Red Light (48 page)

It seemed like she
had seen him in this position for as long as she could remember:: sitting calmly
by a fire while his wife fluttered around and made conversation that Clark only
took a partial interest in, Answering quietly. Trying to dodge an argument. And
if his black hair had thinned and grayed, and if his straight frame had bent
and softened, he was still the same man entranced by the fire, intent upon it,
as if the flames could offer him answers his life could not.

"Dad, did you know
what the twenty-eight bucks a month was for?”

His attention turned from
the fireplace to her, but he said nothing. Merci thought: Here I am, replacing
my mother, trying to draw him something he'd rather not talk about. Tough.

She continued.
"I read Jim O'Brien's suicide letter to his son. He pretty much spelled it
out. As an emissary of Bill Owen and Ralph Meeks, Brighton suggested that
O'Brien shut up Patti Bailey for good. When that didn't work Brighton got Big
Pat to threaten him, to say they'd rat out Jim to his wife if he wouldn't kill
the girl. And that did work. But Brighton and Big Pat didn't destroy the crime-scene
evidence to protect Jim, like they promised. They kept it and used it to make
him threaten Owen and Meeks. Brighton had both of them on tape with her,
talking about arranging the Acuna beating. That was probably enough. But
O'Brien threatening to point a finger at them clinched the deal, sent them both
into early retirement. Good for Brighton. Part of the deal was that he got
Owen's nod as successor. Vance Putnam, the interim sheriff, was never a
player."

"Go
on."

"No, Dad.
You
go on. Help me out here. I just about got killed trying to solve this case, and
you damned knew who did it all along. I'm more than just a little pissed off at
you. If my ass wasn't important enough for you to save, then fine. But you came
that
close to letting Tim, Jr.'s, mother get killed, and that is most
definitely not fucking fine. Am I clear?"

"Yes. Yes.
I...
was pretty sure that things had
happened like you say. I never knew for sure. I understood the payment every
month was connected to Bailey, to Owen and Meeks giving up, to Brighton
ascending like he did. I paid it like I was asked to. But I never knew.
I...
distanced myself from Brighton and Pat
after that. Went into admin. Tried to steer clear of everything. I knew there
was blood on my hands, but I didn't know how much."

"You
never wanted to know."

"No."

"You were brave
enough to play the game, but not brave enough to collect your prize."

"You can look at
it that way. Although there's another way to see it, too."

"Well, I'll tell
you what was in that storage area you paid for. Bailey's dress and shoes.
Bailey's tapes of Owen and Meeks. O'Brien's gun and the spent shells. All the
things that you guys needed to cover up a murder and drive a man to suicide
while you went about your lives. You. Big Pat. Brighton. Rymers was probably in
on it, too, keeping his own partner in the cold. Glandis stole it all when Jim
O'Brien killed himself. Thought he might need it someday. He got Evan to mail
me a key."

Clark
was looking at her again now. He sat up straight and moved his hands to the
arms of the chair. "We never knew what happened to that box. And
everything else. The whole place was cleaned out."

"Now
you do. And you never told anyone what was in it."

"Oh,
never."

"Not
even me."

"No."

There was a long
silence between them then, with only the sound the rain pouring down outside.

"Okay,
Dad—what's the other way I can see it? Conspiracy to cover a murder. Explain
that in some other way, will you?"

"Well,
daughter, I did it for you."

"I
didn't
ask
you to."

Clark
stood up and warmed his hands at the fire. His voice was soft.

"That's the
whole point, don't you see? I was connected, Merci---through Brighton and Pat.
They were friends. We were in it together, at the beginning. And once you've
taken that first little step you can’t go back. You can't unstep. For me, it
was taking that evidence to the storage area. Rymers and I made the
arrangements, took the box there, got keys made. I took over the payments after
he died. I really
didn't
know what we were storing until I opened the box.
Well, at that point, it was too late. I was in. Because what were my choices by
then? Arrest Jim O'Brien for murder? With Brighton headed for sheriff, O'Brien
headed for the desert and Big Pat still a man I called a friend? Then what? Get
myself hazed out of the department, take a job as a security guard somewhere?
Not with your mother and you depending on me. You were a kindergartner with a
beautiful smile and a good mind and a whole future ahead of you, and I wasn't
about to offer you anything but the best I had. No, it was too late to do the
right thing. Too late."

She looked at him,
slow and old by the fire, a lifetime of guilt carried on his slender frame.

"Now I've got
that same choice to make," Merci said. "I can clear the Bailey case.
That would mean taking down Brighton, Big Pat, Everybody. Or I can just leave
it alone. If I lay down, Brighton paves my way—head of detail, head of section,
whatever I want. He'd endorse me for sheriff at some point, if I wanted. It's
everything I've dreamed of. If I don't, I'm ruined. And Tim along with me, I
guess."

Clark
looked back at her.

"What
would you do if you were me?" she asked.

He
thought for a long moment before he answered. "I already did it."

"If
you could do it again."

"I'd have turned
that evidence over to the DA instead of hiding it. I'd have done the right
thing. Who knows? You'd probably be sitting here right now, just like you are,
if I'd have done the right thing. But you're sitting here with a broken heart,
because I didn't. See? I wanted to protect you. You were my greatest love, and
my biggest... rationale. But all I accomplished was almost getting you killed
thirty years later. Don't leave the Bailey case for Tim to solve."

She
said nothing.

"And something
else, daughter of mine. You'll make some real enemies if you go to the press,
or the Grand Jury, or wherever you're thinking of going. Big enemies. But
you'll make some friends, too. Everybody's going to respect your decision,
whether they hate you for it or not. You can take that respect with you, if it
comes to that. You won't be ruined. You'll just be . . . diverted for a while.
You'll need to watch your back. Maybe this had to happen. Maybe it's all a way
of getting you onto a better path."

