Blood Flag: A Paul Madriani Novel (16 page)

“Bullshit!” he says.

“No, same material but from a different species,” I tell him.

“You didn’t. I don’t believe you,” he says.

“I hope you like German chocolate.”

“I don’t care whether you told her or not. I’m not gonna do it. I won’t. I’m not some hired dog sitter.”

“No. I told her you’d be happy to do it for free. You know what she said?”

“I don’t care what she said.”

“She said you and Sofia were the two nicest people she’d ever met. That’s what she said. And then she started to cry. I’m telling you she cried like a baby.”

“I don’t care. I don’t believe you. And even if it’s true, I won’t do it,” he says.

“What’s your problem? You know what I think?”

“I don’t care what you think.”

“I think Gwyn doesn’t like animals.”

“You know, you know,” he says, “that’s not even funny.”

I glance at the yellow pad on my desk. “Maybe we should continue this over lunch. I’ve got a phone call I have to make. Do you mind closing the door on your way out?”

Harry stands there looking at me, seething. He’d like to laugh it off. But he can’t. It’s that little ember of doubt, the hot cinder caught in his throat that tells him maybe he’ll have to go into hiding to avoid Emma and her dog. Finally he turns, walks out the door, and slams it behind him.

I laugh. If Harry can drill my noodle with his lame lectures on history and politics, I can return the favor with a head job on him from Dingus. Tonight I’ll heat up the cinder with the bellows, pick up a cake at a local store, slip it onto a nice dish I’ll buy, and put it all in the middle of Harry’s desk. I’ll pen a note with my left hand. “I don’t know how I will ever be able to thank you for taking care of Dingus. If I must go back, it will take some of the pain out of my long days and nights in jail. It means so much to me that someone who cares is looking after Dad’s dog. I know that my father is watching from heaven and blessing you for your love of helpless and dumb animals. Yours truly, Emma.”

I’d add a postscript, “Be careful where you step,” but it would totally destroy the effect.

TWENTY

I
t’s a 405 area code. I pick up the receiver and punch in the number for Mr. Anthony Pack, the name given to me yesterday by the lawyer, Elliott Fish, in Oklahoma City. I tried to call Pack late yesterday but there was no answer. When it rolled over to voicemail I decided not to leave a message.

This time it’s answered by a young female voice. “Hello.”

“Hello, is Mr. Pack there by any chance?”

“Dad, it’s for you. Just a minute, he’ll be right here.”
Clunk
in my ear as the receiver gets dropped on a hard surface. “Dad! Someone’s on the phone for you.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. Some man.”

I hear footsteps, the receiver rattles. “Hello.”

“Hello, is this Mr. Anthony Pack?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“My name is Paul Madriani. I’m a lawyer in California. I am calling because I was given your name by someone in Oklahoma City who told me that it’s possible that you and I might have an interest in sharing some information.”

“In what regard?”

“I represent a woman, a client here in San Diego, whose father, I believe, may have served in the army with someone you know. It would have been many years ago, during World War Two in Europe.”

“What is your client’s name?”

“Her last name is Brauer. Her father was Robert Brauer. Do you know the name?”

“Did you say
was
?”

“Yes. He died recently.”

“May I ask how he died?”

“We’re not entirely sure. That’s part of the problem.”

“I never met the man, but I know the name,” says Pack. “He served with my father in the 45th Infantry in France and Germany during the war. They were in the same platoon. You say you can’t tell me how he died?”

“The authorities think someone may have killed him.”

“I knew it,” says Pack. “Damn. I’ve been trying to tell the police here in Oklahoma City for almost a year that someone murdered my father. They just won’t listen.”

“How did he die?”

“They say natural causes. But I don’t believe it.”

“What evidence do you have?”

“None. That’s the problem,” says Pack. “There was no autopsy.”

“Why not?”

“My dad was in his eighties, though he wasn’t in particularly bad health for a man his age. He needed help caring for himself. He couldn’t cook, needed help getting dressed at times. He was under the care of a physician. I guess they don’t usually do an autopsy in his type of situation, not unless there’s a reason. Then all of a sudden, one day he doesn’t wake up, he goes into a coma. The doctor’s can’t figure out why, there’s no indications of a heart attack or a stroke, and within a matter of hours he’s dead.”

