A Time to Gather (16 page)

“My treat.”

Bobby gave her a sidelong glance.

“Pretend I’m a guy, Officer Macho.”

“Ha-ha.”

Her cell phone rang. “It’s Susie.” She referred to a sergeant at the station and answered. “Hey.”

“Hey, Rosie. I’ve got another Beaumont insisting on talking to you. Lexi. Same family as the Hot One?”

“Yep.”

“Maybe you ought to give these people your number? Anyway, she sounded distraught, but refused to talk to me. Said it’s personal. She’s on her cell.”

As Susie rattled off the number, Rosie memorized it. “Thanks.”

“What’s up?” Bobby asked.

“Lexi. Erik’s youngest sister.” She punched in the number. “Distraught. Probably something to do with the other night.”

“You might as well give all of them your number.”

“Tuyen has it. I figured she’d be the one who might need—Lexi? Rosie Delgado—”

“He’s going to kill him!” The words burst out between screeches and gulping sobs.

“Calm down, Lexi. I can’t understand you.” She shrugged at Bobby and turned on the speakerphone so he could listen in. “Who’s going to kill whom?”

“Erik! He’s going to kill Brett! He’s going after him! He is so out of control. You’ve got to stop him!”

“Who’s Brett?”

“His friend. The one Felicia’s—Oh! Please go get him! He ran out before I could do anything.”

“Where is he going?”

“Her house!”

“Felicia Matthews?”

“Yes. He thinks Brett’s there with her. He is so drunk. He might have a gun. He said something about getting a gun.”

“What’s the address?”

“I don’t know! Somewhere up the hill from Erik’s.”

Rosie turned off the speaker as Bobby radioed the dispatcher for an address for Matthews, Beaumont’s coanchor and ex-girlfriend. She overheard him say “armed” and “need backup.”

Nuts. Beaumont wouldn’t really. Would he? The morning she went to his condo all tired and cranky, she hassled him, asking if he’d murdered anyone. He sloughed off the idea.

But he was sober then and more important things were going on, like the arrival of an unknown cousin from Vietnam.

But now?

Nah. No way. He wouldn’t have a gun. He was not the violent type.

Of course she’d thought the same about Ryan Taylor.

Rosie slammed a mental door on the pointless speculations. “Lexi, where are you?”

“In my car.” She sobbed. “Downtown. By a stoplight. I couldn’t catch him! I tried. Some guy kept harassing him about Felicia and he went berserk. They both ran out of the bar. Oh, please help! I don’t know how to get there!”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Take a breath. Thatta girl.”

Bobby nodded to her now, and they peeled out of the parking lot.

“Lexi,” she said into the phone, “we’ve got the address. We’re on our way. You go home and wait there.”

She sobbed, undeniably hysterical now.

“On second thought, don’t move. I’m sending someone to help you get home. Where exactly are you?”

“I don’t know! The Gaslamp District?”

While the midnight streets blurred past her and the siren wailed, she managed to pinpoint Lexi’s whereabouts, get another patrol dispatched to her, and berate herself for not going through channels. The phone call should have been recorded. It wasn’t personal business as she’d thought.

What was wrong with her? She heard the name Beaumont and instantly slid over into private life mode. The family did not belong there. Most especially Erik Beaumont did not belong there, no matter how often he’d come to mind in the past seven days.

Bobby hit the brakes.

Rosie was halfway out her door, the siren winding down, still ringing in her ears. Yet she heard the screams. A woman’s. Bone-chilling sounds of sheer terror pierced the night.

According to Lexi, the guy was armed and dangerous and threatening to kill.

Rosie drew her gun from its holster, unlatched the safety, and ignored Bobby’s shouts to put on her vest.

F
elicia Matthews lived in a single, one-story dwelling on a street lined with similar gingerbread houses complete with white picket fences. Probably built in the 1920s and refurbished in recent years, they made for a cute neighborhood.

Windows on both sides of Matthews’ place lit up. Residents would be accustomed to the whine of jets on way down to Lindbergh Field, but not to bloodcurdling shrieks and police sirens on their doorstep.

The observations more or less registered themselves as Rosie flew along the short sidewalk and up onto the small, old-fashioned porch. Bobby was breathing at her neck when she turned the front doorknob.

It wasn’t locked.

