"Psittacidae," said Dr. Robert Eilerts, chief ornithologist for the San Diego Zoo. It was nine the next morning, a cool and windy forty degrees when McMichael had left home.
Eilerts looked up from the microscope. "One of the parrots. There are over three hundred different species. But if you give me a few hours with the feather I think I can narrow it down."
"I'll pick it up as soon as I get your call."
"Should be before noon. Does this have to do with the Braga murder?"
"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that," said McMichael.
The doctor nodded and colored, then bent back down to his scope.
The Wild Animal Park is northeast of the city, in the dry foothills of Pasqual Valley. McMichael picked up Via Rancho Parkway and steered with one hand through the gentle bends. He could see patches of frost in the shaded swales and the bright glimmer of oaks shivering in the cold inland breeze. He felt giddy and doubtful about the night before, wondering if such cloddish behavior would come back to bite him. All he'd gotten for it so far was a memorable kiss and an invitation to call.
The Wild Animal Park human resources director agreed to show McMichael her personnel mug for Kyle Zisch. "You can find him at the bird show," she said. "He'll come out the exit behind the theater right after the performance- it starts in half an hour."
"Any parrots in the show?"
"Oh yes," she said. "Samson and Delilah. Absolutely beautiful, and huge vocabularies. Be sure to stop by the nursery on your way over. We've got a darling new baby mountain gorilla."
McMichael looked at the baby gorilla in her windowed nursery. Her name was Misty. Diapers and everything. He was surprised how small she was. And how human her eyes were, set in the inhuman face. He wondered if people really could have descended from apes, how things like language and conscience and imagination could flow down one biological streambed and not another. Although, looking into Misty's eyes, McMichael thought he saw his own and Sally Rainwater's, which he made a point not to mention to her. Father Shea had told him once that creation was ongoing and we should all understand that God had made everything to start with.
McMichael bought a disposable camera and a soft drink, then found a bird-show seat third row from the front. The handlers were dressed in safari outfits and kept up a joking banter with the audience. A peregrine falcon tore from the heavens at ninety miles an hour to snag a treat from a young woman on the stage. McMichael stood and snapped some photographs.
Kyle Zisch made his appearance with a flamboyant bird on each arm. He was easy to make from the mug: dark-haired, bearded and bespectacled. His voice was oddly high as he introduced Samson and Delilah. "And I'm Kyle!"
McMichael stood, excused himself rather loudly and took two more shots.
Zisch walked the birds to separate perches and they hopped on. The handler then reached into a waist pouch and set some food on the stands. McMichael could hear the smack of beaks on wood as the birds took their prizes.
"You don't have very good manners, Samson," said Zisch.
"I learned them from you," squawked the bird.
"Delilah," said Zisch, "what's your excuse?"
"I'm a birdbrain."
The audience chuckled and Zisch rewarded them again. He explained that these were macaws, native to South America, and were not known for their talking abilities. But the staff had taken a liking to the two fledglings and had begun building their vocabularies the week they were born. He said they knew over twenty sentences each- and continued to pick up new words and phrases all the time.
"Clever, aren't we?" asked Delilah.
The macaws jawboned with Zisch for a few minutes, then the bald eagle glowered and flew, the ostrich strutted and the cassowary rolled a ball with its beak.
After the show, all the trainers came out for a bow and McMichael clapped loudly and took more pictures. A minute later he intercepted Zisch at the exit and asked him for an autograph to go with the pictures he took- for his son Johnny back in Denver. Johnny had been in the hospital lately for tests. Loved birds, mainly birds of prey, but liked parrots, too. Had a parakeet named Sarge.
"Could you write just a little something to my boy?"
"Sure, man."
Zisch wrote in McMichael's notebook with McMichael's pen.
"Hope he'll be okay."
"Thank you," said the detective. "This'll make him happy. Would you mind snapping a picture of me to go with the ones of you and the macaws?"
"No problem."
McMichael traded the camera for the notebook and pen, stood with his back to the theater and smiled. Zisch pushed the button but nothing happened.
"Gotta wind it forward," said the Denver tourist. "There you go. Hey, great show!"
Back at the car McMichael had just put the camera and pen into a paper bag when his phone rang.
"Detective, this is Dr. Eilerts at the zoo. Your feather came from an owl parrot."
"Do they have that species at the Wild Animal Park?"
"They've got four. We have four also. They're very rare and generally don't do well in captivity."
"What else can you tell me about them?"
"They're native to New Zealand 's South Island only, and were once thought to be extinct. They've got these extravagant facial feathers that make them appear owl-like. That's what you found. Owl parrots are a large bird."
"Then they're not popular as pets?"
