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“It’s not just that.”

“Then what is it?”

“What if something’s happened?”

Paul frowned and put Kirsten down. “Nothing’s happened. The guy knows what he’s doing. He went there while Tarbell was at work, and he said he was leaving after he called about the photo.”

It all made sense, but the last call she’d gotten didn’t. Petersen’s name had come up on the caller ID, but he didn’t speak before hanging up. It hadn’t meant much at the time, but his missing their meeting had changed that. What if he’d hung up on her because he spotted Tarbell coming his way?

“So what do you want to do?” Paul asked.

“Check on him.”

“What does that mean?”

Paul had a hard edge to his voice. She didn’t let it put her off. “Go by Tarbell’s house.”

Paul shook his head. “I should say no, but I’m not going to because you’re not going to let this go.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I won’t be long.”

“No way. If you go, we all go.” Gwen went to object, but
he cut her off. “I’ve let you cut me out of this long enough. We know what Tarbell is capable of, so you don’t run off alone anymore.”

She couldn’t deter him. Not this time. Too much had happened to brush him aside anymore. “OK,” she said.

There was no time for a babysitter, so Kirsten had to come with them. Gwen was hesitant about bringing her, but Paul was insistent. It wasn’t hard for Gwen to read between the lines. He wanted her to see the risks she was taking. It worked. Strapping her daughter into the car seat left her queasy.

They took Paul’s car as a precaution. Tarbell knew her Subaru too well, and she didn’t want to tip him off in any way. Paul drove. The poor kid was dog tired and was asleep within minutes.

They traveled in silence. Gwen yearned for conversation to take her mind off her thoughts.

Paul slowed to a halt across from Tarbell’s house. They were close enough to see the home but hopefully not to be seen by Tarbell. The lights were on inside, but it was difficult to see anything beyond that.

Gwen searched for the Mazda Petersen had been driving. “I don’t see his car.”

“I can’t see him parking it close.”

Paul put the car in drive and circled the neighboring blocks. Gwen still didn’t see Petersen’s Mazda. Paul returned to the spot across from Tarbell’s house.

“Well, that tells you something,” Paul said.

It does, but what?
she thought. She’d gone into this venture with Petersen more than a little blind.

“OK, it looks like Tarbell is home, and Petersen isn’t around,” Paul said. “Now what? Do we knock on Tarbell’s door?”

Paul’s sarcasm struck the wrong nerve
with her. “I can do without the attitude. We don’t know where Petersen is and that’s not a good thing. Not with Tarbell’s track record.”

Gwen’s sharp tone roused Kirsten but only for a second. She asked where she was but was asleep again before either of them could answer her.

“OK, sorry,” Paul said. “But the question of ‘now what?’ still stands. There’s no way we can knock on the door.”

“I know. I can’t shake the feeling that something’s happened.”

“We can’t sit out here all night. That means we’re going to have to be a little sneaky. Give me the recorder from the glove compartment.”

Paul kept a digital recorder he used when he was working. He recorded to-do lists and downloaded them when he got home. Gwen removed the recorder he hadn’t had to use for over a year. The batteries had long since gone flat inside. She didn’t understand why he needed it, but he took it from her and removed a legal pad he kept between the seat and the center console.

“What are you doing?”

He grinned. “Do I look like a member of the media?”

“No.”

He grinned even wider. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He walked to a house near Tarbell’s; it still had its lights on. He knocked on the door and when someone answered, he went inside. Gwen’s heart pounded. He was taking this risk for her. She became suddenly aware of how he must have felt during this entire ordeal. She’d been trying to protect him by keeping him in the dark. But he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.

He emerged from the house a minute later. He smiled and waved at the woman who’d answered the door. The second she closed the door on him, he jogged back to the car.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“You said Petersen might have
been caught, but that didn’t mean Tarbell caught him. I went to that house and told them I was a reporter for the
Contra Costa Times
and I heard there was a break-in on the street, but I didn’t know where.”

“That’s brilliant. What did she say?”

“That it hadn’t happened. If the cops had lifted Petersen for breaking into Tarbell’s place, there would have been plenty of attention.”

It was a good point. They’d picked up plenty of spectators when Tarbell burglarized their home.

“Petersen doesn’t seem to have run into any trouble here.”

