Red Light (43 page)

"You
did right."

"Not quite.
Because between the time I saw it and the M.E. did the medical autopsy three
days later, the letter had damned disappeared. It either got tossed or lost or
somebody took it or . . . who knows? When the Homicide hotshots got on scene
they butted me out—I'd done my part. But I've always been ashamed of what I
didn't do. I should have taken that damned envelope, waved it in the dicks'
faces and made them read it. Maybe it didn't mean a thing. But maybe it did. It
would have meant something to the person it was written to, that's for sure.
Either way, I won't make that mistake again."

"Did
you try to track it down?"

"Yeah. Taylor,
one of the sergeants, got it as far as his desk. He never saw it again. Nobody
did, that I could find. But I was the new kid—you know. If anybody had screwed
up somehow, they weren't going to tell me about it."

Merci
went with the obvious: "Anything written on it?"

"Yeah.
'To My Son.' That meant something to Taylor, too."

Merci's
nerves rippled. "How so?"

"He talked to
O'Brien's son two mornings after the suicide. At his desk. Taylor said he'd
left the guy there alone while he got them coffees. For about one minute. He
thought that was when the envelope got up and walked away."

"He'd
made copies of it, though."

"He never opened
it. Taylor wasn't sure what our authority was, just like I wasn't sure. The DA
hadn't given him an answer yet. O'Brien was one of ours, so Taylor wanted to do
right by him. If you find a note in the vicinity of the suicide, it's one
thing. If you find a sealed letter marked for someone else in another part of
the house, it's something else. A suicide scene is a crime scene. And you know
how the search-and-seizure laws are always changing."

She called Zamorra, told him that Evan O'Brien was
harboring a suicide letter and a videotape that might well prove Jim O'Brien
killed Patti Bailey. And who knew, maybe it would also shed some light on how a
dead man's fingerprints got into number 23 Wave Street.

"I'm going to
bushwhack him outside his apartment in about half hour," she said.
"Get the goods."

"And if he won't
turn them over?"

"I'll pinch his
head and
make
him."

O'
Brien
lived in a small apartment complex not far from headquarters, an uneasy
neighborhood with graffiti on the walls and beer cans in the gutters. Merci had
dropped him off here after SUDS sessions a couple of times. She remembered the
number on his parking space because it was the age her mother had been when she
died. She parked behind Evan's convertible coupe and shut off the engine.

Half an hour later he
came around the corner into the parking area. His hair was still wet from the
shower, he had a muffler loosely wrapped around his neck, a steaming mug in one
hand and an old briefcase in the other. The duster again. She rolled down her
window, watching two faint clouds of breath vanish in front of his nose.

He
saw her, smiled and came over. "This my limo?"

"Kind
of."

"Sorry, Sarge. I
don't have that old birthday video after all. I looked all over here. It must
still be out at the old house."

"What
about his suicide letter, Evan?"

His eyes widened and
his mouth parted, but it took him a beat to get the words out.

"What?"

"The
letter he wrote. Is that out at the old house, too?"

He
looked hard at her, his face half puzzlement and half suspicion.

"Yeah, I think
so ...
but—"

"Well, good,
then. Get in. Put your briefcase in the trunk." pulled the trunk release
lever.

"Am
I being abducted?"

"You
might say so."

"Really?"

"Get
in, Evan, it's cold out there. The door's open."

She saw the trunk
door rise, heard the briefcase hit, watched door slam shut. Then O'Brien came
back around and climbed in, balancing the coffee. He looked at her, eyebrows
up, his green eyes clear and penetrating and a little confused. He shut the
door. "What gives, Merci?"

"Let's
go get the tape and the letter."

"Right
now?"

"Right
now."

"You
explain it to Gilliam then. I'm supposed to—"

"I
will. What's the address?"

"Fourteen Rancho
Verde. It's off Waterman, halfway up the mount Sergeant Rayborn, maybe you
should tell me what in hell we're doinj

She
put the car into drive, eased out of the parking area.

"We're hoping to
find out why your father's prints turned up in Aubrey Whittaker's
apartment."

"That's
not possible."

"Tell
CAL-ID that."

"Dad's fingerprints?"

"So
they say. We ran them twice to make sure."

O'Brien was quiet for
a moment as they headed down the boulevard toward the freeway. She noted that
the sport jacket under duster was gray.

"All it can be
is a mistake," he said. "He's dead. And they've twenty-something
million fingerprints to keep track of now."

She knew he was looking
at her, but she didn't look back. He said nothing as she headed for the
freeway.

"I've got to see
the suicide note and run a voice comparison with video. Evan, I think I can
crack the Bailey case with them."

"That
letter's not much of a read, Merci."

"I'm
sorry, but I think it's worth it."

She called Zamorra,
told him she was with Evan, gave him Jim O'Brien's address.

"I
can't meet you there. I'll have to call in backup if you want it."

Merci felt the steady
thumping of her heart, and the warning that came with each beat. She knew
something was wrong, and it made her alert and afraid.

She
kept her voice as casual as she could. "That'd be fine."

"I'll
do it right now. I can't leave here, Merci. I—"

"I
know. How is she, Paul?"

"No
change."

"Hang
in there, partner."

"You,
too."

Merci turned on the
interior light, lowered the radio squelch, looked at Evan and Evan's coat. He
was staring straight out the window, coffee cup at his lips. The traffic was
already bunching up on the fifty-five, a column of white headlights behind her
and red taillights ahead.

"Evan, is that
the same sport coat you were wearing last night at Mike's?"

Gray.
No green or purple accents. No accents at all, that she could see.

"Yeah,
why?"

"I
like it."

"Me, too. It was one
of Dad's. So was this briefcase."

