A Stranger Lies There (3 page)

“Fuck!” Turret said under his breath when we reached level five, and I wouldn't know how lucky I'd gotten until later.

There was one other car in addition to mine up here, a VW bug parked a few spaces down with a man and woman inside. They were making out. They'd obviously wanted some privacy and watched with annoyance as we approached.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Act normal. Gimme your keys and drop me off at your car. I'll meet you right below.”

I looked at him dumbly, scared out of my mind, and he explained impatiently, “It'll look weird if we both get out and switch cars. Just do it!”

I stopped behind my car and handed him the keys. I could feel the two lovers watching us, waiting for us to leave. Turret got out nonchalantly, duffel bag in hand, and leaned back in after closing the door. “Better make it the third floor. I don't want these idiots noticing this one parked all by itself on their way down. Got it?”

“Yeah.” I crept away unhurriedly, drove down two floors, and parked in a crowd of other vehicles. Turret pulled up behind me moments later. I got out and dashed to my car, making the mistake then that saved my life.

“Come on, come on!” Turret urged impatiently, as I climbed in beside him and slammed the door. It echoed loudly in the enclosed garage, along with the screech of rubber on concrete as we sped off.

When we reached the street, Turret shook his head and muttered, “That stupid ass Rory, man.”

“What? What the hell happened? Are my friends dead?”

“Maybe. They both went down. That's all I know.”

“Shit! How? What went wrong?”

“Fucking Rory. He lost it, man!”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It was going beautifully. We had everybody on the floor except the vault manager, and she was handing over the cash like her life depended on it. I mean, it was perfect! No one got hysterical, none of those guards tried to be a hero, and I'm watching all that bread going into the bag with one eye and my watch with the other. Next thing I know, Rory's lettin' loose with the bullets, man! All hell broke loose after that. I don't know how I made it out of there alive. But thanks to Rory, that bag is only halfway full.”

Two of my friends were probably dead and he was worried about the money. I looked at him with new fear, suddenly wanting to get far away from him.

“When he started shooting, the guards pulled their own weapons. Ellen was, like, frozen. The rent-a-cops might've gotten her, I'm not sure. Rory was already on the floor.”

“And you just left them there?” I asked hysterically. “How could you?”

“You weren't there, man. It was like a war zone,” he said, getting on the highway toward Santa Cruz. “If I'd stopped to help them none of us would have made it. Including you.” He looked at me, frowned. “And it didn't take much coaxing to get you to step on the gas back there.”

He was right about that, and I felt like a coward and a traitor for leaving my friends behind. Please God, I thought, let them be alive.

Alone with those dark thoughts, sick with worry and regret, I didn't notice that Turret had pulled off the freeway into a deserted rest area. When he stopped in front of the restrooms I came back to myself.

“What the hell are we doing?” I asked, confused.

Turret didn't respond. Just leaned over the seat and reached for something in back, pushing the bag of money aside impatiently. He stopped suddenly in surprise and our eyes met, and that's when I realized that he'd been going for the gun. The gun that we'd left in the other car in all the confusion.

I was a split second faster than he was and turned to throw open the door, getting one foot on the pavement before he grabbed me and tried to wrestle me back into the car. Cramped by the steering wheel in front of him, he couldn't get a grip on me with both hands. I used my leverage against the doorjamb and the edge of the seat to tear myself away, scraping one side against the open door before landing on the other shoulder on the ground outside. I got up and took off the way we'd come, toward the highway to flag someone down. I looked back. Turret had started around the back of the car, then stopped and pounded his fist angrily on the trunk before scrambling back behind the wheel and screeching away in the opposite direction. When I reached the freeway he was already gone, blending in with the traffic down the road.

I sprinted back to the restroom for the pay phone, frantically searching my pockets for change. Then I realized I didn't need it for an emergency call and hit “0.”

My breath was loud in the earpiece before the connection went through. A disinterested voice said, “Operator,” and a few seconds later I was talking to the police. I gave them a description of Turret and the car, as well as my own location and a rundown of the crime.