The news failed to bring Gwen any comfort. It still didn’t explain why Petersen wasn’t answering his phone. Not when he’d seemed so committed to calling her with every fresh discovery.

“Let’s stay here for a while. I want to see what Tarbell does.”

Paul was silent for a moment. “I’m going to say something you’re not going to like.”

Gwen didn’t say anything.

“We’re out here, stalking Tarbell. Tell me, what’s the difference between this and what he’s been doing to us?”

Gwen didn’t have an answer.

After waiting thirty minutes with nothing happening, they drove over to Petersen’s house. It sat in darkness.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” Paul said.

“No,” Gwen said and slipped from the car.

Paul followed her to the front door, and he rang the doorbell. No one stirred inside.

“I hate to say it, but I think your guy flaked out on you.”

“H
ey, it must be Saturday because you’re here to screw up my day,” Dennis Tarbell said when his son entered
the living room.

Lupe had warned Tarbell that his father was in one of his moods before she left. Normally, it would have parked a black cloud over his head, but not today. Nothing his father had to say would make a dent. He was feeling too good about life. His father’s bitching was just an annoying buzzing—a fly that needed swatting.

Killing Petersen had been the best thing he’d ever done. Taking a person’s life had filled him with a confidence he’d never known. He should have killed someone sooner. It could have changed his life. Bosses complained he never exhibited the kind of confidence that they needed. They described him as antisocial. Since killing Petersen, he’d become more friendly and tolerant. If someone screwed up at work or cut him off on the freeway, he let it go. Their shortcomings weren’t his.

Petersen helped his mood, too. Well, not Petersen per se, but Petersen’s insignificance. The man had been murdered, and it didn’t seem to matter. No one had come knocking on his door to complain or throw out accusations. He put it down to his first-class character assassination
of Gwen. They were more likely to point fingers at her than him these days.

“You want something to drink, Dad?”

“I’d kill for a smoke.”

He took that as a no and sat on the sofa. His dad wheeled his chair in his direction. His eyes sparkled with a disdain that amazed Tarbell. Didn’t he ever take a mirror to himself? He could no longer sit up upright. His pallor turned the stomach of anyone looking his way. His breathing was labored even with the oxygen tubes trailing from his nose, and he was in a wheelchair. He wasn’t the unstoppable figure pictured in the yellowed photographs on the wall.
How did this man ever frighten me?
Tarbell wondered.

“What do you think of me, Dad?”

Dennis snorted. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You’re a disappointment. Not a small disappointment but a big fucking disappointment. The kind that makes me wish I’d never fathered a child.”

It was a performance for the cheap seats. That was just what Tarbell was in the mood for.

“How am I a disappointment?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you want to be humiliated? Because if you do, I can do that for you. That’s how much you sicken me with your presence.”

Tarbell enjoyed needling his father with simple questions. It stood to reason that a Luddite like him couldn’t handle conversation.

“I just want to know how I’ve disappointed you.”

“Why?”

“It’s important to me.”

Dennis shook his head. “If you want to know, I’ll tell you. Just get me a drink first, and make it a real drink.”

Tarbell saw no point in denying the man booze. It wasn’t like it could make his quality of life any worse. He got up and fixed his dad a whiskey. It was some Jack
Daniel’s knockoff, cheap and nasty, just like his father. He put the half-filled tumbler on the lap tray crossing Dennis’s wheelchair.

He retook his seat while his dad gulped down half the cheap booze in one shot. His father’s expression was close to rapture even though the drink forced a coughing fit.

“You’re still a disappointment, but more acts of kindness like that and I might just forgive you your problems.”

“What problems?”

“You’re weak. You let people walk all over you. Hell, you let me, a fucking invalid, walk all over you.”

“Anything else?”

“Sure. I’ve got a million of them.” He swigged the whiskey. “You don’t drink. I never trust anyone who doesn’t drink.”

It was a piece of homespun wisdom that made no sense. For all his father’s so-called strength, he couldn’t handle anyone who could abstain from drink. It was a twisted point of view.

“What else?”

“You don’t do man’s work. Men build things. They leave their mark on the world. They don’t fuck around in labs with test tubes and white rats like some kind of Frankenstein. I bet you get a kick out of killing the small animals. Yeah, I bet you do.”

Tarbell saw more of his father’s insecurities. He was poorly educated. Tarbell was the first of his family to go to college. Dennis made it clear when the college acceptance came through that if Tarbell went, he’d receive no financial support. Tarbell had put himself through. It was his first act of defiance. How it must have stuck in the old man’s throat.

