McMichael and Hector pulled the midnight stakeout shift on Assistant Chief of Police Jerry Bland. They relieved Barbara and Hatter, trading them Hector's Camaro for Barbara's personal car- a conversion van loaded with family vacation gear. There was a luggage rack on top piled with duffels and coolers, a windsurfing board, beach chairs and an umbrella, a portable barbecue with its top lashed tight with bungee cords. Barbara had even thrown handfuls of beach sand against the tinted windows to leave a convincing layer of dust.
Hector parked it in a new spot: three houses down and around a corner from the Bland residence, which gave them a good straight-ahead view. If Bland flushed, they'd follow the radio homer that Hatter- stooping down in the department parking lot to look for the loose change that had somehow jumped out of his pocket- had affixed beneath the bumper of Bland's take-home Ford earlier in the day.
The kitchen light in the Bland residence was on at midnight and still on at two. McMichael reclined the passenger seat just slightly, poured coffee from his thermos. Hector sat behind the wheel, hunched in his leather coat.
"What do you think it takes," asked Hector, "for a guy like Bland to end up doing this kind of crap?"
McMichael sipped his not-very-good coffee. "Just lots of money."
"Yeah, but look at him- he lives in the same house. Probably has the same car in the garage. He's put his kids through school or whatever. If he gets sick he's got insurance. What is he? A sixty-year-old cop with a good pension, could retire any time he wants. Bunch of goddamned cash in his house. Stupid."
"True. At least Jimmy blew his on the obvious."
"It's all that cartel money, so close. It's like a magnet. Guys up in San Francisco, they don't have to live with it, day in and day out. Even L.A. But we get up in the morning, smell the roses and the coke, too. It's right there."
McMichael listened to a night bird chattering in the magnolia tree behind them. "I think about Johnny and that," he said. "All the grass and powder coming up through TJ."
"It goes everywhere," said Hector. "You can't run away from it."
"Idaho would be nice," said McMichael. "Or Oregon."
"Jackson went up to Wyoming and got himself shot."
"Guns everywhere up there, too."
"You'd never see Johnny."
"That's why I won't leave."
"He's a good kid. 'Nother doughnut?"
"Sure."
McMichael's brain thorn kicked in as he thought of the way the duffels were handled, the way the dope dogs ignored the new Fords, the dispatch with which the anonymous helo picked up the goods.
"If it's not dope, what is it?"
"I've been thinking about that," said Hector. "And I haven't come up with anything. What else do they have down there that we want but aren't supposed to buy? I don't think it's bullshit cigarettes and switchblades."
McMichael dozed from four to five. Hector from five to six. McMichael looked out the window at the light in Bland's kitchen, constant as the northern star. He thought about Johnny and wondered when his son would turn on him, lose respect for him, do all the things that adolescents were supposed to do. He thought briefly of Steffy, tried to figure out the primary thing he'd done wrong. But that train of thought went where it always went- straight down the tracks of their past until vanishing in the long black tunnel of moments and decisions, each one important in ways that neither of them had known. He wondered what Sally Rainwater was doing in the women's jail out in Santee. Dreaming about what an asshole he was? He thought about Patricia out on Corrinna Braga, the way she cried. He wondered why he couldn't get it back for her, get back the way he used to feel. She was prettier than ever. And open to him. With her, he could come full circle. It looked good on paper, but he couldn't make it true. Maybe it was just fear. Maybe he had too good a memory. You have it wrong, Tom- I'm not dumping you because you're a McMichael. I'm dumping you because you're you. Maybe it was just pride. Or revenge. He thought of Gabriel in the St. Agnes's food line. He wondered if his own face was beginning to reveal the same shameful pride as his father's.
A delivery man in a pickup truck chucked a San Diego Times onto Bland's lawn at five fifty-five. The lights in Bland's living room came on at six-ten. Hector yawned. At seven-thirty the assistant chief's Crown Victoria backed from the garage onto the street and turned toward them. They sank out of sight below the windows and McMichael listened to the big sedan ease past.
