It was a fool’s errand. She wouldn’t respond. I didn’t say I loved her, even though I did. Why set myself up for the disappointment of her silence? She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring now. I still wore mine, even though I operated heavy equipment: large-caliber firearms. I studied my ring and my hands that had changed the baby. I didn’t even know the baby’s name, but I remembered his tiny hands and arms struggling against me, struggling against a world of trouble.
This little soul who hadn’t asked to be brought into that world. I didn’t even know his name.
That tattooed kid who was his father had better be on his way to Riverside.
Lindsey had worried whether she would make a good mother.
Now this child’s mother was dead. After meeting America’s Finest Pimp and learning about Grace’s venture as Scarlett, I wondered if the man in our office yesterday had been right to question the circumstances of her death. He hadn’t said a word about Grace being a call girl. Had he not known? Hell, I didn’t even know who he really was.
The pimp had mentioned a big man, an enforcer, someone he was afraid of enough to clear out and leave us alone. Was that the big man from yesterday, assassinated on Grand Avenue? And who was Edward, someone else the pimp feared?
Too damned many questions and barely twenty-four hours into our first case. I felt only my lack of ability. This was not what I had done as the Sheriff’s Office Historian. It was no cold case but was uncomfortably warm. Maybe I should have chucked Robin’s fancy that I be Peralta’s partner and found some community college where I could teach.
The idea of coming to San Diego wasn’t unpleasant because of Patty. It was bitter because San Diego represented my spectacular failures.
Looking up the hill at O.B., I remembered that I had broken my vow. I had left my little paradise.
The phone buzzed in my hand. The screen read: “Peralta.”
I gave him an abbreviated report over the comforting noise of the surf. The beach wasn’t crowded and the onshore flow was still keeping things soothingly cool.
“I went to Balboa Park,” he said. “Really beautiful.”
I agreed. It was a very un-Peralta like thing to do.
“It was where they held the 1915 Panama-California Exposition,” he went on.
Yes, I knew that, but quietly noticed his uncharacteristic interest in something that didn’t involve law enforcement.
“We’re checked in to the Marriott on K Street. Know it?”
It was in the Gaslamp Quarter which had been built long after I had left, but I knew how to get there.