Chapter 117

MAYOR THOMAS HEFFERON was a wiry man with thick gray hair and a hanging left arm from an injury he'd taken in Desert Storm. Chief Fescoe, at a muscular six-three, looked like a bodyguard standing next to him, but Hefferon could handle himself just fine.

Hefferon motioned all of us-Justine, Cruz, Fescoe, Petino, Cronin, and myself-to join him at the glass conference table with its long view of the skyline.

He said, "I'm glad all of you could make it on such short notice. Chief Fescoe has news."

Fescoe folded his hands on the table. "Eamon Fitzhugh made a deal with Bobby and confessed to his part in killing Wendy Borman. We've got his computer at the lab now. Turns out this sick SOB must have obsessive-compulsive disorder," the police chief said. "He saved every file, every text message back to 2006. It's going to take weeks to figure out the wireless eavesdropping program he used to bait the victims. That freak is kind of a genius, I've been told."

Justine said, "That's interesting, Mickey. Crocker thinks of himself as the genius. He calls Fitzhugh a tool."

Cronin said, "Both of them are tools. So that's it, huh? I get my life back after two years? Hey, now I don't know what to do with myself."

After the laughter stopped, Hefferon said, "You folks did a tremendous job. Chief, it took guts to bring Private in on the case. Jack, hope to see you again.

"Justine, Nora, all those hours, and years, more than paid off. You too, Emilio. I hear you scared the snot out of Fitzhugh. Fact is, LA is a safer place because of your dedication. Thank you."

Damn, but that thanks felt good. Whatever brain chemical it released made my whole body happy. No amount of money could compare to the high of taking out the trash and slamming down the lid, knowing it was nailed shut for good.

We were sipping champagne and joking around as we had our pictures taken with the mayor, when my phone signaled me from my inside breast pocket.

It was a voice mail message transferred from my office phone and marked "urgent." The caller was a Michael Donahue.

I knew the name but couldn't place it-then it came to me like a punch to the face. Donahue was the owner of the Irish pub Colleen frequented.

I hit a button, listened to Donahue speaking gravely in his heavy Irish brogue. I replayed the message so I could be sure of what he had said.

"Jack. It's bad. Colleen is at Glendale Memorial Hospital. Room four eleven. You need to come there quickly."

Chapter 118

I TORE UP the freeway north, heading toward the hospital.

I tried to reach Donahue, but my calls went straight to voice mail.

I was scared, preoccupied, and the exit came up too fast.

I twisted the wheel hard and lost control. The car fishtailed, came to a stop, and stalled out five inches from a concrete divider.

Horns honked as freeway traffic flashed by me at seventy. My hands shook as I restarted the engine and finally made it safely down the off-ramp. Jeez, I'd almost totaled my car, and maybe myself.

Twenty-five minutes after getting Donahue's call, I bulled my way through the lobby of Glendale Memorial and stabbed the elevator button until the doors opened and then closed behind me.

By some kind of blind bloodhound instinct, I found Colleen's room on the first try.

I strong-armed the swinging door, and Donahue got up from the bedside chair, came toward me, and shook my hand.

"Take it easy on her, Jack. She's not well."

"What happened?"

"I'll leave the two of you alone."

Colleen's cheeks were flushed. Her hair was damp at her temples. The white cotton blankets covered her to her chin.

She looked very small in the bed, like a feverish child.

I took Mike's vacated chair, leaned over, and touched her shoulder. I was scared for her. She'd never been sick since I'd met her. Not a day.

"Colleen. It's Jack."

She opened her blue eyes and nodded when she saw me.

"Are you okay? What happened?" I asked.

Medication dragged at her voice. "I'm going home."

"What are you saying? To Dublin?"

A terrible thought came to me-like a balled fist to the gut. "Were you pregnant? Did you lose the baby?"

Colleen's blank expression became a smile. She laughed and then she was swept up in a kind of hysteria that turned to sobs. She put her hands up by her cheeks, and I saw shocking white bands of gauze and tape binding her wrists.

The gauze was striped with bright blood, which was seeping through.

What had she done?

"I told Mike not to call you. I'm mortified for you to see me like this… I'll be all right. Please go, Jack. I'm fine now."

"What were you thinking, Colleen?"

I thought back over the past weeks and months. I hadn't noticed that Colleen was depressed. How had I missed it? What the hell was wrong with me sometimes?

"I was completely daft," she said. "I just hurt so much. You don't have to tell me again. I know it's over."

"Colleen. Oh, Colleen," I whispered.

She closed her eyes, and shame washed over me. Guilt and shame. I did care about Colleen, but she cared more. It had been selfish of me to stay with her for so long, when I knew we'd gone as far as we could go. I'd hurt this woman-and she'd done this to herself. What a terrible thing.

I don't know how long the silence between us lasted. Maybe it was only a minute, but it was time enough to think about what Colleen meant to me and to try to imagine a future for the two of us. It was sad, but I just couldn't see it.

"At least you won't be having to listen to my queer way of talkin'," she said.

"Don't you know that I love to listen to your voice?"

"You were good to me, Jack. Always. I won't forget that."

"Damn it, Molloy. I want you to be happy."

She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks.

"You too," she said. "I want that for you too."

Neither of us said another word.

I kissed her good-bye, then I walked out, and I knew I would never see Colleen again, and that was my loss.

I had let another good woman get away, hadn't I? What the hell was wrong with me?

Chapter 119

I HAD PLANNED a "wrap party" at the Pacific Dining Car to thank the guys in the lab as well as the primaries on the Schoolgirl case for a job extremely well done.

After seeing Colleen, I couldn't celebrate and I couldn't fake it.

I phoned Sci, told him I had a family emergency, and asked him to stand in for me as host. Then I did the unthinkable. I turned off my phone.

I drove to Forest Lawn, an old and sprawling cemetery where dozens of celebrities were buried. My sweet mom was buried there too.

She'd been taken down by a previously undiagnosed heart disease during the heat and ugliness of my father's trial. It was a sharp, unexpected ending to an unfulfilled life. Maybe it was my mother and father's bad relationship that kept me away from marriage.

I took off my jacket and sat on the grass near her simple stone, engraved with hands folded in prayer above an inscription: "Sandra Kreutzer Morgan is with God."

A lawn mower hummed in the distance, and I saw the flash of Mylar balloons, probably hovering over the grave of some poor child buried nearby.

I didn't talk to my mother's bones or her spirit. I didn't even pray until just before I left.

But I thought about the good times we'd had together: the rare picnics, a few tailgate parties after football games, watching Peter Sellers movies with her on late-night TV. She had probably seen The Pink Panther a hundred times. So had I. So had Tommy.

I grinned thinking about that, and after a while I rolled my jacket into a pillow and lay down. I got mesmerized by the slow shifting of the oak leaves in the branches overhead.