It was clear that the comments on the news had cost me what little equity I had with him. It was also clear the hospital wasn't exactly going to be an ally now, not that they ever were.

"Look," I said, "I'm sorry about that interview. We were all a little frustrated the other day. My nephew died. No one was returning our calls. I was leaving town. I was just trying to do whatever I could to get them some attention."

"Attention? What the h.e.l.l have I been devoting to it, doc-spare time?" He drilled a look of displeasure at me. Finally he let out a breath. "Gimme a name."

"A name?"

"The name of your nephew's friend," he answered impatiently. "The one who conveniently spotted the two of them together."

"Miguel," I said. "Miguel Estrada. Apparently, he and Evan were basketball buddies. According to him, Zorn was asking around for Evan at the courts."

"Asking around . . ." He twisted in his chair and punched Miguel's name into his computer. He waited a few seconds, putting on thick black reading gla.s.ses, then sort of smiled cynically as he shifted the screen around to me. "You talking this Miguel Estrada?"

There was a photo of Miguel, shaved head, tattoos and all. A mug shot. Along with a police record that stretched down the entire page. I've had some setbacks . . .

My heart sank.

Sherwood ticked them off: "Sale of banned substances, sale of prescription drugs, failure to show up for court hearings. Falsifying doctor's prescriptions. Shall I go on? We're not kids here, doc. Before we jump to any conclusions, you think perhaps we ought to consider the source?"

"He told me this early last night," I said. "Before the Zorn story even broke."

"He gave you Zorn's name?" The detective's eyes widened and I saw where he was heading. An ex-cop was dead. Maybe this Estrada kid was involved.

"He didn't know the guy's name," I said, defending him. "He just described him to me. Fifty or sixty. White hair. From Santa Barbara. Slight limp. Birthmark on his cheek. This morning, as I was about to leave, I saw the news."

"Well, you should've just kept on going!" The detective glared at me. "Look"-he pulled the monitor back around, shrugging-"even if this kid is somehow on the level and they did talk, so what? Why are you so sure there's a connection?"

"Because two people who had contact with each other just a few days ago are dead. And one of them was clearly murdered; the other . . ." I didn't say that maybe Evan's death wasn't quite as clear as everyone thought. "If this wasn't about some welfare kid who was half off his rocker, you would look further-"

"Half?" The detective held back a smile, a tiny crease of his lips. "No one's even agreeing that they were in contact, doc."

"Look, I'm sorry I made things difficult for you. Please, I'm just asking you to take a look. I know you'll find something."

He took off his reading gla.s.ses and folded them on his desk. Then he blew out a long breath, friendlier now. "Look, why not go back home, doc? You're wasting your time trying to rake things up here. You're a sensible guy . . . You deal in facts, right? And I know you can see how your nephew may have done your brother and his wife kind of a c.o.c.keyed favor. We both know-next month, next year-the next time he went unhinged, we'd be cleaning up a whole different level of mess here. You understanding what I'm saying, doc?"

"There are other police, you know. Homicide. Someone would be interested in this."

"Oh, yeah." Sherwood's grin radiated with amus.e.m.e.nt. "And after yesterday, they're all just dying to team up with you, doc. You be sure and give 'em my best."

"I'm not leaving," I said. I got up. "Not now. Not until I find out what Zorn may have wanted with Evan."

Sherwood sighed. He picked up his phone, the friendliness melting into resignation. I watched him punch in a number, and I was about to say something I'd regret when he suddenly raised his eyes back up to me, as if to say, You're still here?

"Did your brother know this detective? This guy who was killed?"

"He said no. He'd never heard of him before."

The person Sherwood was calling came on the line, but he placed his hand over the mouthpiece, only the tiniest softening of his gaze, his irritation morphing into something that, if you knew him better, might have almost looked like a smile.

"Don't wait by the phone."

Chapter Twenty-One.

Charlie sat at the kitchen table in his T-shirt and shorts, sipping his morning coffee.

He didn't know how the detective who'd been killed might've figured in with Evan. Only that, with the sneaker he had found, it gave him the slightest spark of hope that what he knew in his heart was true: that his son hadn't jumped off that rock on his own. He would never have hurt them in that way.

