Broken (6 page)

“All
right,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

I left
the building behind and went back to my car. This wasn’t at all how I’d
expected this visit to go. I’d gone in thinking I might find some clues as to
where Heather Davies had taken off to. A copy of a hotel reservation printout.
A Lonely Planet guide to somewhere warm and sunny. Instead I was nearly certain
that Heather Davies and her daughter had been violently abducted from their
condo. Those crates for the “furniture delivery” had been empty when they’d
arrived at the building, and full when they’d left. I had no idea whether the
women were dead or alive when they’d left the building. There was no blood
visible in the condo, but blood could be cleaned, and any smell left lingering
from the chemicals the kidnappers might have used would have long since
dissipated by now.

I sat in
my car and thought about it. Did Alan Davies know about the abduction? Was that
why he was paying me such an absurd amount of money to find his family? Or had
he been honest with me when I’d been at his estate? I didn’t have enough
evidence to go either way yet, and I hadn’t brought the card with his phone
number on it along with me. I couldn’t have called him, anyway. I had no idea
what I’d done with my cell phone; I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d
seen it.

It could
wait. I’d be in touch with Davies soon, and if I found out he’d lied to
me…well, I wasn’t the type to pout and stomp my feet.

Chapter 7

I drove
home, enjoying the warm feeling Heather’s tequila had left in my stomach. It
occurred to me that I’d be able to afford good liquor once I’d finished this
job. I’d been drinking store-brand rotgut for so long I’d forgotten what the
good stuff tasted like. It didn’t matter much in the end. Alcohol had the same
effect whether you were paying four dollars per bottle or four hundred, but if
you were going to kill yourself drinking, you might as well do it with some
style.

Once I
was back home I decided I didn’t feel like navigating the Mustang into my
cluttered garage, so I parked at the curb instead. I’d need the car in the
morning, anyway. Or in the afternoon. Whenever I woke up.

Maybe
I’d drive up to Solana Beach and confront Davies with what I’d found. It was
hard to read people on the phone, but if he were lying to me in person, I was
pretty sure I’d be able to tell. In the old days I’d been a walking lie
detector. I knew my senses were nowhere near as finely tuned as they’d been
when I was on the police force, but I was willing to bet they’d still be good
for something.

As I was
heading up the path toward my front door I noticed a black Lincoln pulling in
to park behind my car. One of Davies’s people? Had Emerson come to get an
update? The  timing was uncanny, unless he had been waiting here for me. But in
that case, why hadn’t he been parked in front of the house when I’d arrived?

I
started to unlock my front door, but fumbled with the keys and dropped them. As
I knelt down I saw Todd getting out of the driver’s side of the car. He was out
of his chauffeur’s uniform, having changed into jeans and a black leather
jacket. Had he come to take me up to see Davies? There was no way in hell I was
doing that tonight. The only thing I was interested in right now was sleep.

Todd had
a determined look on his face as he started up the path toward me, his hands
tucked in his pockets. What was that about?

I turned
the key in the door’s lock and pushed the door open half an inch. Then I looked
back at my visitor. “Todd, I really don’t have time for…”

Todd
took his hands out of his pockets. In his right hand he held a small automatic
pistol. He raised it toward me and pulled the trigger, putting a bullet into
the door just behind my head.

The
noise from the shot cut off all the sound around me and left a ringing in my
ears. Startled, I turned and looked at the hole Todd had just put in my door. A
tiny curl of smoke rose from the wood where the bullet had gone in. What the
hell was Todd thinking about? Was he actually trying to
kill
me?

Seriously?

I looked
back at Todd. His eyes were wide with fear, but I could see his finger tightening
on the trigger again. His second shot went wide, farther off target than the
first.

And then
the adrenaline hit me like a bolt of lightning. I turned and kicked my door
open the rest of the way, then dove inside the house as Todd’s third shot went
over my head, close enough that I could hear the little
pop
as it passed
by my ear. I landed hard on the carpet and spun around to kick the door shut.
That would buy me about two seconds, if I was lucky. I scrambled to my feet and
ran for the kitchen. I had knives in the kitchen. Knives would be good right
now.

The door
burst open behind me and Todd fired twice more, neither shot coming close to
me. I was willing to bet this was the first time he had tried to kill someone.
If he’d had even a little more experience, or been a little more sure of
himself, he could have made easy work of me outside. If he’d taken three steps
closer before drawing his gun it would have been over before I’d have had time
to react. But now Todd’s own adrenaline surge was making his hands shake,
sending his shots in every direction but their intended target.

He fired
again and a bullet whizzed past, tearing a hole in the arm of my jacket but not
piercing my skin. At least, I didn’t think it had. As pumped up as I was, I
doubted I’d be able to feel pain. But Todd’s aim was getting better. I was
never going to make it to the kitchen before he hit me.

