McMichael endured the autopsy in the county medical examiner's office that afternoon. He had never gotten used to the grisly theater, disliked the smell of formalin and alcohol, hated the sound of the saws. The butchered corpses with their yawning Y-sections made him feel queasy and guilty and want to crawl into bed with Stephanie and be forgiven.
Hector was off to court on a parole hearing. Barbara and Hatter were checking the notary, then interviewing Pete's allies and enemies on the Port Commission, of which Pete was a thirty-plus-year commissioner.
So McMichael stood amidst the fumes and the instruments and watched Dr. Arnold Stiles perform the act. With a flat and methodical tone, the doctor narrated his findings into a tape recorder.
"I can see sixteen separate blows," said Stiles. "But there were almost certainly more, lost in the bone shatters on the top of the skull."
"Rage," said McMichael.
"Much of it," said Stiles.
"Can you tell right- or left-handed attack?"
Stiles nodded. "He was hit from behind. The blows are concentrated to the right, so right-handed."
"We figured it from behind."
"That makes sense, with no defense wounds."
McMichael took a deep breath and let it out slowly. For the next few minutes he simply watched Stiles. It was hard for him to tell his revulsion from his anger.
"You look white as Pete here," said Stiles. "Why put yourself through this?"
"It reminds me," McMichael said.
"Rawlings used to watch, too. I'm not convinced it makes a detective any more effective."
"I'm not here to convince you."
Stiles dropped his cranial saw into a bloody tub. There was saw mist stuck to his eyeglasses. He was a short, pudgy man who wore the same lucky necktie for every autopsy he performed in a given year. After Christmas he'd have a new one for the coming year's carnage. The ties were always clip-ons, striped and, McMichael assumed, machine washable.
"Cool down, Tom. I know how you feel. I know what you're doing."
Stiles finally pronounced the cause of death as "repeated blunt force trauma to the head, resulting in nervous system and cardiac failure." The approximate time of death was between seven and ten P.M. on Wednesday, January 8.
McMichael left the building feeling like his soul had been cut out, weighed and thrown away.
Back at headquarters he waited in Arthur Flagler's office. He felt the pieces of his soul drifting back into place, roughly into place, as he stared out the window and watched the drizzle falling.
He tried to think of something other than Pete. He let his mind go and up came Sally Rainwater and the terror on her face as she took his wrist. McMichael had never been shot, but he figured if he had, and two strangers drew down on him in a dark hallway, he might not like it either. As he remembered, the fear hadn't stripped her dignity- even standing there in her own pee Sally Rainwater seemed strong and beautiful.
Arthur Flagler breezed in with a package of cookies and a carton of milk.
"The Fish Whack'r was clean," he said. "That's the name of the fish club."
McMichael remembered that Sally Rainwater had known this, too.
"And we didn't get anything promising from inside the house," said Flagler. "Plenty of fingerprints left by Pete and the nurse. But we got prints from the latex gloves. These creeps never think about leaving prints on the inside."
"That's good news, Arthur." McMichael took out his notebook and pen.
Flagler bit into a cookie, studied what was left. "It wasn't the nurse. I used her CCP to get a ten-set from the county. You can rule her out, as the basher anyway."
So McMichael thought: Rainwater was telling the truth, or at least part of it. He didn't quite know how he felt. He'd had a suspect and now he didn't. He was pleased that he'd read her better than Hector had, but she could still be an accomplice, even the shot caller. Or she could be an innocent young woman who'd drenched herself in an old man's blood, gotten up close enough to smell the death in his nostrils and still tried to breathe life back into him.
"The prints we got off the latex aren't in any register so far," said Flagler. "We've never printed this guy. Neither has the county. We also got blanked by Cal-ID, the FBI and Western Information Network. I'm trying Interpol and the Naval Investigative Service. Nothing yet."
"Good enough for court?" asked McMichael.
"Six points," said Flagler. "Plenty-U.S. versus Plaza or not."
McMichael knew of the recent federal court ruling that prevented fingerprint examiners from testifying that unidentified prints "matched" a suspect's prints. Things were changing in the courtroom, but six points was six points, more than enough to establish a probability beyond question.
"Interestingly, the palm of the right glove had torn out," said Flagler. "Right where you'd expect it to during a beating- all the friction and tension on the palm."
McMichael wondered when. "But no palm prints."
Flagler shook his head. "None that we've found. It might have torn out when he stripped off the glove after."
"That's funny," said McMichael. "A torn-out glove but no prints."
"Maybe he knew it, wiped the club and the door and whatever else he touched."
"He must have known."
Flagler shrugged, then downed the rest of his cookie and took out another. "We got Pete's blood off the warm-up jacket. No surprise. The jacket itself is a common make, available at scores of area stores. A man's extra large. We got an eyelash off it- brown. No flesh attached, so no DNA possibilities. We can determine if it could have come from a certain suspect, when we have such a suspect. And we also got two strands of gray nylon/polyester fiber from the floor, where the basher would have stood. Probably from carpet, maybe car carpet. I can match it up with something you bring in, but I can't do much else with them- too common, too many manufacturers, too many dye lots- and no real records or controls on any of them. The floor in that fish room is hardwood, so there were no shoe impressions. But the blood caught some zigzag sole patterns so we're thinking athletic shoe, maybe work boots or some kind of walking shoe. My guys are tracking down a make and model, but that can take time. There were marks- black scuffs- like you'd leave on a basketball court if you wore the wrong kind of shoes."
