Red Light (24 page)

Clark nodded amiably,
smiled. "Yeah, I do. But carry it through, Merci. Maybe you're right and
I'm wrong. What I'm saying is, solve crime, not the world."

Her father's gentle
tone turned Merci's anger to shame. Her resolve deflated to the flat dread that
was Mike McNally and seven o'clock. She looked at her watch. She loved her
father without reservation but evenhandedness and rationality could embalm her
passions in a second. In her mother's words:
He puts my heart to sleep
sometimes.

"I got a letter
today," she said. "All it said was 'For P. B.'—Patty Bailey, I
assume. There was a key in it, apparently to a storage area in Riverside."

That got his
attention. He stared at her evenly, but she could see the wheels turning inside
him. "Oh? That's damned strange."

"I'll say.
Someone helping. Someone interfering. Someone being cute. I'll know more
tomorrow."

"Then someone
has an interest in your solving the case. Or in your not solving it. Be
careful, Merci. What looks like help might not be.”

"It's one more
reason to kick butt, Dad. I'm going to solve the Bailey case if it kills
me." Merci heard herself say this, ranking it among top five stupidest
things she'd said in her life.

"I
don't mean that."

Her father reached out and
put a cool, dry hand on Merci's heated face. "I know you don't. Tim knows
you don't, too. Hey, say hi to Mike for me, will you?"

• • •

She got Zamorra at home.
His voice was flat and unemotional, like he was reading off a script.

"Those prints I
got out of Whittaker's kitchen, they didn't match up with any of the others we
lifted. They're not hers. They're not Mike's. But they didn't score hits on
AFIS or CAL-ID, not with the parameters I used. So he's not a printed criminal,
and he's not law enforcement. Maybe it's Man Friend Number Two, like our
neighbor friend heard. Maybe it's Man Friend Number Three—someone we haven't
even considered yet. Whoever he is, he tore the drawers out and wrecked the
runners the night she died."

Merci tried to
reconcile the new prints with what she'd found in Mike's barn. It was like
trying to get two magnets to latch up when you had them turned wrong.

"What
if it was earlier?"

"Meaning
what?"

"If the prints
were left earlier they could be from a tradesman—a guy fixing the drawers, a
plumber, a housecleaner she hired off the books for fifty bucks every other
week."

"A
guy she hired to yank out the drawers, wreck the runners?"

"No.
Okay. No. I'm just trying to simplify, here."

"Merci, they
popped real quick with the fingerprint dust. They're fresh. There was a
struggle in the kitchen, and it wasn't Aubrey Whittaker."

It just wouldn't
track, no matter how she tried to line things up. "What about
Moladan?"

"I checked. But
how about that little church boy, the one who bought the forty-five for home
protection?"

"Lance
Spartas."

"I'll shake him
down tomorrow. He'll be glad to leave me a good set of prints."

"Shouldn't
be hard, he's scared to death of being found out."

A
long pause.

"Paul,
the reason I called was to see how you're holding up."

"Fine."
The same emotionless tone.

"Janine?"

"Ruined
from the waist down. Both sides. No chance of it ever coming back."

"Fuck,"
she said, quietly.

But
Zamorra said nothing. What did she expect him to do, make feel her better?

"What
can I do for her, Paul?"

"There's
not one thing on earth."

"What
about you?"

"Shoot
me in the head. I'll be fine."

This was her cue. She
closed her eyes and jumped: "You thinking doing that yourself, Paul?"

"I
won't leave her. Ever."

"But
when she's gone? She'll be gone someday."

"I'll
deal with someday when it gets here."

"I
want you to talk to a friend of mine. She's a doctor."

"That's
funny."

"I'm
serious. A good doctor."

Zamorra was silent
for a few seconds. "I appreciate it, but no. The answer is a definite
no."

"You
know, Paul, maybe a few days off would—"

"If I don't get
back to work soon, I'm
going
to shoot myself in head. Look, I'm going to
be back there just as soon as I can. Day after tomorrow, Janine's coming home,
so I won't be in the next couple. I’ve got to arrange for in-home nursing, get
one of those hospital beds with the motors in them, get her set up with a
wheelchair and a portable john. I'll make the time to lean on Spartas, but
that's probably it."

Merci tried to
imagine what Paul Zamorra was feeling right now but she couldn't do it. At
least with Hess it had been fast. It was never a matter of watching him die one
inch at a time.

"I'm
with you, Paul."

"Thanks. But you
don't want to be anywhere near me."

"Don't tell me
what I want. There's an end to this, you know. It'll be over someday."

Silence.

"Yeah, I know. I
look forward to that day. I feel like scum for saying that, but it's
true."

"You don't have
years with her, Paul. But you've got days. You've got hours. Those hours are
yours."

"I don't want
them."

"Someday, you
will. Talk to my friend. Just talk. Just once. It's absolutely confidential.
She's a terrific person."

"I'm not in the
mood for terrific people."

"I'm going to
give you her business number now. Take your pen and write it down, Paul."

"Merci—"

"Just take
the damned number, Paul. Write it down."

She waited a beat, digging the address book from her purse, then
read it off to him. She asked him to repeat it and he did, his voice flat and
uninflected, like a digitized operator giving you the number.

M
erci drove out Modjeska Canyon through the leafless,
quivering oaks, her hand tight on the wheel and her eyes fixed on the stripe
that seemed to lap out of infinity at her. Black sky, black earth, black road.

