And Connor: Somebody wants this investigation to be over. They want us to give it up.

And Morton: So your investigation is formally concluded?

"Hell," I said.

She said, "Who is he?"

"He's a senator."

"Oh." She looked at the screen. "And why do they care about him?"

"He has a powerful position in Washington. And I think he has something to do with the sale of a company. Maybe other reasons, too."

She nodded.

I said, "Can we print a picture of this?"

"No. We don't have equipment for hard copies. The lab can't afford it."

"Then what can we do? I need something to take with me."

"I can take a Polaroid for you," she said. "Not great, but okay for now." She started poking around the lab, stumbling in the dark. Finally she came back with a camera. She moved close to the screen and shot several copies.

We waited for them to come out, standing in the blue light from the monitors.

"Thanks," I said. "For all your help."

"You are welcome. And I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"I know you expected it would be a Japanese man."

I realized she was speaking for herself. I didn't answer her. The pictures darkened. They were good quality, the image clear. As I slipped them in my pocket, I felt something hard there. I brought it out.

"You have a Japanese passport?" she said.

"No. It's not mine. It's Eddie's." I put it back in my pocket. "I have to go," I said. "I have to find Captain Connor."

"All right." She turned back to the monitors.

"What are you going to do?" I said.

"I will stay, and work more."

I left her, went out the back door, and made my way down the dark passageway to the outside.

Blinking in the harsh daylight, I went to a pay phone and called Connor. He was in the car.

"Where are you?" I said.

"Back at the hotel."

"What hotel?"

"The Four Seasons," Connor said. "It's Senator Morton's hotel."

"What are you doing there?" I said. "Do you know that - "

"Kōhai," he said. "Open line, remember? Call yourself a taxi and meet me at 1430 Westwood Boulevard. We will meet there in twenty minutes."

"But how - "

"No more questions." And he hung up.

I looked at the building at 1430 Westwood Boulevard. It had a plain brown facade, just a door with a painted number. On one side was a French bookstore. On the other side was a watch repair place.

I went up and knocked on the door. I noticed a small sign in Japanese characters beneath the numbers.

Nothing happened, so I opened the door. I found myself in an elegant, tiny sushi bar. It had only four seats for customers. Connor was alone there, sitting at the far end. He waved to me. "Say hello to Imae. The best sushi chef in Los Angeles. Imae-san, Sumisu-san."

The chef nodded and smiled. He put something on the shelf before my seat. "Kore o dōzo, Sumisu-san."

I sat down. "Dōmo, Imae-san."

"Hai."

I looked at the sushi. It was some kind of pink fish eggs, with a raw yellow egg yolk sitting on top. I thought it looked revolting.

I turned to Connor.

He said "Kore o tabetakoto arukai?"

I shook my head. "Sorry. You lost me."

"You'll have to work on your Japanese, for your new girlfriend."

"What new girlfriend?"

Connor said, "I thought you would thank me. I gave you all that time with her."

"You mean Theresa?"

He smiled. "You can do much worse, kōhai. And I gather you have, in the past. Anyway, I asked you if you knew what that was." He pointed to the sushi.

"No, I don't."

"Quail egg and salmon roe," he said. "Good protein. Energy. You need it."

I said, "Do I have to?"

Imae said, "Make you strong for girlfriend." And he laughed. He said something quickly in Japanese to Connor.

Connor replied, and the two had a good laugh.

"What's funny?" I said. But I wanted to change the subject, so I ate the first of the sushi. If you got past the slimy texture, it was actually very good.

Imae said, "Good?"

"Very good," I said. I ate the second one, and turned to Connor. "You know what we found on those tapes? It's unbelievable."

Connor held up his hand. "Please. You must learn the Japanese way to have relaxation. Everything in its place. Oaisō onegai shimasu."

"Hai, Connor-san."

The sushi chef produced the bill, and Connor peeled off money. He bowed and there was a rapid exchange in Japanese.

"We're leaving now?"

"Yes," Connor said. "I've already eaten, and you, my friend, can't afford to be late."

"For what?"

"For your ex-wife, remember? We'd better go to your apartment now, and meet her."

I was driving again. Connor was staring out the window. "How did you know it was Morton?"

"I didn't," Connor said. "At least, not until this morning. But it was clear to me last night that the tape had been altered."

I thought of all the effort that Theresa and I had gone to, all the zooming and inspection and image manipulation. "You're telling me you just looked at the tape, and you could tell?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"There was one glaring error. Remember when you met Eddie at the party? He had a scar on his hand."

"Yes. It looked like an old burn scar."

"Which hand was it on?"

"Which hand?" I frowned. I thought back to the meeting. Eddie in the cactus garden at night, smoking cigarettes, flicking them away. Eddie turning, moving nervously. Holding the cigarettes. The scar had been on... "His left hand," I said.

"That's right," Connor said.

"But the scar appears on the tape, too," I said. "You see it clearly when he walks past the mirror. His hand touches the wall for a moment - "

I stopped.

On the tape, his right hand had touched the wall.

"Jesus," I said.

"Yes," Connor said. "They made a mistake. Maybe they got confused about what was a reflection and what wasn't. But I imagine they were working hastily, and they couldn't remember which hand it was, and they just added the scar anyway. Mistakes like that happen."

"So last night, you saw the scar on the wrong hand..."

"Yes. And I knew at once that the tape was changed," Connor said. "I had to prepare you to analyze the tape in the morning. So I sent you to SID, to get names of places that would work on the tape. And then I went home to bed."

"But you allowed us to arrest Eddie. Why? You must have known that Eddie wasn't the killer."

"Sometimes, you have to let things play out," Connor said. "It was clear we were meant to think that Eddie killed the girl. So: play it out."