“You’re not married. Are you queer? I know I’ve asked you, but you never give me a straight answer.” He laughed at the use of the word
straight
when asking if Tarbell was gay or not.

“Would it matter if I was gay?”

“Sure it would. It would make bringing you up a waste of time, not that it hasn’t been already.”

“I’m not gay.”

“Then why don’t you have a woman?”

“Because I don’t want one.”

“Yeah, right.” He picked up his glass
and finished off the whiskey. “You don’t want one because you don’t like them.”

“I like women as much as you do, Dad.”

Dennis’s hand tightened around the glass. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You slapped Mom around a lot for a guy who loved women.”

Dennis hurled the glass at him. There was little heat behind the throw. It missed its target by six inches and bounced off the wall without breaking. Twenty years ago that glass would have hit him square between the eyes at sixty miles an hour.

“You watch your mouth, boy. Are you trying to piss me off? If you are, it isn’t working.”

Watching his father breathe heavily, Tarbell begged to differ.

“When your mother got out of line, it took a slap to put her back in her place.”

Tarbell found it hard to disagree with this point. His mother did step out of line a lot, a line his father was forever redefining, making it impossible for anyone to stay on the right side of it. The beatings had sickened Tarbell, not only because of the violence inflicted upon someone he loved, but because of his mother’s reaction. As soon as Dennis drew back a fist to strike, the lights went out in his mother’s eyes. She retreated to a place within herself where Dennis couldn’t touch her. It was how the weak survived but not how they triumphed. The bigger fist always won.

“So how else do I disappoint you?”

“You’re nothing like me.”

His father made it so easy for him. “That makes me very happy.”

“You fucking piece of shit,” Dennis said and tried to wheel himself forward. Despite his excited state, he didn’t have the strength to move, and he gave up.

“I’m glad I’ve disappointed you, Dad. I
would hate to think I brought you any feelings of pride.”

“Well, you didn’t.”

“I have no desire to be like a man who covered his inadequacies with violence and intimidation.”

“You ungrateful—”

“Shut up.” Tarbell watched his father boil behind his silence. “You’re disappointed in me because I wasn’t afraid to follow my dreams and desires, unlike you. You worked the shipyards because it was easy. The work suited you, but you never stepped outside of your comfort zone. You had opportunities to move up, but you were too much of a coward to try. It was easier to fire cheap shots at management. You wanted to be revered, but all you did was fix broken things. And because you couldn’t be revered, you decided to be feared. Hey, don’t fuck with Dennis because he’ll fuck you up. Pretty weak, don’t you think?”

His father was silent for a long time. “Finished?”

“No. There are some things you need to know about me.”

“Spit it out, then get out.”

Tarbell ignored the attitude. It was all his father had to throw around these days.

“It pains me to say, we aren’t too different. Like you, I’ve discovered that force wins the day.”

“Yeah, right. What force have you used on someone?”

“My boss gave me a negative evaluation, so I held a knife to her throat and told her I’d cut her if she didn’t change the review.”

“Bullshit.”

Tarbell didn’t care if his father believed him or not. He would in time.

“I thought it had worked, but it hadn’t. She pretended to go along with the plan but she sold me out to the company.”

“Is this your way of telling me you got canned and now you can’t afford that bitch, Lupe? Christ, trust you to screw up putting the strong arm to a chick.”

“No, I’ve still got my job. I used the system against
my boss. They fired her but that wasn’t enough. Not only did she give me a bad review, she broke our bargain. That wasn’t acceptable.”

“What did you do?”

Tarbell had gotten his father’s attention. There was a gleam of perverse pleasure in his eyes. He could no longer do these things himself, but he could live them out through others.

“I trashed her home.”

Dennis clapped his hands together. “Maybe we are alike after all. There was this time—”

“I’m not interested.”

His father’s face dropped at not being able to relive a past glory.

“I’m not finished with this woman. She needs to be taught a lesson. I’ve finally weeded out the people surrounding her and killed the guy that was protecting her. She’s vulnerable now. I’m free to do what I want to her.”

“Bullshit. You didn’t kill anyone.” Dennis tried to inject bravado into his words, but it wasn’t there.

“Have you ever killed a man, Dad?”

