Blood Ties (38 page)

The television in the living room would stay off tonight. To hell with it.

He went out to the porch, the glass of beer in one hand, the gun in the other. The lounge chair welcomed him. He set the revolver down on the wooden floor, where he could reach it easily with his right hand, and put the beer on the table.

The porch light was on, but the yard was full of murky shadows. Sam could just make out the top of the fence and the vague outline of a neighbor's tree. Anybody could be out there. He got up, switched on the backyard floods and killed the porch light. Then he sat down again. He felt much better.

It was a warm night, and windless. He could hear a cricket somewhere, and the usual traffic sounds, but nothing else. He drank his beer and felt himself beginning to relax. When it was finished he went into the kitchen and got another.

*   *   *

Sergeant Sam's house was a squat, one-story building with rather small windows, set back about thirty feet from the sidewalk on slightly rising ground. Walter had been involved in the construction of so many houses just like it that he had no trouble imagining the interior layout—a master bedroom in front, to the left of the living room with a hallway in between. There would be a second bedroom behind the master, a dining room behind the living room and the kitchen all the way in the rear.

The front windows were dark, but there was a car parked in the driveway. Walter put his hand on the hood and discovered it was warm. Somebody was home.

The garage was separated from the house by a flagstone walkway that seemed to lead to the backyard. Standing there in his rubber-soled shoes, Walter could see that the outdoor lights were on in the backyard. There were no lights in the front yard. Did that mean there was a porch in the back where the sergeant was perhaps even now taking his ease?

The question of Sergeant Sam's location in the house was critical. After all, the man was a cop and cops carried guns. It wouldn't do to give him any warning—one couldn't simply break in through the front door and start going room to room.

Besides, there was no hurry. Better to take one's time and do the thing right. Nobody would start paying any attention until the first shot was fired.

There was a Mrs. Sam. Mildred. Where was she?

The garage had one window and there was enough light to look inside and see space for a second car. So where was it?

Why was the other car parked on the driveway instead of in the garage?

Walter did not particularly want to kill the sergeant's wife. It wasn't enough. It was even possible that Sam might be very happy to get rid of Mildred. He didn't care to do the guy any favors.

He wanted to kill Sam. Only Sam would do.

So what did the car parked outside tell him?

Sam would leave in the morning and not come back until late afternoon. Mrs. Sam would be in and out all day, running the mysterious errands that constitute a housewife's life. She would want to be at home when her husband returned. Therefore, she would park her car in the garage and Sam would park in the driveway. QED, as Steve used to say.

Unless, of course, she worked.

Walter went back to the car and looked in the driver's side window. It was a man's car. The front seat was set all the way back and there was trash in the console. Women were tidier than that.

It was Sam's car. Sam was home and his missus was most likely off somewhere. Perfect.

Which still left the problem of where exactly Sam was in the house.

There was nothing going on in Sam's living room. Walter had already had a good look and the front of the house was dark, without even the bluish glow of a television set.

That left the back, where a light was on.

The path between the house and the garage led to a wooden gate, about four feet high, and a section of picket fence that filled the remaining space to the garage.

Standing close to the gate, Walter could see that the back of the house was indeed enclosed by a screened porch. About six feet this side of where the porch started there was a door and a set of cement stairs leading up to it. The odds were short that it was a kitchen door and that the kitchen was also directly accessible from the porch.

A man sitting at his ease on his own back porch has no reason to keep quiet, so Walter stood still and listened. After a few minutes he was rewarded with a dull click, the sound of a glass or mug being set down on a wooden table.

It was Sergeant Sam's cocktail hour.

This greatly simplified the task at hand. All Walter had to do was walk back to the side of the porch, take aim through the wire mesh and start shooting.

The only problem was the gate because the gate was closed. It would be hard to open noiselessly and the attempt, should it fail, would give Sam about a five-second heads-up. If he had his gun with him, that could be awkward.

Then Sam made everything easy by getting up. There was the scrape of furniture against the porch floor, followed almost immediately by the sound of a door being opened. Sam was going back into the house.

Walter did not move until light came through the glass panes of the side door, which meant that Sam was in the kitchen getting himself a refill. Then Walter opened the gate latch with only the faintest possible sound and the gate swung open silently on its hinges.

He stood out of sight, just at the edge of the screen, holding his .32 in both hands and waiting for Sam to come back out. Finally there was the sound of a door opening and then footsteps on the porch's wooden floor.

Now.

He stepped out and was at first surprised by how dark the porch was. Sam was still on his feet, only a vague shape in the darkness. Walter fired once and the shape instantly went down.

He could only wait. The shadow on the floor did not move. After perhaps thirty seconds Walter thought he heard a soft moan.

The son of a bitch was still alive.

Walter considered if he should go in there and finish the job, but there were too many risks. Sam might have his piece on him and even a dying man can kill you. Besides, people might ignore the sound of one shot—one shot could be a car backfiring. But two shots rated a call to the police.

Better just to let Sergeant Sam bleed out. Time to leave.

 

30

Ellen had just finished dinner when her cell phone rang. She thought it would be the Berkeley police, reporting in about Mr. Mowry, but the area code was San Francisco.

With a slight shock she realized it was Steve.

“Hello,” she said, as seductively as she could manage. “How are you?”

There was a silence that lasted perhaps a second. Was he embarrassed?

“Ellie,” he responded finally, “Walter's car is parked about half a block from Sam's house.”

“When?”

“Right now. Get everything you can over there. Send an ambulance.”

“How do you know this?” The question instantly seemed irrelevant and stupid. “You're sure?”

“I'm sure. I'll meet you there.”

And then the line went dead.

