The Blue Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

psychiatrist.
    Joan introduced
Kamala to the sketch artist, Danielle Ruger. Merci had used her before and
thought she was the best she'd ever seen. Merci shook Danielle's small, soft
hand and smiled. It was nice to be doing work in a room with no men in it.
    Merci thought very
briefly of Phil Kemp's endless and asinine comments, his touches and gestures
and jokes. It wasn't like she hadn't warned him a million times. It was simply
that he wouldn't listen and she'd gotten tired of putting up with him. Tired of
him getting away with it. It said right in the rules you couldn't do that. Now
two other deputies—women she barely knew—had come forward with similar
complaints. Had she started some ugly movement? Which was worse, putting up
with Kemp or standing up to him? Merci willed away those thoughts because they
were counterproductive and troubling. It was good to be here, where none of that
mattered.
    The
doctor explained the procedure. Merci and Danielle would stay in the waiting
room while Kamala was put into a deep hypnotic state. Then they would be
allowed back in and Merci could take part in the conversation, make notes or
tape-record it. Danielle would say nothing: more than two interlocutors might
confuse Kamala, or even break down the hypnosis. Kamala would be brought out
feeling relaxed and remembering what was said and done while she was under. It
would take twenty to thirty minutes at the most. Merci sat in the waiting room,
made brief small talk with Danielle, then read through the last entries in the
notebook where she kept a running log of her investigations. A lot of her
initial-contact work was recorded in the little floppy books with the blue
covers, and when she had a few minutes of down time she'd review, ruminate and
brainstorm, hoping to chip something loose, see something she hadn't seen
before, or see it in a new way. She liked that the notebook was not department
issue, but rather a personal item she chose. She had twenty-six of them at
home, filled with her writing. She always carried one in a right-side
pocket—coat, shirt, even pants, it didn't matter—a companion to the Heckler
& Koch so heavily invested on her left.
    She took a minute to
make notes on her conversation with Hess in the impound yard, following them
with a sentence that she underlined: Stubborn old guy and dying of cancer. She looked at it and lined through it with the black pen, deciding that it
wasn't up to her if he was dying or not, and it probably wasn't good policy to
assume so.
    She'd heard through
the grapevine that he was doing chemo and radiation and that one of his lungs
had been cut out. The last thing the old cop needed was his partner treating
him like he was good as dead. Plus, Brighton had put him there to watch her as
well as help her. Any fool could see that. Hess was Brighton's eyes and ears,
so why aggravate them any more than you had to? Joan appeared in the doorway and waved them in.
"She's down good and deep."
     
    Merci followed her
into the consultation room. The lights had been turned down and the blinds
angled to admit little sun. There was a desk in one corner, bookshelves on two
walls. In the middle of the room was a couch with three recliner chairs facing
it across a coffee table. Kamala Petersen sat in the middle chair, tilted back
like a man getting a shave, her hands crossed peacefully over her stomach,
nails perfect, eyes closed. With her flawless makeup and attitude of repose she
could be the newly dead, Merci thought.
    "Kamala, Merci
and Danielle are back with us now," said Joan Cash.
    "Hi,
guys," said Kamala, her voice faint but clear.
    "Kamala
and I were talking about waves just now. It didn't take us long to find out we
both love waves. Long, gentle never-ending Pacific waves. We've both
bodysurfed."
    "They
scare the daylight out of me," said Merci.
    "I
think they 're groovy," said the
makeup artist.
    "They
can be very relaxing to contemplate," said Joan.
    "Ah, Merci...
would you like to talk