It wasn't until much later the following day, after I'd been arrested, that I found out exactly what had happened. By that time, the robbery was all over the news and a tape from the bank's security cameras had been released. It showed a grainy, black and white view of the lobby and teller counter, but the carnage it depicted was all too clear. Everybody was on the floor. Rory was near the entrance guarding the door. Ellen stood in the opposite corner. Their guns covered the room. A second angle from a different camera showed Turret near the vault urging the attendant to fill the bag quickly. He brandished his weapon threateningly. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Rory toppled to the floor. His gun went off, spraying the ceiling with automatic weapon-fire, the rounds bursting from the barrel in white flashes before he hit the floor. The guards came up firing, pointing toward Ellen, who seemed to be in shock. Somehow, they both missed her. Turret came rushing forward, gun blazing. One of the guards dove behind a desk and the other one got hit and folded to the floor, blood staining his shirtfront. On his way out Turret leveled his weapon at Ellen and blew her over the desk she'd been standing in front of.

A few seconds later Turret disappeared out the front door. Rory tried to stand, shaking his head dazedly. The guard that dove for cover shot him twice in the chest. Rory didn't move after that.

I told the police that Rory had probably fainted as a result of his surfing mishap earlier that morning.

DESERT

CHAPTER ONE

“Hope you can drive fast.”

The dream always ended with those words, reaching through the years in that half-state between sleeping and waking, when my defenses were down. I was used to it, though; had been for quite some time. It brought guilt and an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, but that Sunday morning, it became more than just a reminder of the mistake I'd made in my youth.

I woke up early, six sharp as usual. No alarm clock from years of regimented wakeup calls. Deirdre had been tossing and turning the last few nights, so I let her sleep. In the kitchen I made some coffee, the special blend I saved for weekends, and while it was brewing, wiped down the counter and rinsed out the mug that I kept on the hook next to the microwave. After checking on Deirdre—still knocked out—I put on some pants and a shirt, then went to get my coffee. I took it out to the front porch, but my first sip stalled halfway to my lips when I realized what I was seeing. Flies don't circle like that around anything that's alive.

My coffee cup dropped from my hand and shattered on the concrete. I stepped over it onto the lawn. Dry grass crackled under my feet, the sound of the insects, like high-tension wires, getting louder as I approached. I stopped. Squatted tentatively. Reached out my hand. But I knew it was no use and pulled it back. Then Deirdre was there kneeling beside me, nightgown fluttering in the hot morning breeze, cinnamon hair kissing her soft, bare shoulders.

“He looks like you,” she said quietly.

My neighbor's timed sprinklers suddenly switched on. The spray misted in the morning sunlight. Rainbows danced like shimmering ghosts.

“Call the cops,” I said, standing. Deirdre backed away slowly, hand over her mouth. A wet sob hiccupped out before she turned around and hurried inside. I felt dizzy for a second, and had to steady myself. The sprinklers were a soft counterpoint to the hammering in my ears. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, which felt cold and clammy despite the temperature, like the TB patients that used to come out here to die. At funerals, I never wanted to view the body, laid out and posed in a casket, with too much makeup on. At least the eyes were always closed.

He was lying face up near the edge of the grass, gazing into the clear blue sky. He'd been shot in the side of the head near the temple, a small hole that was slightly elongated, like the bullet entered from an angle. Early twenties or so, wearing a concert T-shirt and faded jeans. Arms in the grass at his sides. Spent dandelions poked from between his fingers.

Deirdre didn't say much when she came back out. “They're coming. They said not to touch anything.” She wiped a tear from her cheek roughly, another one replaced it.

“How long?”

A resigned shrug. “Few minutes.”

I nodded, looking up and down the street. Still early, nobody around yet. Sirens wavered in the distance, getting closer. Deirdre grabbed my hand and squeezed. She was shivering in the sweltering heat. The flies were buzzing angrily, darting in and out over the body. One of them crawled back and forth over an eyeball.
He's really dead
, I thought, as the sirens reached a fever pitch. Then two patrol cars rounded the corner, shot up the block and made a hard stop behind my car.

