Colleen spent the next day looking at an apartment, meeting with Christian Newell to discuss the arrest of Kieran Skinner and how she might be impacted, making sure she had an adequate defense, if need be. But all she really wanted to do was find out how SFPD’s investigation was proceeding. Detective Owens didn’t call. She knew better than to get involved without permission. The case wasn’t hers anymore.
She stopped by H&M during the day, checking for a tail before she entered, and did her rounds. All secure.
Up in the office, she called Moran, checked in. He was gardening. As bored as she was.
Alex didn’t call.
As much as Colleen wanted to, she held off calling Alex. Alex had her hands full and needed space. But that didn’t mean Colleen wasn’t thinking about her. More so, in fact, now that the investigation was drawing to a close.
After close to two weeks of nonstop work and threats to her well-being, she suddenly felt as if she didn’t exist.
Was this the way all cases ended?
She locked up, went back to the Thunderbird Hotel.
By evening, Party Central at the Thunderbird had started up again. A television was thrown out of a window above onto the street below with a crash. A woman called someone a motherfucker; a fight broke out, stopped; tears prevailed.
Grating punk music pounded from another floor. Colleen thought of Steve Davis, wondering how he and his mother were faring. He had probably heard the news by now.
Next door, the TV came on full blast. The Gong Show.
Colleen didn’t think she could handle another night listening to the Thunderbird fight and fornicate while rats scurried across the floor. She couldn’t take the smell of the grimy bedspread she had to sleep on top of in her clothes. She certainly wasn’t going to get into the bed.
She picked up a bottle of Chardonnay and drove back over to H&M with her clothes and overnight bag. To hell with parole. She was going to have a glass of wine. Or two.
She told herself she wasn’t too worried about Frank Madrid. He would have heard about the investigation by now, and killing her wouldn’t stop it. In fact, it might do otherwise. He would know that. He would have to leave her be. For now.
Besides, she had a black Bersa Piccola .22 short barrel pistol Moran had wrapped in a brown paper bag and stashed under her spare tire. It was a cute little gun that lay in her hand but would still stop Frank Madrid, or anyone else, for that matter.
Back up in the office at H&M, she checked the clip in the Bersa. Full of short .22 shells. She tucked the little gun under the ceiling tile above her desk and settled down with a cup of wine and a transistor radio oozing jazz. Clouds roiled in the sky across the bay as night fell.
Maybe Alex would call.
Colleen couldn’t stop wondering how Mr. Copeland had taken the news. Would he be able to die now? At peace?
It began to rain again, the first rain in a day or two. She refilled her coffee cup with Chardonnay as Carlos Santana’s guitar wailed from the transistor radio. “Black Magic Woman.” She turned it up, puffed, leaned back in her squeaky chair, put her feet on the desk.
She’d sleep tonight, cot or not. The Thunderbird Hotel could go to hell.
Then, the raucous buzz of the gate bell shook her out of her reverie.