“Yeah, maybe I will hang around while you check. I hate going home when Peg's away. This is bad, Ted. I think I've gotten used to her.” As he said it, he looked worried. He'd managed to stay single in the years since his divorce, and liked it that way. But as he'd said to Ted a lot recently, this girl was different. They had even vaguely discussed marriage.

“I told you you're going to wind up marrying her. You might as well. She's a good woman. You could do a lot worse.” And had frequently. He had a weakness for loose women, but this one wasn't.

“That's what she says.” He grinned. Rick paid the check since it was his turn, and the two men walked back to Ted's office. Rick had jotted down the name with both phone numbers and handed it to Ted. He had checked for federal charges on him, but there were none. But sometimes what the feds didn't have, the state did.

When they got back to his office, Ted fed the name into the computer, and poured them each a cup of coffee while they waited, and Rick talked about Peg in glowing terms. He was obviously crazy about her. Ted was pleased to hear how serious Rick was about her these days. As long as he was married, he thought everyone else should be. And Rick had been avoiding that for ages.

They were still drinking coffee when the computer spat the answer out at them. Ted glanced at it, and raised an eyebrow as he handed it to Rick.

“Your tax evasion guy has some interesting friends. Morgan got out of Pelican Bay six weeks ago. He's on parole in San Francisco.”

“What did he do time for?” Rick took the printout from him and read it carefully. All of Peter Morgan's charges were there, along with the name of his parole agent, and the address of a halfway house in the Mission. “What do you suppose Mr.-Fancy-Pants-Social-Leader-of-the-Community is doing with a guy like this?” Rick said aloud, as much to himself as to Ted. It was a new piece of the puzzle.

“Hard to say. You never know why people hook up. Maybe he knew him before he went to prison, and the guy called him when he got out. Maybe they're friends,” Ted said, as he poured them both another round of coffee.

“Maybe so.” There were bells going off in Rick's head, and he had no idea why, as he looked at Ted. “He had a lot of strange stuff in his desk. A loaded gun notably, four hundred thousand bucks in cash, for pocket money apparently. And a file on a guy called Allan Barnes that was about three inches thick. He even had a picture of Barnes's wife and kids.” This time Ted looked at him strangely. The name had struck a chord with him.

“That's weird. I met them about a month ago. Cute kids.”

“Don't give me that. I saw the photograph. She looks pretty cute too. What got you to her?” Rick was well aware of who they were. Allan Barnes had made the front page often enough for his deals and meteoric success. He wasn't like Addison, flaunting himself in the social columns for going to the opening of the symphony. Allan Barnes was an entirely different breed, and there had never been any rumors of monkey business around him. He had appeared to be a straight shooter till the end. Rick had never read otherwise, nor had Ted. There had never been any question of tax evasion, and he was surprised to hear Ted had met his widow. That was a pretty fancy group of people for Ted to meet in the line of duty.

“There was a car bombing up the street,” Ted explained.

“Where do they live? Hunter's Point?” Rick teased.

“Don't be such a smart-ass. They live in Pacific Heights. Someone hit Judge McIntyre's car, about four days after Carlton Waters got out of prison.” And then Ted looked at Rick strangely. Something had just clicked for him too. “Let me see that printout again.” Rick handed it back to him, and Ted reread it. Peter Morgan had been in Pelican Bay too, and had gotten out at the same time as Carlton Waters. “You're making me feel Twilight Zone too. Waters was in Pelican Bay. I wonder if these two guys know each other. Was there anything in your guy's desk with Waters's name on it?” That would have been too much to ask, and Rick shook his head. Ted noticed the date of Peter Morgan's release then, and fed something else into the computer. When he got it, he looked at his friend. “Waters and Morgan got out on the same day.” It probably didn't mean anything, but it was an interesting coincidence certainly. Although Ted knew it probably meant nothing.

“I hate to say it, but it probably doesn't mean shit,” Rick said sensibly. And Ted knew that more than likely, he was right. As a cop, you couldn't get carried away by coincidences. Once in a while, they panned out, but the rest of the time they went nowhere. “So what happened with the car bombing?”

“Nothing. We don't have anything on it yet. I went up to see Waters in Modesto, just for the hell of it, and to let him know we were paying attention. I don't think he had anything to do with it. He's not that stupid.”