The homer worked like a dream, allowing Hector and McMichael to follow from a safe distance. Bland drove straight to headquarters and pulled into the department parking lot like he'd done every morning for thirty-five years.
At noon, Homicide Team Three met with Rawlings at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park. High above the studied greenery of the park, scattered clouds admitted a winter sunshine that couldn't warm the shadows. The captain stood with his back to the big empty stage, his soldiers gathered around him while a pack of children romped and cavorted among the empty seats of the amphitheater.
"It's us, Customs, INS, FBI, and Imperial Beach and San Ysidro Police," said Rawlings. "We've got compromised employees in three of the agencies. Everyone's being as silent as they can be, but all we can do is hope this is airtight. If anything leaks to the Axelgaards or to our man next to the chief, we won't see any red truck or any dope tonight."
Rawlings squinted into the cool sunlight. "We'll let the brothers make the run into Tijuana, let them come back out. We'll have four undercover Narcotics people down at Diaz Leather to make sure the pickup looks good. As soon as the Customs brother waves the Mack through, FBI is going to block the road with a transport van, San Ysidro SWAT snipers are going to cover from the overhead catwalks, and we'll make the extraction from the truck. Barbara, Hatter and I will be on the American side in a pickup truck with a camper- detained by Customs in Inspection Area One. When the rig pulls up, keep your faces down and away. If they make us, things could get hot fast. If they make us, draw your weapons, find cover and watch everybody. We don't know what kind of manpower they might have on the Mexico side, and we already know that one U.S. Customs agent and one Imperial Beach cop are in the bag. So watch the tourists, watch the Federales, watch the damned drug dogs."
McMichael saw the anxiety in Rawlings's old face and the worry deep in his pale blue eyes. Hector looked eager, Barbara cool, Hatter unreadable.
"I want radio wires and full body armor on all of you," said Rawlings. "Wear hats, glasses, whatever you can to change your appearance. Be careful with Victor Braga- he's a hostage even though he doesn't know it. McMichael and Hector, you're on Bland- wherever he goes. Let's hope he stays home. As soon as we've got the brothers I'll radio you to serve the warrant. I'll have backup there by the time you get out of the surveillance van. Don't approach the door until the uniforms are with you. Be careful with the old buzzard. We'll have four helos in the air before midnight over Imperial Beach. They'll force the phantom chopper out of the air or blow it out. Questions?"
"Why do I have to miss the fun?" asked Hector.
"You have to keep your partner out of trouble."
McMichael used the afternoon to play catch-up. He called Charley Farrell out at the dealership, who said he'd check his records again and go further back in his search for wine-colored SUVs sold or leased in the last year. Didn't think he'd find anything he didn't find before.
He checked with Barbara Givens, who had taken Anna's hummingbird to a jeweler she knew. He told her that the "jewels" were just glass, eight dollars' worth max, but the workmanship was very good. He had seen similar decorative hummingbirds for sale but couldn't remember where- possibly at the swap meet in Oceanside.
He talked to Johnny for almost half an hour, getting an earful about this new puppy his mother had bought, a chocolate Labrador retriever that he'd named Brownie. McMichael was happy at the joy in his son's voice, sad that he couldn't be there to see his face. It crushed him in some unsupportable way that he wasn't the man who had gotten his own son a dog. But Johnny was happy and McMichael smiled as he pictured his boy with the new puppy, and Dr. Clay Blass sneezing, breaking out in hives, maybe an aneurysm or sudden heart failure.
"You can see him tonight, Dad!"
"I wish I could. But your mother has plans for you."
"Oh."
McMichael let the silence murder him because he thought he deserved it.
He returned Dr. Arnold Stiles's call and learned that Courtney "Angel" Gonzalez had been killed by two.22 caliber bullets shot into her head. Stiles had found star-shaped flesh tears and unburned gunpowder around the entry wounds, which indicated "extremely close range." One bullet had entered her left temple and exited her right. One had gone in above her left ear, traveled down at a sharp angle and lodged near the cortex. The exit wound on the right temple had some very small fragments of safety glass imbedded around it.
