Chapter 4.

He didn't get far.

Lawless pushed his Crown Victoria through Hank Weston's orchard, throwing rocks and dirt into the trees, anxious to get as far away from the canal as possible. Terrified, he almost ran head-on into a Ford Explorer coming into the orchard. Cursing, he braked hard and his vehicle slid in the dirt, narrowly missing the Explorer and almost clipping an almond tree.

His terror became rage. He jumped out of his car and charged the Explorer, red-faced. Five feet away, he recognized the driver: Jimmy Busmur, a deputy who did double-duty as a diver. Next to Busmur, Garrett Vandertop, a rookie. Busmur's eyes bulged, and he shouted through the open window, "Dammit, Detective, didn't you see us coming?"

Lawless stopped, his shoes sliding in the dirt. He slumped forward with his hands on his knees, gasping for air. In his terror, he'd forgotten the divers. Struggling to regain his composure, he suddenly realized he would have to accompany the divers back to the canal, and he wasn't sure he could do that.

Witnessing the detective's odd behavior, Busmur said, "You okay, Detective?"

Hoping his voice wouldn't squeak, Lawless said, "I'm fine. I guess I was thinking about something else and didn't see you." He blew out a big breath. "Wouldn't the Sheriff love that, two department vehicles crashing head-on in the middle of an orchard."

Busmur took him seriously. "No sir, I'm sure he would have our asses. You did request a team of divers, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did." Lawless's heart finally slowed. "Follow this road on up and around to the right. You'll see the canal. I'll be there in a few minutes."

The divers left, looking relieved.

Lawless caught up with them five minutes later; he needed time to compose himself and prepare to face the canal again.

He and the deputies climbed the canal bank. He looked at the water and was relieved to see it was just a canal.

He filled Busmur and Vandertop in on what he knew about the killing and told them what they were looking for.

"You never found his legs?" Vandertop repeated.

"That's what he said, Garrett," Busmur said. "Let's get our gear and start looking."

"You don't need to go any further upstream than here," Lawless told them.

"Gotcha, Detective."

"How far down the canal do we go?" Vandertop asked.

"Until the canal passes under the next road," Lawless said. "I'll wait for you there."

He left, driving through the orchard again, this time at a safe speed. Needing to relax and think, he flipped on his CD player: Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Act II.

When he was sure he was alone, he put the car in park and examined his shoes. He didn't think he had nicked or scuffed the polished leather - he was always at least partially aware of what happened to his shoes - but he wanted to make sure they didn't need immediate attention. It turned out they were just dusty. The kit stayed under the seat.

Back on the road, driving and listening, he thought about his premonition - he lacked a better word for what had happened by the canal - and how he hadn't experienced anything like it in thirty-some-odd years.

Before, they had been warnings of a personal nature: run so the bullies can't pound you. It had to be different now, had to be about the job, these men who'd lost their lives in a violent fashion while working by the canals.

The next time it happened, if it did happen again, he would remain calm; he stood a better chance of getting something out of the premonition if he wasn't running off in a full-out panic. He wasn't sure he could do that, but he resolved to try.

He stopped where the canal passed under Gates Road and crossed to the upstream side to watch for the divers. The canal was fifteen feet wide and full, the water almost reaching the top of the cement sides. Looking at the grille as he'd done the day before, he was certain a man's leg could not pass between the thick, steel bars. A child's leg maybe, but not a man's. He saw an old tire and a small Styrofoam ice chest in the canal, but no legs.

"If they come up empty here, we'll have to look elsewhere if Mrs. Weston expects to bury Hank with all his parts," he said to himself.

He was prepared to wait a good thirty to forty-five minutes for the divers, so he was surprised to see their heads bobbing up and down in the canal a hundred feet off a few minutes later. He watched as they worked their way toward him.

When they got close, Lawless put his hands up indicating, Did you find anything? The one whose head was out of the water shook it, No.

They reached the grille and Lawless said, "Be sure and check the grille thoroughly. If the legs are anywhere, they're most likely here, maybe stuck below the waterline." He was talking to Busmur. The other guy, Vandertop, had a moustache.

A few minutes later, Busmur's head popped out of the water. "There's no legs here. Do you want us to keep checking the canal?"

Confused, Lawless said, "Haven't you already finished? What else is there to check?"

"I mean keep going down the canal, on the other side," Busmur replied.

