January Justice (45 page)

The driver said, “I hate it when they won’t shut up.”

The passenger said, “Yeah.”

“You don’t want me to shut up. You need to listen. If you don’t, you’ll always regret it. Olivia Soto is in her apartment. She didn’t answer the intercom because I told her not to respond to anyone but me. She has taken a lot of money from these people. It’s dirty money. They want it back, and they’ll torture her to find out where it is.”

The driver said, “This one is creative.”

The passenger said nothing.

I said, “Why would I care so much about it if it wasn’t true? I’m not asking you to let me go. I’m not even asking you to turn around. Just call it in. Get another squad car over there as soon as you can. I’m not asking for me. This is about her. Please. I’m begging you.”

Neither of them said anything. The patrol car slowed and stopped at a red light at McLaughlin. I stared forward through the steel grid behind the officers, looking at the street ahead without really seeing it. I fought against the desperation. I had to stay calm. There had to be a way.

A vehicle approached the intersection on the other side. At first it didn’t register with me, but then I realized it was a black Lincoln Navigator.

“There they are!” I said. “That’s them, over there. The Navigator, like I said. Look at the mud. Look at the license plate. It’s just like I told you, 5DB. They’re going back to Olivia’s apartment. Please, you have to stop them.”

The light changed. The Navigator rolled past us. The patrol car went ahead, the two policemen saying nothing.

After we had traveled another half a block, the one in the passenger seat said, “Couldn’t hurt.”

“Oh, all right,” said the driver.

We made a fast U-turn. The passenger reached forward and flipped a switch. I saw the flashing blue and red of the squad car’s emergency lights reflected in the side windows of parked cars as we sped by. Then he lifted the radio handset and advised their dispatcher that they were about to stop a suspicious vehicle.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

They said nothing as we caught up with the Navigator four blocks away from Olivia’s street. We pulled up very close behind it. The Navigator stopped at the curb.

“Listen,” I said. “There will be at least two of them, and they’re armed and very dangerous. Be careful.”

“Just sit there and shut up,” said the driver, getting out.

I watched through the front windshield as he and his partner approached the Navigator, one of them walking in the street and the other on the sidewalk at the passenger side. They had both unsnapped their holsters. They each moved forward slowly with one hand on their holstered sidearm and a flashlight in the other, aimed at the SUV. I kept thinking they should have drawn their weapons.

The rear passenger side door opened. I saw one person get out of the vehicle. It was a small person, maybe a woman, although I couldn’t tell for sure in the darkness. The patrolman on the sidewalk seemed alert and suspicious. The person seemed to speak to him. The patrolman seemed to relax. He took his hand off his sidearm. I heard him raise his voice. Although I couldn’t make out what he said, his partner immediately relaxed as well, also removing his hand from his weapon. The cop on the sidewalk appeared to exchange a few more words with the person standing there, then he and his partner both turned and started walking back toward the patrol car.

When they were about midway between the Navigator and their car, the two front doors of the SUV opened. Both of the policemen heard it and started to turn, but they were too slow. There were two muzzle flashes, one from each of the men who had emerged from the Navigator. Both of the cops went down. The two men from the Navigator walked forward and stood over them. One of the men, the one who had emerged from the passenger side, fired once more into the bodies of each of the fallen policemen.

They spoke to each other for a few seconds, then they both looked toward the car. I ducked behind the front seat. Since the patrolmen had closed their doors, the overhead light was off. I didn’t think the murderers had seen me, but it was possible. I raised my head a little and peeked forward past the driver’s-side headrest. One of them was walking toward the car. His gun was in his hand. I ducked again, sliding all the way down onto the floorboard between the front and rear seats, as low as I could go. The front door opened. The light above came on. I waited for the shot.

Instead, I heard a few metallic noises, and then the door closed and the light went off again. A few seconds later, I heard the Navigator engine start. I rose up to peer out through the windshield just as they drove off.

I rolled onto my back on the rear seat and began kicking at the glass in the side door. I kicked with both feet at once, slamming the glass again and again with my heels. At first it seemed unbreakable, but after a couple of minutes, a spiderweb of cracks appeared.

From the front seat, I heard my cell phone’s ringtone. It had to be Olivia, calling me on speed dial, knowing they were outside her apartment and counting on me to come.

I kicked harder. The phone stopped ringing. I kicked and kicked, and finally the top part of the glass gave way. The bottom pieces of the window held on stubbornly. It took another minute to clear them. I rose to my knees on the backseat, stuck my head and upper body out of the window, and pushed with my legs. With my hands cuffed behind my back, there was no way to avoid a hard fall onto the street.

A sharp spike of pain shot out from my cracked ribs, but I rose to my feet as quickly as I could and ran to the fallen patrolmen. Even in the darkness it was obvious each of them had been shot in the head. I turned around and knelt beside the closest one, facing away from him. With my cuffed hands behind my back, working only by touch, I felt for his pants pocket. I figured the keys would be in the right front. I was wrong. I stood and moved to the other side of the body. I knelt again and found another pocket, then pushed the fingers of my right hand in and touched the keys.

I made myself go slowly, drawing the keys out with my fingertips. When they were free of his pocket, they fell to the pavement. Groaning with frustration, I sat on the pavement and felt around blindly until I found them. It took nearly two minutes to select the proper key, fit it into the cuffs behind my back, and turn it.

Freed of the restraints at last, I ran back to the patrol car. I got in and used another key from the cop’s pocket to start the engine. The emergency lights were still flashing as I burned rubber pulling away from the curb, heading for Olivia.

Reaching for the radio handset, I noticed the dashboard video memory chip was gone. So that was why the guy had come over to the car. I lifted the radio handset and spoke into it.

“My name is Malcolm Cutter,” I said. “There are two officers down. I think they’re dead.”

