Cold Pursuit

"We have to go, Joh

Then the chief, ADA Gerald Dale again, Barbara Givens and Mark Hatter, a couple of the old Metro/Vice faces, even Andrea Robb from Internal Affairs. Then Hector, on his way to the Gaslamp to "cash in" on his fifteen minutes.

Dr. Fellon came by just after di

"Turned out to be Patricia's prints on the gloves," Hector said, lowering McMichael into the passenger seat and sliding the crutches into the back.

It was Saturday morning and the rain had turned to showers. McMichael watched Hector roll the wheelchair back to the hospital entrance and tried to digest what he had just been told, tried to imagine Patricia swinging the bloody club, over and over, again and again. What possible unappreciation could account for that?

Hector plunked into the driver's seat.

"That doesn't make sense to me," McMichael said.

"And they found Garland half an hour ago, washed up dead on the navy beach."

"That does."

They made it halfway to McMichael's apartment without talking.

"Mitzi Bland is going to make it," said Hector. "That's what the doctor said. See? Good news. I'm trying to cheer you up."

McMichael spent a few hours on the phone, then hobbled around his apartment on crutches, getting the hang of them. For the first time in his life he was glad his place was small. The worst part was the throbbing down in his left calf, the deep-down ache of broken bone. And his wrists hurt, too, with the pressure of his weight and the cuts of the plastic fasteners that had sliced into him. A little blood had seeped up through the dressings. But even with all this nagging him, he couldn't get Patricia out of his mind. Like a brain thorn, only bigger, he thought. A brain tree. A brain forest.

Raegan came for lunch and stayed almost all afternoon. She brought food and flowers and one of her best cigars, which McMichael fingered and smelled but didn't light. She straightened and dusted and sorted the mail and talked about this guy she'd met at Libertad a couple of nights back: fu

When Raegan was gone he finally mustered the courage to call Sally Rainwater. No longer in service and no new number.

He spent the evening and early night in his bed, head and cast resting on pillows. The rain had slowed to light showers and the wind was slapping the palm fronds against the windows.

He kept thinking about Patricia's penchant for destruction. There was the thrill of it. For as far back as he could remember Patricia had been the one to flaunt the rules. Openly. Proudly. Happily. Maybe it was like any other exciting thing: you needed more and more to get the same feeling. Drinkers. Dopers. Speed freaks. Adrenaline junkies. Thrill seekers. It takes you over. There was always something of the show-off in it, too: look at me, me, me. She had always thought of herself as larger than life, better than the rest. In some ways she really was. He wondered if the bottom of it was self-hatred. If the destruction of things was just a long warm-up for destroying herself. But maybe it was simpler. Maybe she wanted to go out like her mom and dad had, join them somehow. Or maybe there was just a kink in her wiring, some faulty relay that might have shown up on a PET scan as a small red ember where there should have been an ocean of cool blue. Maybe you had to put all the conjecture together and stir it to know why a bright and beautiful woman would do what she had done. Maybe you could never know.

Many years ago he saw in Patricia what he thought was lacking in himself: spirit and passion and the courage to take a chance. Gabriel had proved to him long before how one mistake can ruin you and those you love. What a towering lesson that was. So McMichael had pulled for Patricia to prove the opposite: that you can turn mistakes to your advantage, outrun the consequences if you have to, do what you want and let the world sort it out. Even as roadkill he still wanted her to pull it off. It worked for her, for a while. It worked a while for most of the guys he sent to prison, too.

He closed his eyes and listened to the wind and fell asleep with the image of Patricia's smiling face still luminous in his mind.

THIRTY-FIVE

Super Bowl Sunday afternoon was clear and cool as McMichael worked himself into the driver's seat of his take-home Ford. He leaned the crutches against the seat beside him, used both hands to get his left leg and cast into the car. It hurt like a sonofabitch but he wouldn't risk pain pills and driving. Thank God for automatic transmissions, he thought.

Traffic was heavy- a city abuzz with the big game. He listened briefly to the pregame radio. When he climbed onto the Coronado Bridge a lavishly illustrated dread hit him and he remembered every second of that ride, right down to the strange wild smell that had filled the cab as Patricia gu

He dropped down onto Silver Strand Boulevard and headed south. The wind was up and he could see little puffs of sand swirling off to his right. The ocean was brightly beveled and even McMichael's good sunglasses couldn't keep him from squinting. He wore a Padres cap very loosely on his head to keep himself and the world from having to look at his bandages.

Sally Rainwater's place looked different, even from a distance. The potted plants on the porch were gone, and a man that McMichael had never seen before was touching up the paint on the front door.

McMichael noted the FOR RENT sign propped against the railing as he labored onto the porch. A radio had the pregame show on.

The man stopped painting and looked at him. "You're the cop," he said.

"I take it she moved."

"Gone by Friday evening."

To McMichael, Friday seemed like two years ago, not two days ago. So, she'd gotten out of jail, packed up and split. Didn't waste a second. He admired her resolve and efficiency.

He looked through the open front door, at the wall where one of Pete Braga's paintings had hung. The sailing scene- a man and his boat against a raw and violent ocean. A sea without blue. He could see the nail hole. "Do you have a number for her?"

"Didn't leave me one," said the landlord. "Paid up cash and that was that."

"Did she say where she was going?"

The landlord shook his head and set down the paint can. "She never did say very much. Kept the place clean, though. I gave her the deposit back. The news vans smashed up some ice plant over by the street, but that's about it."