Play Dirty (29 page)

Nevertheless, he felt exposed as he and Laura crossed the motor court between the house and the detached garage. Laura indicated a door at the side of the building. “Manuelo’s apartment is through that door and up the stairs, but you won’t find him there.”

“I don’t expect to.”

There was a keypad on the wall adjacent to the door. “Another freaking code?” Griff motioned to it impatiently, and Laura punched in a sequence of numbers. The door opened with a metallic click. They slipped inside. Griff pulled the door closed behind them and heard the lock engage.

“No lights,” he said, sensing that she was groping the wall for the switch plate. “You came to pick up stuff from the house, not the garage. The lights stay off.”

He pulled a small flashlight from the policeman’s belt and switched it on. He shone the beam down at their feet, but he could see her in the ambient light.

“Laura. Is there really a baby?”

J
UDGING FROM THE LOOK ON HER FACE, THE QUESTION HAD TAKEN
her completely by surprise. She stared at him for several seconds, then made a small motion with her head.

He felt an expanding pressure inside his chest. He’d never felt anything like it before, so he couldn’t put a name to it. It was a strange feeling, and yet a good one. Like supreme satisfaction. Like the total opposite of what he’d been feeling the other day in the motel when he’d reviewed his life history.

He looked down at her abdomen but couldn’t detect any change. Of course there wouldn’t be any yet.

He wondered if she was thinking, like he was, about their last afternoon together, when he’d reached around her and closed the front door. How could they have foreseen the cataclysmic impact that simple motion would have? Because of it, one life had ended. And another had begun.

His gaze tracked back up to her face. Their eyes met and held. This warm, closed space in which they were standing seemed suddenly to be very small and airless. He didn’t dare take a deep breath for fear of breaking the silence that pressed in on them, teeming with implication.

He knew there must be something appropriate to say to a woman who had your baby inside her, but damned if he could think of what it might be, so he didn’t say anything, just continued staring into her eyes, until she finally looked away.

He touched her chin and brought her head back around to face him. “I’ll go to death row unless I find Manuelo Ruiz. Do you understand?”

She shook her head, slowly and then more adamantly. “No, I don’t. It’s not possible. Manuelo worshiped Foster. He wouldn’t—”

“But I would?”

She searched his eyes, then made a motion with her head and shoulders that could have meant either yes or no. But even if she had the slightest doubt, it was crushing to him.

He dropped his hand. “I don’t know why I hoped you would believe me when my own lawyer didn’t even bother to ask whether or not I had killed your husband. He just assumed I had. I didn’t. Manuelo did.”

“He couldn’t.”

“It was a bizarre accident. Seeing what he’d done, the guy wigged out. He bolted. He’s scared and may be halfway to El Salvador by now. But without him, I’m sunk.”

He shone the flashlight beam on his wristwatch. They’d driven away from the hotel twenty-seven minutes ago. Thomas and Lane and the rest of them were probably catching hell from Rodarte by now. Soon a posse would be dispatched.

“My time’s running out.” He motioned her up the staircase.

On their way, she said, “If Manuelo is running, this is the last place he would be.”

“Officially, there’s no record of the man beyond a social security number, which was fake, and a Texas driver’s license with a phony address.”

“How do you know this?”

“Rodarte. He was quoted in the newspaper.”

“If the police can’t find him, how do you hope to?” By now she had reached the door at the top of the stairs. It was unlocked. Griff switched off the flashlight and followed Laura into the apartment.

“Where are the windows?”

“There aren’t any. Only skylights on the back side of the roof.”

Trusting her to be telling the truth, he turned the flashlight back on but kept it aimed at the floor. It was a spacious single room which, Griff estimated, covered half of the garage below. It was equipped with a small kitchen area with dormitory-size appliances, and a TV in a cabinet opposite the bed. The bathroom was compact.

The apartment had already been tossed by the police. Bureau drawers had been left open, the closet door stood ajar. The twin bed had been stripped. The mattress was askew.

“Hold the light.” Griff passed her the flashlight, then started his search with the TV cabinet. “How did Manuelo come to be Foster’s aide?”

“He was a janitor at the rehab center. Foster was there for several months after he got out of the hospital. One day after a strenuous therapy session, he experienced respiratory distress. He was no longer hooked to monitors, he couldn’t reach the call button. Manuelo happened by. He didn’t summon help but came in, lifted Foster out of bed, and carried him to the nurses’ station. Foster credited him with saving his life. I think Manuelo felt the same about Foster. His life improved dramatically when Foster took him in.”

