“We overlooked something because it wasn’t visible. The green under leaves, right below the petals — what do they look like?”
“Nothing on this thing is green — it’s plain goddamned simple brown.”
“The brown husks then — can you see them?”
“They’re buried under the petals, Weir.”
Weir fingered the rose in his hand. Was it his hand in the dream? “Are they folded down against the stem?”
“Yeah, Jim. In the same damned way they were when it came in here.”
“But they weren’t that way when the flower went in. The force folded them back, closed them tight against the stem. Lift the petals and turn up the husks with your tweezers — all the way up to where they meet the bulb. Tell me what you see.”
Robbins set down the phone. Weir could hear him snapping on a pair of latex gloves, then the metallic shuffle of instruments in a drawer.
Jim felt his pulse beating through his ear and into the receiver. Becky hadn’t moved. Raymond was facing him now, the beginnings of a smile on his face. A minute went by.
Robbins picked up the phone again and cleared his throat. “Weir? It’s beautiful. A partial thumb and probably a forefinger, drawn in blood, sealed by the under leaf when it went in. The seawater pickled the plant and sealed in the print. I can’t... I can’t actually believe this. You want a job?”
“I want you to run it against Cantrell’s set.”
“He’s never been printed.”
“That picture of Goins I left with you... with the hair in the Baggie? Cantrell’s thumb is on the right side, halfway down. It ought to be clear as day. You still have the picture, don’t you?”
“Dennison insisted I throw it away. I... well, kind of didn’t quite throw it away. Give me fifteen minutes.”
“I’m at Becky’s house.”
He left the number and hung up.
Becky looked at him with an air of perplexity that in thirty years Jim had seen probably twice. Becky always had chosen games she could stay ahead of.
Raymond smiled wholly, walked across the room to Jim, and hugged him. It was the longest, strongest embrace from Ray that he could remember. Still, he thought, something seems to have gone out of him.
Jim watched as Raymond looked out the window for a moment, then walked over and sat on the couch.
“Maybe we should have a drink,” said Becky.
“Maybe we should wait until Robbins calls,” said Weir.
Raymond shot a glance at Becky, then stood and walked toward the door. “I need a minute alone.”
Jim caught the oddness in Raymond’s expression. “Don’t mess this up, Ray. We’re too close. We’ve worked too hard.”
Raymond smiled weakly. “I want to say a prayer of thanks under the stars. That’s all.”
“Stay with us, Ray,” said Becky. “Please?”
Raymond looked at each of them in turn, his face coloring and a visible anger rising in his eyes. “Don’t worry, kids. I’m not going to do anything to mess this up. I promise. I’m going to sit on the seawall, watch the sun rise on the day we take down the man who killed my wife. You couldn’t pay me to mess that up. You don’t believe me, that’s your problem. Keep an eye out if you want.”
Fifteen minutes went by. Weir paced the living room, looking out the window every few minutes at Raymond, who, still in his tux coat, sat on the seawall beside a lamppost, facing the bay and PacifiCo Tower. What terrible visions were his? Jim wondered. The darkness had begun to dissolve with the first hint of dawn.
Five minutes later, Robbins called back. His voice was subdued and he spoke very slowly. Weir remembered that this was Ken’s way of stretching out the pleasure, of letting the satisfaction of a job well done percolate down from the head into every inch of a waiting, exhausted body. Robbins lived his job. “It’s a lock,” he said. “A perfect match.”
“What now?” Jim asked, the first waves of relief starting to wash over him.
“I’m not sure, Weir. I ran them twice against the photo, but it didn’t matter. So I ran them twice through the computer index, then did a visual myself. The prints belong to Raymond Cruz.”
Weir hung up and looked again out the window to Raymond. Raymond waiting for the truth, he thought. Raymond, who knew.
Jim closed his eyes for a moment on the world he had known, trying to say goodbye to it. Then he opened them to a world he could imagine but still could not believe.
“What’s wrong?”
He walked past Becky, down the walkway of her yard and through the creaking gate. Raymond’s tuxedo jacket was spread convincingly across two pieces of driftwood that were propped and balanced against the lamppost.
Raymond himself was gone.
Chapter 32
Becky sped through the alley, out to the boulevard, then down the peninsula toward Cantrell’s beach house. The sky was changing black to indigo, with an orange tint to the east, and Jim Weir was a man unraveling. He stared out the windshield at the old neighborhood. Nothing looked the same. He was aware of moving southbound on the boulevard in Becky’s car, hunting something he did not want to find. The feeling was of being borne to sea by an undertow, away from what he knew, from what he had relied upon and held to be true. He could almost see these things, diminishing on a retreating shore.
“What if they’re not there?” she asked.
“Cantrell told me he’d be there. Raymond’s going to try for him. I know him enough to know that.”
“God, Jim. There’s got to be something wrong. Ray couldn’t have done it. Something is wrong.”
Raymond’s station wagon was parked behind Cantrell’s beach house. The windshield was clear where the wipers had gone; the rest of the glass was heavy with dew. The house was dark except for soft lamplight in the master suite upstairs. One window panel of the side door was broken out and the door stood ajar.
“He’s inside, and the alarm is banging away at PacifiCo Security,” said Jim. “Stay here.”
“Don’t be an ass, Jim. Call the police — this is what they get paid for. You don’t know anything for sure. And if he killed Ann, what’s to keep him from killing you?”
He brought the .45 from his holster, aware for a moment of its terrible heft.
“And what in hell am I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Stay here.”
“You’re a fool.”
He let himself in, gave his eyes a moment to adjust, then moved quietly through the living room to the stairway. The house was silent. He took the stairs slowly, calling for Raymond in a calm voice. His pulse throbbed in his ears with a bright, metallic clang. The bed was unmade, the bath was empty, and the air around him had the feeling of air that wasn’t going to answer back.
“Ray?”
Jim slid out the desk drawer: Cantrell’s revolver was still in place and the ammunition box was unmoved. Raymond surprised him, he thought, dragged him out of bed.
Jim looked out the open front window to the beach below. Nobody there but one surf fisherman and his dog.
From the back window, Jim could see the bayfront homes, the masts of the yachts at anchor, and between the homes a stretch of beach. A cloud of white exhaust rolled from the stern of C. David Cantrell’s Lady of the Bay, the biggest vessel Weir could see. She eased away from the dock with a high-horsepower grumble that rattled the window-pane in front of Jim’s face.
He flew down the stairs, out the door, and back into Becky’s car. “Sea Urchin,” he said. “As fast as you can go.”
“Raymond’s taking the boat, isn’t he?”
“It’s already out of dock. Flog it, Beck.”
Three PacifiCo security cars quietly rolled up just as Becky turned for the boulevard.