, until the Axelgaard boys go down. When that happens, they'll blow you wide open. I'm just offering you a little head start."
Thigpen nodded forlornly, looking down at his rubber shower sandals. "You'd do that for me?"
"No. I'd do it for Pete."
They walked into a turn. McMichael saw the deputy behind the Plexiglas, elbows on the table and coffee cup poised.
"They're brothers," said Thigpen.
"Coke, smack or weed?"
"Whatever."
"Pete know?"
Thigpen shrugged. "He had us tailed- worried about Victor. He screamed at me one night at his house. But we had Victor up to his eyes in it, said we'd throw him to the cartel. So Pete backed off."
"You sure he didn't go to the cops, Feds maybe?"
Thigpen shook his head.
"Did the Axelgaard brothers take him out?"
"No. They talked about it but nobody was up to doing something like that. They're not killers, McMichael. Anyway, we had Pete good with Victor and with the girl."
"Angel."
"Got her to run a hidden video from her purse during one of their business transactions. Cute little gadget- I rigged it up myself with a lens hole in the fabric. As an old Metro/Vice guy, you'd have loved it. Anyway, we had the old buzzard cold, and he knew it. I mean, he didn't have many people left to save face for, but he did have a business to run. And all his commissions and committees and shit. He figured the best thing he could do was keep his mouth shut, make sure his son didn't get tossed to the cartel sharks."
"You know where Angel went?"
Thigpen stared down at the lines. "No idea. You know how the working girls are."
"Ever meet Malcolm Case and Alex Dejano?"
"I met them and that was it. Out of my league. I think Dejano's got casino money to burn."
"Do you know what it was that Pete kept sending over to his attorneys and they kept losing?"
Thigpen grinned. "No, sorry."
"Did you talk to him after you got popped?"
"Not once."
"Did you ever meet the Hansens?"
Thigpen shrugged. "Met them. She's a beauty and not very nice. Garland 's one of those losers who acts like he's somebody and gets away with it. I get the feeling she leads him around by the nose."
"What about the other grandchildren?"
"Never met any of them. It's not like we socialized, Mick. I tried to help Victor, Pete tried to pay me back. That was about the size of it."
"You don't know anything about who killed him?"
Thigpen shook his head. They did a lap in silence. The guard behind the glass smirked, crossed his arms and sat back.
"I was stupid, Mick. Everything in the world going for me except potloads of money. So what do I do? Sell it all out for the money- job, my brother and sister, friends. I'm not even that greedy a guy. First thing I realized when I held my first tax-free, off-the-books hundred grand was, what do I do with this? Buy a car. Buy some women. Buy some furniture, a couple trips to places I didn't even like. Just about as stupid as a guy could get."
"You fell for the green, Jimmy."
"You ever tempted?"
"Naw. I'm simpleminded."
They walked along under the Plexiglas window, then back into the small slant of sunshine near the west wall.
"The money fucks you up," said Thigpen. "One day I'm helping Victor because I feel sorry for him being in love with a whore. A few weeks later I'm telling his old man we'll kill his son if he rats on us."
Thigpen's brow was furrowed heavily, his mouth tight. "But then, I could never figure who the hell I really was. So I acted like whoever I was with, right? I invented myself minute by minute. When I'd try to look at myself in the mirror, really have a serious talk with myself about things getting out of hand, there was no me. Just this twenty-three-year-old guy with pimples and all this easy money, and a puzzled look on his stupid fucking face."
Once again into the cold shade, wispy clouds sliding by overhead and a dust devil trapped in the northeast corner of the yard.
"I learned something from my father," said McMichael. "He showed me what happens if you cross the line and can't get back over. It wrecked him. He broke my mother's heart. He sucked the money and love and the life right out of her. He's drunk himself stupid every night since I've known him- that's pushing forty years. It scared the shit out of me. I had to become a cop. I needed to know exactly where that line was, all the time. I see the line, man, I jump back from it. I don't even dream about crossing over. So, I'm a tight-ass mick cop with sixteen years in, and when I hit my twenty-five and a full pension, I'm gone. I stick up for my friends. I try to do what's right. But I'm not going to end up like him. I'm not crossing. That's what he taught me about being a man."
"That's a good lesson."
"He's a good father. Even passed out in his own puke I never doubted he loved me."
Thigpen looked at him thoughtfully. That expression again, thought McMichael- the eighteen-year-old at graduation, the Eagle Scout, the team captain. Then it vanished. "That's a lot of love if you can feel it through puke," he said.
"His heart is huge."
"My old man was good, too. I miss him."
They walked around again, McMichael watching as the swatch of sunshine faded away, listening to the scuffing of Jimmy Thigpen's cuffs on the concrete.
Patricia had given him a Park Towers address and a one o'clock arrival time. McMichael heard the first drops of the new storm smack the awning overhead as he ducked into the lobby. He called her on one of the house phones and she rang him into the elevator bank. Twenty-two stories up he stepped off into a vestibule with a black marble floor and a gigantic arrangement of fresh tropical flowers.