"But an innocent man died," I said.

"I wouldn't call Eddie innocent," Connor said. "Eddie was in this up to his neck."

"And Senator Morton? How did you know it was Morton?"

"I didn't, until he called us in for that little meeting today. Then he gave himself away."

"How?"

"He was smooth. You have to think about what he actually said," Connor said. "Wedged in between all the bullshit, he asked us three times if our investigation was finished. And he asked us if the murder had anything to do with MicroCon. When you think about it, that's a very peculiar question."

"Why? He has contacts. Mr. Hanada. Other people. He told us that."

"No," Connor said, shaking his head. "If you take away all the bullshit, what Senator Morton told us was his train of thought: Is the investigation over? And can you connect it to MicroCon? Because I am now going to change my position on the MicroCon sale."

"Okay..."

"But he never explained a crucial point. Why was he changing his position on the MicroCon sale?"

"He told us why," I said. "He had no support, nobody cares."

Connor handed me a Xerox. I glanced at it. It was a page from a newspaper. I gave it back. "I'm driving. Tell me."

"This is an interview Senator Morton gave in The Washington Post. He repeats his stand on MicroCon. It's against the interest of national defense and American competitiveness to sell the company. Blah blah. Eroding our technology base and selling off our future to the Japanese. Blah blah. That was his position on Thursday morning. On Thursday night he attends a party in California. By Friday morning, he has a different view of MicroCon. The sale is fine with him. Now you tell me why."

"Jesus," I said. "What are we going to do?"

Because there is a thing about being a policeman. Most of the time, you feel pretty good. But at certain points, it comes back to you that you are just a cop. The truth is, you're pretty far down the ladder. And you are reluctant to take on certain kinds of people, certain kinds of power. It gets messy. It gets out of control. You can have your ass handed to you.

"What do we do?" I said again.

"One thing at a time," Connor said. "Is this your apartment building up here?"

The TV minivans were lined up along the street. There were several sedans with PRESS signs behind the windshield. A knot of reporters stood outside the front door to my apartment, and along the street. Among the reporters I saw Weasel Wilhelm, leaning against his car. I didn't see my ex-wife.

"Keep driving, kōhai," Connor said. "Go to the end of the block and turn right."

"Why?"

"I took the liberty of calling the D.A.'s office a while ago. I arranged for you to meet your wife in the park down here."

"You did?"

"I thought it would be better for everybody."

I drove around the corner. Hampton Park was adjacent to the elementary school. At this hour of the afternoon, kids were outside, playing baseball. I drove slowly along the street, looking for a parking place. I passed a sedan with two people inside. There was a man in the passenger seat, smoking a cigarette. There was a woman behind the wheel, drumming her fingers on the dashboard. It was Lauren.

I parked the car.

"I'll wait here," Connor said. "Good luck."

Chapter 23

She always favored pale colors. She was wearing a beige suit and a cream silk blouse. Her blond hair was pulled back. No jewelry. Sexy and businesslike at the same time, her particular talent.

We walked along the sidewalk on the edge of the park, looking at the kids playing ball. Neither of us said anything. The man who had come with her waited in the car. A block away, we could see the press clustered outside my apartment.

Lauren looked at them and said, "Jesus Christ, Peter. I can't believe you, I really can't. This is very badly handled. This is very insensitive to my position."

I said, "Who told them?"

"Not me."

"Someone did. Someone told them you were coming at four o'clock."

"Well, it wasn't me."

"You just happened to show up with full makeup on?"

"I was in court this morning."

"Okay. Fine."

"Fuck you, Peter."

"I said, fine."

"Such a fucking detective."

She turned, and we walked back the way we had come. Moving away from the press.

She sighed. "Look," she said. "Let's try and be civil about this."

"Okay."

"I don't know how you managed to get yourself into this mess, Peter. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to give up custody. I can't permit my daughter to be raised in a suspect environment. I can't allow that. I have my position to think of. My reputation in the office."

Lauren was always preoccupied with appearances. "Why is the environment suspect?"

"Why? Child abuse is an extremely serious allegation, Peter."

"There's no child abuse."

"The allegations from your past must be dealt with."

"You know all about those allegations," I said. "You were married to me. You know everything about it."

She said stubbornly, "Michelle has to be tested."

"Fine. The exam will be negative."

"At this point, I don't really care what the exam shows. It's gone beyond that, Peter. I'm going to have to get custody. For my peace of mind."

"Oh, for Christ's sake."

"Yes, Peter."

"You don't know what it's like to raise a child. It'll take too much time away from your career."

"I have no choice, Peter. You have left me no choice." Now she sounded long suffering. Martyrdom was always one of her strong suits.

I said, "Lauren, you know the past accusations are false. You're just running with this thing because Wilhelm called you."

"He didn't call me. He called the assistant D.A. He called my boss."

"Lauren."

"I'm sorry, Peter. But you brought it on yourself."

"Lauren."

"I mean it."

"Lauren, this is very dangerous."

She laughed harshly. "Tell me. You think I don't know how dangerous this is, Peter? This could be my ass."

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you think I'm talking about, you son of a bitch?" she said, furiously. "I'm talking about Las Vegas."

I was silent. I didn't follow her line of thought at all.

"Look," she said. "How many times have you been to Las Vegas?"

"Just once."

"And the one time you went, you won big?"

"Lauren, you know all about that - "

"Yes, I do. Clearly I do. And what is the timing of your big winning trip to Las Vegas, and the accusations against you of child abuse? A week apart? Two weeks apart?"

So that was it. She was worried that somebody could put those two things together, that it could be traced back, somehow. And that it would implicate her.