She shivered, notched
the heater up a level, took a deep breath. Alone in all this darkness, she felt
trapped in a steel box, cut off from The Men, from her partner, from everybody
and everything. She pictured a small boat vanishing into a black horizon and
she was the only person on it. No, Jamine Zamorra was on it, too, sitting in a
wheelchair with blankets over her legs.

She told herself she
was doing this for Mike. The same hopeless optimism that had let her secretly
inspect his home now let her believe that she was giving Mike another chance.
She quashed the dissenting voice inside her and she trembled because she knew
she could be wrong. She'd been wrong before, profoundly.

It
had cost everybody something, Hess his life.

For you, Mike,
because I want to trust you. I want to believe in you. I want to know you.

He was wearing his
favorite black sweater when he opened the door. When he hugged her she smelled
a new scent on him, something clean and alpine. She'd forgotten how strong his
arms were.

"You're
cold, Merci."

Her fingertips were
numb. Mike guided her inside and had her sit by the fire.

"It's
good to see you," she said.

It wasn't untrue. She
was afraid at what he might have done. But she wasn't afraid of
him.
No
matter what he'd done, part of him would be a man who had treated her well,
probably better than she deserved.

"Damn,
it's good to see
you. Red or white?"

"Red."

"Take
your coat?"

"Not
now."

The room was cold so
she stayed by the fire, still wrapped in the coat. A minute later Mike came
back with the wine. Lit by the orange flames in the firebox, Mike's face seemed
to glow. She could see from the downiness of his hair that he'd just washed and
dried it. After a shave Mike's cheeks flushed, and they were flushed now. Merci
suddenly felt light-headed, like she was tipping over backward, slowly, but
didn't have legs to stop herself. Just like Janine Zamorra didn't.

He
touched her glass with his.

Upright again.
"Mike, you said a lot of this was my fault. I think it was, too."

"Merci—"

"No.
Let me finish. I'm going to tell you what I see.
It's necessary. You need to see it, too."

He
looked at her, said nothing.

"You know, you
ran into a pretty tough girl when you met me. I look normal from the outside,
but inside, I'm just. . . very hard sometimes. On me. And on the people I'm
trying to love."

Mike had sat down on
the same couch, but with plenty of distance between them, just the way she
liked it.

"I've been in a
haze since Hess died. You know that. I can work okay. I can raise my boy okay.
But I can't get out of it. It's like this fog that just won't lift. And for the
last two years plus, Mike, every time I look at you I say, now there's a good
guy, nice looking and kind, and look how much he loves you. But I haven't loved
you back. Not with all of me, or even a big part of me. I just haven't been
present."

He
spoke quietly. "I know that. I knew it was part of the deal."

What she wanted to say
was, explain the silencer in your tackle box. And the letters in your pistol
case, and the boots in your closet. And the missing friendship card and your
presence in the crime lab. But if they were evidence of what she thought they
were, Mike would destroy them and she would be guilty of not only treachery but
unforgivable foolishness.

"I
can't wash myself, Mike. I can't get clean. I can't start over."

He nodded, moved a
little closer. "But you can't blame yourself forever, Merci. That's all
I've ever tried to tell you. You got to put it all box and throw the box
away."

A tackle box? she
wondered. And where would Hess go? Hess, was right in the middle of all of it.
She couldn't throw him out, like an old pair of shoes, or a noisy tenant. It
angered her that Hess was more a part of her sadness than of her joy, but she
had not designed the circuitry of own heart. She did not understand it, and she
could not repair or replace it.

"I know that,
but I can't shut up my own conscience. The voice is too strong. I might not
hear it for a few days, then it comes roaring at me. Right in the middle of
breakfast. Or driving down the road. 0r in a dream. Or when I look at you and
tell myself I should love you."

She willed herself to
see him as blameless. He sat there, scrub and decent, young and strong,
forelock down and eyes alive, dressed and scented up for her, earnestly trying
to win her heart the best way he knew. For what, the hundredth time?

Merci realized that
this might be the last time she'd be able to see him like this. She felt a
sweet movement in her heart right then, a moment that made her fingers warm and
her eyes moist.

Then
it was gone. Letters. Boots. Tackle box.

"I'll
sell the ring, if it's too much pressure," he said.

"I
need to use the head."

She gathered up her
purse and went into Mike's bedroom, where the full bath was. In the mirror she
looked yellow. She could feel her heart hitting her ribs. She bent over the
toilet and vomited. Then she ran some hot water and washed her hands. She got
her toothbrush from the draw and loaded on the paste.

Back in the bedroom
she listened, heard nothing. She looked at his bed, made up neatly now, pillows
fluffed, bedspread taut. She imagined herself in there with him, locked up and
sweating, chasing down that elusive release that came far less often than she
wished. Muscles quivering, breath hot and fast. For just a minute or two, you
were really free, gone, new.

What a perfect time
to torture yourself with that image, she thought. She understood by now that
the conscience is eager to betray.

Then she moved
quietly back to the bathroom, where Mike often hung his shoulder rig on the
robe hook. She pushed the door in and followed. Coughing to mask the sound,
she carefully popped the holster snap and slid out his Colt .45, then slipped
it into her coat. She pulled the range gun from her purse, put it in the rig.
Left the snap off. Then she hung her coat.

She
flushed the toilet again, washed her hands again.

Mike
was standing by the fire.

"You
okay?" he asked.

"I
feel sick."

"I'll
make some herbal tea."

"I
hate herbal tea."