"What for? Weston's legs would be too big to get through. There's no sense looking any further."

"There is because there's a big-ass hole in this grille, big enough for me to swim through without worrying about snagging my suit."

"What? What do mean there's a hole?" Lawless hadn't thought of this.

Busmur didn't think it should've been so hard to understand. "There's a big hole in the grille," he repeated, slowly. "A hole."

"Swell," Lawless muttered. "Is it rusted out, or can you tell."

"The water's too murky to know for sure how it was made, but it definitely isn't due to rust. These pipes won't rust, they're stainless."

Lawless thought for minute, then said, "Do you know where this canal goes, where it ends?" He realized he knew almost nothing of how irrigation canals worked, where the water came from or where the canals went.

"We got a map in the truck. I think it dumps into some river."

"How far away is the river?" Lawless asked.

"I don't know, a few miles probably."

"How long would it take you to search that much canal?"

"Rest of the day, probably."

"Swell," Lawless said again. Then he thought, and said, "What if you just check the grilles? You could do that in an hour or two, couldn't you?"

Busmar shrugged. "Probably. Maybe longer. Three hours?"

"Alright, let's do that. Call me if you find anything on the other grilles."

The divers used a rope ladder, one that hooked at the top of the cement wall, to climb out of the canal; Lawless didn't think they could have gotten out any other way. He dropped them off at their vehicle and drove into town, calling ahead to MID. He meant to learn something about the canals.

But first he had physical needs to attend to; it was eleven o'clock and he was hungry. He decided to pick up lunch at an In-And-Out. He ordered two cheeseburgers with grilled onions, fries, and a Diet Coke. After waiting fifteen minutes for his food, he parked in the Rite Aid parking lot next to the restaurant and started eating in his car, with his music playing.

He was picking a greasy onion off his jacket when his cell phone chirped. He flipped it open and looked at the screen: coroner's office. Good.

"Lawless," he said, swallowing a French fry.

"Hello Danny," came Brouchard's cheery voice. "How's the rest of the morning going for you?"

"Lousy. How about you?"

Brouchard paused. "I've had better myself."

Lawless put his food down. "Any news?"

"Everything's progressing nicely with Mr. Weston. I should have his autopsy done by the end of the day."

"That's good," Lawless said. Then, knowing Brouchard wouldn't have called just to tell him that, "Anything else?"

Another pause. "The lab in Stockton called about the DNA sample I sent them, from the Sanchez case yesterday."

"DNA sample? What DNA sample? You found DNA on Sanchez's wound?"

"I forgot to mention it this morning, but yes, I found DNA on Sanchez's wound and immediately sent it to the lab in Stockton."

When Brouchard didn't continue, Lawless said, "And?"

Brouchard cleared his throat. "They said we, I, must have made some kind of mistake, that I 'mishandled' the sample somehow."

Brouchard paused again, too long, and Lawless grew impatient. "What exactly did they say, Larry?"

"Well, they said the DNA was reptilian, mostly, but didn't match anything in their computer. I just got off the phone with a gentleman from Fish and Game who wanted to know where the sample came from. He hung up on me when I told him." Brouchard sounded offended.

Lawless was now completely confused. "Explain what you mean by 'mostly' reptilian."

"They said the sample was very much like snake DNA, except that it wasn't. It didn't fit into any of their categories, but I guess snake was the closest." He paused again, but Lawless let it go; he was too busy trying to process what he'd just been told.

Brouchard finally continued. "In any event, since they couldn't positively identify it, they accused us, me, of mishandling it."

"You mean they implied you did something to damage the sample?"

"Yes, but from what I gather, the DNA isn't damaged. It's simply different. When I pointed that out they got mad and hung up, saying they would see that my record would reflect the mistake."

"What record? They're bluffing, Larry. And I think you're right, they're just mad because they can't identify it. They feel stupid. Anyone who knows you, knows you're meticulous about stuff like that."

"Well, thank you, Danny. I try."

"Tell you what," Lawless said. "See if you can get a sample off Weston and send it to them. If it comes back the same thing, you can tell them to shove it up their ass."

They clicked off. Lawless finished his lunch while thinking about the coincidence of his premonition earlier in the day, the canal turning into a snake, and the Sanchez DNA report. It'd been his experience that often events that appeared related were in fact not; some things just happen.

He decided to put it on a back burner, let it simmer for a while.

