Red Light (45 page)

Think. Anything. Keep him talking.

"How
do you explain a dead detective in your dad's house?"

"Easy. You
intercepted me on my way to work. True. Said you wanted me to supply the
suicide note and videotape of dad. True again. I said the stuff was out here,
so you said let's go. True. When we got here, I couldn't find the note. That
will become true. But I showed you the suicide gun and you inspected it, must
have assumed it was empty, and it went off. Sort of true. I administered CPR
but it was too late. Then, just the obvious, I'll wipe the gun off before I put
it in your hands. Then I'll help you shoot it through that window, but you'll
be dead so it won't be difficult. I'll replace the spent cartridge so it looks
like only one shell went off. I'll replace the glass with plywood so it matches
half the other windows in here. Then I'll hit my hands with a double dose of
solvent to get the gunshot residue off. After that it's my word against yours,
but you won't have much to say. Accidents happen."

"Zamorra
won't buy it."

"I'll handle
Zamorra. He's so ditzed out right now, he probably
will
buy it."

"Your
prints were in Whittaker's kitchen."

"Hey,
babe, I'm a CSI. I
worked
that scene. Mistakes happen."

She
dove behind the sofa, landing on her left side, hand already jammed under her
coat. The room exploded with a roar and she felt something slam into her side.
Two more booms then, the reports echoing through the room. Her leg seemed to
burst into flames. She reached the nine over the couch top and fired twice but
four loud detonations went off and the sheet over the couch puffed out and
sprouted two holes. When the echoes died off she heard O'Brien curse, then
footsteps fast away from her. She labored to her knees with the H&K ready,
saw O'Brien disappear into the kitchen, saw the smear of blood on the floor.
She swung away her coat with one elbow, then reached down toward her bleeding
holes. She poked her trigger finger in one and saw the tip come out the other.
She almost fainted. The blood was already all over the place. There was a rip
in her pants, down below the knee, but she couldn't tell if the bone was
shattered or not. She stood and dragged herself toward the kitchen.

Blood
on the floor and on the doorframe. The outside door swung open, banging in the
wind. She steadied herself on the counter, got across the room to the door and
looked out.

A
pool house to her left, garages to her right, the whole table dusted by the
blowing sand. Eyes burning, the wind ripping at her face, a huge tumbleweed
bouncing along and a few drops of blood leading to the pool.

She
took a deep breath, got the nine steady in both slippery hands and limped
across the deck toward the pool. She looked in. No water just a bunch of
tumbleweeds trapped in the bottom. But she saw movement on the far wall,
something rising up from the bottom, growing taller, the shadow of a man and
all she could think of was jump out a turn midair and crank off three quick
shots as she dropped straight down into an ocean of thorns.

She
sank. She tried to stay upright but it was like treading broken glass. She got
up against the near side and saw the gun barrel come over the lip of the deck,
saw the hand behind it.

For
a moment it seemed to watch her, one big black eye, then it moved right and
left as if to locate her, and she was just about to roll one side when the
black eye dropped and skittered down the gunite and slid under the tumbleweeds.

She
could feel her breath coming short and fast but she couldn't hear anything but
the wind shrieking above her. O'Brien's hand was twitching rhythmically. She
rolled away from it, toward the shallow end, fighting her way through the
thorns and dust and finally got to the steps, trying to keep the sights of her
gun on the facedown body of Evan O'Brien.

He
lay outstretched on the deck with one hand dangling in the empty air above the
pool. She sat on the bottom step and leaned forward, resting the H&K on
the deck, both hands still firm in spite of the blood and the sand and the
thorns that had come off in her skin.

She
got the sights lined up on O'Brien's side and held them there. She rested her
arms on the deck and her weight on her arms. She panted. She listened to the
wind howl. She looked down at the steps and they were heavy with blood and she
felt light and painless and oddly content.

When
she tried to stand she faltered and fell back down the pool-side, boot toes
scratching hopelessly for purchase, gun dropping from her hand.

Caught
in the curve at the bottom, she looked forward and saw three things right in
front of her face: one section of gunite and two bloody hands resting against
it.

She
wondered whose they were. Thorns everywhere, blood and sand. Must hurt.

She
thought she heard sirens, but she thought she heard music, too.

H
er sense of time was all off: Minutes dragged to
eternities while hours shot past like hummingbirds. In and out of the world, a
world of uniforms and sharp voices, of sirens and tubes in her arms and mouth,
of bright lights and hovering masks and finally a room that was quiet active
with the comings and goings of people she didn't know and she didn't just dream
it, brief inquisitive appearances by her father Paul Zamorra and Sheriff Chuck
Brighton.

Cold.
Sleep. Thirst. More cold. More sleep. More thirst.

Then more sirens and
helicopter blades and the blustery roof of UCI Medical Center where the
Medi-Vac chopper circled to a stop shook the needles in her veins. And another
room hushed with activity, monitors everywhere, more faces she didn't know,
more apparitional visitations by faces she did.

The first thing she
noticed were her hands: swollen as if by a thousand stings, small dark shards
lodged deep in the red flesh. They hurt. The worst were the pads of her
fingers, and around her nails. Moving either hand was like sticking it into a
prickly pear cactus.

The next thing she
noticed was her smell: not good. She pulled herself up from the bed, which set
off an alarm, which brought two nurses skidding into the room. They strapped
her down to the bed and gave a whore's bath when she stopped crying and
thrashing around.