"Just one set?"
"No evidence of more than one, not in the blood. But this could have been a team thing- I understand there were some fairly large paintings possibly taken. One to do the deed. The other to help with the booty."
McMichael thought about two or even three people pulling off this job. It still made no sense that they'd take art when there were electronics that would fetch a quicker price. And the simple explanation for the blank wall spaces were the gifts to Sally Rainwater.
Flagler took a swig of milk and pressed the last cookie up through the plastic. "Here's the kicker. Erik found a bird feather under the table where the wineglasses were. Yellow, but not dyed. Naturally yellow, like a canary or a parakeet. Funny shape- about an inch long and slender, with kind of a bloom or blossom at the end. Under the scope we got louse sheddings and excrement. So it didn't come from a hat or feather earrings or something like that. It came from a plain old bird. Harley told me Pete didn't have a bird."
"Neither does the nurse," said McMichael.
"Someone does. Maybe he works in a pet store. Patronized a pet store. Eats songbirds for breakfast."
"Why 'he'?"
Flagler smiled. "Possible. The fish billy is weighted aluminum. Really packs a wallop. It could have been a woman. You don't have to be strong, just accurate. A first strike would help, too. It looked to me like Pete never got up from his chair. Maybe he was dozing. Maybe the basher was quiet. But now, thanks to the yellow feather, when you collar this creep you can tell him or her-"
"Don't say it."
"A little birdie told me."
"I thought you would."
"We're still working up the wine to see if Pete's might have been spiked. We've also got a dermal sample for DNA from inside the glove, but that's two days to cook. We'll run an HIV test, mainly to protect the nurse. Bring me a warm body, Detective- I've got prints galore."
"Bring me the feather. I'm going to ID it."
"Bob Eilerts out at the zoo is first-rate."
"Thank you, Arthur."
"Tweet-tweet."
McMichael walked into the Homicide area, deserted now at six on a Thursday night. It was often empty, in a city of 1.2 million with only four teams to work murder- everyone out, doing the job. There used to be seven teams, but budgets were budgets and the four teams were coming up with good cancellation rates.
At his desk in the Team Three pen, McMichael listened to Barbara Givens's message: the notary said yes, he'd witnessed Pete Braga's several signatures over the last few months, transferring certain property to Sally Rainwater. Barbara had checked Rainwater's documents against the notary's log and everything looked right. The notary himself was in good standing with the California licensing board.
McMichael sat back. He'd lost a suspect and a motive in about half an hour. So, why bash Pete and run away with little or nothing? Was the creep surprised by the nurse, never getting to finish his job? A thrill killing? Some kind of vengeance or jealousy? Did he swipe something they hadn't realized yet? But in some way, McMichael wasn't surprised: it hadn't felt like a home invasion from the start. Bludgeon murders were usually personal. The more times the victim was hit the more he or she was hated. You looked at the husband, the wife, the lover. Thieves don't take the time to keep on hitting. Strangers don't hate like that. Unless they're just insane.
Patricia Hansen had dropped off a folder containing Sally Rainwater's references. McMichael scanned through the sheets: five previous caretaking jobs for the elderly, three character testimonials from college professors, one from a Methodist minister. They all spoke highly of her competence and personality. She'd moved a little, he saw- Virginia, Florida, Texas and California.
He logged on to his computer and waited for the FBI Violent Criminal Apprehension Program to verify his entry code. While the hourglass icon urged patience, he turned and looked at the pictures of his ex-wife and son at the beach. During their seven years of marriage he and Stephanie had rented an oceanfront bungalow in Oceanside for one week each summer. Every year, McMichael had taken a vertical shot of his wife and son standing on the pier, framed them and lined them up at his work station as a nutshell history. The growing collection had traveled with him from patrol to Metro/Vice to Homicide. He could see how Johnny had grown bigger and stronger, and Stephanie had grown bigger and unhappier. So easy, he thought, to see now what I couldn't see then. Last year's picture was just after the divorce. It showed McMichael and Johnny standing somewhat awkwardly together while a tourist snapped the shot. It had been a rough week.
VICAP finally gave him access and McMichael ran a like-crimes check using residential robbery, bludgeon attacks and Southern California as his parameters. He asked the database to go back ten years.
There were twelve unsolveds, two in San Diego. McMichael remembered both. The first was four years back, an older woman in the Lemon Grove area who was raped, robbed and beaten. She'd survived, but there had not yet been an arrest. Witnesses had placed a "white male, 20-30 years of age, medium height and weight, dressed as a housepainter" near the scene of the attack. McMichael recalled that no one on the block had had painting done that day.