To him, this was just another rung on the long ladder of how he'd been screwed over in his life. Beginning with his father. To the doctors Charlie had seen, who never truly understood him. Who had put him on brain-numbing meds for thirty years. To the state-how they barely gave him and Gabby enough to squeeze by. How they had placed Evan with all his young promise in that c.r.a.p hole of a school, filled with future meth heads and gang members. Who chewed his son up and spit him out, and started him on his decline.

"You see, Gabby, you see!" Charlie said, his pulse pounding. If it wasn't clear to that stupid detective what had happened, it was clear to him. "He didn't kill himself after all. I know the truth. Evan's sneaker. They never even made an attempt to find it. You know what that means, don't you? His sneaker, Gabby, I'm telling you, that's the key."

"You have to calm down, Charlie," Gabby said. "You're in a rant. Jay will handle it for us. Here . . ."

She doled out his pills-trazodone to calm him down, felodipine and Caduet for his blood pressure, Quapro for the kidneys, Klonopin to calm his shakes. Six or seven others. She laid them out in a long line on the counter. The blue one was lithium. He'd taken it for thirty years, and now his kidneys were starting to break down.

"Here, Charlie," she said, shuffling up in her robe, putting them into a small dish, and giving him a gla.s.s of orange juice.

He swallowed them in one gulp.

"Good boy, my husband," she said, petting him on his shoulder. Then she sat down in the chair next to him, strain etched in her face. And grief-grief no one should have to bear. Today was no different than it would be every day. Every day for the rest of their lives. He could see she was an inch from tears.

"Jay says they'll have to reopen the investigation," he said, upbeat, trying to make her happy. He squeezed her hand.

"I always thought my boy was crazy," Gabby said. "Talking to that thing over there." She looked at the furnace. "But now I don't know. Maybe we didn't do the right thing, Charlie. Did we kill our own son?"

He had to hold back tears himself. "I think we did, Gabby. I don't know . . ."

He switched on the TV, the local news station, taking his coffee to the couch to hear the news. "Maybe there'll be something further on Evan . . ."

Then he remembered they hadn't picked up the mail. In days. Not that there was ever anything there. Only bills. And catalogs with merchandise they couldn't afford.

Still, it gave him something to do besides drive himself crazy. He got up. Went to the door in his shorts. "I'll be right back."

He stepped out, if only to get some air, if only to get out of their cramped, tiny tomb of an apartment filled with so many painful memories.

This s.h.i.t hole where they lived that filled him with disgust. That hadn't been painted in years. That stank like p.i.s.s. The gra.s.s in the courtyard hadn't been cut in weeks. Look at where they forced him to bring up his son.

I've been talking to the police, the boy had said. They want me to take the test . . .

Yes, they did drive him away, Charlie realized. They killed their own son.

He shuffled out to the carport in front where the mailbox was. Several days of mail, stuffed in, tumbled into his hands. He flipped through the stack: California Power and Light, the pharmacy, the cable company. All he did was pa.s.s the bills along to Gabby.

At the bottom of the stack, one large envelope was addressed to him. In an unfamiliar handwritten scrawl. It didn't appear to be junk mail or a bill. He didn't get much personal mail these days.

He flipped it over. No return address. Trudging back to the apartment, he put the rest of the mail under his arm and opened this large one, slowly easing the contents out.

There were photos. Several of them. Black and white.

He stopped.

The photos were of a woman. Her eyes open; her face twisted in a horrible expression. Bloodied and cut up. Red marks disfiguring her.

What the h.e.l.l was he looking at?

The woman wasn't young, but she was naked on top. Her nipples were bloodied, the tips cut off. A dark red slit circled the bottom of her neck, and blood was pooled off to the side. She had other slash marks under her eyes that ran down to the top of her cheekbones like a trail of tears.

He cringed. Who would send these to him? Was it some kind of cruel joke? Someone who knew what had happened to them and wanted to hurt them further?

He stared in revulsion at the disfigured face, the eyes wide open, the victim's mouth parted, the mole on her cheek . . .