The drawers of the cabinet had yielded nothing except some loose coins, a broken pair of sunglasses, nail clippers, underwear, folded T-shirts. “In from where?” Griff asked. “Where had he lived before?”

“Foster may have known. I never did,” she replied, following his movements with the beam of the flashlight. “Manuelo showed up here with a small duffel bag of belongings and moved into this apartment. Foster bought him new clothes. He paid for his training as a nursing aide, on how to care for paraplegics. Manuelo was devoted to Foster.”

Griff snuffled. “Yeah. I know.”

Although the bed obviously had already been searched, he felt the mattress and box springs, looking for bumps where something could have been stashed. He moved the bed away from the wall and motioned for her to direct the flashlight onto the floor beneath it. Low-nap carpet. No sign that it had been sliced to form a secret pocket. “Did he have family? Friends?”

“Not to my knowledge. Griff, Rodarte has already asked me all this. The police have been searching for Manuelo since the night…the night Foster died.”

“The first time I saw him, Manuelo struck me as a survivor,” Griff said. “Foster told me he’d walked to the U.S. from El Salvador.” A small curtain hid the plumbing for the tiny kitchen sink. He parted it but found only pots and pans, some dishwashing liquid. He looked in the oven and microwave but came up empty. He checked the fridge but found nothing except a few canned drinks, condiments, three oranges.

“Walking through Guatemala and Mexico? That tells me that he was either very, very poor or running from something and didn’t want to risk traveling on public transportation. Probably both.”

In the bathroom, he looked in the tank of the toilet, then took the light from Laura and shone it down the shower drain.

She asked, “How do you know to do that?”

“Some things you learn in prison.”

There was nothing in the medicine cabinet above the sink except shaving implements, toothpaste, toothbrush. He returned to the main room, hands on hips, looking about. The ceiling? He couldn’t see any seams in the material where Manuelo might have cut out a section to form a hiding place.

Inside the closet were several pairs of black trousers, two pairs of black shoes, and a black baseball-style jacket. “Where’s the duffel bag?” he asked rhetorically.

“The what?”

“You said he arrived with a small duffel bag of personal belongings. Where is it?”

“I suppose he took it with him.”

“Trust me, he didn’t stop to pack that night. He didn’t take his clothes or his toiletries. It said in the newspaper that cash was found in his apartment. Nobody leaves money behind, unless they don’t leave of their own accord.”

“Which is why Rodarte suspects you of—”

“Killing Manuelo, too. I know. But I didn’t. Laura, the man was hysterical. Out of his head. He ran like the devil was after him.” He frowned at the look she gave him. “No, it wasn’t me he was afraid of.”

She didn’t respond to that. Instead, she said, “He didn’t pack, so you believe that his duffel bag is here somewhere. So what? What good would finding it do us?”

“Maybe none. But a top-notch rehab hospital wouldn’t have hired even a janitor without immigration documents. If Manuelo sneaked into the country, he must have had help getting falsified papers so he could get work. He had to have had a contact. And I bet he would have stayed in touch with that contact in case he had to get the hell out of Dodge, quick. He would have—”

The wail of approaching sirens cut him off. “Shit!” He grabbed Laura’s hand and pulled her through the door onto the landing of the stairwell. He switched off the flashlight, but just as he did, he noticed the door opposite the one to Ruiz’s apartment. “What’s that?”

“What? I can’t see anything.”

“That door. Where does it go?”

“It accesses the attic space above the other side of the garage. It’s not finished out. Foster had talked about one day flooring it, but—What are you doing?”

Griff had pushed open the door, and the hot, contained air rushed out to envelop them. He switched on the flashlight and shone it into the large space, empty except for exposed insulation and joists, plumbing pipes, and electrical conduits.

About three feet in front of him, an air-conditioning duct stretched along the floor for the entire width of the attic; it was the duct that would have conveyed a/c and heat into Manuelo’s apartment.

Griff aimed the flashlight beam on the silver tube and tracked it from the far wall forward.

The sirens were getting closer, louder.

He tried to block them out and concentrate on the duct, taking in every seam, every wrinkle in the material, looking—

He uttered a soft cry of elation when he saw the patch. “There it is!”

Wasting no time to think about it, he stepped out onto the two-by-four nearest him and inched along it toward the patch. If he slipped, he could drive his foot through the Sheetrock, which wouldn’t support his weight. The only thing keeping him from falling through it and landing hard on the garage floor twenty feet below was his agility. And his will to find Manuelo Ruiz.

