Toliver didn’t answer. McCaleb glanced out the window at the rows of workbenches.

“You’ve got a lot of people working for you, Mr. Toliver. How many work the two-to-ten shift?”

“Eighty-eight at the moment.”

“And then?”

“About the same. What’s the point?”

“The point is you gave the man an alibi based on a time card. Do you think it could have been possible that Bolotov left early without being noticed, then had a friend punch him out on the clock?”

Toliver didn’t respond.

“Forgetting about Bolotov for a moment, have you ever had that problem before? You know, somebody punching out for somebody else, scamming the company that way?”

“We’ve been in business here sixteen years, it’s happened.”

“Okay.” McCaleb nodded. “Now, could it have happened with Bolotov? Or do you stand at the time clock every night and make sure nobody punches two cards.”

“Anything’s possible. We don’t stand at the clock. Most nights my son closes up. I’m already home. He keeps an eye on things.”

McCaleb held his breath for a beat and felt the excitement he had been containing build. Toliver’s answer, if it were given in court, would be enough to shred Bolotov’s alibi.

“Your son, is that Randy?”

“Yeah, Randy.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“He’s in Mexico. We’ve got another plant in Mexicali. He spends one week a month down there. He’ll be back next week.”

“Maybe we can call him?”

“I can try but he’s probably out on the floor. That’s why he goes down there. To make sure the line is running. Besides, how is he going to remember one night three months ago? We make clocks here, Detective. Every night we make the same clocks. Every day we ship them out. One night is no different from the other.”

McCaleb turned away from him and looked out the window again. He noticed that several of the workers were leaving their posts as new workers were taking their places. He watched the shift change until he picked out the man he believed was Bolotov. There had been no photo in the records and only a spare description. But the man McCaleb was now watching wore a black T-shirt with sleeves stretched tightly around his powerful and tattoo-laced arms. The tattoos were all of one ink-jailhouse blue. It had to be Bolotov.

“That’s him, right?”

He nodded in the direction of the man who had taken a seat at a workbench. It appeared to McCaleb that it was Bolotov’s job to place the plastic casings around completed clock mechanisms and then stack them in a four-wheeled cart.

“Which?”

Toliver had come up next to McCaleb at the window.

“With the tattoos.”

“Yeah.”

McCaleb nodded and thought for a moment.

“Did you tell Ritenbaugh and Aguilar that the alibi you were giving that man was based on what you saw in the pay records and time cards and not what you or your son actually saw on that night?”

“Yeah, I told them. They said fine. They left and that was that. Now, here you are with these new questions. Why don’t you guys get your shit together? It would have been a lot easier for my boy to remember after two or three weeks instead of three months.”

McCaleb was silent as he thought about Ritenbaugh and Aguilar. They had probably had a list of twenty-five names they had to cover in the week they were assigned to the case. It was sloppy work but he understood how it could happen.

“Listen, I’ve got to go out to the dock,” Toliver said. “You want to wait until I come back or what?”

“Tell you what, why don’t you send Bolotov in here on your way out. I need to talk to him.”

“In here?”

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Toliver. I am sure you want to help us out and continue to cooperate, don’t you?”

He stared at Toliver as a final means of ending his unspoken objection.

“Whatever,” Toliver said as he threw his hands up in a gesture of annoyance and headed toward the door. “Just don’t take all day.”

“Oh, Mr. Toliver?”

Toliver stopped at the door and looked back at him.

“I heard a lot of Russian being spoken out there. Where do you get the Russians?”

“They’re good workers and they don’t complain. They don’t mind being paid shit, either. When we advertise for help, we do it in the local Russian paper.”

He went through the door then, leaving it open behind him. McCaleb pulled the two chairs in front of the desk away and turned them so they faced each other from about five feet apart. He sat down on the one closest to the door and waited. He quickly thought about how he would handle the interview and decided to come at Bolotov strong. He wanted to engender a response, get some kind of reaction to which he could register his own feel for the man.

He felt a presence in the room and looked at the door. The man he had guessed was Bolotov stood there. He was about five ten, with black hair and pale white skin. But the bulging arm muscles and tattoos-a snake wrapped around one arm, a spider’s web covering the other-made his arms the focal point of his image. McCaleb pointed to the empty chair.

“Have a seat.”

Bolotov moved to the chair and sat down without hesitation. McCaleb saw that the spider web apparently continued under the shirt and then came up both sides of the Russian’s neck. A black spider sat in the web just below his right ear.

“What is this?”

“Same as before, Bolotov. My name’s McCaleb. The night of January twenty-second. Tell me about it.”

“I told them before. I work here that night. It was not me you look for.”

“So you said. But things are different now. We know things we didn’t know then.”

“What things?”

McCaleb got up and locked the door and then retook his seat. It was just a little show, an underlining of his control. Something for Bolotov to think about.

“What things?” he asked again.

“Like the burglary of the house over on Mason, just a few blocks from here. You remember, the one with the Christmas tree and all the presents. That’s where you got the gun, wasn’t it, Bolotov?”

“No, I am clean on these things.”

“Bullshit. You did the break-in and you got that nice new gun. Then you decided to use it. You used it up in Lancaster and then again around the corner from here at the market. You’re a killer, Bolotov. A killer.”

The Russian sat still but McCaleb could see his biceps drawing tight, better defining the artwork on his arms. He pressed on.

“What about February seventh, you have an alibi for that night, too?”

“I don’t know that night. I have to-”

“You walked into the Sherman Market and you killed two people that night. You should know it.”

Bolotov suddenly stood up.

“Who are you? You’re not cop.”

McCaleb just looked up at him, keeping his seat, hoping not to show the surprise he was feeling.

“Cops are in twos. Who are you?”

“I’m the one who’s going to take you down. You did it, Bolotov, and I’m going to prove it.”

“Wha-”

There was an angry knock on the door and McCaleb instinctively turned to look. It was a small mistake but it was all Bolotov needed. McCaleb saw the black blur coming at him in his peripheral vision. Instinctively he began bringing his arms up to protect his chest. He wasn’t quick enough. Suddenly he was hit with the impact of the other man’s weight and his chair went over with him still in it.

Bolotov had him down on the floor while Toliver or whoever was out there continued to knock angrily on the door. The bigger, stronger man held McCaleb down while he went through his pockets. His hand hit the gun and he tore it off the belt and threw it across the room. Finally he found McCaleb’s wallet in the inside pocket of his sports coat. He pulled it out, ripping the pocket, and opened it.

“No badge. See, no cop.”

He read the name off the driver’s license, which was held behind a plastic window in the wallet.

“Terr-ell-Mack-Cow-leeb.”