“Sounds like good reason for an autopsy.”

“That’s what I thought,” says Pack. “I was busy talking to the authorities insisting that they do one. Before I knew it, the body was released to a funeral home. Within an hour my dad was cremated. There was nothing I could do about it. Whatever evidence existed went up in smoke with him.”

“Maybe they just screwed up, released the body prematurely. It happens,” I tell him.

“Except for one thing: my dad was Roman Catholic. He would never have authorized cremation. I know that. I examined the signature on the form. It wasn’t his.”

“Did you tell the police?”

“Oh, yeah. They said people’s handwriting often changes when they get older, especially if they’re sick. According to them, it has to do with loss of coordination, microvascular problems in the brain. They had a dozen explanations. The fact is, they didn’t want to be bothered. Someone killed him and they burned the body to destroy the evidence,” he says. “And that’s not all. I know there was something wrong because at the end he was very frightened. In the last month before he died he was scared. And that wasn’t like my dad.”

“Scared by what?”

“I’m not entirely sure. But it had to do with his time in the army. I know that.”

“What did your father do in the army?”

“He was a medic. When he came out of the military he finished college and went to medical school on the GI Bill. He became a doctor, general practitioner, internal medicine. People here loved him. He’d been in practice almost forty years. How much do you know about what’s going on here?” he asks.

“Not much,” I say.

“Has Mr. Brauer’s daughter been able to tell you anything?”

“No, only that her father was also scared, quite afraid, before he died. And like your dad, it wasn’t in his nature. Whatever it is, it seems to be contagious,” I tell him.

“And terminal,” he says. “In case you’re wondering, they weren’t alone. From what I understand, and I don’t know all the details, there were seven men in the platoon originally. At least that’s what my dad told me. He used to talk when I was a kid about his experiences in the war. If I remember right, two of the men died in combat. I don’t have their names, but I may be able to find them. Two others died in a traffic accident in Munich where they were stationed after the war waiting to come home. It sounds like all of them may be dead by now.”

I suspect that Pack is correct. Fish let slip during our telephone conversation that Brauer was the last survivor.

“Do you know,” he asks, “if there was anything that happened that caused Mr. Brauer to be frightened?”

“I’m not sure. I’d have to talk to his daughter.” Until I know more, I want to be careful how much information I share.

“By any chance did he receive a small package?” asks Pack.

“What kind of a package?”

“A small cardboard box. The kind you might get if you bought a small bracelet.”

“He may have,” I tell him. “Why do you ask?”

“Because my father got one.”

“When?” I ask.

“About a month before he died. And it scared the hell out of him.”

“I see. Do you mind telling me what was in it?”

“A key and something else, a piece of paper. I’m not sure exactly what it was. Whatever it was, my father destroyed the paper. He burned it in the trash can in his office. I watched him do it.”

“What happened to the key?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I never saw it again.”

“Do you know where the package came from?”

“Yes. I picked it up at the post office box the day it arrived. It came from a lawyer here in Oklahoma City.”

“Elliott Fish?”

“How did you know?” he says.

“I talked to him on the phone yesterday afternoon. That’s how I got your name.”

“I hope he’s been more helpful with you than he’s been with me,” he says. “I’ve talked to him several times, asked him for information, and have gotten nowhere. He says his lips are sealed. Lawyer confidentiality.”

“He told me the same thing. I got your name only because you weren’t a client.”

Pack has already answered one question, how the lawyer came to find out about his father’s death, that and the fact that the son was pounding on the police for answers.

“I’m not sure it’s wise to discuss details over the phone,” I tell him.

“I agree,” he says. “I think it might be better if we got together and compared notes.”

“When and where?” I ask.

“Where are you located?”

I tell him, give him my address and phone number.

“What’s your schedule look like?” he asks.

“Right now I’m up to my teeth,” I tell him. “I could come out there, but I’m not sure when. I could send an investigator if that would work.”

“No. If we’re going to do this, we need to do it one-on-one,” he says. “In fact, I’d like to meet your client, Ms. Brauer. She may be the one I need to talk to.”