When he got even with the patch, he stuck the flashlight in his mouth, and, balancing on the balls of his feet, leaned across the emptiness toward the duct.

The sirens had stopped. Not a good sign.

He ripped away the tape forming the patch and plunged his hand into the hollow duct. His fingertips brushed something, but it was just out of reach. The flashlight fell from his mouth onto the Sheetrock floor several inches below the two-by-four on which he balanced. It rolled away, out of reach. He let it go.

He crabbed along the two-by-four until he could grasp the object inside the duct. The attic space was as hot as an oven. Keeping his balance while reaching into the duct was an extreme effort. His knees were screaming. Sweat ran into his eyes, making them sting. The policeman’s shirt was too damn small. It was confining his shoulders, limiting his reach. He strained against it, ripping the shoulder seams but gaining a longer reach.

Finally he got two fingers on the object, clamped them shut, and pulled the object far enough forward for him to grab hold. He gave it a hard yank, ripping the skin of the duct as he pulled it out. It was a black duffel bag.

He stood up quickly and, with the deft steps of a tightrope walker, made his way back to the door at the staircase landing. “I’ve got it!” But he was talking to empty darkness. Laura had vanished.

T
HE HOUSE WAS STILL ABLAZE, LIGHTS ON IN EVERY ROOM.
Through windows where the drapes were open, Laura could see uniformed policemen searching the rooms for her and Griff.

She was halfway across the motor court when her elbow was hooked from behind. “This way,” Griff said.

She tried to throw off his hand, but his hold was tenacious and she had to run to keep up with him. “Griff, this is insanity. Turn yourself in. Talk to Rodarte. Tell him what you told me about Manuelo.”

By now they were on the far side of the garage, out of sight of the house, away from the landscape lighting, running pell-mell through the darkness. They went around the pond and then plunged down a natural berm. She lost her footing and would have fallen if he hadn’t kept his tight grip on her. She stumbled along after him.

The ground leveled off at the estate wall. It didn’t appear this tall from a distance. Now its twelve feet seemed awfully high. The vines and shrubbery covering it were dense but well maintained. Incongruously, there was a cold drink can standing upright at the twisted root system of a wisteria that was in full leaf and completely covering a section of the wall.

“Griff!” She pulled hard on his hand.

He turned to her. “Listen and believe, Laura. Rodarte is convinced that I killed Bill Bandy five years ago. Now he’s convinced that I killed your husband. If I turn myself in, I’ll be at the mercy of a legal system I no longer trust. Especially since Rodarte’s on the case.”

“Then turn yourself in to someone else.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “Not until I can take Manuelo Ruiz in with me, ready and willing to corroborate my story. I’ve got to find him.”

“Okay, I can see that,” she said, breathless from their run. “But let me go back. Let me tell your side of it and explain why you’re reluctant to surrender.”

“No.”

“If I say—”

“Why did Rodarte have you under lock and key?”

“To protect me from you.”

“Right. So if I get backed into a corner, as long as I’ve got you as my hostage, I’ve got something to bargain with.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me.”

“
You
know that. Rodarte doesn’t. Now come on.” He dragged her forward, toward the wisteria.

“Do you expect me to climb that?”

“Don’t have to.” Still keeping hold of her with one hand, he used the other to clear away some offshoots of the vine, revealing a metal grate at the base of the wall. He shoved it aside with the toe of his shoe. “Drainage,” he said.

“How did you find this?”

“I came looking.” He put his hand on her shoulder, forced her down. “Crawl through. I’m right behind you.”

Lying down on her stomach, she wiggled through the opening. The ground was damp, but because of the drought, it wasn’t muddy. The wall was about a foot thick. On the other side was a twenty-acre greenbelt that served as a buffer between the elite private properties that backed up to it, like the Speakmans’, and the commercial district on the far side.

By the time she was on her feet, Griff had pushed the duffel bag through the opening. It was a squeeze to get his shoulders through, but he did and sprang up on the other side. Taking her hand, he guided her across a rough and rocky creek bed. It was dry now, but when it rained, the runoff from the Speakman property would drain into it through the grate by which they’d made their escape.

Once across the creek bed, Griff took off running through the greenbelt. But as they approached the boulevard on the far side, he slowed to a walk. Across the wide street was a row of boutique shops and two popular restaurants. The shops were closed, but the restaurants were busy with the dinner crowd.