Her braided long blond hair.

Suddenly Charlie's stomach climbed up his throat.

He realized he knew her.

He felt stabbed in his chest, spun back in time, like in one of those low-budget sci-fi movies, hurtling back through the vortex of time.

They had been together for only a short while. Months, maybe. Years ago. They had traveled around for a time. Back in the day. Then gone their separate ways. Who had sent this? How would anyone even have known? Or even put them together?

It had only been a short time, but in it they had shared the biggest secret of their lives.

Sherry?

He brought her pretty face to mind. It had been more than thirty years.

The other envelopes fell out from under his arm, scattering on the walkway, as his legs grew weak and an even greater dread took hold of him, bringing with it a fear that reverberated through him like the first frost of fall.

Who even knew that he was there?

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Truth was, Sherwood sighed, stepping out of his car, he didn't buy a word of what the doc had told him.

He didn't believe the murdered ex-detective and boy who jumped off that rock had even the slightest connection. He didn't believe this Miguel Estrada kid was on the level. Or that he had ever even seen the two of them together.

Not for a second.

What he did believe was that it was far more likely Miguel had something to do with Walter Zorn's death.

And since one of the cases he was handling happened to be from Santa Maria, fifteen miles down the freeway, he had a perfectly valid reason to stop in at the local police station there.

So after meeting with the grief-stricken family of the sixteen-year-old Pequillos member who'd been tossed in the woods behind the Grover Beach tracks, he made the drive and parked in the lot on Cook Street.

Larry Velez was one of the two homicide detectives stationed there.

"Keeping busy?" Sherwood knocked on the door. He and Larry had worked together at times over the years. Velez had started out as a detective in Pis...o...b..fore moving down the freeway.

"Never the problem." Velez sighed. Santa Maria was a town of only ten thousand, but the total lack of jobs there, the s.h.i.t-a.s.s education system, and the control of the local gangs gave it the highest rate of violent crime in the area.

"Don't say I never gave you anything . . ." Sherwood dropped his findings on the Pequillos killing on the detective's desk. "Surprise-coroner's ruling it a homicide. I pa.s.sed it over to McWilliams." Dave McWilliams was head of the homicide detail in Pis...o...b..ach.

Velez put the file on top of three others. "Nice of you to bring it down."

"So how's it going on that retired detective?" Sherwood took a chair and asked. "What was his name, Zorn? Anything further?"

Velez shrugged. "Only prints we found were from him and a housekeeper who came once a week. A neighbor saw a dark van parked on the street that night and heard some noises inside. Word is, the guy kept a bunch of money in the house. We found a desk rifled through. A metal lockbox opened. We're checking any day laborers in the area who didn't show up for work today."

Sherwood nodded. "I didn't catch a COD on the news." Cause of death.

"Not a coincidence," the Santa Maria detective said. "The guy was strangled."

"Strangled?"

"With an asterisk," Larry Velez added.

Sherwood looked at him, a little confused, and pulled his chair closer. "Listen, Larry, I know this isn't procedure, but you mind if I take a quick look?"

The homicide detective hesitated. He and Sherwood were friends and all, but they generally didn't open their cases like that. His chief wouldn't go for it. Velez scrunched his brow. "And what's the reason, Don?"

"A case I'm working on. Kind of a long shot. There's a chance this might tie in. You remember that jumper in Morro Bay?"

Velez chuckled. "I heard there was someone stirring things up on that. That they even got one of the TV stations involved. Perokis down your throat on this?"

Perokis was Sherwood's boss.

Sherwood shook his head. "Just so I can cross it off my list. C'mon, Larry, what do you say you just go grab yourself a coffee, and I'll just wait for you here?"

Velez seemed to ponder it a second and then stood up. He pulled a blue folder from his slotted file and dropped it in front of Sherwood. "Light or dark?"

"Dark," Sherwood said with an appreciative smile. "Thanks, partner."

"Be back in five . . ." Velez left, shutting the office door. Sherwood took out his reading gla.s.ses and picked up the blue file.

Walter Zorn. A series of crime scene photos. The white hair, the red blotchy birthmark the doc had mentioned.