“A sea is a wave. You know, how you hear on surf reports that the seas are two to four feet or whatever?”
“Right.”
“Okay, well a following sea is the one you have to watch out for. It’s the one that comes up behind a vessel. You don’t see it coming. It hits you from behind and swamps you. Sinks you. The rule is that if you’re running in following seas, you’ve just got to be moving faster than they are. Stay ahead of them. He named the boat that because it was like a reminder. You know, always watch over your shoulder. It was something he always said to me when I was growing up. Even when I went over town.”
“Over town?”
“When I left the island. He told me always to watch out for the following sea, even on land.”
She smiled.
“Now that I know the story, I like the name. Do you miss him?”
He nodded but offered nothing else. The conversation drifted away and they began to eat their sandwiches. McCaleb hadn’t planned on the meeting being about him. After a few bites he started filling her in on the morning’s lack of solid accomplishment. He didn’t tell her about watching her sister being murdered on the videotape but he told her about his hunch that the Torres-Kang slayings were connected to at least one other incident. He told her how he was further guessing that that other incident might be the ATM robbery and shooting recounted in the stories Keisha Russell had read him.
“What will you do next?” she asked when he was done.
“Take a nap.”
She looked at him curiously.
“I’m beat,” he said. “I haven’t been running around and doing as much thinking as this for a long time. I’m going back to my boat and resting up. Tomorrow I’ll start again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” he said with a smile. “You were looking for somebody with a reason to get involved in this. I’ve got the reason and I’m involved, but I’ve got to take it slow at first. You being a nurse, I hope you understand.”
“I do. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. That would make Glory’s dying even more…”
“I understand.”
They were silent for a few moments before he picked up the conversation again.
“Your take on the LAPD was right on. I think they’re in a holding pattern, waiting for something to happen-probably for this guy to hit again. They’re definitely not working it. It’s a cold case until something happens to warm it up.”
She shook her head.
“They’re not working it but they don’t want you to have a try at it. That makes a lot of sense.”
“It’s a territorial thing. It’s the way the game is played.”
“It’s not a game.”
“I know.”
He wished he had chosen a better word.
“Then what can you do?”
“Well, in the morning, when I’m fresh, I’ll try the Sheriff’s Department on this other case, the one I think is connected. I know the lead on it. Jaye Winston. We worked a case once a long time ago. It went well and I’m hoping that will get me in the door. At least further in than I got with the L.A. people.”
She nodded but she wasn’t all that good at masking her disappointment.
“Graciela,” he said, “I don’t know if you were expecting somebody to just come in and solve this like turning a key in a lock but it’s not realistic to believe that. That’s movies. This is real. In all my years in the bureau, most of the cases turned on some little detail, some little thing that was missed or didn’t seem important at first. But then it comes back around to being the key to the whole thing. It just takes time to get there sometimes, to find that little detail.”
“I know. I know. It just frustrates me that more wasn’t done sooner.”
“Yes, when the…”
He was going to say when the blood was fresh.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just that with most cases the more time goes by, the harder it gets.”
He knew he wasn’t helping her any by telling her the reality of the situation. But he wanted her to be prepared for his eventual failure. He had been good in his day but not that good. He now realized that by agreeing to take the case he had only set Graciela Rivers up for disappointment. His selfish dream of redemption would be another painful dose of reality for her.
“Those men just didn’t care,” she said.
He studied her downcast eyes. He knew she was talking about Arrango and Walters.
“Well, I do.”
They finished eating in silence. After McCaleb pushed his plate aside, he watched her as she gazed out the window. Even in her white polyester nurse’s uniform with her hair pinned back, Graciela Rivers stirred something in him. She had a kind of sadness about her that he wished somehow to soothe. He wondered if it had been there before her sister died. With most people it is. McCaleb had even seen it in the faces of babies-the sadness already there. The events of their lives seemed only to confirm the sadness they already carried.
“Was this where she died?” he asked.
She nodded and looked back at him.
“She was first taken to Northridge, stabilized and then transferred here. I was here when life support was terminated. I was with her.”
He shook his head.
“It must have been very hard.”
