The Samaritan (42 page)
Reluctantly, I nodded and left her standing by the barn, waiting for the cavalry.
I walked quickly in the opposite direction from the road. Going back to where I’d left the Camaro was out of the question, even if the cops weren’t en route. I pictured the map of the area, remembering that there was a road roughly five miles west, across country. I oriented myself with the stars—you could actually see them up here—and started walking. An hour and change later, I came upon the road I’d been looking for.
I stepped off the dirt and onto the asphalt and started walking east. If I remembered the map rightly, I would hit the northwestern edge of Los Angeles in another ten miles. Once I got there, I could find a bus station and put as many miles between myself and LA as possible. But for now, it was a clear, crisp night: a good night for walking. I would reach my destination in three hours or so. Unless, that was, some Good Samaritan stopped to offer me a ride along the way.
Another day, another cemetery.
I watched the burial from a distance, from a bench close to the perimeter fence. A small group had come to see Kelly Boden committed to the earth beneath a perfect blue California sky. Her father, some extended family members, Sarah Dutton, and two young men in black suits who I guessed were the boyfriends of Sarah and Kelly. And Allen. It hadn’t been that long since the night at the Samaritan’s house, and I thought she’d probably flouted doctor’s orders to be here. It didn’t surprise me in the least.
As I was thinking this, she happened to turn her head in my direction. She spotted me, held her eyes on me for a moment, and then turned back to the service. It was a little eerie, the timing of it, as though she’d picked up a telepathic signal from me or something.
I looked on as the minister said a few words, his Bible open in front of him. I was too far away to hear exactly what he was saying, but I’d attended enough funerals that I could probably recite the words myself.
Finally, the two boyfriends and the father and one of the other male relatives took up an end of rope each, and slowly lowered the coffin into the grave. A real grave this time. I didn’t know how much these things mattered to you once you were dead, but it had to be better than an unmarked hole in the Santa Monica Mountains.
The small crowd began to disperse, breaking off in different directions to the various gates. Allen lingered behind, talking to Richard Boden. They spoke for a few minutes, and at the end, he reached around Allen and gave her a brief hug. They shook hands and Boden walked away to join the rest of the mourners.
Allen turned to look at me again, seemed to think something over, and then started to walk up the hill to where I was sitting.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she said. “Didn’t think you were the sticking-around type.”
She sat down beside me and we looked down the hill at the fresh grave.
“I’m not,” I said. “But I wanted to check in on you, see how you were. The hospital wasn’t an option, but I figured you’d show up here.”
“You really are good at finding people who don’t want to be found.”
“I guess I deserved that.”
She turned to me, head angled in mild apology. “Sorry, Blake. None of this was your fault. And I’m fine . . . thanks to you.”
I could see the end of a partially healed scar on the side of her neck, protruding above her shirt collar. She touched a hand to it, and her eyes flashed with an irritation that reassured me ten times more than her words. “Don’t look at me like that, Blake. I’m not a freaking basket case.”
“Sorry,” I said.
She sighed, loosened her posture a little. “Okay, the dreams aren’t great.”
“That’ll happen.”
“It’ll get better in time though, I think,” she said. “It helps to know it’s really over. That they’re both dead.”
“I’m sorry about Mazzucco.”
“Me too. He and his wife have a baby, you know. A little girl.”
I didn’t say anything. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. The ripples of devastation caused by Crozier’s madness seemed to keep on spreading. I knew they’d be felt for a long time yet.
“Boden wants to thank you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing too specific; don’t worry. But more than I told anybody else. You’re still technically wanted for questioning.”
I nodded. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
I knew the LAPD and the FBI would still want to speak to me if they could, but there was no longer any kind of active manhunt. The evidence at the house was more than enough to prove that the murders had all been committed by Crozier: acting alone at first and latterly with his half sister.
Allen sighed. “Give them a week and they’ll get over it. The LAPD just cleared six murders. Nine, including the ninety-seven case. The feds will be closing cold cases across the country for the next couple of years. Nobody’s shedding any tears for Crozier and his sister. The case is a slam dunk; no need to overcomplicate the narrative.”
I smiled. Allen was probably right about the cops and even the feds. I was a loose end, but not one that would trouble them for long, not with the Samaritan finally out of action. But there were other people who would be wondering about me. People who weren’t so easily satisfied.
The press coverage surrounding the whole case was predictably intense. The official story was that there had been some sort of records glitch in Afghanistan, which explained how Dean Crozier had apparently risen from the dead. I wondered if that was guesswork by the authorities, or the official story that had come down from on high. It didn’t matter either way, just a plausible explanation for something that would never be publicly explained.
No one would ever know exactly where Crozier had gone when he came back to America. The only traces he left in those early months and years were the bodies that had sometimes waited years to be discovered. What was clear was that he’d returned to Los Angeles eighteen months ago. He’d set up the identity of Eddie Smith to give himself a cover, to let him get to know the city and its law enforcers again. All the while, he’d made brief trips to other parts of the nation, staying a week or two, killing with impunity, and then returning to LA, unsuspected.
I corrected Allen on one point. “The LAPD didn’t clear those murders, Allen. You did. You kept focused; you found the murder house. It was excellent police work. Next time any of them gives you any shit, you remind them of that.”
“That I fixed the Samaritan, huh?” She smiled.
She held out a hand, and I took it in my own and shook it.
“Good working with you, Detective.”
“Likewise. Maybe we’ll do this again sometime.”
“For your sake, I hope not.”
She smiled again and stood up. I watched as she walked back down the hill and toward the main cemetery gate without a backward glance.
I waited there a while longer, feeling the sun on my face and thinking about dreams. About scars and about the past: the things you carried with you, no matter how far you tried to run.
In time, the shadows lengthened and one of the cemetery workers appeared by Kelly Boden’s grave and started to shovel the displaced earth from the pile back on top of the coffin. He moved with practiced ease. The job would be complete soon, and the new grave would begin to blend in with all of the others. But I would be long gone by that time.
Laura Morrison gets top billing this time for giving me the space, encouragement and occasional threats necessary to write. I’d like to thank Jemima Forrester for being a fantastic editor and because everything she suggests is an improvement. Luigi Bonomi for being an agent par excellence, and always being ready with encouragement and helpful suggestions. Alison Bonomi for finding somebody who
did
want to be found. Thomas Stofer for some incredibly fast and insightful feedback on the first draft, and for telling me something about one of my characters that they’d been keeping secret from me. Ava, Scarlett and Max (aka Oliver) for forcing me to be extremely efficient with my writing time. Graeme Williams, Angela McMahon, Jo Gledhill, David Young, Andrew Taylor, Alex Young and everyone at Orion for being generally amazing – you’ve probably given me an unrealistically rosy view of the publishing world. Caron Macpherson, Craig Robertson, Alexandra Sokoloff, Douglas Skelton, Michael Malone, and the rest of the Glasgow criminal underworld. Mary Hays and James Stansfield for reading all my stuff before the bad bits get fixed. Heidi, for introducing me to LA. All of the bloggers, reviewers, readers, booksellers and librarians who liked
The
Killing Season
and told people about it – I hope you like this one as much.
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Orion Books
This eBook first published in 2015 by Orion Books
Copyright © Mason Cross 2015
The right of Mason Cross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs And Patents Act 1988.
All the characters in this book, except for those already in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
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ISBN: 978 1 4091 4614 8
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