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lot, Dad." Gradually, we even talked about the case. I told him how tough it
was to solve, how I held it against myself that I couldn't crack it. How I was
sure it was a serial, but four murders into the case, I still had nothing.
We talked for three more hours, until after eleven, the wine bottle empty,
Martha asleep at his feet. Every once in a while I had to remind myself that I
was talking to my own father. That I was sitting across from him for the first
time in my adult life. And slowly, I began to see. He was just a man who had
made mistakes, and who had been punished for them. He was no longer someone I
could blindly resent, or hate. He hadn't murdered anybody. He wasn't Chimera.
By the standards I dealt with, his sins were forgivable.
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Gradually, I could no longer hold back the question I'd been wanting to ask
for so many years. "I have to know the answer to this. Why did you leave?"
He took a swallow of wine and leaned back against the couch. His blue eyes
looked so sad. "There's nothing I could say that would make sense of it to
you. Not now... You're a grown woman. You're on the force. You know how things
get. Your mother and I... Let's just say we were never a good match, even for
the old school. I had squandered most of what we had on the games. I had a lot
of debts, borrowed money on the street. That's not exactly kosher for a cop. I
did a lot of things I wasn't very proud of... as a man and as a cop."
I noticed his hands were trembling. "You know how sometimes, someone commits a
crime simply because the situation gets so bad that one by one, the options
just close off and they're unable to do anything else? That's how it was for
me. The debts, what was going on on the job... I didn't see any other choice.
I just left. I know it's a little late to say this, but I've regretted it
every day of my life."
"And when Mom got sick.
"I was sorry when she got sick. But by then I had a new life, and no one made
it seem like I was welcome to come back. "I thought it would hurt her more
than help." "I know Mom always told me you were a pathological liar."
"That's the truth, Lindsay," my father said. I liked the way he admitted it. I
liked my father, actually.
I had to get up, shift gears. I started taking the dishes into the kitchen. My
chest was heaving. I felt like I might be going to cry. My father was back,
and I was starting to realize how much I had missed him. In a crazy way I
still wanted to be his girl.
My father helped with the dishes. I rinsed them off, and he loaded them in the
dishwasher. We barely said a word. My whole body was vibrating.
When the dishes were done, we just sort of turned and met each other's eyes.
"So where're you staying? " I asked.
"With an ex-cop buddy of mine, Ron Fazio. He used to be a district sergeant
out in Sunset. He's got me on his couch."
I washed out a pasta pot. "I have a couch," I said.
Chapter 63.
ALL THE FOLLOWING DAY we pounded on the list of names Warden Estes and his
people had given us. Two we crossed off immediately. A computer check
indicated they had become re-associated with the California penal system,
currently residing in other institutions.
Something Weiscz had said the day before had stuck in my head.
"I gave you something," I had said, as the convict raved about the white race.
"And I gave you something back," he had replied. The words hung in my mind.
They had first hit me at two in the morning, and I rolled back to sleep. They
had accompanied me on my morning drive. And they were still with me now. I
gave you something back."
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I slipped my feet out of my pumps and stared out my window at the freeway ramp
starting to back up with traffic. I tried to retrace my encounter with Weiscz.
He was an animal who never had a chance of seeing the light of day. Still, I
felt there had almost been a moment with him, a bond. All he wanted in that
hellhole was to see what he looked like. I gave you something back.
So what did he give me?
"You think I give a shit about your dead niggers?" he had seethed. "Long live
Chimera," he had hollered as they put him under.
Then, slowly, my mind settled on it.
"Maybe one of your own assholes has come to his senses. Maybe that's what it
was, an inside job." -
I didn't know if I had gone off the deep end or what. Was I reaching for
something that wasn't there? Was Weiscz actually telling me something he could
never be held accountable for?
An inside job... I dialed Estes at Pelican Bay. "Any of your inmates up there
ever been an ex-cop?" I asked.
"A cop." The warden paused.
"Yeah." I explained why I wanted to know.
"Excuse my French," Estes shot back, "but Weiscz was fucking with you. He was
trying to get inside your head. The bastard hates cops."
"You didn't answer my question, Warden."
"A cop...?" Estes grunted a derisive snort.
"We had a bad narcotics inspector out of LA., Bellacora.
Shot three of his informants. But he was transferred out. To my knowledge,
he's still in Fresno." I remembered reading about the Bellacora case. It was
as dirty and low as law enforcement got.
"We had a customs inspector, Benes, who on the side was running a dope ring at
San Diego Airport."
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