The nurse was young, dirty blonde and tall. She turned from a dining room window when McMichael and Paz walked in: hair up in a loose nest, a blood-smeared cream turtleneck, a blood-smeared fuchsia cardigan, bloody jeans and short-heeled black boots. McMichael studied her as he approached- blood on her face, neck and hands. Her eyes were very dark brown.
"I'm Detective Tom McMichael. This is Hector Paz."
"I want to wash up."
He looked down at her boots and saw the dark drops in relief against the leather. "Do you mind if we take a few pictures of you first?"
"I mind."
The nurse stared at Paz with a sullen blankness.
"What's your name?" asked McMichael.
"Sally Rainwater."
"What's in the pockets?" asked Paz.
Sally Rainwater looked down and extracted one black leather glove from each of the cardigan's side pockets.
"You can just set them on the table," said McMichael. "And the cardigan, too, if you don't mind."
She dropped the gloves on the dining table, then unbuttoned the sweater. She dropped it on the table, too, and fixed her dark brown eyes on him. Her pupils looked normal and her eyes were primitively wild, set off by her face and the blood.
"You can wash up," said McMichael. "I'm going to have a female investigator accompany you."
She strode out and McMichael nodded to Traynor. "Get Barbara."
Hector watched them go. "You going to ask her for the boots?"
"I will."
Hector looked at McMichael with his typical expression of suspicion and latent good humor. "She'll clean up nicely."
"I think so."
McMichael then briefed Paz on what Sterling had told him. Paz was a stocky, muscular man about McMichael's age. Like McMichael, he was only three years in Homicide. They were placed on Team Three because of different temperaments. Tom McMichael was tall and quiet and sometimes sly, Hector Paz bullish and aggressive. The homicide captain called them Calm and Heckle. The Team Three case cancellation rate was highest in the unit.
McMichael pulled out two of the dining set chairs, then turned the chandelier lights over the table all the way up. He took the bay view for himself, not for the scenery but to make the nurse look at him while she talked. He used a pen to nudge her gloves a little closer to where she would sit. The blood on them gave off a duller reflection than the leather and left a faint smudge on the cherrywood lacquer.
"Just hover," said McMichael. "Break in when you want to."
"I can hover. Should we Mirandize her?"
"Let's wait. It looked like transfer blood on her. No mist or droplets, except on her boots."
"Except on her boots."
Five minutes later Sally Rainwater walked back in. Barbara looked in at McMichael, shrugged with an undecided arch of eyebrows, then headed back down the hall.
McMichael was writing in a small notebook, which he closed and placed on the table next to his tape recorder. Hector stood in front of a bronze sculpture of a leaping tuna that dominated one corner of the room.
"Please sit down," said McMichael.
She looked at the ready chair, the gloves, then at him. Her face and hands were clean now, her hair in a strict ponytail. No jewelry, no ring. Her clothes were the same blood-splattered mess. She turned the chair toward the picture window and sat so she wouldn't be facing either of them, so all McMichael could see was profile. He studied the high curve of forehead, straight small nose, her good chin and lips.
"You don't mind talking to us, do you, Ms. Rainwater?"
"I'll talk."
"Thank you. I'm going to tape-record this."
She said nothing as McMichael flipped the tape over and turned the machine on. He had her spell her name and give her home address and phone number.
"Tell me what you saw tonight."
"I went out at about nine-twenty for firewood. I came back a few minutes after ten. I went into the fish room and saw Pete dangling over the side of his chair. The sliding door was open and the wind was coming in. Someone was running across the sand toward the bay. He jumped the wall and disappeared. I saw Pete's head and the blood and the Fish Whack'r and called nine-one-one, then tried to bring him back. I couldn't."
Sally Rainwater turned and looked at him, then back to the bay. Hector faced them now, leaning against the picture window.
"Fish Whack'r?" he asked.
"That's what the club is called," she said.
"Describe the person you saw," said McMichael.
"Black running suit, and a dark cap pulled down. It could have been a man or a woman, but it ran like a man. Average build and height. He blended in with the darkness, just jumped the wall and disappeared."
"Just disappeared," said Paz.
McMichael looked at him, then out to where the sand blew across the beach.
Hector found a light switch and hit the outside floodlights. All three of them watched as the wind softened the scores of footprints going all directions in the public sand. McMichael thought of beachcombers, joggers, walkers, swimmers, kayakers, paddleboarders, you name it. Even in winter, San Diegans loved their beaches.
"Was Pete dead when you found him?"
"Yes. I did CPR anyway, until the cops and paramedics got here."
"Did you kill him?" asked Hector.
"No," she said quietly.
McMichael watched her and let the seconds stretch. "Did you move him?"