After lunch he drove downtown to the MID building, where he had an appointment with a Gabriel Brackston. Earlier, while returning to Modesto, he'd called MID and asked to see the president, Tom Schneider, but when Schneider found out what Lawless wanted he referred him to Brackston.

"He's been here longer than anyone and he's probably worked in every division of the company." Schneider had told him. "Hell, I think his father ran one of the Fresno Scraper teams." He laughed. Lawless remembered seeing the old photograph of a Fresno Scraper team on McFrazier's wall the day before. "He should have retired ten years ago, but I think he's one of those people whose lives are defined by their work. Guy'll probably pass on a year after retiring."

"So I take it you still find something for him to do," Lawless had commented.

"No, he doesn't do much of anything these days. Whenever we can send something his way, we do."

Like handling nuisances like me, Lawless had thought.

"Don't let his age or appearance fool you. He may be seventy-two but he's as sharp as a butcher's knife. He can tell you anything you want to know as well as I or anyone else here can. I have to warn you, though, he's a cantankerous old bastard."

Lawless entered the MID building and spoke to Linda again. She made magic with her invisible headset and buzzed him through the silly security door. Brackston was on the second floor so Lawless took the elevator.

He got off the elevator and found himself in a large open space occupied by three secretaries whose desks sat end-to-end. Offices surrounded the open space; likely middle managers who didn't merit their own assistant and thus had to share a pool.

It was a beehive of activity. The women scribbled on notepads or tapped away on keyboards while talking into headsets. They passed documents and files back and forth, hardly looking at what they'd just been given, while sipping from deep coffee mugs or little water bottles, checking their nail polish, blowing their noses, retrieving documents from one of three large Hewlett-Packard laser printers sitting on a table by a wall. Lawless started feeling dizzy.

No one acknowledged him, so he found his own way to Brackston's office. It was the only closed door. He knocked.

"Come in," a voice inside barked.

Lawless entered and saw a small, wiry man sitting behind a desk from the Lyndon Johnson presidency. The man sprang to his feet and flashed a toothy grin. "Lieutenant Lawless?"

"Detective Lawless. Mr. Brackston?" Lawless went to shake the man's hand, when the man scowled and said, "Close the door before one of those idiots gets lost and tries to come in here."

Lawless retreated to shut the door.

"Thank you. I don't know how I can stand to work here anymore," Brackston said. "If they didn't need me so much, I'd been long gone years ago. Come on in and sit down." He waved Lawless toward a threadbare two-seater bench, with stained burnt-orange fabric, metal legs, and plastic wood-grained armrests. Next to the bench was an end table, available at any garage sale for seventy-five cents, with battered copies of some trade magazine. The walls were bare except for one, which was covered by a huge map shaped like the state of Virginia, except backwards. A callout in the bottom left corner read "Map Of The Modesto Irrigation District." The desk was bare but for an old push-button phone and a few thin, scraggly blue file folders. A small window looked out onto a dirty alley.

Lawless sat and Brackston perched on the edge of his desk. He looked seventy-two, and he dressed the part: plaid polyester pants, faded nylon sports shirt, unruly eyebrows, and inexpensive tattered loafers.

"What can I do you for?"

"Tom Schneider told me you know more about how the irrigation canals work than anyone-" Lawless began.

"Tom Schneider is a fool," Brackston interrupted, leaning forward and jabbing a bony finger at Lawless.

Unsure how to reply, Lawless stuttered, "Well, I had called to see if I could meet with him but he told me to talk to you because-"

"Talking to Schneider would have been a complete waste of time," Brackston interrupted again, still with the finger. "He doesn't know a damn thing about irrigation, and even less about running this company. If it were left to him, this county would be dry farming again."

After a pause, Lawless leaned into his seat and smiled. "Well then, it sounds like I've come to see the right man." There was one thing Tom Schneider did know: Brackston was a cantankerous old bastard.

Brackston put his finger away. "The Modesto Irrigation District has been my life. It was my father's life, too. He helped dig the original canals, was on a Fresno Scraper team." He paused and got a far away dreamy look in his eyes. Lawless knew from experience that the elderly will tell their stories for hours if they have a captive audience. He suspected if he didn't control the conversation, Brackston would take up the rest of his day.

"The first canals were dirt-lined, of course. No cement canals back in those days."

"When did they start lining the canals with cement?"