She let him into a big apartment with picture windows facing west, black clouds marching toward them at eye level, the Pacific stretching away in a plate of metallic gray. Light hardwood floors, white walls with big floral paintings on them, hanging metal lamps.
"Hey, McMike," she said. "Give me that jacket."
"All yours," he said, shrugging out of it.
She kissed him on the cheek before taking the jacket and tossing it onto a red leather sofa. Her perfume was rich and light and drilled a hole to the exact center of McMichael's brain. She was wearing a short brown sleeveless dress and heels with ankle straps. Hair up, a little black zigzag falling down over her forehead.
"What do you think?"
"Of what?"
"My place."
"What's wrong with home?"
She shook her head. "I left Garland. Long story. How about a nice drink?"
"Whatever you're having."
McMichael saw the wind blast the trees in the park below them, then heard the swoosh of raindrops on the window.
"Come sit down," she said. "Don't be a furnishing."
He walked into the kitchen and sat across the island counter while she made her former favorite drink: gimlets.
"Tell me about Garland," he said.
"Five years of baby-sitting. You get tired of your guy crying himself to sleep in your arms. I mean, enough's enough."
"I didn't know he was a tortured soul."
"He hates himself. Sooner or later, you start to agree with his judgment. Wears a girl out."
She handed him a drink. They raised their glasses very slightly, then sipped.
"I don't mean to be hard," she said. "When Pete died, something inside me just gave up. Garland and I hadn't shared a bed in a year. I bought this place months ago because I knew I'd need it someday. And I thought, what's keeping you? You're thirty-eight, you feel like a dried-up old bag, you've got a little money coming through inheritance. You don't have a child to consider. Grandpa doesn't need you anymore. So get out. Break Garland 's heart once- good and clean- and let him move on. He's good-looking. He can put on a good show. He works hard. He'll land somewhere better. I filed last week."
"Should I be sorry or happy?"
She smiled, teeth white and lips red in her smooth, olive Portuguese face. "I'm happy. You can feel whatever you want. I love this apartment. I'm not really moved in yet, but the basics are here. Come on, I'll show you."
There was a small dining alcove right up by the window, views of the city and the harbor. Her dining table was a big rectangle of beveled-edge glass balanced on four clear acrylic cylinders. Set for two.
The master bedroom was big and somewhat disheveled in a manner that McMichael remembered: clothes tossed on a chair, the Union-Tribune spread over an unmade bed, a tennis racquet, tennis shoes, a can of balls and a warm-up jacket piled in one corner, bathroom counter cluttered with bottles and tubes and brushes.
"I guess I'm a lousy housekeeper," she said thoughtfully. "But at least this time I'm doing it all myself. No cleaning lady. No cook. It's my ship and I'll run it how I want."
"You sound like Pete."
"I know." She giggled softly.
The guest room was small and almost empty, just a twin bed and a chest of drawers with a mirror above it, one painting and one potted king palm.
"Let's eat while I tell you about New Year's Eve."
She served a bouillabaisse with sourdough rolls and a Caesar salad with plenty of sardines and dressing. McMichael remembered that Patricia was a good cook and a world-class eater who failed to gain weight.
"There were fifteen guests at Grandpa's house for New Year's," she said. "Seventeen total, counting Pete and the nurse. Me, Garland, Malcolm Case and his porn-star wife, a casino guy named Alex Dejano and his girlfriend, Charley Farrell from the dealership and his wife, the Silvas, the Bezes and Victor. Some terrifically boring cop and his miniature wife came by for a few minutes early on- Blank or Blanda or something like that."
"Jerry Bland. We call him Bland Jerry."
"Bland is right."
McMichael wasn't surprised, but he was. Bland wasn't the only cop in Pete's little black book, but he was the only cop at the party.
"Was Zeke inside the whole time, or did he go in and out?"
"The dog? In and out, I guess. Grandpa told me he died that night."
McMichael told her about the autopsy and the strychnine.
Patricia's face lost its radiance as she listened. She spooned some broth, the black zigzag of hair aimed down at the bowl. "Why, so they could come back and kill him without the dog barking?"
"That's a good assumption."
"You're talking about one cold-blooded piece of work, McMichael."
"Exactly."
"What a rotten job you have."
"It's an honest buck."
"So much for my cheery little lunch."
They ate without talking, spoons clinking in the bowls, rain driving against the windows. McMichael saw a web of white lightning break out over the ocean, then heard a moan of distant thunder.
"The nurse told me she saw Dejano feeding the dog," said McMichael.
"I didn't. But we left early."
"Why?"
"Grandpa was a boring drunk. I didn't like being around him when he was like that. And you get Charley Farrell and Pete together, it's just Fords, Fords, Fords. I get a new demo from the dealership every six months, but I don't want to talk about the damned things."
" Garland and Pete get along?"