His father said nothing. Panic shone in his watery eyes.

“Come on, Dad. You threw plenty of punches, but did you ever take it to the next level?”

Tarbell felt his father’s gaze examine him, picking away at him for the truth and finding it. It felt good to see his father frightened of him.

Dennis shook his head.

Tarbell got to his feet and approached his father. Dennis wheeled his chair backward but not fast enough to escape his son. Tarbell brought his father’s escape to an end by jamming his foot behind the big wheel.

“But you’ve thought about killing someone, haven’t you? Sure you have, but you never went through with it because you’re a coward. Isn’t that true?”

Tarbell leaned in toward his
father. His father flinched. How he wished his mom could be here to witness this turn of events.

Dennis trembled but said nothing. Tarbell let his hand trail to the oxygen tube. It was a little reminder of their previous encounter. It had been pleasurable and disappointing to see his father the bully fold under so little pressure, but then that was how bullies operated.

Dennis’s gaze fell to Tarbell’s hand grazing the clear, plastic tubing. “You’re right. I’m a coward.”

“When you beat the shit out of some guy at the shipyard or a bar, did you ever feel bad afterwards?”

“Yeah, sure I did.”

“How about when you hit Mom?” Tarbell gripped the tube and tugged it gently.

His father swallowed hard. “Every time.”

“But you kept on hitting her. In fact, I remember you smiling when you hit her. Do you remember that?”

“It’s not what you think. I might have looked like I was enjoying it, but when it was over, I felt like shit.”

It was a nice sentiment, but his father would say anything to save his skin, Tarbell guessed. It was so typical of him to be this way. His mother knew her weaknesses, but at least she had known how to take the blows without bitching about it.

“We’re not that different,” Dennis said. “When you killed that guy, you felt bad, right?”

“No, I didn’t. It was the best thing I ever did.”

Tarbell took his father’s big hand, a hand that despite its size, no longer possessed the strength to fight back, and guided it to the regulator on the oxygen bottle.

“Don’t. Please, don’t.”

Tarbell rolled his eyes at the plea. How many times had his father ignored the pleas of others? It was about time the favor was returned. “Don’t what, Dad? I’m not doing anything. You are.”

Using his father’s fingers he turned up the oxygen
flow. The needle on the gauge climbed swiftly from the prescribed two liters per minute until it read ten liters per minute.

“Dad, what are you doing? You know what the doctor said. Don’t mess with the regulator. Too much oxygen is lethal. What are you trying to do, kill yourself?”

Tarbell’s father tried to turn the regulator back, but Tarbell jerked his hand away and pinned it to the arm of the wheelchair. Dennis went to yank the tubing from his nose, but Tarbell snatched his other arm and held that against the wheelchair arm also.

“Dad, why are you doing this to yourself?” Tarbell said. “You’ve got so much to live for. I don’t know why you think you’re such a burden. You’re not. Please stop.”

Raw animal panic burned in Dennis’s eyes. His panic forced him to breathe harder and faster, sucking in more and more over-oxygenated air, each breath more destructive than the last.

The panicked look didn’t last. Within a few minutes, lethargy set in from the overdose of oxygen. His father’s eyelids slid down to half-mast, the tension went out of his body, and his rapid breathing ceased. Tarbell released his grip on his father’s arms. Dennis didn’t move. Tarbell smiled and sat back from his father.

“Do you know what’s going to happen to you?”

Dennis Tarbell’s gaze slowly turned to his son.

“Too much oxygen doesn’t mix well with emphysema. It depresses the respiratory center of the brain, which leads to coma and ultimately, death. It’s a pretty painless way to die and more than you deserve.”

Dennis struggled in his seat, but he lacked the strength to do anything about his condition. His left foot popped out from its footrest and dangled an inch from the floor.

“I would prefer something more violent, but
that’s just not an option. Instead, I’m going to sit here and watch you suffocate. What have you got to say about that, Dad?”

A sob escaped Dennis’s lips. Tarbell considered that the highlight of his life.

Silence between them followed. The only sound that pierced the silence was the hiss of oxygen flowing into Dennis.

It took twenty minutes before Dennis Tarbell lapsed into a coma. Tarbell rose from his seat and examined his father. He was under, and he wasn’t coming back. He sorely wanted to stick around and witness his father choke out his last breath, but his alibi wouldn’t allow it.