"Yes." Her voice was soft but clear and, McMichael thought, a little distant now. "He was hanging over the left side when I walked in. I wrestled him up straight and he slid down like that. I figured that was as good a place as any, so I started the CPR."
"But nothing."
"Nothing but blood all over me."
"What work did you do here?"
"I'm a registered nursing aid, but for Pete, most of what I did was just domestic. Cooking, laundry, light cleaning. Some shopping. Sometimes I'd drive him."
"Where?" asked McMichael.
"Errands. He liked to ride."
"How come he didn't go with you for the firewood?" asked Hector.
"The cold weather made him stiff. He liked the fish room when it was cold. Because of the fireplace. But we didn't have any wood."
"We," said Hector. "You two get along pretty good?"
"Yes. Sure. Seven months, I got to like him."
"So you were like, friends."
"We were friends."
"Friends," said Hector with a smile.
McMichael watched her watch Paz. "How was Pete tonight?"
"Fine. He was always fine. Alert. Strong for his age. Healthy."
"Pete ever talk about being in danger, having enemies?"
"He disliked a lot of people. And a lot of people disliked him. I'm sure you know that."
"Any recent threats that you know of?"
"No."
McMichael watched her reflection in the picture window and saw that she was watching his. The first small drops of rain skidded down the glass. "Did that club come from the wall?"
"I think so. It looked like the one that used to be there."
"We'll get prints off the handle," said Paz. "Unless the creep was wearing gloves, or wiped it down."
She stared out at the storm-swept bay, but said nothing.
"Did you wear your gloves when you tried to revive him?" McMichael asked.
She looked at him again and shook her head, a minor motion that seemed intended mostly for herself. "No. Well, at first I touched his head, the sides of his face, to see his eyes. The gloves were on when I did that. Then I went to the phone and took them off to dial. When I straightened him in the chair and tried the CPR, no, I didn't have them on."
"Did you touch the club tonight?"
"No."
"Did you touch it recently?"
"No. Why?" She turned and looked at him, and for the first time he saw confusion in her unhappy brown eyes.
"In case we find two sets of prints on it."
"And what if you find just one?"
"That person is in deep shit," said Hector.
When she turned to look at Paz her ponytail shifted and McMichael saw the tattoo high on her neck, an inch below the hairline, right side, a small red flame with two points lapping at her pale skin. Or maybe it was a red tulip.
"It would help us quite a lot if we could have your boots for blood samples," he said.
"You can take the gloves and sweater, but I'm not walking around tonight in my socks."
"Ms. Rainwater, do you plan to be in town for the next few days?"
She answered yes without looking at him.
"Can I see your driver's license?"
"My purse is in the kitchen. I'll go-"
"I'll get it," said Hector. He was already moving toward the French doors. "Stay put, Ms. Rainwater. You've had a hard night."
Paz came back into the room with a black purse in one hand and a stainless steel derringer in the other. He held the gun between thumb and forefinger, at the bottom of the grip, the short barrel dangling down.
"Sorry, Ms. Rainwater, but the strap snagged, the purse tipped over, and out came your piece. I'll just put it back in. It's yours, isn't it?"
"It's mine and it's registered."
"You got a permit to go with it?"
"Yes. Give me my purse."
She set the purse on the table, dug out a wallet from which she handed McMichael a CDL and a San Diego County Concealed Carry Permit.
He took out his notebook and wrote down her date of birth and the license and CCP numbers.
Hector had glommed Fiore's camera during his purse retrieval, and now used it to shoot pictures of Sally Rainwater's boots.
She took back her documents, slung the purse over her shoulder and started out.
"Ms. Rainwater," said McMichael. "Where did you go for the firewood? Which store?"
"Ralph's on Rosecrans," she said, and kept on walking.
"Did you lock the door when you left?"
"Yes. And it was locked when I came back."
They watched her go, McMichael unable to keep from checking her shape in the jeans. Excellent indeed.
When she was gone, Hector smiled at McMichael and shook his head. "Odds?"
McMichael switched off his tape recorder, hit rewind. "Ninety-ten no. So far, I believe her. And if she did it, she'd bash, grab what she wanted and drive away. She wouldn't call us."
"I got sixty-forty yes. She bashes, stashes the goods in her Beetle out there, calls us, gives a story and sticks to it. Fucking gloves, man. Convenient. And she knows the name of that club, but she's never touched it? Come on."
"So she's driving away with stolen property right now?"
"Sixty-forty she is," said Hector.
"Pull her over and ask her if you can look in her car."
"She'd say no. She's not dumb."
"Then beat her home and see what she unloads."
McMichael hit the play button on his little tape recorder, wrote Sally Rainwater's address in his notebook, snapped the sheet out and handed it to Paz.