The Dark Room(79)

“They know why I’m here?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all they know about me?”

“That’s it.”

“Okay.”



He swung his feet to the floor and sat looking around the unfamiliar room in the dark.

It was only when he stood up and walked to the window, feeling the pilled carpet underfoot, that he remembered what this place was and why they were here. His skin was still damp with sweat from the dream that had woken him. He pulled back the curtains and let in the little bit of light that came across from Oakland. Then he turned around and looked at the room again. He saw the rising curve of Lucy’s hip, saw the way her hair spilled across the one pillow. There was a thin bar of greenish light coming from beneath the door, and he could hear the mercury-vapor lamp buzzing in the outdoor hallway.

It was just after three in the morning.

Of course there was no safe in this room. Before going to bed, he’d pulled the magazine from his gun and left the two pieces in separate desk drawers. He checked it now, his fingers on the cold metal in the dark. Then he stood close to the glass, inside the space of chilled air that had built up between the curtains and the pane. He told himself that when he stopped sweating, he’d go back to bed.

“Gavin?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You were dreaming,” she said. “You can’t help that.”

He got in next to her.

“I thought you slept through them.”

“Not always.” She put her arm across his chest. “You’ve only got a few hours. Three and a half. Not much time.”

“So what are you saying?”

“Use it wisely.”

She went back to sleep and he lay awake under the heat of her arm. She didn’t wear a watch, and there was no clock in the room. If she knew how much time was left until Fischer knocked, it was because her brain’s metronome went on clicking, even as she slept.



He woke with just enough time to take a shower and dress before Fischer arrived. He was standing in front of the mirror, fixing the knot in his tie, when he heard Fischer in the walkway outside. He turned off the bathroom light, collected his gun, and went outside quietly so that Lucy could go on sleeping.

The morning sky was purple and black. He thought it had been chilly inside the little Coast Guard apartment, but it was cold enough out here to see Fischer’s breath when she spoke.

“We’ll check out the cafeteria, get some coffee. Then you’ll see it and know she’ll be okay here.”

“I trust you,” he said. “We don’t have to check it just for me.”

“Still,” Fischer said. She began to walk and he followed her. “The coffee’s not the worst. And it’s free.”

They headed down a set of cement steps that he hardly remembered climbing last night, to a path that traversed the back end of the quad.

“How’re you holding up?” she asked him.

“Okay,” he said.

He hadn’t known Grassley well, but he’d liked him. And if this hadn’t happened, they would have come to know each other like brothers. He’d been looking forward to that. Not just to arriving at the point of complete trust, but also to the long road they’d have walked to get there. The years of lunches at the Western; the late-night coffee in Mel’s or at Lori’s. All of it would have been worthwhile.

They reached the cafeteria, and he held the door for Fischer.

“The autopsy’s this morning,” he said. “It’s at nine, and I’d like to go.”

“Of course.”



They were up early, and there was enough time between their coffee and the autopsy to run one other errand. They walked to Fischer’s car, each of them carrying a paper cup, and Cain told her about the girl in the casket. He told her about Fonteroy’s video, and how he and Grassley had followed it to the grave in El Carmelo. He hadn’t meant to share this with her until he had more proof, but now he didn’t have a choice. As of last night, he had no partner.

“You were standing next to the excavator when you got the call from Nagata?” Fischer asked.

“That’s right.”

“And you think the girl in the casket could be the girl in the pictures?”

“We might find that out today, if Henry Newcomb did his job and got a lab.”

“So the very moment you found the girl, but before you could open the casket, you got a call. You got reassigned to the blackmail case,” Fischer said. “We’re supposed to think that’s a coincidence?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course it’s not.”

“That’s where I am,” Cain said. “But I can’t figure out what it means. Castelli asked Nagata for a name and got me. He wanted the best inspector in the department, and somehow that’s me.”

“Who told him?”

“Nagata.”

They walked through the half-empty parking lot in silence until they reached Fischer’s car. Cain got into the passenger seat.

“We’ll need to think about this,” Fischer said. “We’ll need to think about it very carefully.”

“You think it was her.”

“I’m not saying that.”