Parry nodded knowingly at them, and then he stared after the two detectives as they walked away. “HPD's finest,” he muttered to Jessica.
She placed a hand over his. “You all right, Jim?”
“ Hell, no. How about you?”
She forced a smile. “Hell, no.”
“ No call for you to hang here all night. Let me take you home,” he suggested. “It's damned near two in the morning.”
“ Fine… on one condition, Jim.”
“ Conditions… do you always place conditions on people who offer you a lift, Jess?” He didn't mean his tone to be quite so harsh, gesturing with the open palms for peace, flashing apologetic eyes; still, she knew that she was often guilty of placing conditions on people around her, especially those she cared about the most.
She couldn't blame him for the outburst. She momentarily thought about that well of pain she'd thrown pennies down all her life, reaching back to her relationship with her father, who was a great one for placing conditions on the people he loved. It was partially due to his military background and his own upbringing, not to mention his profession as M.E. No, Jim couldn't possibly understand fully the wellspring of fears and doubts she harbored, though he might understand the nature of her work, filled with shifty people and shifting inconstants. She was a meteorologist of murder, faced with the eddies of human “atmospheric” conditions. For in any investigation, circumstances altered constantly and prevailing “winds” were never the same if you blinked; unfortunately, it was little different in her personal life.
Jim reached out, touched her cheek and said, “I'm sorry. I had no right to say-”
“ Shhhhh,” she replied, a finger to her full lips. “Let it go.”
She briefly thought of all the men in her life, from her father to Alan Rychman. Conditions, shifting and ephemeral as nature, the sea, the clouds, the balmy trades… that was how she'd dealt with men all her life. Change, alter, shift them before they do it to you…
Sometimes she could feel Donna Lemonte, her shrink, breathing down her neck, looking over her shoulder like a second conscience. Dr. Lemonte was an excellent psychologist and had become the closest thing she had to a girlfriend these days. Donna had made the same connection between Jessica's “conditional” professional life and her relationships with men, the fact Jessica had to be in charge, that she had to make the ground rules by which all relationships with men were to be played out.
She had become, particularly since Otto Boutine's death, afraid to truly commit herself to anything other than her career ever again, for fear of loss. She'd lost her father and her mother, and then she'd tragically lost Otto, for which she still blamed herself.
Boutine and her father… tough act to follow. She had become a cripple in more ways than one since Matt Matisak's bloody attack on her. The butcher had shaken the faith and the belief system instilled by her father, that there was a reasoning power over all and after all, a power that set into motion the human drama, as flawed and cluttered with twisted monsters as it was, a power that held a hand over the abyss and over the chaos. Matisak had made her doubt this, for she could no longer feel the pulse of that great hand as evenly as she once did. Perhaps she never would again.
Nowadays she thought more and more of a shadow self, a Jessica Coran who might have been had she never encountered Matisak, or had she not chosen her father's way of life.
She and Donna talked of shadow selves, the person or persons either of them might have been, had they been born in a different place and time, chosen a different career, met by chance the right man. Under a set of different circumstances, given other givens, other conditions, other choices, who might she have become? And would she not shun someone like herself, even someone like Jim Parry, had she not been her father's daughter?
Parry's eyes were busily studying her, and she wondered how much he knew of her from information he'd gathered on her, how much from Zanek. and how much he'd surmised just being with her for so many hours on the case. Just his fatigue talking, she decided, letting his rancor slide.
“ Condition is,” she said firmly, “you go home and get some rest, too.”
“ No… think I'll come back here, sit with Ivers. Want to be here when he comes around. The man doesn't have any family.”
“ He means a lot to you.”
“ A lot I owe him, yeah. He taught me how to work Honolulu.”
“ Aha, so that's how you know so much.”
“ Ivers is a white native. Came with the place. Actually, worked Maui for years before coming to HPD. He tipped me off to the disappearances there. No one knows the islands like him.”
“ Look. The Rainbow's not ten minutes from here. Come with me, sack out on the sofa till dawn and then-”
“ I don't know, Jess.” He bit his lower lip, jiggled his keys in his pocket, shuffled his feet and shook his head.
“ What possible good can you do if you collapse? Think of it, you want to have your breakdown here?”
Around them, the military-green walls, cabinets and the yellow lights of the waiting room, even the cola and snack machines, seemed out of another time. “Military doctors aren't always the best,” Parry said. “Thought I'd see about transferring Nate to a better facility.”
“ I told you, I talked with his doctor. Flores is going to get your friend through this, and the burns weren't as bad as they might've been. He's going to come through this.”
“ Sir?” a voice at the doorway timidly called.
Parry turned and stared at a young patrol officer in uniform.
“ What is it, officer?”
“ My partner and me… we were first on scene at the incident outside the fort, sir, and well… I understand you want to know all the details? We got a call from the suits handling the case.”
“ Yeah, right, sure do. Officer ahh…”
“ Janklow, sir. Phil Janklow.”
Phil told them all that he knew, including the information regarding the gas leak which he was still brooding about. “We got an APB out on the car, but without a plate number, well…” He didn't offer much hope.
Jessica got a confused picture of the events, but Parry concentrated on the car, getting what he could from Janklow about the make and model of the vehicle. Much of what the police had gotten from eyewitnesses clashed and contradicted, but the car's description remained firm.
After Janklow was gone, Parry said to Jessica, “The description of the car could fit with what we know of the car that Kaniola followed out to Koko Head the night he and Thom Hilani died. Nate was looking for that car.”
“ So if it is the same guy…” Her eyes lit up. “We've got a sketch of the suspect and possibly a description of his car. Come tomorrow, he'll be feeling the noose tightening. I just hope you have all the corridors off the island covered.”
“ We do.”
Parry, beyond fatigue now, agreed to take her up on her offer of the sofa in her room, and together they left the hospital for the Rainbow Tower. On the way to his car, Parry said, “When Ivers gets his eyesight back, I want him to have a look at our sketch of the suspect. See if it rings any bells.”
“ According to the doctors, he rang quite a few bells around here.”
Parry attempted a laugh. “Come on, Doctor. You must be as dog-tired as I am.”
“ You'll get no argument there.”
“ An unconditional agreement?” She only slightly flinched at the remark.
They both knew that the morning papers would be carrying the police sketch of the suspect on page one, and that things would be thrown into high gear. Anything could happen. Tips could flow in. The killer might well kill himself, or try to put as much distance between himself and Oahu as possible, which meant some form of passage off the island.”We'll both need as much sleep as we can get if we're going to be any good tomorrow spearheading 'Operation Containment,'“ Parry told her as they walked out to the parking lot and his car.