For perhaps five seconds Ellen stared at her cell phone, unable to move beyond her own astonishment. Gradually an image began to form in her mind—it was Sam, lying facedown in a pool of blood.

She made the call.

It was seven forty-five and the evening rush hour was just beginning to tail off. Ellen was not prepared to put up with traffic. She took the flasher from her backseat and stuck it on the roof of her car. She had never used it before, so she spent a second or two figuring out that the power cable plugged into her cigarette lighter.

When the roads were clear she could make it to Sam's in a little more than half an hour. Today, her horn blaring, she did it in twenty-three minutes.

Almost as soon as she made the turn onto Belhaven Avenue she spotted what looked like Walter's car, parked about two doors down from Sam's house. Ellen pulled in behind it, got out and stopped just long enough to check the license plate.

6AOB291, big as life.

The next thing she noticed was the quiet. Belhaven Avenue was just another suburban street on a Friday evening. There were no police cars, no ambulance, no cops milling around.

This was not what she had expected.

Then she looked across the street and saw an elderly couple standing on their front lawn, and she knew at once what had happened.

Ellen had phoned in the call to the SFPD exchange and they had called the Daly City cops, who didn't know a thing in the world about Walter and were slow to react. Maybe they would send around a patrol car in another ten minutes, maybe not.

So she was alone here, and Walter was probably inside Sam's house. Had the couple across the street heard a shot? Was that what had brought them out? It didn't seem like the right time to ask.

It didn't matter. If Sam was down he was down, but down wasn't the same as dead. Sam was her partner and you didn't let your partner die just because there was no backup. You had to do something.

Ellen drew her nine-millimeter and started across Sam's front lawn.

She was perhaps five feet from the sidewalk when a man appeared, coming down the walkway between the house and the garage. For an instant she thought it might be Sam, but then she knew it wasn't.

It was Walter, and there was a gun in his hand.

“Drop it!” she shouted. “Drop it now.”

He just laughed.

Ellen didn't hesitate. She raised her weapon and fired.

Walter appeared to stagger a bit, then he raised his weapon. She could almost feel herself in his sights when she fired again.

And then everything stopped.

*   *   *

Ellen never heard the shot that hit her. Suddenly she was just flat on her back. She could feel the grass beneath her hand and it felt cool.

She was conscious, but very little more. She seemed to have no will, but there was also no fear. She could listen and watch. That was it.

Walter was standing over her. He was holding a small automatic in his right hand. His
right
hand? Now why was that? He was pointing it at her.

And then she heard the sound of a police siren. It seemed to be coming from all directions at once. It hurt her head.

Or maybe her head just hurt for some other reason. She didn't know.

Walter seemed ready to finish her, and she found herself wondering abstractedly if it would hurt. And then Walter brought his hand up. He seemed to be listening.

“Your lucky night, little girl,” he said—Ellen recognized his voice from the sound files. “Maybe you'll be more useful alive than dead. Get on your feet.”

She would have liked to explain to him that that didn't seem possible. She tried, but talking was suddenly a very complicated business that was just going to have to wait.

Walter kicked her in the hip, not very hard, and then apparently gave up. Suddenly his hand was on the collar of her jacket and he was dragging her over the lawn like a sack of fertilizer.

By the time they reached the flagstone walkway she had had enough and she managed to say, “Let go.”

Walter stopped and released her, and Ellen discovered that she could just roll over so that she was on her hands and knees.

Then Walter grabbed her collar again and pulled her up to a standing position. When she didn't fall down right away he pushed her along toward the back of the house.

“You're all right,” he said, as if he suspected she had been faking. “Come on, walk.”

By the time they reached the screen door to the porch, Ellen had snapped out of her trance. She touched her forehead where it seemed to hurt the most and when she brought her hand away her fingertips were coated with blood. The concussion must have knocked her silly for a bit. She had the mother of all headaches, but otherwise she seemed to be in working order.

Although getting up the wooden stairs to the porch was something of an ordeal.

When she saw Sam lying there she forgot everything else. She pulled herself free of Walter's grip and dropped down on her knees beside her partner.

“Sam,” she murmured, almost sobbing the word. “Sam, can you hear me?”

Slowly Sam opened his eyes. His breathing was labored, suggesting that he was in great pain. Blood was welling out from a bullet hole on his right side, just below his rib cage.

He seemed to be trying to speak. Ellen gathered up his right hand in both of hers and crouched down to hear him.

“My gun,” he whispered. “It's on the floor.”

He dragged his eyes down and to the right, as if pointing.

The sirens were much louder now and one of them ground to a halt.

Simply because she did not dare to look for the gun, Ellen turned around to look at Walter, who by now had slumped into a chair. There was blood in two places on his shirt, one on the right side and the other on the left, between the armpit and collarbone. His left arm was hanging limp.

The right-side wound probably amounted to nothing more than a few broken ribs, but the one on the left side was bad. It was bleeding heavily, so that his shirt was soaked down to his belt, and the nerve centers that controlled the left arm were likely in shreds.

And Walter was left-handed.

“They're
com
ing,” she said to him, giving her voice a little lilt and flashing a ratty grin. “From the sound of it one just pulled up in front of the house, and I can hear others. In the time it takes to count to ten, they'll have you in a box. Think about it, Walter. There's nothing between us and the great wide world except some screening. If you stay in that chair it won't be more than sixty seconds before a SWAT sniper takes your head off.”

But Walter only smiled.

“So you know my name?” he asked finally. “Then I'll bet you know my son.”

*   *   *

Tregear arrived almost simultaneously with the first police units. He drove up Belhaven Avenue and saw Ellen's car and then the olive-gray Kia in front of it and drew all the obvious conclusions. He parked across the street from Sam's house.