“So then, aren’t you jumping the gun?”

“No. I’m sure something was taken.”

“We would have seen it. We have the whole thing on video.”

“Nobody picked up on it with Gloria Torres and that was on video, too.”

Winston turned in her chair.

“I don’t know. This still seems like a-let me ask you something. And try not to take it too personal. But isn’t it possible that you’re just looking for what you always looked for before, when you were with the bureau?”

“You mean, like am I exaggerating? Like I want to get back to what I was doing before and this is my way of doing it?”

Winston hiked her shoulders. She didn’t want to say it.

“I didn’t go looking for this, Jaye. It’s just there. It is what it is. Sure, the earring might mean something else. And it might not mean anything at all. But if there is anything I know about in this world, it is this kind of thing. These people. I know them. I know how they think and I know how they act. I feel it here, Jaye. The evil. It’s here.”

Winston looked at him strangely and McCaleb guessed that maybe he shouldn’t have been so fervent in his response to her doubts.

“Cordell’s truck, the Chevy Suburban, wasn’t in the video. Did you process his truck? I didn’t see anything in the stack you gave me about-”

“No, it wasn’t touched. He left his wallet open on the seat and just took his ATM card to the machine. If the shooter had gone into his truck, he would have taken his wallet. When we saw it still there, we didn’t bother.”

McCaleb shook his head and said, “You are still looking at it from the point of view of a robbery. The decision not to process the truck would have been okay-if it had been a real robbery. But what if it wasn’t? He wouldn’t have gone into the truck and taken something as obvious as the wallet.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. Something else. Cordell used his truck a lot. Driving all day along the aqueduct. It would be like a second home to him. There could have been lots of things of a personal nature in there that the shooter could’ve taken. Photos, things hanging from the rearview, maybe a travel diary, you name it. Where is the truck? Make my day and tell me it’s still impounded.”

“No chance. We released it to his wife a couple days after the shooting.”

“It’s probably been cleaned out and sold by now.”

“Actually, no. The last time I talked to Cordell’s wife-which was only a couple weeks ago-she said something about not knowing what to do with the Suburban. It was too big for her and she said it gave her bad vibes now anyway. She didn’t use those words but you know what I mean.”

A charge of excitement went through McCaleb.

“Then we go up there and look at the Suburban and we talk to her and we figure out what was taken.”

“ If something was taken…”

Winston frowned. McCaleb knew what she was facing. She already was dealing with a captain who, after the hypnosis and Bolotov fiascos, probably thought she was being controlled too easily by an outsider. She didn’t want to have to go back to the man with McCaleb’s new theory unless she was sure it was dead-solid perfect. And McCaleb knew it could never be that. It never was.

“What are you going to do?” he asked “It’s like I’m in the car and ready to go. Are you getting in with me or staying on the sidewalk?”

It had occurred to him that he was not constrained by such worries or by a job, a role, inertia or anything else. Either Winston could get in the car or McCaleb could drive on without her. She apparently realized the same thing.

“No,” she said. “The question is what are you going to do. You’re the one who doesn’t have to deal with the bullshit around here like I do. After the hypnosis thing, Hitchens has been-”

“Tell you what, Jaye. I don’t care about all of that. I only care about one thing-finding this guy. So look. You sit tight and give me a few days. I’ll come in with something. I’ll go up to the desert and talk to Cordell’s wife and take a look at the truck. I’ll find something you can go to the captain with. If I don’t, then I’ll eat my theory. You can cut me loose and I won’t bother you again.”

“Look, it’s not that you’re both-”

“You know what I mean. You’ve got court, other cases. The last thing you need is to have to overhaul on an old one. I know how it is. Maybe coming in here today was premature. I should’ve just gone up there and seen the widow. But since it’s your case and you’ve treated me like a human, I wanted to check with you first. Now, you give me your blessing and a little time and I’ll go up on my own. I’ll let you know what I get.”

Winston was silent for a long moment, then finally she nodded.

“Okay, you got it.”

20

LOCKRIDGE AND McCALEB took a succession of freeways from Whittier until they reached the Antelope Valley Freeway, which would finally take them to the northeast corner of the county. Lockridge drove one-handed most of the way, holding a harmonica to his mouth with the other hand. It didn’t give McCaleb much of a feeling of safety, but it cut out the meaningless banter.

As they passed Vasquez Rocks, McCaleb studied the formation and pinpointed the spot where the body had been found that eventually led to his knowing Jaye Winston. The slanted and jagged formation caused by tectonic upheaval was beautiful in the afternoon light. The sun was hitting the front rock faces at a low angle and throwing the crevices into deep darkness. It looked beautiful and dangerous at the same time. He wondered if that was what had drawn Luther Hatch to it.

“Ever been there, Vasquez Rocks?” Buddy asked after tucking the harmonica between his legs.

“Yeah.”

“Neat place. It’s named after a Mexican desperado who holed up in the crevices about a hundred years ago after robbing a bank or something. So many places to hide in there, they could never find him and he became a legend.”

McCaleb nodded. He liked the story. He thought about how his histories of places were so different. They always involved bodies and blood work. No legends. No heroes.

They made good time on the front of the wave of rush hour and weekend traffic out of the city and it was just past five when they got to Lancaster. They cruised through a subdivision called Desert Flower Estates, looking for the home where James Cordell had lived. McCaleb saw a lot of desert but not many flowers or homes that met his definition of estate. The subdivision was built on land as flat and most days as hot as a frying pan. The homes were Spanish style with red-barrel roofs and arched windows and doors in the front. There were dozens of matching developments scattered through the Antelope Valley. The homes were large and reasonably attractive. They were bought mostly by families escaping the expense and crime and crowding of Los Angeles.

Desert Flower Estates had apparently offered three different design plans to its buyers. Consequently, McCaleb noticed as they drove through, about every third house was the same and sometimes there were even side-by-side duplicates. It reminded him of some of the post-World War II neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.

The thought of living in one of the homes he was passing depressed him. And it wasn’t because of anything he saw. It was the distance this place was from the ocean and the feeling of renewal the sea gave him. He knew he’d never last in a neighborhood like this. He would dry up and blow away like one of the tumbleweeds they periodically passed on the street.

“This is it,” Buddy said.

He pointed to a number on a mailbox and McCaleb nodded. They pulled in. McCaleb noticed that the white Chevy Suburban he had seen in the crime scene video was parked in the driveway below a basketball rim. There was an open garage with a mini-van parked on one side and the other side cluttered with bikes and boxes, a tool bench and other clutter. Standing up in the back of the garage was a surf board. It was an old long board and it made McCaleb think that maybe at one time James Cordell had known something about the ocean.