Blood Work

were Spanish style with red-barrel roofs and arched windows and doors in the front. There were dozens of matching developments scattered through the Antelope Valley. The homes were large and reasonably attractive. They were bought mostly by families escaping the expense and crime and crowding of Los Angeles.

Desert Flower Estates had apparently offered three different design plans to its buyers. Consequently, McCaleb noticed as they drove through, about every third house was the same and sometimes there were even side-by-side duplicates. It reminded him of some of the post-World War II neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.

The thought of living in one of the homes he was passing depressed him. And it wasn’t because of anything he saw. It was the distance this place was from the ocean and the feeling of renewal the sea gave him. He knew he’d never last in a neighborhood like this. He would dry up and blow away like one of the tumbleweeds they periodically passed on the street.

“This is it,” Buddy said.

He pointed to a number on a mailbox and McCaleb nodded. They pulled in. McCaleb noticed that the white Chevy Suburban he had seen in the crime scene video was parked in the driveway below a basketball rim. There was an open garage with a mini-van parked on one side and the other side cluttered with bikes and boxes, a tool bench and other clutter. Standing up in the back of the garage was a surf board. It was an old long board and it made McCaleb think that maybe at one time James Cordell had known something about the ocean.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” he said.

“It’s going to get hot out here. Maybe I could just go in with you. I won’t say anything.”

“It’s cooling down, Buddy. But if you get hot, run the air. Drive around a little bit. There’s probably kids selling lemonade around here someplace.”

He got out before any debate could begin. He wasn’t going to bring Lockridge into the investigation and turn it into amateur hour. On the way up the driveway he stopped and looked into the Suburban. The back was full of tools and there was clutter in the front seats. Hs felt a charge. He might be in luck. It looked as though the truck had been sitting untouched.

James Cordell’s widow was named Amelia. McCaleb knew that from the reports. A woman he assumed to be her opened the arched front door before he reached it. Jaye Winston had said she would call ahead to smooth his way in.

“Mrs. Cordell?”

“Yes?”

“My name’s Terry McCaleb. Did Detective Winston call about me?”

“Yes, she did.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“As opposed to a good time?”

“Poor choice of words. I’m sorry. Do you have some time that we can talk?”

She was a short woman with brown hair and small features. Her nose was red and McCaleb guessed she either had a cold or had been crying. McCaleb wondered if the call from Jaye Winston had set her off.

She nodded and invited him in, leading the way to a neatly kept living room where she sat on the sofa and he took the chair opposite her. There was a box of tissues on the coffee table between them. The sound of television was coming from another room. It sounded like cartoons were on.

“Is that your partner waiting in the car?” she asked.

“Uh, my driver.”

“Does he want to come in? It might get hot out there.”

“No, he’s fine.”

“You’re a private investigator?”

“Technically, no. I’m a friend of the family of the woman who was killed in Canoga Park. I don’t know what Detective Winston told you, but I used to work for the FBI and so I have some experience in these kinds of things. The Sheriff’s Department, as you probably know, and the LAPD have not been able to, uh, advance the investigation very far in recent weeks. I’m trying to do what I can to help.”

She nodded.

“First off, I’m sorry about what happened to your husband and your family.”

She frowned and nodded.

“I know it doesn’t matter what a stranger thinks but you do have my sympathy. From what I’ve read in the sheriff’s files, James was a good man.”

She smiled and said, “Thank you. It’s just so funny to hear him called James. Everyone called him Jim or Jimmy. And you are right, he was a good man.”

McCaleb nodded.

“What questions can I answer, Mr. McCaleb? I really don’t know anything about what happened. That’s what was confusing about Jaye’s call.”

“Well, first…” He reached down to his satchel, opened it and took out the Polaroid that Graciela had given him the day she came to his boat. He handed it across the table to Amelia Cordell. “Could you look at that and tell me if you recognize the woman or if you think she might be someone your husband could have known.”

She took the photo and stared at it, her face serious and her eyes making small movements as she seemed to study everything about the photo. She shook her head finally.

“No, I don’t think so. Is she the one who…”

“Yes, she was the victim in the second robbery.”

“Is that her son?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand. How could my husband have known this woman-are you suggesting that they might have-”

“No. No, I’m not suggesting anything, Mrs. Cordell. I’m just trying to cover… Look, to be very honest, Mrs. Cordell, some things have come up in the investigation to possibly indicate-and I have to stress possibly -that there was more here than meets the eye.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that possibly robbery was not a motive here. Or not the only motive.”

She stared blankly at him for a moment and McCaleb knew she was still taking things the wrong way.

“Mrs. Cordell, I am not in any way trying to suggest that your husband and that woman had any kind of a relationship. What I’m saying is that somewhere, sometime, your husband and that woman crossed the shooter’s path. So you see there is a relationship. But it is a relationship between the victims and the shooter. It is likely that your husband and the other victims crossed the shooter’s line at separate points but I need to cover everything and that is why I show you the photograph. You are sure you don’t recognize her?”

“I’m sure.”

“Would your husband have any reason in the weeks before the shooting to have spent any time in Canoga Park?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Would he have had any dealings with the Los Angeles Times ? More specifically, any reason he would have gone to the newspaper’s plant in Chatsworth?”

Again her answer was no.

“Was there any problem at work? Anything that he might have wanted to talk to a reporter about?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was she a reporter?”

“No, but she worked where there were reporters. Maybe their paths crossed with the shooter there.”

“Well, I don’t think so. If something was bothering Jimmy, he would have told me. He always did.”

“Okay. I understand.”

McCaleb spent the next fifteen minutes asking Mrs. Cordell questions about her husband’s daily routine and his activities in the weeks before the shooting. He took three pages of notes but even as he wrote them, they didn’t seem helpful. Jimmy Cordell seemed like a man who worked hard and spent most of his off time with his family. In the weeks before his death he had been working exclusively on sections of the aqueduct in the central part of the