" Garland thought Pete was a savage and Pete thought Garland was a poofter. That was one uptight dud of a New Year's Eve party- for us, anyway. But you go out of loyalty, you know? And they used to be fun. Used to be a hundred people or more. But Pete, he just seemed to be turning on everyone. Hardly had any family, hardly any friends. Malcolm Case a friend? Or that nurse? Pete was bottom feeding."
McMichael thought about Sally Rainwater trying to resuscitate Pete, her hands on his bloody pulp of a head, her mouth on his, all the panic and terror she went through.
"What are you going to do with the dealership?" he asked.
"Sell it and divide by five." She looked at him, a hint of apology in her dark eyes. "It's easy and clean. Detroit said we can keep it, but I never wanted to sell cars."
"Charley told me you had some ideas for the dealership."
"Boy, did I. Radical concepts like more Web exposure and more local TV. Grandpa didn't care for them."
"What does the rest of the family want?"
"Just the money. My brother James made noises about keeping the franchise, but he's in Dallas and wants to stay in Dallas. That's not going to work."
"Did you help Pete out with the business?"
"Some. It kind of runs itself. He had me look at the books, make sure everything was on the up-and-up. Grandpa wasn't the most trusting of men."
"What did you find?"
"Nothing. He was concerned that his old bookkeeper was losing her mind, but she wasn't. She wasn't exactly computer literate, but her numbers added up. Imagine keeping the books on a multimillion-dollar business with paper and pencil. Detroit told me that any new owners would have to switch to a computer system."
Patricia took their bowls into the kitchen and came back with seconds. She put a hand on McMichael's shoulder as she set the bowl in front of him.
"What's your opinion of Grothke Junior?" he asked.
She said nothing until she was seated again. "One of those oddball bachelors you wonder about."
"How about his legal skills?"
"Adequate. Why?"
"He lost those letters that Pete sent him. About getting a church named for himself or Anna or Victor."
"Just lost them? How do you lose letters?"
McMichael didn't answer. Maybe Junior was just absentminded, he thought. No way to open an investigation of him just because his office lost some correspondence. They could press him, but Junior seemed pretty fed up with answering questions.
McMichael finished his seconds and sipped his drink.
"Thank you," he said.
"Always so polite, McMike."
"That was Mom's answer to chaos. Now it's mine."
"It's a nice quality. Thanks for paying your long-distance respects at the service. I couldn't invite you."
"I know."
"Nice to see the chief there. Grandpa liked people who were in charge."
They ate and watched the rain fall past the window.
"How's Gabriel?"
"He's the same." McMichael drank the rest of his gimlet and watched another bolt of lightning crack through the black sky.
"And how are you, Tommy? I mean really. I'd like to know."
He looked at her, marveling that the years could leave Patricia untouched.
"I'm good," he said. "I like the job. I love Johnny. The divorce was rotten but you heal up."
"Sounds like there's something missing. Or maybe you're holding out on me." She smiled and drank.
"I've got a little something going."
"Who?"
"You don't know her."
"Then tell me who she is. Someone at work?"
He nodded.
"Cops always end up with cops. At least on TV."
"We eat doughnuts and drink coffee together. Talk in Penal Code."
Patricia laughed. Her arms were dark and smooth, pale underneath when she raised them to fiddle with her hair.
"I wrote you a letter when I heard about you and your wife," she said. "Never mailed it. Wrote you another one a few weeks later, but didn't mail that one either."
"Went through some stamps."
She smiled, set the zigzag back and it fell down again. "I never stopped thinking about you. I never stopped dreaming about you. We had something good, Thomas."
"We did."
"Still think about me?" she asked.
"I stopped."
"Do you dream?"
"Couldn't stop those."
"I couldn't either," she said. "I enjoyed them."
"Don't go back, Patricia."
"Too painful for little McMikey?"
"Just unnecessary."
"What if I want to go forward? What I tried to say in the letters was I wished we could spend some time together. It's probably insane. I can't explain why I wrecked us, Tom. But I had to. I felt like history was making me do it. That the McMichaels and the Bragas were making me do it. Pete and Victor and Gabriel and Franklin. You know what I wish? I wish I could take a fire hose and blast it all away. Just cream it off the face of the earth. And see what's left standing. See if it's us."
"Wow."
"And all you wanted was a party list and lunch."
He looked at her across the table and the twenty years, saw the girl he'd loved and the woman she'd become. She stood and came over to him, put her arms around his shoulders and rested her head against his face. McMichael felt like he was being sucked down a big smooth tunnel, straight backward in time, body spinning in the rifled groove of the years.
He stood.
"McMike, did you completely stop thinking about me?"
"No." McMichael smiled and pulled on his jacket.
"Do me a favor? Forgive me for being eighteen once in my life?"
"I did that a long time ago."
"Then reconsider me. And don't be a stranger."
He tried to see her as a beautiful woman in a brown dress in a warm room in the rain. It was easy.
"Okay."
She closed the door behind him but he didn't hear it lock.