Her lower torso was
wrapped with gauze. Her right calf wrapped with gauze. Her butt was wrapped in
gauze then fitted loosely inside a large padded diaper. When her right hand
began to boil with pus they added a sedative to her saline drip that made her
feel like Joan Cash had hypnotized her. They pulled out the thorns. Then they
left. She awakened some years later and held up her hands, mittened now in
still more gauze but not throbbing like they were before.

She woke from a
terrible dream in which she was shot up and filled with stickers, only to find
it true. She screamed and strained against the bedstraps. A nurse added something
else into her IV drip and the world got warm and fuzzy and humorous. Clark
showed up with Tim.
The Men!

She touched Tim with
her white mittens then something like a soft hammer hit her. The next thing she
knew she was sitting up in bed with a tray in front of her and a carton of
orange juice with a straw steadied between the white bandaged clubs of her
fingers.

Nobody was in the room but
her father. He told her it was a whole day after he and Tim, Jr., had visited.
Monday, the day before Christmas. He smiled and touched her forehead and told
her everything was going to be just fine.

• » •

Medical news: gunshot to
the right lower torso, flesh and muscle wound, lower rib chipped. Bone shards
removed, remainder filed and shaped. Entrance and exit wounds sutured and
stitched. Gunshot to right upper calf, no damage to bone or nerve, considerable
localized destruction of flesh, replaced by tissue and skin graft from
patient's posterior gluteal area. Minor flesh wounds on both hands and fingers caused
by repeated contact with tumbleweeds—thorns removed and punctures cleaned.

Blood loss
considerable, transfusions continuing, platelet and white cell levels below
normal but rising.

Patient
condition: fair.

Elapsed hospital time:
four days and counting.

• •

Afternoon, Christmas Day.

"O'Brien's
dead," said Zamorra. His dark face wavered in and out of focus at the end
of a cave. "You hit him three times—one in the an two in the chest."

"Wasted
one," she heard herself croak. Her throat burned and no amount of water
seemed to bring any moisture to it. "Janine?"

"Let's
talk about that later."

"The
porch bulb and the fixture from Whittaker's are in my trunk.

"I'll
get them."

"The
suicide note. Get a copy from San Bernardino sheriffs, and
g
et it
back to me. Soon."

"Done.
Merry Christmas."

"I'm
sleepy."

"Rest."

"Get Brenkus."

That night came
Clayton Brenkus, white-haired and stately. He sat. He questioned. His pen
rolled across the paper in short bursts.

"He
confessed?"

"Whittaker.
The phone recorder. Planting evidence. His father killed Patti Bailey for his
alleged friends. They betrayed him with it. Evan wanted restitution."

A
long silence, a burst of pen on paper. "Last words are evidentiary and
admissible."

"Get
Mike out, now!"

"For
starters, yes. An appropriate Christmas present. Imagine the lawsuit we'll be
up against."

"Imagine."

Pen
on paper. Walls melting. Darkness filling in.

"I'm
sleepy."

"Get some rest."

Morning.

".
. . misses you all the time. So he lurches around your room trying to figure
out where you are and I keep telling him but you know how that goes. He's
eating tons, though, and sleeping a lot, so he's fine. When you get home we're
going to spoil the heck out of you, we'll be your patient recovery team. Now
look, try some more of these eggs. You've got to get your strength back or
they'll never let you out of this place. You are
needed
at home, young
lady. That's a direct order from Tim."

Clark leaning forward with
a pile of yellow goop on a spoon, a pitying smile on his face.

"Kiss him for
me."

"I have been. Gary Brice from the
Journal
has left twelve messages. I've talked to him three times. He said he's ready to
collect payment for not running the articles on you and Mike. He said you'd
know what he's talking about."

"I'm sleepy."
"Rest, honey."

• • •

Evening.

Brighton, tall and ancient, stood in the doorway with
a bouquet.

"We're springing Mike soon."

"Um-hm."

"Gilliam and his
people are going over everything O'Brien did the last week. All the evidence he
handled, lost, tampered with, planted.
Everything."

"Lots."

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm sleepy."

"Get some rest."

He turned and walked away,
then came back in, still holding the flowers. He set them on the floor because
the little nightstand was already full of them.

• • •

Late night. Out the window
she could see car lights creeping up and down Interstate 5, the gay domes of a
theater complex in the distance. Rain rolled down the glass and smeared it all.

Merci walked around the
floor, still tethered to the drip trolley, her right leg aching, her rib
aching, her butt burning where the grafts had been taken. A nurse walked along
beside her, talking about her children.

Gary Brice was
waiting outside her room when she returned

"Merci," he
said. "You look great for six days in two hospitals."

"I
can't talk now, Gary."

"I know. I just
want you to know that when you're ready, I am. You promised me the truth."

"You'll
get it."

"O'Brien
framed Mike, didn't he?"

"It's
a long story. Later."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Exclusive?"

"All
the way."

Zamorra came very
late, shut the door and sat down by the window. In the harsh hospital light his
eyes looked black and his skin looked gray. He was dressed in a dark suit as
always, his white shirt collar pressed and his tie neatly knotted. The only
thing his neatness did was reveal the exhaustion in his face.

"Janine,"
said Merci.

Zamorra
nodded. "Let's just sit here a minute."

The minute seemed
like an hour. It might have been. Merci opened her eyes, felt her head lagging
to the side. The rain came down hard outside the window but she couldn't hear
it over the hum of the heater, the muffled buzz of the hospital around her.