2nd Chance (17 page)

I looked at him; 1965 was the year I was born.

“I bought it a year after you were born. It was about the only thing I took with me when I left. I always figured we’d drink it on your graduation or something, maybe your wedding.”

“You kept it all these years.” I shook my head.

He shrugged. “Like I said, I bought it for you. Anyway, Lindsay, there’s nothing I’d rather do than drink it here tonight.”

Something warm rose inside me. “You’re making it hard to continue to completely hate you.

“
Don’t
hate me, Lindsay.” He tossed me the catcher’s mask. “This doesn’t fit. I don’t ever want to have to use it again.”

I took him into the living room, poured him a beer, and sat down. I had on a wine-colored Eileen Fisher sweater, my hair pulled up in a ponytail. His eyes seemed to twinkle at me.

“You look gorgeous, Buttercup,” my father said.

When I scowled, he smiled. “I can’t help it, you just do.”

For a while we talked, Martha lying beside him as if he were an old friend. We talked about trivial things, things we knew. Who was left from his old cronies on the force. Cat, and her new daughter he hadn’t seen. Whether Jerry Rice would call it quits. We skirted the subject of Mercer and the case.

And as if I were meeting someone for the first time, I found him different from what I imagined. Not garrulous and boastful and full of stories as I remembered, but humble and reserved. Almost contrite. And he still had his sense of humor.

“I’ve got something to show you,” I said. I went into the hall closet and came back with the satin Giants baseball jacket he’d given me over twenty-five years before. It was embroidered with a number 24 and had the name Mays on the front chest.

My father’s eyes flashed in surprise. “I’d forgotten about that. I got it from the equipment manager in nineteen sixty-eight.” He held it in front of him and looked at it a long time, like an old relic that had made the past suddenly vivid. “You have any idea what that thing must be worth today?”

“I always called it my inheritance,” I told him.

I
DID
SALMON
on the grill in a ginger-miso sauce, fried rice with peppers, leeks, and peas. I remembered that my father liked Chinese. We cracked the ‘65 Latour. It was a dream wine, silky and gemlike. We satin the alcove overlooking the bay. My father said it was the best bottle of wine he’d ever tasted.

The conversation gradually drifted toward more personal things. He asked what kind of man I had been married to, and I admitted, unfortunately, someone like himself. He asked if I resented him, and I had to tell him the truth. “Yeah. A 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.

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.

A
LL
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…

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.
[__]
p.
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.”

“Anyone else?”

“No, not in my six years.”

“What about before that, Estes?”

He grunted impatiently. “How far back do you want me to go, Lieutenant?”

“How long has Weiscz been there?”

“Twelve years.”

“Then that’s how far.”

It was clear the warden thought I was crazy. He hung up saying he would have to get back to me.

I put down the phone. This was wild – trusting Weiscz for anything. He hated cops. I was a cop. He probably hated women, too.

Suddenly, Karen, my secretary, burst in. She looked stunned. “Jill Bernhardt’s assistant just called in. Ms. Bernhardt’s collapsed.”

“Collapsed…?”

Karen nodded blankly. “She’s bleeding. Upstairs. She needs you up there,
now.”

I
RACED
DOWN
THE
HALL
to the elevator and then to Jill’s office.

As I charged in, she was on the couch, reclined.

An
EMS
team, which had fortunately been at the morgue, was already there. There were towels, bloody towels, stuffed under her dark blue skirt. Her face was averted, but she looked as gray and listless and afraid as I had ever seen her. In an instant, it was clear what had happened.

“Oh, Jill,” I said, kneeling beside her. “Oh, sweetie. I’m here.”

She smiled when she saw me, slightly wary and afraid. Her normally sharp blue eyes reflected the color of dismal skies. “I lost it, Lindsay,” she said. “I should’ve quit work. I should’ve listened to them. To you. I thought I wanted the baby more than anything, but maybe I didn’t. I lost it.”

