boss at IAD and the undersheriff, a nice looking guy with silver hair, named Bert Clausen.
They began filtering in one by one, some in uniform, others in civvies, off-duty officers and civilian personnel. I wondered if they were sorry now that they had been dogging her all week for just doing her job. As more of them arrived, I was pushed to the side and ended up sitting alone on a vinyl sofa trying to keep my chin up.
If only I hadn't told her to turn off her cell.
Why didn't I go out there with her?
Ifs and whys. Questions that never get answered.
Twenty minutes later Bridget arrived looking drawn and nervous. I saw her come off the elevator and I went to intercept her.
'I'm Shane,' I said.
'Thank you for calling me.' Her voice was faint, almost a whisper.
I didn't respond. I was all out of pleasantries.
'Is she…'
'In trouble.'
You can generally tell how bad it is by the way people move in the hall outside the operating theatre. Too many nurses were running to suit me.
Bridget looked like she was about to break.
'We were having-she and I…'
'Look, Bridget, that's between you guys.'
'No-I mean-I walked out. I've wanted to call her half a dozen times since then. It's just-Jo can be so definite. She's not someone who lets you get too close.'
She sank down onto the sofa. Her face crumpled, her eyes brimmed with tears. I reached over and took her hand.
'You're wrong. She's not definite, and she wants to let you in. She's just scared. It's how she covers it.'
'She thinks I don't care, but that's not the problem. The problem is I care too much.'
'Bridget, she needs you now. She needs somebody to sit with her. I can't stay. I've got to catch the guy who did this. But somebody needs to protect her from the mistakes that can happen in big medical factories like this one.'
'I can do that,' she said valiantly.
'And she needs somebody to hold her hand. Somebody to pray for her and-'
I stopped because suddenly I was on the verge of tears, myself.
'You really care for her, don't you?' Bridget said.
'Yes,' I said. 'I really do.' Then I thought for a minute before I went on.
'Jo is one of a kind. She makes her own rules. You gotta love someone who walks their own trail, no matter the consequences.'
'I do,' Bridget said softly, and from the sound of her voice, she meant it.
Ten minutes later the surgeon came out and told us that Jo was critical and had been moved to ICU.
'The next forty-eight hours will tell the story,' he said.
I decided to put them to good use. I couldn't help Jo sitting around here. I was going to even the score, get some payback for Josephine Brickhouse. I'd failed Jo just at the moment I realized how special she really was.
I was going to catch this son-of-a-bitch or die trying.
Chapter 40
At three-forty-five I was back at Smiley's hideout house in Inglewood. Since I'd left two hours ago it had become a full-fledged LASD crime scene. CSI had chalked the spot where Jo fell. She was facing the back door when he shot her. The techies from soles and holes were searching the backyard with metal detectors, looking for bullet fragments. I found the man in charge. Deputy Douglas Hennings was a fifty-year-old plainclothes drone with a vanilla personality and hair the color of poured concrete.
'You were working this thing with her?' Hennings said, after I had shown my creds and explained who I was. He started motioning to his second, another deputy sheriff in a suit, who wandered over and stood behind me, blocking my exit as if I was the problem.
'How come an LAPD Special Crimes dick is working with one of our IAD advocates?' Hennings said. 'That sounds screwy.'
'Look, Deputy Hennings, if you want to call Sheriff Messenger…'
'No, I don't wanta call the sheriff. I'd like you to answer my question.'
'We were working a joint reinvestigation of the Hidden Ranch Road shooting at the request of Mayor MacKenzie and Supervisor Salazar.' I saw a little shadow pass across his eyes at the mention of the politicos. 'Sergeant Brickhouse left me a message that she was coming over here to conduct an interview. I arrived right after Vincent Smiley shot her. He blew out of here dressed in women's clothing, driving a new black Dodge Ram twenty- five hundred, license number Ida-May-Victor-five-eight-seven. Surely, you must already have all this.' My frustration was mounting.
'Let's get this on tape from the beginning,' Hennings said, motioning again to his partner, who moved in and cracked his knuckles like a gunfighter about to upholster a six-gun. Instead, he reached for a Sony minitape and placed it under my nose.
For the next twenty minutes Hennings took my statement. What I wanted to do is get past this guy and search the house before the sheriff's department criminalists bagged everything for evidence and hauled it out of there.
After I finished my statement, I asked Hennings if I could take a look around. He regarded me skeptically.
'I know how to work a crime scene,' I assured him. Then, to show him I meant business, I pulled out my latex gloves. See? He finally nodded, so I snapped them on and went down the hall into the master bedroom.
It was immediately obvious that Smiley had been living here as Susan. The clothes in the closet were all large-sized dresses and skirts. In the bureau, women's blouses and underwear, extra large. The cosmetics in the bathroom were pancake and rouge.
His preferred shade of lipstick was Bozo-the-Clown red, something called Torche. Pinned up over the mirror were several Polaroids of Vincent in drag-close-ups of his face in full makeup. Janet Reno on steroids. I broke my promise to Hennings, and filched one, putting it in my side coat pocket. Then I stood surveying the bathroom, trying to get a grip on the methodology here. Was this just a place to run after he shot Emo and barbecued his brother Paul, or did he actually live here as Susan half the time? How long had he owned this house, or did he just rent? I made a mental note to check the local Realtors.
I left the house twenty minutes later and walked out to the driveway. I wondered if anybody had gone through his garbage yet. Not wanting to let this normally important crime-scene treasure trove get away, I moved behind the garage and opened his cans. Both empty. The sheriff's crime techs had beat me to it. Then I noticed some sheets of paper on the ground, partially hidden behind some bushes. One was an old market list, but the other was some kind of computer printout that had 'YUMA TACTS' on the top. Under that was a series of columns and boxes:
7S
MECH INFANTRY REIN 1335
PG783783
N 33 13 57.1
W 115 05 16.6
LIVE ORD 1,2
