“Mike Fowler was a drunk. He’s been a drunk for years and he was a disgraceful police officer.”
Vukovich glanced around to make sure no one was listening and looked uncomfortable.
“Take it easy, boss.”
“Mr. Holman needs to understand. Fowler radioed he was going to take a break, but he wasn’t supposed to be drinking and he had no business telling those younger officers to meet him in an off-limits location. I want you to keep this in mind, Holman-Fowler was a supervisor. He was supposed to be available to the patrol officers in his area when they needed his assistance, but he decided to go drinking instead. Mellon was on duty, too, and knew better, but he was a mediocre officer, also-he wasn’t even in his assigned service division. Ash was off duty, but he wasn’t in the running for Officer of the Year, either.”
Holman sensed that Random was sweating him, but he didn’t know why and he didn’t like it.
“What are you telling me, Random? What does any of this have to do with Marchenko and Parsons?”
“You’re looking for a reason to understand why those officers were under the bridge, so I’m telling you. I blame Mike Fowler for what happened, him being a supervisor, but no one was down there solving the crime of the century. They were problem officers with shit records and a crappy attitude.”
Holman felt himself flush. Levy had told him Richie was an outstanding officer…one of the best.
“Are you telling me that Richie was a rotten cop? Is that what you’re saying?”
Vukovich held up a finger.
“Take it easy, bud. You’re the one who asked.”
Random said, “Sir, I didn’t want to tell you any of this. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to.”
The throbbing in Holman’s head spread to his shoulders and arms, and he wanted to knuckle up. All the deep parts of him wanted to throw fists and beat down Random and Vukovich for saying that Richie was rotten, but Holman wasn’t like that anymore. He told himself he wasn’t like that. He forced down his anger and spoke slowly.
“Richie was working on something about Marchenko and Parsons. I want to know why he had to talk to Fowler about it at one in the morning.”
“What you need to do is concentrate on making good your release and let us do our jobs. This conversation is over, Mr. Holman. I suggest you settle down and pay your respects.”
Random turned away without another word and moved with the crowd into the auditorium. Vukovich stayed with Holman a moment longer before following.
Holman didn’t move. He felt as if he would shatter from the horrendous rage that had suddenly made him brittle. He wanted to scream. He wanted to jack a Porsche and burn through the city as fast as it would go. He wanted to get high and suck down a bottle of the finest tequila and scream at the night.
Holman went to the double doors but could not enter. He watched people taking their seats without really seeing them. He saw the four dead men staring at him from their giant pictures. He felt Richie’s dead two- dimensional eyes.
Holman turned away and walked fast back to his car, sweating hard in the heat. He stripped off Richie’s jacket and tie and unbuttoned his shirt, tears filling his eyes with great hot drops that came as if they were being crushed from his heart.
Richie wasn’t bad.
He wasn’t like his father.
Holman wiped the snot from his face and walked faster. He didn’t believe it. He wouldn’t let himself believe it.
My son is not like me.
Holman swore to himself he would prove it. He had already asked the last and only person he trusted for help and had been waiting to hear back from her. He needed her help. He needed her and he prayed she would answer.
PART TWO
14
FBI SPECIAL AGENT Katherine Pollard (retired) stood in the kitchen of her small tract home watching the clock above her sink. When she held her breath, a perfect silence filled the house. She watched the second hand sweep silently toward the twelve. The minute hand was poised at eleven thirty-two. The second hand touched the twelve. The minute hand released like a firing pin, jumping to eleven thirty-three-
TOCK!
The snap of passing time broke the silence.
Pollard wiped a ribbon of sweat from her face as she considered the debris that had accumulated in her kitchen: cups, grape juice cartons, open boxes of Cap’n Crunch and Sugar Smacks, and bowls showing the first stages of whole milk curdled by the heat. Pollard lived in the Simi Valley, where the temperature that day-twenty- seven minutes before noon-had already notched 104 degrees. Her air conditioner had been out for six days and wasn’t likely to be fixed any time soon-Katherine Pollard was broke. She was using the heat-stroked squalor to prepare herself for the inevitable and humiliating call to beg her mother for money.
Pollard had left the FBI eight years ago after she married a fellow agent named Marty Baum and became pregnant with their first child. She had left the job for all the right reasons: She had loved Marty, they both wanted her to be a full-time mom for their son (Pollard feeling the importance of full-time mom status maybe even more than Marty), and-with Marty’s salary-they had had enough money. But that was
TOCK!
Pollard had been able to scrape by on Marty’s death benefits, but more and more she required help from her mother, which was humiliating and defeating, and now the AC had been out for almost a week. One hour and twenty-six minutes until her children, David and Lyle, seven and six, would arrive home from camp, dirty and filled with complaints about the heat. Pollard wiped more sweat from her face, scooped up her cordless phone, then brought it out to her car.
The nuclear crystal-sky heat pounded down on her like a blowtorch. Katherine opened her Subaru, started the engine, and immediately rolled down the windows. It had to be 150 degrees inside the car. She maxed out the AC until it blew cold, then rolled up the windows. She let the icy air blow hard on her face, then lifted her T-shirt to let it blow on her skin.
When she felt she was on the safe side of heatstroke, she turned on the phone and punched in her mother’s number. Her mother’s answering machine picked up, as Pollard expected. Her mother screened her calls while she played online poker.
“Mom, it’s me, pick up. Are you there?”
Her mother came on the line.
“Is everything all right?”
Which was the way her mother always came on the line, immediately putting Pollard on the defensive with the implication that her life was an endless series of emergencies and dramas. Pollard knew better than to make small talk. She steeled herself and immediately got to the point.
“Our air conditioner went out. They want twelve hundred dollars to fix it. I don’t have it, Mom.”
“Katherine, when are you going to find another man?”
“I need twelve hundred dollars, Mom, not another man.”
“Have I ever said no?”
“No.”
“Then you know I live to help you and those beautiful boys, but you have to help yourself, too, Katherine.