Stiles put the time of death between December twenty-fifth and January fifth, which lined up with Penny's last sighting of Angel on Thursday, January second.
"Sorry I couldn't get more for you," said Stiles. McMichael pictured him in his blood-splattered glasses and washable necktie. "But she had at least two weeks out in that desert, Detective."
"Did she put up a fight?"
"No signs of that, but the flies, beetles, ants, coyotes and vultures worked her over pretty good. No contusions to the skull, none of her bones or teeth were broken. No ligature marks that I could make out."
"Safety glass around the wound?" asked McMichael. "Shower glass?"
"Maybe," said Stiles. "Or maybe she was sitting in a car, passenger's side. The driver just reaches out and bap, bap. The bullet went through the soft part of her head and through the window. Thus the glass frags. Drive and dump. I doubt you got tire tracks with all the storms."
McMichael imagined the wine-colored SUV. He thanked the ME and hung up.
One contemplative minute later he got a call from Barbara Givens: Dylan Feder had been arrested for public drunkenness in Palm Springs. Palm Springs PD ran a warrant check and when it came up hot, they called Dade County. Feder's P.O. had thought of Feder's connection in San Diego.
One less creep to worry about here, thought McMichael. He thought of Sally Rainwater sitting in jail.
An hour before his shift was to end, he drove down to the waterfront and walked along the Embarcadero, trying to clear his mind of sleeplessness, feelings of having failed Johnny, and a steady hum of doubt about the coming night. He'd seen the same doubt in Rawlings's eyes.
He walked past the cafes and tour boats, past the Berkeley and the Star of India, glancing up at a darkening sky that refused to allow optimism. Another storm front was coming in and McMichael thought he could feel a barometric drop in his own body, this sense that things were about to change.
He checked the postcards in the tour boat shop, wondered who might like a note and a picture of San Diego Harbor. He bought one for Johnny, slid it into his pocket.
At a stand offering ocean-themed T-shirts he looked at the whales and dolphins pictured on the cotton, wondered why artists had to make their faces look human. He pictured the living Angel Gonzalez- a pretty girl of seemingly average intelligence with no meanness in her that he had ever seen.
A jewelry maker had set up a small card table to show off his wares. There were necklaces made of coral and shells, matching bracelets. And jewelry boxes, too, covered with faux gemstones in red and green and amber.
Dangling by monofilament from a small branch of driftwood was a flock of hummingbirds, turning absently in the breeze, their detailed glass feathers catching the last of the afternoon light. McMichael touched one.
"I've got tabletop hummingbirds, too," said the craftsman, bringing up a bag from his side of the table. He was short and gray-haired, with an enormous mustache and hoops in his left ear. "Here."
He pulled a small cardboard box from the bag, opened it and set the bird on the table.
"Anna's hummingbird," said McMichael.
"I've got some ruby-throats and some hybrids, too."
The bird on the table looked, to McMichael, almost identical to the one they'd found in Sally Rainwater's house.
You don't know quality when you see it.
"May I?"
"Go for it."
He picked it up and set it in his palm. Just like Pete's, he thought: head up, tail fanned, little wings extended. The crown was a shroud of pale violet made of tiny glass drops. The eyes were black and the body a metallic silver. And when you set it on a flat surface, which he did, it balanced just barely on two small, flattened feet.
"Sell a lot of these?"
"A lot."
"Recently?"
"It's been a few days. Last month I'd say ten. Stocking stuffers. They're only thirty-five dollars."
The most beautiful man-made thing I've ever seen.
"Where'd you get the idea?"
"Friend of my dad, old tuna boat skipper. He had one from Panama, only with real jewels. I was just a kid but I never forgot it. He got murdered two weeks ago."
"Been making them long?"
"Off and on, thirty years. The public changes. One year it's birds. Next it's flowers. Then angels. After nine eleven it was all flags but that's tapered off."
"I'll take this one," said McMichael.
"She's a beauty."