“Oh, Jill.” I grasped her hand. “It wasn’t you. Don’t say that. This was medical. There was a chance of this. You knew that going in. There was always this risk.”

“It was
me
, Lindsay.” Her eyes suddenly welled with tears. “I think I didn’t want it badly enough.”

A female
EMS
tech asked me to step away, and they hooked Jill up to an IV line and a monitor. My heart went out to her. She was usually so strong and independent. But I had seen a transformation in her; she had looked forward to this baby so much. How did she deserve this?

“Where’s Steve, Jill?” I leaned down to her.

She sucked in a breath. “Denver. April reached him. He’s on his way back.”

Suddenly, Claire burst into the room. “I came as soon as I heard,” she said. She glanced worriedly at me, then asked the med tech, “What do you have?”

She was told that Jill’s vitals were good, but she’d lost a lot of blood. When Claire mentioned the baby the technician shook her head.

“Oh, honey,” Claire clasped Jill’s hand, kneeling down. “How’re you feeling?”

Tears were running down Jill’s face. “Oh, Claire, I lost it. I lost my baby.”

Claire stroked a curl of damp hair off Jill’s forehead. “You’re going to be all right. Don’t worry. We’re going to take good care of you.”

“We have to move her now,” the
EMS
tech said. “Her doctor’s been called. She’s waiting for us at Cal Pacific.”

“We’re going with you,” I said. “We’re gonna be with you all the way.”

Jill forced a smile, then stiffened. “They’re going to make me deliver, aren’t they?”

“I don’t think so,” Claire replied.

“I know they are.” Jill shook her head. She had more resolve than anyone I knew, but the scary truth forming in her eyes was something I’ll remember the rest of my life.

The door opened, and another
EMS
tech wheeled in a gurney. “It’s time to go,” said the woman who’d been working on her.

I bent down close to Jill. “We’re going to be with you,” I said.

“Don’t leave me,” she said, and held my hand.

“You can’t get rid of us that easily.”

“Homicide Chicks, right?” Jill murmured with a tight smile.

They eased her onto the gurney. Claire and I helped. A bloody towel fell limply onto the floor of her spotless office.

“It’s going to be a boy.” Jill whispered, letting out a pained breath. “I wanted a boy.” I guess I can admit it now.”

I folded her hands gently on her lap.

“I just didn’t want it badly enough,” Jill said, and then she finally started to sob and couldn’t stop.

W
E
RODE
IN
THE
BACK
of the
EMS
truck with Jill to the hospital, ran alongside the gurney as they wheeled her up to obstetrics, and waited as her doctors tried to save the child.

As they moved her into the OR,, she gripped my hand. “They always seem to win,” she murmured. “No matter how many of these bastards you put away, they always find a way to win.”

Cindy had rushed down, and the three of us hung there waiting to see Jill. About two hours later, her husband, Steve, hurried in. We exchanged some awkward hugs, and part of me wanted to tell him,
Don’t you fucking realize this baby was for you?
When the doctor came out, we let them be alone.

Jill was right. She had lost the baby. They called it a placental abruption, made worse from the stress of the job. The only good news was that the fetus had been removed surgically. Jill hadn’t had to deliver it.

Afterward, Claire, Cindy and I filed out of the hospital onto California Street. No one wanted to go home. There was this Japanese place nearby that Cindy knew. We went there and sat around drinking beer and sake.

It was hard to accept that Jill, who worked tirelessly at the office, who rock-climbed at Moab and biked the rough terrain in Sedona, had twice been denied a child.

“The poor girl’s just too damn hard on herself.” Claire sighed, warming her hands with her sake cup. “We all told her she had to ratchet it down.”

“Jill doesn’t have that gear,” said Cindy.

I picked up a California roll and turned it over an dover in the sauce. “She did it to please Steve. You could see it on her face. She keeps that impossible schedule. She doesn’t give anything up. And he’s running around the country willing investment bankers.”