“Beaumont!” she yelled as they crossed the threshold. “Police! It’s Delgado!”

Another shriek replied, a woman’s. A male voice ranted and raved, the words indecipherable, the tone of one totally checked out of reality.

They stepped into a dimly lit living room. Hardwood floors, scatter rugs, floral upholstery, soft classical music, potpourri scent. Dining area at one end, lace tablecloth. Soft light through the kitchen doorway.

Comfy. Homey.

Except for the fact none of it was in order. Lamps lay on the floor, shades askew. Chairs were overturned, rugs balled up, lace cloth bunched at one end of the table.

“Police!” Bobby shouted as they moved in the direction of the cries, into a shadowy hallway. “Beaumont, show yourself! Now!”

The radio crackled at Rosie’s shoulder. A backup team was on the street. She heard the sirens.

Three doors rimmed the hall. Two on the left, one open, revealing a bathroom, the other shut. The third one, shut as well, on the right, far end.

Determining which room the screams emanated from was easy. They came from the door on the right, the one with the body lying near it.

R
osie and Bobby moved in tandem, attempting to bring order to chaos, the whole time creating more with their own shouts and squawking radios and thudding booted feet and bulky uniformed selves crowded into a tiny hallway in a house built in the 1920s for a family of three. At the most.

Everything happened at once, at lightning speed.

Bobby knelt at the man’s body.

More shouts and foot stomps resounded as the backup team entered the front room behind them.

Rosie stepped over the body. “Beaumont!” She kicked open the door, arms extended, gun pointing, knees bending into a crouch.

Somewhere between the sight of Felicia huddled on the bed and Erik yelling incoherently at her, his arm swinging up toward the helpless woman, Rosie lost it. Her emotions broke loose. Like wild horses, they stampeded through her. They crushed everything in their path, every safety protocol and well-rehearsed response so carefully hardwired into her second nature.

And then she pulled the trigger.

  
Twenty-Seven

Through the interior windows of the hospital waiting room, Claire saw the surgeon walking toward them. He wore blue-green scrubs and a smile.

She appreciated the smile. They already knew Erik was going to be all right. The ER doctor had told them when they first arrived that things looked good for him. But she appreciated the smile. It was like dotting an
i
and crossing a
t
.

Beside her on the waiting-room couch, Max squeezed her hand and stood. She wanted to stand. Her legs refused to cooperate, though. Even seated, she felt them tremble and wobble, as sturdy as gelatin.

“He’s going to be just fine.”

A sigh went around the room. They were all there: Ben, Danny, Jenna, Tuyen, Indio. Lexi hunched against her grandmother, half asleep with the sedative the ER guy had given her.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Max said. “Thank God. Can we see him?”

“Not just yet. He’ll be in recovery for a while.”

Claire said, “When can he go home?”

“My guesstimate is within a week. He has two broken ribs and contusions about his face. But the bullet . . .” He raised his right arm straight out and pointed with his left hand at the shoulder. “It went in here, just in front of the armpit, and lodged itself in muscle. We extracted it. There’s some tissue and muscle damage, of course. Actually quite a bit, but nothing that won’t heal. It missed the lung.”

Indio said, “God is good. Hallelujah.”

Claire whispered, “Amen.”

Jenna harrumphed loudly. “I still can’t believe that woman shot him!”

“Jen,” Lexi mumbled. “You’re an idiot. He was full-on wasted.”

“Then he should have been full-on mellow. He’s never mean when he drinks. He’s never mean, period. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen him—”

“He beat up Brett!”

“Who beat him up!”

Max said, “Jen and Lex, please.”

The doctor cleared his throat. “At any rate, a few centimeters to his left”—now he touched his chest—“and it would not have been good.”

Claire winced.

“Aunt Claire.” Tuyen smiled shyly at her. “That not happen.”

Her words parted the dark clouds. It wasn’t the first time that had happened in the past week. With a quiet dignity, Tuyen often spoke light into a conversation.

Claire rose and, her arms wide, stepped over to the young woman. “Oh, Tuyen.” Chuckling, she pulled her close. “Thank you. You are absolutely right. That not happen. That not happen indeed.”

O
nly a night-light above Brett Abbott’s bed lit the hospital room. Claire sat beside her friend Tandy, the injured man’s mother. Their hands were clasped together on the arms of the chairs between them.

