at home is Maddux. Twelve years old. He knows every statistic, has every baseball card. He has the motion. The leg-kick.
The umpire’s hand goes up in a fist. The pitch is a strike.
He never lets it show, but Madden takes immense pleasure in watching that motion. The sheer power it generates. Sometimes he smiles after a good inning or if one of the other parents comes up to him and compliments his son. But mostly he stands there with his hands in his pockets, silently watching the game, looking decidedly unpartisan, a man in his late fifties with a small head of receding gray hair combed carefully back, a thin man who wears glasses and keeps a neat, trim mustache.
Many years ago, when he was his son’s age, he’d also stood off to the side of the Little League field near his home, watching the games, not able to play himself. It pains him to think of those days. As a boy, he had polio. The illness had left him with a short right leg and a drop foot. At school they’d called him Chester. He was that character on Gunsmoke who walked with a limp. Marshall Dillon’s deputy, Chester.
It took him fourteen years to make detective. Just fourteen, he likes to tell people. The amount of time has not made him bitter; on the contrary, it has made him feel superior, for he feels he’s worked harder, studied more, and is better prepared than any of his counterparts. And if there’s anything he’s tried to instill in his son, it’s his work ethic.
In the off-season, they watch videotapes of the Padres’ and A’s pitching staffs, among the best in the league, then drive over to La Entrada where his son pitches to him. The only problem is that Madden isn’t a good catcher. Anything a few feet too far to the left or right of him he has trouble getting to, which frustrates Henry because it embarrasses him to watch his father scramble awkwardly for the ball. He thinks he looks goofy.
“I know I look goofy,” Madden admits. “So don’t make me move. That should be your priority.”
The advice has paid off. Today, his son is pitching strike after strike. The catcher barely has to move his mitt. After each out, Henry glances over at his father, who nods in approval. No words, not even a smile, just a nod. Then, in the middle of the third inning, Madden’s beeper goes off.
He winces. It’s the number of another detective, Jeff Billings. He waits a moment, then takes out his cell phone, turns it on, and speed-dials the number.
When Billings answers, he asks, “What’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at my kid’s Little League game. It’s opening day.”
“Pete’s looking for you,” he says, referring to their boss, Detective Sergeant Pete Pastorini. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“I didn’t want to be reached.”
“Funny.”
“It’s true.”
“Well, he got a call a little while ago from someone in the DA’s office and had to go out and meet some people.”
“What people?”
“The parents of a girl who say she was raped by her doctor.”
Madden feels his throat tighten and his heart jump a little. It always happens, the moment he hears a doctor is involved. He can’t help it. He hates that he can’t help it, and he hates that Billings knows he can’t, which only makes his heart race faster. Taking a breath, he looks at the mound. Another strike. Henry still hasn’t allowed a hit. Damn, he thinks. Why today? Why now?
“You’re the one on-call,” he says. “Why don’t you take it?”
Technically they’re all on-call, but they have an official schedule where each detective is assigned to specific off-hours blocks. That ensures that at least one detective will be able to respond quickly and soberly.
“He wants you, Hank,” Billings says, hiding his envy well. There’s only a faint hint of resentment in his voice. “Don’t ask me why. But he sounded anxious.”
If the sergeant had requested him, it must be important. It must be something he didn’t feel Billings, the youngest and least experienced in the group, could handle.
“OK,” he says. “Where am I going?”
3/ PARTING THE RED SEA
November 10, 2006—12:34 a.m.
COGAN WALKED OUT OF THE OPERATING ROOM.
“Beautiful, Dr. Kim,” he said as he left. “If you don’t make it as a surgeon, you have a bright future as a tailor.”
“Believe me,” said Kim, who was closing the girl, “I’ve considered it.”
By the scrub sink, Cogan pulled down his mask, stripped off his gloves, and