Moments later we were in the house with two of the officers.

“You made the call?” Things were moving fast now.

“Yeah. My wife did, actually.” The living room seemed small and unbearably hot. They both wore the black, short-sleeved uniforms of the Palm Springs PD, their black leather gunbelts shiny and dangerous. The officer who'd addressed me had his notebook and pen out while the other one was moving slowly about the room, looking around. The bookcase with its collection of counseling and psychology texts stopped him before he moved on. Deirdre watched him, her hands shaking; she could have been one of her strung-out clients.

“Are you okay?” the cop with the notebook, whose nameplate said Tyler, asked her.

Deirdre gave him a look:
there's a dead body on my front lawn
, but didn't voice anything.

“Why don't we sit down,” he suggested.

Deirdre took a seat on the couch, switched on the table lamp next to the old photograph of her sister. I sat next to her on the edge of the cushions, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. I rubbed my hands together nervously.

Tyler didn't move. “Mind if my partner looks around?”

“Looks around? Why? We're the ones that called it in,” I pointed out.

“Just routine.”

“Routine? I don't understand.”

“Look, we just have to cover all the bases. You can say no.”

“Go ahead,” Deirdre told him, putting a hand on my leg. “I don't mind.”

“Well I mind,” I said, “but just get it over with. One of us can go with you, right?”

“If you think that's necessary,” Tyler answered.

I nodded to Deirdre and she got up to follow the second officer. A worried glance over her shoulder as she left. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. But before I could say anything Tyler started in with me, and I let it go. I told him everything, starting with getting up this morning and making coffee. How I'd dropped it on the front porch in surprise. That Deirdre thought the boy looked like me. Tyler scribbled in his notebook. He took me back to last night.

I shrugged. “Worked in the shop till around ten. Then watched some TV and went to bed a little after eleven.”

“Shop?”

“Yeah. My garage. Power tools.”

“They loud?”

“In there? Yeah. Not so much from outside.”

“Probably why you didn't hear anything,” Tyler said, writing some more. “What time you start?”

“Must have been around eight. I was in there a couple hours.”

He asked about Deirdre. I told him she was asleep by the time I got in bed. No, we hadn't seen anything unusual in the neighborhood recently. No unfamiliar cars parked on the street or strange people hanging around, at least that I could remember. When we were done, Tyler glanced out the front window.

“At least you found him early. Must be ninety out there already.”

I checked the indoor-outdoor thermometer by the front door. Eighty-eight.

“Detective Branson is here,” Tyler said. “Let's go outside.”

The white coroner's van had backed up to the driveway and yellow crime scene tape had already been strung up. Lots of uniforms; one guy in street clothes, carrying a toolbox and wearing a vest and baseball cap identifying him as PSPD. Some of my neighbors were gathered in the street, talking quietly, trying to process it all. We pushed through them to a patrol car, where the detective was speaking with one of the deputies. When he turned to us Tyler introduced me.

Branson was dressed in slacks and a sport coat, his tie pulled down to allow the top button of his shirt to be open. Tall and well built. Late forties, with a brown crew cut that was going gray at the top. He had a military man's air about him and an arrogance that a lot of cops seem to adopt. I decided I didn't like him.

He pulled off his sunglasses and addressed Tyler and the other uniform. “Start talking to the neighbors. See if anybody saw anything.” To me he said, “Let's go over here,” as both officers hurried off. We crossed the street and went up a few houses to where his sedan was parked. He sat against the front side of the car, put his sunglasses in his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Lit one and stuffed the pack and lighter back in his pocket.

“Tell me what happened.”

He took a hard pull on the cigarette, his small, dark eyes appraising me. Blew smoke into the warm breeze. I'd read somewhere that a lot of homicide detectives smoked to mask the smell of death.