The second was two years ago. Homicide Team One had gotten it. McMichael had heard just bits and pieces over the months, less and less as the case remained open and the leads shrank to nothing. The victim was a seventy-two-year-old white man- Richard Appleton- who was found by his daughter. He'd been beaten with a ten-inch piece of steel pipe that had been discarded near the scene. And robbed of a watch, cash, a handgun.
It had happened in Kensington, east of downtown, late at night, mid-September. The killer had either come through an unlocked door or had a key- no signs of forced entry. No suspect, no warrants issued. Neighbors, friends and family all checked out clean.
But one neighbor reported an unidentified subject loitering outside Appleton 's home at approximately nine P.M. that night. White male, medium build, wearing a dark jogging suit and cap. Both San Diego homicide detective Ed Drake and the FBI believed that robbery was the motive. Appleton had been sitting in a chair, watching TV.
Boom, thought McMichael.
He went to the Team One pen, found the Appleton murder book and carried it back to his desk.
First he read the witness interview to make sure the Bureau had gotten it right on the VICAP synopsis. It had, word for word.
Next he read the detective-in-charge's crime scene notes, neatly transcribed from his tape recording. Ed Drake had headed up this one and Ed Drake was a detail man. He'd even made a note of the thunderstorms that night over the city. Rain, thought McMichael. Rain in mid-September and rain in early January. Old men sitting in chairs while storms blow through. Hard to hear because of the rain and wind, maybe. Easy to break and enter. Covers tracks. Keeps people inside. Two scenes, two joggers.
Appleton never made it out of his chair. Three of his teeth had landed on a windowsill ten feet across the room. The estimated total value of the watch, cash and gun came to less than five hundred dollars.
No prints. No flesh, blood or fluid samples for DNA.
McMichael flipped forward to the interviews. Neighbors and relatives had said that Appleton was quiet, friendly and often home. He was a widower, a retired machine shop foreman.
No one came up with anything even mildly unusual- except for the jogger. McMichael read the description again, thinking about the time of night and the rain. The neighbor who had seen the jogger was Kyle Zisch, twenty-six, who lived across the street and two houses down. Zisch said he was making tea for his girlfriend when he looked out the kitchen window and saw "a man loitering in front of victim residence." Zisch told the police that he thought it was interesting that the man was in the rain, dressed for jogging, but not really jogging. Zisch said the man finally began running down the sidewalk, slowly, after "appearing to case the house."
McMichael had seen enough die-hard joggers to figure that running in the rain- especially a warm September rain- wasn't that unusual. What caught his eye next was not the jogger, but Kyle Zisch's job and place of employment: "bird handler at San Diego Wild Animal Park."
Boom again.
Maybe Zisch had been the jogger, McMichael thought. It wasn't unusual for a smart young creep to toy with the cops. McMichael wondered if "case" was Zisch's word or the detective's. Maybe the helpful Zisch had a thing for easy marks, late nights, blunt objects, rain. It would be easy enough to pick up a yellow feather on the job, get it caught on a sweater or coat or cap, leave it behind accidentally. Maybe even leave one at the scene on purpose, for the fun of it. There was nothing in the Appleton murder book about feathers.
McMichael ran a records check on Zisch but he came back clean. No prints on file with the PD, the state or FBI, either. McMichael wrote down Zisch's LKA and phone number, and made a note to ID the feather.
While the VICAP pages printed out, he looked at the pictures of Johnny again and figured the days until he'd see him. Two. Last night, Wednesday, had been a father-son night, but McMichael had dropped Johnny off at home early because his boy wasn't feeling well. The weeknights were pretty brief, anyway: they could bang out the homework then have time for dinner, maybe a walk and a movie or TV. McMichael always tried to do too much on Johnny days, tried to get a week's worth of living into a few waking hours. Johnny was a beautiful boy and the apple of McMichael's eye and his heart broke a little every time he thought of how they had torn his young life in two. Only seven years old.
It was dark outside now but the rain had stopped. A poststorm wind came steady from the west. The lights of downtown were staunch in the darkness before him.
McMichael had grown up just a few blocks from here and had been seeing this view, adjusted for progress but the same in its essentials, for all of his thirty-eight years. He loved the city. Loved the curve of the Coronado Bridge and the hard optics of ocean and glass and concrete, and the stout old downtown buildings and the spikes of the big hotels by the water. He loved the busy muscle of the shipyards and the tremendous vessels of the Fifth Fleet, and the navy installations that claimed so much of the city- cities within the city- closed and self-sufficient and forbidding. He loved the bars and streets of the Gaslamp, so crowded and chaotic with pretty women on warm summer nights. He even loved the huge cemetery out on Point Loma, where his great-great-uncle, killed in France in the Great War, shared a Pacific-side grave with the wife who outlived him by six decades.
But even more than all of that, he loved his son. Johnny was born in this city. He was the city made flesh. Until McMichael had become a father he had no idea that the hugeness of a city could be contained in the smile of a boy. He'd learned that the tremendous, unshaped powers within a man's heart- love, loyalty, gratitude, joy- could become specific with the birth of a child. Everything he had felt, made real.
It was all worth protecting.