“That depends on her schedule,” I say. I don’t want to tell him that unless we hurry up, any meeting with Emma may be behind bars. I don’t want to scare him off.

“Tell you what, how about if I come to you?” he says. “At the moment it sounds like you’re busier than I am. Then, if we need to meet a second time, the travel will be on you. How’s that?”

“Fair enough,” I tell him.

“Now to the calendar,” he says. “Let me see. This is Wednesday. What does your schedule look like?”

I take a look in the computer. “I’m in court Thursday. Friday I’m tied up all morning, a matter that may go into the afternoon.”

“What’s your weekend look like? I assume lawyers don’t like to work on the weekend. But how about Saturday?” he says.

“No, I’m sorry. That won’t work. I already have a commitment.” My calendar is blocked out—“Sofia’s memorial service.”

“Then it looks like Monday,” he says. “Do you want to pick the time?”

“When would you be coming in?”

“Figure late Sunday. I’ll have to check the airline schedules. If I have trouble booking a flight, I’ll call you back. Give me your number,” he says.

I give him the office number and my cell so if he has to, he can catch me on the fly.

“Let’s do it Monday morning,” I tell him. “Say ten o’clock, here at our office. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good. No,” he says. “Actually that sounds great. I’m relieved.”

“How’s that?”

“For more than a year I’ve been fighting this thing all alone,” he says. “I feel like a hermit wandering in the desert. The police won’t help. They think I’m crazy. I’ve been searching for answers and getting nowhere. At least now maybe I have someone else I can share it with. Someone else who’s crazy.”

“Thanks,” I tell him.

“Listen, I don’t want to scare you away. You’re the first glimmer of hope I’ve had. I look forward to seeing you on Monday.”

“See you then.” And we hang up.

TWENTY-ONE

T
he old 1970 Chevelle SS 454 looked a wreck. Its rusted-out body and torn upholstery were well past their prime. The car had seen better days. The overhead cloth liner on the inside of the roof was long gone, showing bare metal with sharp edges on the ceiling. The backseat had disappeared, leaving an opening that a man could crawl through into the trunk.

Still, looks could be deceiving. Under the hood the old LS6 had a rebuilt Holley four-barrel carburetor and a modified 454-cubic-inch V8 engine. It allowed the beast to put out 450 horsepower on the open highway. That and a set of street-legal high-performance racing tires made the old Chevelle more than a match for any local cop cars or highway patrol pace vehicles on the road. The vintage muscle car was immune from the pit maneuver, since few cars could ever catch her and the ones that could would be too light to flip the heavy beast around if they ever nosed into her.

If anybody wanted to shoot it out, the trunk held an arsenal of weapons, including a Remington pump twelve-gauge, an assortment of 9 mm and .45-caliber semiauto handguns, and two M16A1 carbines offering triple-shot full-auto fire, borrowed from a National Guard armory in Fresno. The car and the two men in it would be one badass experience for anybody stupid or unlucky enough to tangle with them. And they looked every inch the part.

Zach, behind the wheel, was thirty-two. At six one, 220 pounds, he was a bundle of white fury, a bristling package of bigotry hardened by a prison record showing years of gang play in institutions across the Southwest. His face, neck, and upper body bore the tribal markings of the Aryan Nation. The flesh on his body, face, ears, tongue, and nether parts had more puncture wounds and piercings than the average target on a pistol range.

Jess, the animal sitting next to him, was older. He had long, stringy gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. The deep-set slit of his eyes, the lean angular shape of his face, and the squared-off jawbone under his ears gave him the appearance of a pit viper. The look earned him his nickname, “the Snake.”

The two of them sat in the car, the engine rumbling on idle in the parking lot outside the Robber’s Roost, a bar in the desert not far from Murrieta, off Highway 215.

A few minutes later two bikers rolled in on choppers. They pulled up in front of the building. One of them goosed his engine as they shut down the bikes and leaned them over onto their kickstands. They studied the car for a second and then took off their helmets, stingy domes just big enough to meet the requirement of the state’s vehicle code. One of them, the fat one, had his road name emblazoned on the back of his denim jacket: “Ditch Shit.”