"Which
one? To where?"

"I've
got no idea."

Merci stood and
joined him closer to the fire. "I always thought that kind of optimism was
just a handy crock of shit. Something people tell themselves to get by. Maybe
it is. Maybe it isn't. But either way, what's the choice? It's worse to believe
that life is just set up to make you miserable."

"Low
percentage."

"But I never
thought doing what's right could mess up so many people. My own father. My
son."

"Doesn't
make it less right."

"Right and
wrong. Black and white. Yes and no. Them and us. That's why I became a cop to
start with. So I'd know the answers right up front."

Clark set a hand on
her shoulder. "Maybe you became a cop so you wouldn't have to ask the
questions in the first place."

She looked up and studied his face. "There
always was some of that in me. Yeah."

"Ask them. Here's your chance."

"Either way, I'm
going to call Bailey's sister tomorrow. I'm going tell her what she needs to
know. It won't make her feel any better, but she thinks it will."

"You never
know."

She looked at him.
"That's the whole thing, Dad. Sometimes you do know. Sometimes you damned
do know."

•

It was almost eleven
when she called Gary Brice at home. She could hear a keyboard tapping as he
answered.

I've got a story for you," she said.
"Six o'clock tomorrow morning, the snack stand at Fifteenth Street."

"I'll be early. Do I need
sunscreen?"

"An umbrella maybe. And a tape
recorder."

"I love you. I want to date you and
have your baby and die for you.

She smiled, hung up on him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

T
wo weeks later Merci Rayborn stepped off the witness
stand in the Grand Jury room and followed the marshal out the door. She'd been
on the stand for half a day and her legs were heavy and slow from sitting so
long.

When she came through
the double doors she saw the ocean of faces: press and TV and radio reporters
gathered up close, an infantry of tan-clad deputies; Brighton and his entourage
against one wall; Glandis and his against another; Mike and Big Pat McNally and
a bunch of relatives she half-recognized off to her right; a bunch of the
homicide guys off together in the back; and a whole lot of people she knew by
face only, fellow deputies, lab personnel, support staff.

Every one of them was
staring at her. She saw not one friendly gaze in that ocean of eyes.

There was a second's
pause before the microphones were launched toward her, the video shooters
crouched and fired, the reporters started yelling out questions all at once.

She lowered her head,
held her purse up tight to her stomach and started through. She thought of
Oswald in the Dallas PD. basement, thought that a stout man in a hat would
lunge out any second. She wondered what a bullet in the gut might feel like,
moved the purse up closer to her heart.

. . . what led you to
O'Brien any truth to the Bailey conspiracy how did you uncover evidence from
thirty-two years ago why wasn't the suicide letter made public until recently
have you talked to Sergeant McNally is it true Sheriff Chuck Brighton and your
own father may he helped cover up the murder . . .

She looked up and over the
heads and lights and microphones toward the stairway leading up to the lobby.
The people on the stairway were frozen midway, looking down at her. There was
sunlight coming through the windows up there but down here, surrounded by
people was like being lost in a forest.

She made eight good steps
before she stumbled and fell into a cameraman who backed off then kept shooting
her on the floor while she gathered herself back up, her side shrieking in
pain.

...
your part in the biggest scandal the department has
ever had did you have a love affair with O'Brien like you did with McNally will
you quit the force now what future do you see with the department. . .

The stairway looked a
hundred miles away. Merci felt a great rush of fury and sadness wash over her
and her vision blurred and she felt herself pushing through the bodies but
getting nowhere. She was aware of the tan uniforms around then, pressing in
even harder. Shouting. Hard voices, angry voices.

They're going to
shoot me, she thought. They're going to shoot me right here. She wanted to
scream but she couldn't—she drew a breath but knew if she screamed they'd kill
her on the spot.

Suddenly she
understood what she had to do. She'd thought about before, but the answer had
always been no. But not now. Now it made sense, the only sense she could see.
She got her badge holder from inside her coat and tried to drop it to the floor
but she was crushed up tight against the uniforms that it didn't fall. Instead,
it wedged between her upraised arm and the chest of some deputy she'd never
seen in her life and he looked her straight in the face with hate and backed
away a half step and the black leather holder fell.

Then came a voice
she'd heard before but couldn't place, so clear and furious, piercing through
the shouting. "
Get back, get away, let through me damnit, let me
through. . . ."

She
tried to take a step but couldn't. Her face was pushed into a tan, starched
shirt. She could feel the great weight of the bodies around her, pushing her
left, then right. She couldn't move forward even a step. Then there was light.
And space. She wondered if she was passing out but she had never passed out in
her life and wasn't sure what it was like. She tripped and fell again and she
looked for her badge on the floor but it was gone now and that was fine, her
mind made up, this was over now, this was the end.

She made it to one
knee. She heard shouting and curses, a fight of some kind, the
humpff
of
contact. Her leg was killing her; it felt like she'd been shot in the side all
over again. A strong hand fixed on her arm and yanked her up and she wondered
if she was about to get punched. Someone fell in beside her and shoved her
through the clot of bodies.

"Get
back, get away damnit let us through...."

Zamorra pushed her
straight ahead. He was strong and rough and he pushed her like she was a weapon
or a tool, something that couldn't be broken. He reached around her with his
free hand and stuffed something into her inside coat pocket. "Think about
that," he said. He pulled her up the stairs at a run and somehow she got
her foot on each step and made it to the top.