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"What
happened, Paul?"

"She went into a
grand mal seizure Friday morning around eight. Not long after you told me you
were going out to Jim O'Brien's house with Evan. She died at nine
forty-three."

Zamorra turned his
eyes from her and looked out the window, brow furrowed and his breath caught in
his throat.

"That's why
I...
couldn't make it. I called the San
Bernardino sheriffs with the address, told them there might be a deputy in
trouble. Later, I realized that O'Brien might have given you the wrong address.
So I got personnel here to dig out Jim O'Brien's address, called it in. By
then, well, you were down and bleeding half to death. And your partner was just
one building from where he is now."

"Paul."

His
profile was clear against the black window but he still didn't look at her.

A
nurse came in, checked the IV drip and the monitor, asked Merci if she wanted a
pain med. Merci said no. The idea hit her that Zamorra needed it more than she
did, but what drug on earth could repair a broken heart?

They sat for a while
in the hourless time of the hospital.

"She
had a nice voice," he said finally. "She sang to me sometimes.
Broadway stuff, with lots of dramatics. Funny."

"What are you
going to do, Paul?"

"The
San Diego guys want me down there. Get a place with a little acreage,
maybe."

"I mean now.
Tonight."

"Nothing.
Absolutely nothing."

"Promise
me."

He
turned her way. "If I was going to do that, I wouldn't be here right now.
I'd crawl away and do it, like an old cat."

"Remember
about the broken places healing up stronger than before."

"I know."

"You're young.
Everything's going to change. Then change again."

Merci listened to the
voices in the hall, the drone of the heater.

"I let you down,
and I'm sorry," he said.

"I'll
tell you something, Paul. I let my partner down once. It got him killed.
There's nothing in the world that feels worse. I know that. You wish you could
trade places, but you can't. And you won't forgive yourself for a long time.
But you have to. We have to. It's the only way to keep going."

He looked at her.
"You haven't? Yet?"

"I play it over
all the time. This way and that. Try to change what I did, what I thought, what
I believed. It can't be done. But look at me. I'm here. I made it. I'm alive.
You don't have my life on your hands. So grieve for Janine. Grieve for
yourself. But not for me. For whatever it's worth, Paul, I forgive you. Get
over it. Go on."

And with those words
she felt something break inside her, peel away and sink out of sight. Black
water closed over it then a halo of ripple wobbled outward. She knew that Hess
would have said the same to her. He would have forgiven her. He would have told
her that the first person to forgive is not your enemy but yourself, that only
the fool extends his suffering.

In that moment she
loved Hess again, and she loved Paul Zamorra and she loved Mike McNally and she
even loved herself. For the first time in many months she believed she would be
all right.

In the eye of her
mind the last black ripple was gone now and something that could have been
moonlight shone on the water.

"I
can't go home tonight."

"Turn off the
light. Sit back down. The nurse will bring you blanket."

She woke up three
times that night. The third, Zamorra was gone.

A
week later, on the second day of the New Year, Merci
rented a little two-bedroom place on the sand at Ninth Street in Newport. It
was cheap and smelled of pine cleanser and the ocean. There was old carpet, old
furniture, old prints on the walls faded by the sun. Clark helped her and Tim
move in, still trying to talk her out of it.

She
had cut her hair short. She bought some baggy clothes that wouldn't hang up on
her bandages. She rented the place as Gail White, trying to sweet-talk the old
landlord into accepting cash in advance in lieu of proper ID. When he resisted
she badged him and asked him to help her out damnit and he did. He showed up
later that first afternoon with a bunch of carnations.

When
Clark left she took Tim down to the waterline for a walk. She watched Tim
waddle after the hunkered gulls. She watched the half-day boat put down anchor
near a kelp bed. She passed a couple of kids smoking a joint by the lifeguard
stand, glowered at them, then reminded herself who she was. Things that are not
my problem for a hundred, she thought. She liked being "Gail." It was
her way, off center as she often was, of showing respect.

She
read the papers. She slept. She played with Tim. She watched the tube. She
talked on the phone a little. She took more walks.

She
attempted to call Paul Zamorra twice, as she'd been doing for the last week. No
answer at home. No response to her messages. He'd taken a bereavement leave.
Nobody in the department had any idea where he was. She made some inquiries
with the San Diego SD but couldn't identify any of Zamorra's friends.

If I was going to do that I wouldn't be here right now. I'd crawl away
and do it, like an old cat.

Merci
also called Joan Cash at the close of each workday. No, Zamorra had not
contacted her office with regard to counseling or anything else. Cash and Merci
talked for almost an hour each time. They were long, wandering conversations
that Cash without subtlety guided toward Merci's feelings about O'Brien, the
Purse Snatcher, Hess.

Merci
thought it was easier talking to Cash on the phone than it was face-to-face.
She liked the idea of miles between them, even if their voices flew with the
speed of electricity. Cash thought that Zamorra’s "old cat" statement
was a clear warning and, without saying so, suggested that Merci should prepare
herself for anything.

Clark
had saved for her all the newspaper articles relating to Mike’s arrest,
O'Brien's death, and the subsequent investigation of the framing of Mike.

She
read them and saw that without Jim O'Brien's suicide letter there was no
visible motive for Evan to have done what he did. Not even Gary Brice from the
Journal
could figure out why the CSI had gone to such lengths to make an
innocent man suffer.

Brighton
had acted mystified. Glandis had a lot of no comments. The rank and file
expressed support for Mike, who refused to speak with the media. And Merci told
none of them that she had the key to it all---photocopy of Jim O'Brien's
suicide letter—secured for her by Zamorra before his vanishing.