“You never know. Stranger things have happened. Did you run it all through the computer to see if any of the judge's other fans had just gotten out?” But knowing Ted, Rick was sure he had. He had never worked with anyone as thorough and persistent as Ted Lee. He often wished he had been able to convince him to come to the FBI with him. Some of the people Rick worked with there drove him nuts. And he still missed working with Ted. They traded a lot of information, and talked about their cases with each other frequently. More than once, in fact many times, they had cracked a case together, just by talking it out. Even now they used each other as sounding boards, as they had tonight, and it always helped them. “You still didn't tell me what the Barnes woman had to do with the car bombing. I assume she wasn't a suspect.” Rick smiled at him, and Ted shook his head, amused. They loved teasing each other.

“She lives down the block from Judge McIntyre. One of her kids was looking out the window, and I showed him Waters's mug shot the next day. Nothing. He didn't recognize him. We came up cold. So far, no leads.”

“I gather she wasn't a lead,” Rick teased again, with a meaningful look. He loved doing that to him. And Ted always gave it right back. Particularly about Peg. She was the first serious romance Rick had had in years. Maybe ever. Ted knew nothing about that kind of thing. He had been faithful to Shirley since they were kids, which Rick always told him was sick. But he admired him for it, although he had known for years from things Ted said, and didn't, that their marriage wasn't all that it used to be. At least they were still together, and they loved each other in their own way. You could hardly expect it to be exciting after twenty-eight years, and it wasn't.

“I didn't say anything about her,” Ted pointed out to him. “I said the kids were cute.”

“So no car bombing suspect, I gather,” Rick commented, and Ted shook his head.

“Not a one. It was interesting to see Waters though. He's a tough customer. He seems to be keeping his nose clean, for now at least. He wasn't too happy with my visit.”

“Tough shit,” Rick said bluntly. He had no use for convicts like Carlton Waters. He knew who he was and didn't like anything he'd read about him.

“Those were pretty much my sentiments on the subject.” And as Ted said it, Rick looked at him again. There was something rolling around in his head. He couldn't figure out the connection between Peter Morgan and Phillip Addison, and it was bothering him. And the fact that Carlton Waters had gotten out on the same day as Morgan probably meant nothing. But it had just occurred to him that it might not hurt to have a look. And as a parolee, Peter Morgan was in Ted's jurisdiction.

“Will you do me a favor? I can't justify sending one of my boys over. Can you send someone out to Morgan's halfway house tomorrow? He's on parole, you don't need a search warrant to go through his stuff. You don't even need to clear it with his parole agent. You can go anytime you want. I just want to know if there's something there that ties him to Addison, or anyone else of interest. I don't know why, but I'm drawn to this guy, like a bee to honey.”

“Oh Christ, don't tell me the FBI has turned you gay.” Ted laughed at him, but he agreed to go. He had a certain amount of respect for Rick's instincts. They had panned out for both of them before, and it couldn't hurt this time. “I'll go tomorrow, when I get up. I'll call you if anything turns up.” He had nothing else to do in the morning, and with luck, Morgan would be out, which would make it easier to search. He'd have a look around his room, and see what he found there.

“Thanks a lot,” Rick said comfortably, picked up Morgan's printout, folded it, and put it in his pocket. It might come in handy at some point, particularly if Ted found something at the halfway house the next day.

But all Ted found when he got there was his forwarding address. The man at the desk told him that Morgan had moved out. Peter's parole agent had obviously not gotten around to updating the address in the computer, which was sloppy, but they were busy. Ted glanced at it and saw that it was a hotel in the Tenderloin, and determined to do what he'd promised Rick he would the night before, he went there. The clerk at the desk said Morgan was out. Ted showed him his star and asked for the key. The desk clerk wanted to know if he was in trouble, and Ted said it was a standard check of a parolee, which didn't seem to bother him. There had been others who had stayed there before. The desk clerk shrugged and handed Ted the key, and he walked upstairs.

The room he walked into was spare and neat. The clothes in the closet looked new. The papers on the desk were neatly stacked. There was nothing exceptional about the room. Morgan had no drugs, no weapons, no contraband. He didn't even smoke. And he had a fat address book sitting on the desk, held together by a rubber band. Ted flipped through it and found Addison's name and number under the A's. And when he rifled through the desk, two pieces of paper caught Ted's eye, and stopped him dead in his tracks. One had Carlton Waters's number in Modesto on it, and the other piece of paper made his blood run cold. On it was written Fernanda's address. There was no telephone number and no name. Only the address, but he recognized it immediately, even without a name. He closed the book and put the rubber band on it, closed the desk drawer, and after a last look around, he walked out of the room. And as soon as he got back to his car, he called Rick.