Pausing in the shadows of the park, he released her hand long enough to take off the uniform shirt, leaving him in a white T-shirt. He removed the pistol from the policeman’s holster, then tossed the gun belt, shirt, hat, and cold drink can into the nearest trash receptacle. He zipped the pistol into Manuelo Ruiz’s duffel bag.

Taking her hand again, he waited until the traffic thinned, then struck off across the divided street. He didn’t run, which would have attracted attention, but walked swiftly toward the parking lot of the Indian restaurant. He wove them through the rows of cars until they reached the back of the lot, where it was dark.

He fished a remote key from his pants pocket and used it to unlock a car. He opened the passenger door and motioned her in. He walked around and got behind the wheel, closed the door, and tossed the duffel bag onto the backseat. The dome light dimmed and then went out, leaving them in darkness.

They sat still and silent, trying to catch their breath.

Not until now that they’d stopped did Laura realize how breathless she was, and how fast her heart was pounding, as much from adrenaline as from physical exertion. The palms of her hands were dirty. The front of her tracksuit was streaked with loose soil.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, when he noticed her palms.

“I’m a fugitive, too. I’m not worried about a little dirt.”

“You’re not the fugitive, I am. You’re my hostage, remember.”

She smiled ruefully. “You asked why Rodarte had placed me under lock and key? He claimed it was for my protection.”

“But?”

“He was afraid I would help you escape.” His gaze remained steady, but she could read the unasked questions in it. “He never said that, but I sensed that was why he put me in the hotel, under guard. And I suppose I have helped you escape, haven’t I?”

“Does that mean you believe I’m innocent?”

Before she could answer, a police car screamed down the boulevard, its lights a wild kaleidoscope. Griff turned on the car’s ignition. Grinning, he said, “Rough neighborhood. We’d better move to a safer one.”

He had to wait for another oncoming police car to roar past before pulling out into the street. “You’re thumbing your nose at them,” she remarked.

“Nothing that brave. They won’t be looking for this car.”

“Whose is it?”

He drove, saying nothing.

“The visit to your lawyer’s house made the news.”

“Yeah, I saw. The media failed to mention what an untrustworthy son of a bitch my
former
attorney is.”

“He said by turning you in he was trying to help.”

“Bullshit. He was trying to cover his own ass.”

“They searched for you for hours.”

“I got lucky.”

“How did you get away?”

He gave her a wry grin. “It wasn’t easy. Sometime, when you’ve got a lot of time, maybe I’ll tell you all the adventures I encountered that night.”

She gave his clothing a once-over. “The police were looking for a man in running shorts and sneakers.”

“Which were barely holding together by daylight the next day. I was traveling light, but luckily, before going to Turner’s house, I’d put some cash in my sock. I used it the next day to buy some clothes at a big flea market.” He glanced down at the T-shirt and work pants. “Selection was limited. I’m sure some of the goods were hot, so no one questioned the customer who looked like he’d been dunked in a polluted river and then run through a shredder.”

“Were you recognized?”

“Doubtful. The market draws a large Hispanic crowd. Typically they follow soccer, not American football. I tried to be inconspicuous.”

Her eyes shifted up to his blond hair. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Especially not when I started asking around about Manuelo Ruiz, looking for someone who might know him. Those inquiries aroused more suspicion than my ragtag appearance. I didn’t stay long.”

“Where have you been hiding?”

He didn’t reply.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“The less you know, the better. Rodarte can never accuse you of collaborating with me. You’re my hostage. Got that?”

“I’ve got it. I don’t think Rodarte will be convinced. When he introduced himself, I recognized his name immediately. Before, when you warned me about him, you didn’t say he was a policeman. You made him sound like a criminal. You said he’d beat up a friend of yours.”

“He did. And sodomized her. Ruined her face. Broke—”

“A
woman
?”

“Yeah, and Rodarte nearly killed her.”

Laura had assumed Griff was referring to a male friend. Learning that Rodarte had assaulted a woman filled her with repugnance and fear. “He attacked her because of you?”

“Because she wouldn’t give him any information.”

“What kind of information?”

“About my past and present business dealings. Not that she knew anything, but it did her no good to tell Rodarte that.”

“He must have thought she knew something. Is she a close friend?”

“I guess you could call it a friendship. Actually, I’m her client. She’s a prostitute.”