By the third day she
was bored with Gail White, so she got Mel Glandis to come over after lunch.

• •

He slumped his big
body into the chair by the window in the living room, following her with his
bovine eyes, face flushed and hands folded.

"My
getting the Bailey case was no accident," she said. "You gave it to
me for a reason. You knew something was wrong with it from beginning, from way
back in sixty-nine. You even had the evidence prove it, but you didn't have the
balls to try."

He smiled. "What
are you talking about, Merci?"

"Evan
said he wanted to get to the truth about Bailey. When he asked you to help him
dig it up, you jumped at the chance. You knew if you could cast a shadow on
Brighton, you could muscle yourself into his office the same way he did. Evan
mailed me the key to the storage area, but I think the storage unit was yours.
Brighton and McNally had tried to hide that evidence, but you found out where
it was. You took it. Kept it for a rainy day. Your little investment in the
future. You just never had the nuts to use it, until Evan showed up. Dirty
work's not your thing. All of which makes you more than the garden variety
buttkisser I thought you were. It makes you an accomplice to murder."

His
mouth dropped open, his face went redder. "Nothing you just said is
true."

"Evan
O'Brien said it was. Dying words, Mel. Admissible in court. He ratted out your
fat ass."

Glandis
stared at her. The part about Evan's admission was a lie, but she had no
problem telling it because she figured that most of it had to be true.

"Mel,
I don't think you knew Evan was going to murder Aubrey Whittaker. You wouldn't
have the stomach for that. You just saw a way to open a can of worms, let the
stink get onto Brighton. I'm going to let you take it from here. Tell me what
happened and you'll walk back to your job. Lie to me and I'll have you arrested
as a co-conspirator with O'Brien. I'll ruin you."

Glandis
looked out the window. She guessed he'd roll over in less than thirty seconds.
It took ten.

"Yeah,
okay. I knew the Bailey case wasn't right, but I didn't know
how.
I
thought Brighton was covering something. McNally, too. I smelled Owen and Meeks
in it, but I wasn't sure where. So I kept my eyes and ears open. I was
partnered up with Rymers back in seventy-three and we got pretty tight. He got
bills from Inland Storage in Riverside every month. Sent to him at
headquarters. I wondered why. I heard him and Brighton saying something about
the storage unit. I wondered. I saw Rymers get a key back from Big Pat one day.
I wondered some more. So I took that key, went to Inland, had a look. They'd
kept aside the evidence—the gun, Bailey's clothes, the tapes, her appointment
book. Just in case Jim O'Brien's conscience got too heavy. Had goods on Meeks
and Owen. When O'Brien killed himself I knew they’d ditch the stuff, so I broke
in and took it. Took everything in the unit, so they'd think it was a routine
burg job. Rented my own little spot across town, stored it all."

"You
think just like a rodent, Mel."

Glandis shrugged, as
if the comment didn't bother him. Some in his face looked pleased.

"You must have
drooled when Evan got hired, started talking about digging up the truth on
Bailey."

"Yeah. When
Brighton gave me the unsolveds to assign, you got Bailey. I wanted our best
homicide investigator on it. I figured if anyone had the endurance to solve it,
you did."

"I'm
flattered."

Glandis
lit up for a split second, looked like he believed her.

"But Merci, I
didn't know what he was planning with Whittaker and Mike. I really didn't.
After she died, I figured one of her johns, you know. Then when you found out
all the stuff about Mike, I figured he got carried away with a girl who was
going to blackmail him, so he shut her up. But Evan? No. I just knew the Bailey
evidence would lead toward Brighton, so I made sure you got it. That's all. If
I'd have known what Evan was up to, I'd have ..."

Merci
watched him, heard the failure of his language.

"You'd have let
Evan do it, Mel, then hoped he got caught. Because you want the department to
fail. You want it to sink so you can rise to the top and rescue it."

He glanced at her,
then down at the ancient green shag carpet. He was breathing deeply. He was
looking at his small dancer's feet. Then he sat back and rolled his shoulders
like a boxer, and looked straight

"Don't
you?" he asked. "Don't you want to rise to the top?"

"Damn
right I do."

He smiled. "You
know, Brighton would have to throw his weight behind me for sheriff if I
handled this mess for him. If I could get you to just forget about Bailey.
Then, if I'm sheriff, you'll write own ticket. Anything you want, Merci
Rayborn.
Anything."

She
stared at him. "Get out of my sight, you craven rat."

"What
are you gonna do?"

"Out of my sight."

Glandis stood. The
sweat ran down his face, onto the collar of his shirt. "Don't crucify me.
I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just a guy trying to get ahead, get what's
mine."

She opened the door
for him and when he was out, she slammed it. The little house shook and a
picture fell off the wall. Tim started crying from his room.

One
down, she thought, and one to go. She reached under the sofa

and turned off the tape recorder, then went to get
her son.

• • •

She carried Tim to the
front gate of the Zamorra household in the Fullerton hills. The ornate wrought
iron squeaked open at her touch. The courtyard fountain was still and the
potted flowers were green and battered by the rain. She looked through a
window and saw only the furniture inside. She rang the bell but no one
answered.

No
newspapers. No mail. The garage doors wouldn't budge.

She let herself
through a side gate and followed the round stepping stones to the backyard. The
swimming pool was covered with a pale blue tarp, leaves gathered in a brown
puddle under the diving board.

She looked through
the panes of a French door: the Zamorra master suite, complete with hospital
bed in a fully upright position and a king mattress and springs on the floor
beside it. The cut flowers in a vase bent down like they were looking for
something on the bedstand.