“Payday? What are you talk-oh, you mean for you? Oh, anytime. You need some money?”
“Sort of. I could use some today.”
McCaleb went to the galley counter where he had left his wallet and keys. As he was opening the wallet, he computed that he had used Buddy for no more than eight hours. He took out six twenties and handed the bills to Lockridge. Fanning the money in his hands, Buddy said it was too much.
“Some of it’s for gas,” McCaleb explained. “And the extra is for the hanging around and being on call. That okay?”
“Fine with me. Thanks, Terror.”
McCaleb smiled. Lockridge had been calling him that ever since the night they met and McCaleb had been so mad about the harmonica noise.
Lockridge finally left then and McCaleb got back to work. Nothing struck him as significant during his viewing of the videotapes and he went on to the paperwork. On this read-through time was not a factor and he tried to absorb every detail on every page.
He started backward, beginning with the Kang-Torres case. But as he went through the crime reports and investigative summaries, he found nothing aside from the conflict in the timeline he had constructed earlier that tugged at him as being out of order or needing further investigation. Despite his dislike of Arrango’s personality and Walters’s complacency, he couldn’t find anything wrong or anything that had slipped through.
Finally, he came to the autopsy report and the grainy photocopies of the photos of Gloria Torres’s body. He hadn’t looked at these before. With good reason. Death photos had always been the way he remembered victims. He saw them in death, not in life. He saw what had been done to them. During the first read-through of the murder book, he had decided that he didn’t need to see the photos of Gloria. It wasn’t what he wanted or needed to know about her.
But now, grasping for anything, he studied the photos. The poor duplication of them by the photocopier made the details murky and softened the impact. He leafed through them quickly and then came back to the first one. It was Gloria’s naked body on the steel table, the photo taken before the autopsy. A long incision, made by the surgeon who took her organs, ran between the breasts and down the sternum. McCaleb held the photo in both hands and looked at her violated body for a long moment, feeling a mixture of sadness and the heat of guilt.
The phone rang, startling him. He grabbed the phone before it could ring again.
“Yes?”
“Terry? It’s Dr. Fox.”
McCaleb inexplicably turned the photo over on the table.
“Are you there?”
“Yes, hi, how are you?”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“I’m fine, too, Doc.”
“What are you doing?”
“Doing? I’m just sort of sitting here.”
“Terry, you know what I mean. What did you decide about that woman’s request? The sister.”
“I, uh…” He turned the photo back over and looked at it. “I decided I needed to look into it.”
She didn’t say anything but he pictured her at her desk closing her eyes and shaking her head.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “Terry, I really don’t think you understand the risks of what you are doing.”
“I think I do, Doctor. I don’t think I have a choice, anyway.”
“I don’t think I have one, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t think I can continue to be your doctor if this is what you are going to do. You obviously don’t value my advice or feel you should follow my instructions. You are choosing this pursuit of yours over your health. I can’t be around while you do this.”
“Are you firing me, Doc?”
He laughed uneasily.
“It’s not a joke. Maybe that’s your problem. You think it’s some sort of joke, that you’re invincible.”
“No, I don’t feel invincible.”
“Well, your words and actions don’t match up. On Monday I’ll have one of my assistants gather your files and put together two or three cardiologists I can refer you to.”
McCaleb closed his eyes.
“Look, Doc, I… I don’t know what to say. We’ve been together a long time. Don’t you feel an obligation to see it through?”
“It goes two ways. If I don’t hear from you by Monday, I’ll have to assume you are going on with this. I’ll have your records here at the office ready for you.”
She hung up. McCaleb sat still, the phone still to his ear until it started blaring its hang-up tone.
McCaleb got up and took a walk outside. From the cockpit he surveyed the marina and the parking lot. He saw no sign of Buddy Lockridge or anyone else. The air was still. He leaned over the stern and looked down into the water. It was too dark to see bottom. He spit into the water and with it went the misgivings he felt over Fox’s edict. He decided he would not be swayed.
The photo was there on the table waiting for him when he got back. He picked it up again and studied it once more, this time his eyes traveling up the body to the face. There was some kind of dark salve on the eyes and then he remembered that the eyes had probably been taken along with the internal organs.