That piece of news took her aback. Had he been using the hundred thousand she and Foster had paid him to buy the services of a prostitute? Of course the money was his to spend, it was just that she had never known anyone, of either sex, who admitted going to a prostitute. Maybe that was why it was so startling to her that he had in such a matter-of-fact way.

Curiosity compelled her. “What’s her name?”

“Marcia. She’s not a street hooker. She has a penthouse. She’s clean, classy, very expensive, beautiful. Or was. It’s been months since the assault, and she’s still recovering, going through a series of reconstructive surgeries on her face. She won’t even talk to me about the other. Rodarte has a badge, but he uses it as a free pass to hurt people and get away with it.” He shot her a glance. “You’ve been with him. Did he ever touch you?”

“Last night he stroked my arm. It made me shudder. I think he knew that, and that’s why he did it. Behind everything he said was a sexual innuendo.”

Griff’s long fingers were flexing and contracting around the steering wheel as though preparing to pull it out of the dashboard. “It was only a matter of time before he hurt you. Which was another reason I wanted to get you out of there. Anything he did to you, he would have felt you had coming because of your affair with me.”

She remembered Rodarte coming up close behind her, promising in an insinuating whisper to be her protector—or not—when her affair with Griff was exposed. Griff may indeed have rescued her. But there was still much he had to answer for. “So you had a car, and a hiding place, and you’ve been following Rodarte.”

“You were my connection to Manuelo. I knew you’d be essential to finding him. But I also knew Rodarte would be keeping close watch on you, expecting me to turn up sooner or later.

“Yesterday evening, after the funeral and reception, I was parked on Preston Road, near where I left the car tonight. When I saw this caravan of police cars coming from the direction of the estate, I pulled out into traffic. So I was actually ahead of your police escort. I slowed, let you drive past, then followed you to the hotel.”

“How’d you get the room number?”

“I didn’t, but it was a logical guess that you’d be on the top floor.”

“I had the floor to myself.”

“I figured that, too. When I got up there tonight, I had a nanosecond to look down the hall and see which door the cop was guarding before throwing an armload of empty boxes at his buddy.

“Anyway, last night, once I knew where you would be when I needed you, I went back to the estate to try to find a way in. The guard never left the front gate, but the ones that had been patrolling the grounds were pulled off. No need for them since you were no longer there.

“I knew that the park behind the property was the only possible access. I combed every inch of that side of the estate wall, practically on hands and knees. In the dark, mind you. I was looking for a rear gate. Something. Took hours before I found the grate. I loosened it, crawled through.”

“And left that drink can there so you could find it again from the inside.”

“In a hurry. Just in case cops were in hot pursuit. The rest you more or less know.” After a beat, he said, “Except this.”

He turned in to the parking lot of a multiscreen movie theater and found an open slot between a van with a Garfield clinging to the rear window with suction cups on his paws and a pickup truck with tires taller than their car.

He cut the ignition and turned toward her. “The night I got out of prison, I was desperate to get laid. I went to Marcia. Just that once. There’s been nobody since.”

She took a breath, held it for several seconds before letting it out. “I wondered.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“I didn’t have the right.”

He moved suddenly, stretching his arm across the space separating them, curving his hand around the back of her neck and pulling her toward him. He kissed her hard, stamping his lips firmly against hers, pressing his tongue deep into her mouth. Then he pushed her away as suddenly as he’d grabbed her.

Hoarsely, he said, “You had every right.”

He let go of the back of her neck and returned to his place behind the wheel. For several moments they sat in silence, hearing only the soft popping sounds made by the car’s motor as it began to cool.

Finally he turned to her. “He called me. Foster. The day the pregnancy was confirmed. He invited me to your house the next night so he could thank me and pay me in person. Did you know any of this?”

“No.”

“He also said he’d figured out how I would be paid if I outlived you both. Remember that hitch?”

She nodded.

“He said he’d worked out a solution. He used that and the promise of the half million to get me there. And while I was there, Manuelo tried to kill me.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why?”

“Because Foster ordered it.”

She inclined away from him until she was pressed against the passenger door. “You’re lying!”

“No, I’m not. And you know I’m not, Laura, or you’d have put up a bigger fight before leaving that hotel with me. You’re not a pushover and you’re no coward. If you’d wanted to get away from me, you’d have been screaming bloody murder every step of the way, because, as you said, you know I wouldn’t carry out any threat to hurt you. You’re here because you want to be. You want to hear the truth of what happened. In any case, you’re going to listen.”