"No- they're very hard to get. And like an owl, they're only active at night, which tends to keep pet owners awake at the wrong hours. Specialty stores or breeders would be a possible source. There are several of them in the city. I've got some numbers for you if you're interested."
He got out his notebook and a spare pen. "I appreciate this, Dr. Eilerts."
Hector, Harley and Erik met him in Fingerprints. McMichael explained that he'd washed both pen and camera with tissues and soap in the bathroom, then used the hand blower to dry them. Then he'd washed his hands with lots of soap and hot water, and tried to touch pen and camera as little as possible before handing them over to the bird trainer.
"The humidity is low today," said Harley. "Was he wearing gloves during the show?"
"No gloves."
"Too bad. That would have brought out the body oils in his hands. Okay- we'll bench laser them first, then the glue chamber."
Harley arranged the pen in the bench laser. "When the monochromatic light vibrates into phase, we'll get coherency. When we turn up the juice, the coherent light will amplify the latents- if there are any latents to amplify."
The bench laser showed a clear partial on the lower part of the pen, where you'd expect the index finger to rest. And a good thumb partial, on the opposite side.
"Grand," said Harley.
"Pure sex," said Erik. "Look at the curves on those ridges."
The upper part of the pen had very small partials.
"Check the top of the clicker, where the thumb would go," said Hector.
The laser light vibrated into phase, but revealed nothing.
Harley photographed the latents as they were amplified under the laser.
The camera contained one nearly full thumbprint on the upper left of the back side, where Zisch had braced the camera in order to advance the film. The thumbprints around the advance wheel were smeared.
"Check the bottom right corner," said McMichael. "I'm hoping for some palm to check against the slider."
Harley rearranged the camera in the laser unit and aimed the light onto the right-side bottom. McMichael watched the partial palm print reveal itself, beautifully bisected by what appeared to be two major lines.
"Line of heart meets line of health, just below the plain of Mars," said Erik. "My college girlfriend minored in palmistry and the other hard sciences, like astrology. That's definitely a right palm, upper right corner, exactly where you'd cradle that camera for a shot."
Harley photographed the prints, then shut down the bench laser.
"Luck of the Irish," said Erik.
"Luck nothing," said Hector. "He's just a good detective."
The cyanoacrylate fuming chamber made the prints visible to the naked eye, chemically hardening them into a nearly permanent record. Erik photographed them with a digital camera fitted with a strong magnifying lens, taking several shots of each print, complete with a ruler for measurement. He came back from the computer printer less than five minutes later with twenty-two large, clear fingerprint images.
Next, they spread out the fingerprint cards taken from Pete Braga's house, and from the inside of the latex gloves found down on the beach.
McMichael had always liked visual fingerprint analysis- trying to match the ridge patterns between two prints. He looked for the telltale bifurcations and endings and furrows that could match one print to another. It was difficult work to do well, very difficult to do well enough for a court of law, which is why the detectives left it to forensic specialists. McMichael reminded himself how easy it was to mistake a blood bridge for a ridge ending, for example, and how too much or too little ink would obscure a minutiae point and lead you to the wrong conclusion.
"No," said Harley after ten seconds. "The left thumb whorls are miles apart. Ditto the right index loops."
It took McMichael a full minute and a sinking heart to confirm what Harley had seen.
"Nice try," said Erik. "It really was."
"Hey," said Hector. "Not so fast. So this guy leaves one of his bird feathers, but he doesn't leave a fingerprint. He's the brains of the team. He lined up the mark- an old guy just like his neighbor. Made his partner use the club. Just because somebody else's prints were there doesn't mean he wasn't."
"Sure," said Harley, without conviction.
McMichael tried to picture a twosome. A robbery team had made some sense when it looked like the paintings and baseball gloves had been boosted that night. But if you ruled out robbery as motive, that left you with a basher and someone standing around… doing what? He wondered if Patricia might have missed some jewelry, besides the South African diamond earrings she'd remembered her mother wearing. And the hummingbird. Maybe Pete had cash in there that Patricia never knew about. But why would they close up the floor safe and move that heavy brass-nail sofa back over it? If they'd marched him up there to open it himself, why march him back down to his fish room, sit him down, then start hitting?
Pete was a collector, thought McMichael: baseball gloves, paintings, mounted trophy fish, signed books. And what else was he?
A businessman: sold cars, made investments. A politician: Port Commission, former mayor, city booster.
I'd look to the new airport if I were you.
All I can say is that Peter Braga was a tempestuous man.
McMichael realized he needed to spend a little more time with Pete Braga. Which meant a little more time with Patricia. Which had once been what he wanted more than anything in the world.
Back at his desk he found her number and made the call.
"I'll be aboard the Cabrillo Star," she said. "Meet me at four."