“We’ve been here before, Claire.” Tandy spoke in soft tones. “Well not quite, but almost. I guess it’s only been to ERs, huh? Not an overnight hospital stay.”

“They never managed a concussion before. Erik did break Brett’s nose one other time though.”

“And Brett cracked Erik’s ribs at least twice. Not to mention all the bruises they gave each other through the years.”

“And our silly arguments over them.” Claire gave her a sad smile.

Tandy returned it. “I’m not mad at you this time.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

They sat in silence, still clutching each other’s hands. Brett was going to be all right. His ribs and nose were taped. The concussion was mild. He had spoken with Tandy earlier.

Claire said, “Did the doctor talk about baseball?” Brett played professionally for the Padres.

“He said he’s in excellent shape. He’ll heal quickly.” Tandy squeezed her hand. “It’s February. There’s
plenty
of season left.” She winked.

Another long silence passed.

Tandy said, “Did they ever fight over a girl before?”

“Not that I recall.”

“They’re thirty years old, Claire. They should be grown up by now!”

“Max thinks we’re in a reaping season, that he’s reaping what he sowed by being an absent dad.”

“Well, I’d be the first in line to blame Brett’s dad and, just for good measure, I’d even throw in Big-Hair Bimbo from Bishop as partly responsible.” She referred to her ex-husband and his second wife.

“Your sarcastic tone has lost its sharp edges.”

“Old age. Seriously, I’ve done my own share of sowing seed that wasn’t exactly the best for my kids.”

“Me too. But you know, at some point they need to take responsibility for their own choices. Good, not so good, incredibly stupid like this one.”

“Figuring out how to let them go is like dancing to music I can’t hear. The radio signal is blocked or something.”

The bedcovers rustled as Brett stirred.

Tandy said, “Is he humming?”

Brett chuckled. “The Byrds.”

They hurried to his side. Claire’s stomach ached at the sight of his eyes swollen shut and the bright white bandage across his nose.

He murmured, “‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ 1965.”

Tandy touched his shoulder. “‘To Everything There Is a Season.’ Pete Seeger, 1962, before the Byrds. And before that it was in Ecclesiastes, you knucklehead.”

A corner of his mouth went up and down. “Tell Erik I’m sorry.”

“Tell him yourself tomorrow. He’s just down the hall.”

“Mm-hmm.” He quickly dozed off again.

“Claire.” A tear trickled down Tandy’s cheek. “How do we let them reap their own stuff when they look like this?”

Claire put an arm around Tandy’s shoulders. “By spending a whole lot of time on our knees.”

“You sound more like Indio every day.”

“Yeah. I figure it’s about time I grew up too.” She wrapped her other arm around Tandy and, on impulse, began to pray aloud, a thing she had never done before with her friend.

A new peace filled her. A new certainty took up residence in her heart: God was with them in all their sowing and reaping. Yes, they had to gather weeds with the flowers. As her father-in-law said, though, God could do amazing things with weeds.

And, as her mother-in-law said, God was good.

Hallelujah.

  
Twenty-Eight

R
osie sat with Bobby in the lieutenant’s office.

Behind his desk, their boss hung up the phone and grinned. Davis was a fit-and-trim, no-nonsense guy with a full head of black hair turning to silver. At the moment, he let his grandfatherly demeanor come out to play. “Okay, now it’s official: Beaumont’s fine. Cheer up, Rosie. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I shot him.”

“The Padres are going to thank you for saving their first baseman from further injury.”

“I should have—”

“Put a lid on it. The guy had a gun.”

“A toy gun!”

He glared. “Beaumont pointed a gun at you. You told him to drop it. He didn’t. And there’s more.” He paused, his glare softened. “I just found out his blood alcohol content was high, but not by much. Here’s the thing though: they found PCP in his system. He had no idea what he was doing, not a clue. The lab guy is surprised one bullet stopped him.”

Bobby whistled. “Me too.”

Erik Beaumont on drugs? She found no space to file that information in her mind. It would explain his violence that didn’t make sense either.

“So,” Davis said, “take some time and get over it. I want you back on the street ASAP. Your mandatory suspension won’t last long. As far as I’m concerned, the investigation is over.” He pushed back his chair and walked around the desk. “I’m going home. It’s Saturday. That means pancakes with my wife followed by the grandkids’ soccer games.”