“Okay.”
“I was calling because I was wondering about tomorrow. You know, whether you were thinking of bringing Raymond down so I could take him out to the rocks.”
“The rocks?”
“The jetty. There’s good fishing off there. I walk out most mornings and there’s always people there, lines out.”
“Well, Raymond hasn’t stopped talking about it since we left the other night. So I was planning on it. As long as it’s still all right with you.”
McCaleb hesitated, thinking about Bolotov and wondering if he could possibly be a threat. But he wanted to see Graciela and the boy. He felt a need to see them.
“It sounds like maybe we should do it another time,” she said then.
“No,” he said, the specter of Bolotov disappearing from his mind. “I was just thinking. I want you to come down. It will be fun. And I could make up for that dinner I was supposed to cook the other night.”
“Then good.”
“And you two should stay over. I’ve got plenty of room. Two staterooms and the salon table collapses and becomes a third bed.”
“Well, we’ll see. I like to keep some constants in Raymond’s life. Like his bed.”
“I understand.”
They talked about the arrangements a little further and she agreed to come down to the marina the following morning. After hanging up, he continued to lie in bed with the phone sitting on his stomach. His thoughts were on Graciela. He liked being with her and the thought of spending all of Saturday with her made him smile. Then the thought of Bolotov intruded again. McCaleb carefully considered the situation and decided that Bolotov was not a threat. Most spoken threats were never carried out. Even if Bolotov wanted to, it would be difficult for him to find
Those thoughts led to the next question. If he was not a suspect, then why had he run? McCaleb thought of Winston’s explanation the night before. Bolotov had not been the shooter but he was probably guilty of something. He ran.
McCaleb put it aside, rolled out of bed and finally got up.
After he had gotten one cup of coffee down, McCaleb went down to the office and gathered up all of the reports and the tapes and brought them back up to the salon. He then opened the slider to air out the boat and sat back down and began methodically going through all of the videotapes associated with the case.
Twenty minutes later he was watching the shooting of Gloria Torres for the third time in a row when he heard Buddy Lockridge’s voice from behind him.
“What the hell is that?”
McCaleb turned around and saw Lockridge standing in the open door of the salon. He hadn’t felt him come aboard. He grabbed the remote and flicked off the television.
“It’s a tape. What are you doing here?”
“Reporting for duty.”
McCaleb stared blankly at him.
“You told me yesterday you’d need me this morning.”
“Oh, right. Well, I don’t think I’m-I’m just going to work around here today, I think. You going to be around later if something comes up?”
“Prob’ly.”
“Okay, thanks.”
McCaleb waited for him to leave but Lockridge just stood there.
“What?”
“Is that what you’re working on?” Lockridge asked, pointing at the tube.
“Yes, Buddy, that’s it. But I can’t talk to you about it. It’s a private matter.”
“That’s cool.”
“Then what else?”
“Um, well, when’s payday?”
“Payday? What are you talk-oh, you mean for you? Oh, anytime. You need some money?”
“Sort of. I could use some today.”
McCaleb went to the galley counter where he had left his wallet and keys. As he was opening the wallet, he computed that he had used Buddy for no more than eight hours. He took out six twenties and handed the bills to Lockridge. Fanning the money in his hands, Buddy said it was too much.
“Some of it’s for gas,” McCaleb explained. “And the extra is for the hanging around and being on call. That okay?”
“Fine with me. Thanks, Terror.”
McCaleb smiled. Lockridge had been calling him that ever since the night they met and McCaleb had been so mad about the harmonica noise.
Lockridge finally left then and McCaleb got back to work. Nothing struck him as significant during his viewing of the videotapes and he went on to the paperwork. On this read-through time was not a factor and he tried to absorb every detail on every page.
He started backward, beginning with the Kang-Torres case. But as he went through the crime reports and investigative summaries, he found nothing aside from the conflict in the timeline he had constructed earlier that tugged at him as being out of order or needing further investigation. Despite his dislike of Arrango’s personality and Walters’s complacency, he couldn’t find anything wrong or anything that had slipped through.
Finally, he came to the autopsy report and the grainy photocopies of the photos of Gloria Torres’s body. He hadn’t looked at these before. With good reason. Death photos had always been the way he remembered victims. He saw them in death, not in life. He saw what had been done to them. During the first read-through of the murder book, he had decided that he didn’t need to see the photos of Gloria. It wasn’t what he wanted or needed to know about her.
But now, grasping for anything, he studied the photos. The poor duplication of them by the photocopier made the details murky and softened the impact. He leafed through them quickly and then came back to the first one. It was Gloria’s naked body on the steel table, the photo taken before the autopsy. A long incision, made by the surgeon who took her organs, ran between the breasts and down the sternum. McCaleb held the photo in both hands and looked at her violated body for a long moment, feeling a mixture of sadness and the heat of guilt.
The phone rang, startling him. He grabbed the phone before it could ring again.
“Yes?”
“Terry? It’s Dr. Fox.”
McCaleb inexplicably turned the photo over on the table.
“Are you there?”
“Yes, hi, how are you?”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“I’m fine, too, Doc.”
“What are you doing?”
“Doing? I’m just sort of sitting here.”
“Terry, you know what I mean. What did you decide about that woman’s request? The sister.”
“I, uh…” He turned the photo back over and looked at it. “I decided I needed to look into it.”
She didn’t say anything but he pictured her at her desk closing her eyes and shaking her head.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “Terry, I really don’t think you understand the risks of what you are doing.”
“I think I do, Doctor. I don’t think I have a choice, anyway.”
“I don’t think I have one, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t think I can continue to be your doctor if this is what you are going to do. You obviously don’t