The female dispatcher replied. “Repeat that.”

“Two policemen have been shot by men driving a black Navigator. They’re in the middle of the block on Washington, near McLaughlin.”

“Who is this?”

“My name is Malcolm Cutter. They were bringing me in to the station. They stopped a black Navigator with a license-plate number that begins with 5DB. A muddy black Lincoln Navigator. The people in the Navigator shot them.”

“You’re saying police officers were shot?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you on the radio in their squad car?”

“That’s right. I’m going after the shooters.”

“You’re driving a patrol car?”

“Yes. I just passed Lincoln on Washington.”

“Sir, you need to stop the vehicle now and wait for officers to arrive at your location. Where are the officers who were shot? Did you say Washington near McLaughlin?”

“That’s right. Listen, the guys who shot them, they’re after a woman who lives in Venice. I’m going to her place now. You need to send help over there.” I gave her Olivia’s address.

“Stand by.” There was a pause, and then she came back on. “Mr. Cutter, you need to stop that car and wait for the police officers to arrive at your location. Just stop right where you are.”

“I can’t stop. Those guys will kill her. Get some help over there.”

“What’s the woman’s address again?”

I repeated it.

“All right, sir, we’re dispatching a car to that address right now. But you need to pull over where you are and wait for the officers.”

“Listen to me. I have a friend with the OC Sheriff’s Department. His name is Tom Harper. That’s Sergeant Tom Harper, with the OCSD. Do you have that?”

“I have it.”

“Call Harper for background on me. I’m not the perpetrator in this situation.”

“Mr. Cutter, you must stop the car and wait—”

I switched off the radio and dropped the handset to the floorboard of the car. Beside it was a plastic evidence bag with my M9 inside. I pressed my knees against the steering wheel for a second or two as I used both hands to open the bag and withdraw the weapon. I checked the magazine, put the M9 on my lap, and gripped the wheel again. I had a fleeting thought of digging in the bag to find my cell phone and calling Simon, but he was at least forty-five minutes away in Newport. I was on my own.

Olivia’s street was just ahead. Making no effort at surprise, I took the turn at nearly forty, oversteering and sliding sideways. The patrol car sideswiped a Volkswagen van parked on the right side of the street. I regained control, then stepped on the gas and roared on up the block.

In front of Olivia’s place, I locked all four wheels and came to a stop in a cloud of smoking rubber. I leaped from the car and looked around but saw no sign of the Navigator. Her gate was standing open. I ran through. Her front door was open too. Although I knew it had to be pointless, I made myself run inside. Shouting her name, I charged from room to room. Olivia wasn’t there.

48

Back outside,
the air was filled with screaming sirens. It seemed police were coming from every direction. If I was still there when they arrived, Olivia had no hope at all.

I ran to the patrol car. The engine was idling, and the driver’s-side door was standing open. I leaned inside and found my duffel bag, which they had taken as evidence. I kept looking and found another plastic evidence bag with my wallet and my keys. Grabbing the plastic bag, I ran up the street to the Bentley, which was still parked at the curb. I was in it and rolling slowly up the street when a patrol car turned my way off Washington. The car sped past me, lights flashing and siren screaming. I went right onto Washington, heading for the 405. Another patrol car was approaching at high speed on the other side of the street. I made myself go slowly. The second squad car passed me too. Within fifteen seconds, a third squad car screamed by, doing at least sixty with its lights flashing.

I drove for several blocks trying to decide what to do. Far ahead I saw what seemed to be about a dozen patrol cars parked at every angle in the road. They had found the dead policemen.

I took the next right, drove a few blocks, then turned left again on Braddock. I thought about the Navigator. The mud. Red mud. I decided to gamble everything. I drove up onto the freeway heading south.

It wouldn’t take long for the police to broadcast the Bentley’s plates and description, and after that, every cop in California would be looking for it. Most of them would probably shoot on sight and later claim I had brandished a weapon. The last thing I needed to do was call additional attention to myself by the way I drove, so although my every instinct shouted hurry, I made myself keep pace with the other traffic.

Chances were, the men in the Navigator wouldn’t go to work on Olivia while they were in motion. They’d wait until they had her in a more controlled location. With luck I would be right behind them, so they wouldn’t have time to hurt her badly before I arrived. At least that’s what I told myself. But that logic assumed I knew where they were going. Because of the mud, I was pretty sure I knew where they had been, but even that was only a guess, and it certainly didn’t mean they planned to return to the same location. In a city of almost ten million people, with another three million just to the south in Orange County, the chances I had guessed correctly were slim. Still, I had to do something.

I had sat by uselessly while Haley died. I hadn’t even tried to save her. The fact that I had been in no condition to save her made no difference to me. I hadn’t tried; that was all that mattered. I wouldn’t let that happen again.

I drove south for forty minutes to San Juan Capistrano. I took the Ortega Highway exit and turned inland, toward the Santa Ana Mountains. It was far more than a long shot; it was an act of desperation. But I kept thinking about the mud on the Navigator, and the rain in the mountains, and telling myself it was the only shot I had.

The city fell away behind me as I rose into the hills, my headlights carving deep into the nighttime up ahead. As I rounded a hairpin turn, the high beams caught a coyote in the incandescent glare. It stared at me, twin eyes glowing yellow, and then it vanished like a ghost into the chaparral beside the road.

Soon a gentle mist began to coalesce on the windshield. I switched on the wipers. I was catching up with the weeping clouds that had drifted inland a few hours before. Rounding one particularly sharp turn, I felt the tires begin to lose their grip on the moist pavement. It was a bitter choice to make, but I had to cut my speed a little. Although there was a certain attractive symmetry in the thought of dying in the way that Haley had, it wouldn’t do to sail off into midair above the canyon far below. Not while there was still a chance Olivia might live.