• • •

The house stood alone on
the hillside, at the end of a long asphalt drive pocked by potholes filled with
weeds. It was high desert here, still below the trees. A stiff wind came down
off the mountain and Merci could feel it push hard against the Chevrolet like
it wanted to fight. The last street sign she saw said Willow View and she
wondered if Evan had fed her a fake address for Zamorra.

"What
happened to Rancho Verde?"

"You're
on it."

"One
house on the whole street?"

"Yes, ma'am. It's
a bunch of switchbacks, then you're in the driveway."

The house came into
view as she came over the top of a steep rise. It was a low-slung mission-style
home, with a clay roof and black wrought iron over the windows. Some of the
tiles had slid onto the driveway, some of the windowpanes were replaced by
plywood. A bougainvilles that had once covered the porte cochere was long dead
but still clinging to the stucco stanchion. The white walls were stained brown
where the rain had gathered and run down. The courtyard was filled with
tumbleweeds quivering up against the garage doors like they were trying to get
in. The fountain was blackened concrete
filled with rainwater.

"Park anywhere
you want," he said. "The sand's gonna blast your car no matter where
you put it."

She pulled up under
the carport and parked. She looked at Evan, He was facing away from her, toward
the front door, which she saw peeled and sun-blasted.

He turned to her with
a glum expression. "I hate this place. It puts me in a bad mood."

"Thanks
for having me over."

"If
I remember right, it didn't really happen that way."

"Thanks
anyway."

"Yeah, well,
enjoy the smell of suicide. And forget whatever think you know about my dad's
prints at Whittaker's. Check the bloodstains in the living room if my word
isn't good enough. Poe was right. You can't wash blood out no matter how hard
you try."

She followed him to
the door, waited while he worked a key in lock. The tumbleweeds shivered
against the garage doors. She heard hard click of the dead bolt sliding into
place. When she stepped in she felt the crunch of sand between her duty boots
and the stone floor.

"It's
cold in here. Summer, it's a thousand degrees."

"Hard
on the house paint."

"Hard
on human skin."

Evan shut the door
and ran the dead bolt in. Then he turned looked at her. "You can see
whatever you want to see in here. Just make it kind of chop-chop. I don't get
anything out of being here, except sad.”

"Let
me see the suicide note."

"This
way."

They
walked down the entryway: kitchen on the left, counters covered with dust;
dining room on the right, furniture covered with sheets. Straight ahead was a
big living room with a fireplace to the left and sliding glass doors opening
up to a backyard with a swimming pool. The floor was some kind of stone—slate,
Merci guessed—with thick rows of grout connecting them. More sheets over the
furniture. She could make out the shapes of two sofas, a couple of chairs. A
big leather chair facing the fireplace was still uncovered.

Evan led her over,
looked down at the floor. "You can see where the blood stained the
rock," he said. "He was sitting in that chair when he did it. I left
it there. The chair, I mean. I left the whole place the way it was. Could never
figure out if cleaning it would be an insult to his memory or not, so I just
left it."

"That's
a tough call."

"You're
stuck with what happened either way."

She noted the dark
stains on the chair, some high up on the back, some on the seat.

"Head
shot," said O'Brien. "The gun landed over there."

He pointed at the
fireplace. Merci looked into the blackened pit, heard the wind shriek, watched
a cloud of sand rise from behind the pool outside. She could feel the cold air
coming down through the chimney. She went to the window and looked out. The
pool was empty and bleached almost white. She could see big lines in the cavity
where the gunite had cracked.

Evan walked across
the room, still looking at the chair, like he was just seeing it for the first
time. He stopped in the far corner, in front of a large TV. There were
bookshelves filled with paperbacks and an entertainment cabinet with rows of
videos, a stereo amp, speakers. He opened a drawer and looked in. She saw dust
rise.

For a moment he stood
there, neither moving nor speaking. Then he reached in and brought out a white
envelope. He stared at it. Then he came to her slowly, his shoes squeaking on
the pavers, and handed her the letter. No eye contact.

"The letter.
Taylor told me it was on my bed. I helped myself to it when I saw it on his
desk, on the theory that it was addressed to me and not to some ham-faced slob
named Taylor."

She
opened it and pulled out the folded sheets: white typing paper, black ink,
handwritten. The bright sunlight coming through the s glass door made it easy
to read.

"Go ahead, Merci. Read it and weep."

December 18 Dear Son,

I'm done, I'm
over, and I'm sorry to do this to you. I trust the coroner will get here well
before you do, make it all presentable. I'll call them before I do it, make
sure they've got heads-up.

I want to get a
few things straight, son. There was a time a long time ago, when I killed a
woman I thought was going to blackmail some people I knew. She was a
prostitute, and I'd introduced them. I was keen on her myself because she was a
real party girl, and your mother and I never got along, much that way. The guys
I'd hooked her up with—Bill Owew and a politician named Ralph Meeks—they were
assholes. They'd asked me to play the right-wing nut, infiltrate the Birch
chapters, hang with the fascist Volunteer Police Department types, and report
back to them on what was happening. The Birchers were Beck Rainer, Big Pat
McNally and those guys. But it was funny. Because the right-wing nuts, the
Birch guys, the Volunteer Police Department types they were my types, too. I liked
them and we got along. I subscribed to their ideas. Except with regards to
loose women—I couldn't quite keep my hands off them. Always the professionals,
though, I didn't mess around with anybody's wife. Anyway, Rainer and McNally
and the right-wingers wanted me to keep an eye on Bill Owen and Ralph Meeks—it
was their idea to get Patti Bailey, the prostitute, connected up with them. The
tapes were their idea, too, although Patti was a bit of a conniver on her own.