I turned
in mid-stride and tried to put the couch between me and Todd, thinking I might
be able to make it into my bedroom and lock the door. That wouldn’t hold him
for long, but my bedroom had a large window. If I broke it open I could
probably be through it and halfway down the block before he got to me.

It might
have worked, but my foot slipped on a hamburger wrapper I’d somehow missed on
my cleaning jag earlier and I fell to the ground. Todd fired two more shots,
then his gun clicked on empty.

I got to
my feet. Todd was staring at his gun in surprise, as if he couldn’t believe he
had run out of bullets. Did he think this was a videogame? “Dumbass,” I said.
My ears were still ringing but I could hear my own voice clearly enough, along
with Todd’s panting.

Todd
looked up and then he actually threw the gun at me. I dodged it easily. “You
suck at this,” I sneered at him. Adrenaline and booze were doing a number on my
emotions. I was enjoying this now. Death, my old friend, had taken another run
at me. Death had missed.

Fighting
Todd was pretty far down on the list of things I wanted to be doing right now,
but he put his fists up and took a step toward me. He had a boxer’s stance but
looked untrained, as if he was trying to mimic something he had seen on
television and not learned in a gym. He’d probably relied on his size to save
him in fights before. He’d be used to intimidating people, and ending things
with one good punch if a confrontation ever went that far. But the only chance
he’d have ever had against me would have been to grapple. He could have wrapped
me up and choked me out in a matter of seconds, if he’d had any idea how to
actually use that size advantage of his. But the fool wanted to punch. Big
mistake.

I put my
left foot forward and set myself in a middle-height stance, weight on my back
foot. If he wanted to fight I’d show him what Shotokan karate was about. But I
wasn’t going to make the first move. He would have to come at me and show me
what he had.

Todd
launched a slow but powerful punch at my head. It might have killed me if it
had connected, but dodging it was child’s play. He tried again but I danced out
of the way. I could hear a police siren in the distance now. For the first time
in my life I was glad that I had neighbors nearby. I’d never complain about
their loud music again.

“You’re
out of time, big boy,” I said. “Give it up.”

Todd’s
attention wandered and I could have ended it right there by taking out one of
his knees, but I wanted him talking, not screaming. I had questions for him,
and once the police dragged him away I’d never have the chance to ask them.

“Is this
because of the affair?” I asked. “Were you afraid I’d tell Davies about it?”

Todd
glared at me, trying to look fierce, but I saw the desperation he was trying to
hide and nearly felt sorry for him. Nearly. “Not you,” he said. “I’m sorry.
He
said I have to kill you, or
he’ll
tell.” Todd still hadn’t put his hands
down. How did he think this was going to end?

“Who is
going to tell?” I asked. “Tell me who sent you and this is over. Things are
going to look a lot better for you if you surrender.”

“I
can’t…”

“Nobody
is hurt yet, Todd. You shot a gun off a couple times. That’s all. If we work
this right maybe you won’t even get attempted murder for it.”

Todd hesitated
for just a moment, then he lunged at me. I sidestepped and drove the forward
edge of my hand into his throat, intending to end the fight in one shot. It was
hard to punch someone when you couldn’t breathe. But I heard Todd’s windpipe
crunch as I connected with his neck. He clutched at his throat with both hands
and dropped to his knees with a thud.

“Shit,”
I said. I’d gone too far. Todd stared up at me, terror in his eyes. His fingers
clawed at his throat as if he were trying to put the broken pieces in there
back together. That was never going to happen. If he was lucky he had about a
minute before he suffocated.

The
police were getting closer, and an ambulance wouldn’t be far behind them, but
they would be far too late to help Todd.

I needed
to think fast. What about a tracheotomy? I’d never been trained to do one, but
I’d seen it on television and it looked like something I could manage. Or was
that just the tequila talking? Probably, but what did I have to lose? What did
I need? A knife? I ran into the kitchen to look for one, settling on a paring
knife with a sharp point and thin blade. That would work. But he’d need
something to breathe through once I’d made the hole in his throat. Some kind of
tube. What about a straw? I had plenty of fast food crap lying around the
house. A person could breathe through a straw if they tried, right? At least
for a little while?

Todd was
lying face-down on the floor when I went back into the living room with my
knife and straw. I took a good look at him, but it was over. Todd didn’t need
me to play amateur surgeon anymore. He was dead.

I went
over to his body and looked down at him, still holding my makeshift tools.
Poor, stupid man. It would have been so simple to kill me.

I nudged
his body with my foot. “How did you fuck that up?” I asked him quietly.

Todd was
long past answering. Obviously the poor man hadn’t been a killer. But I was.
Todd was only my latest victim.

I went
back into the kitchen and returned the knife to its drawer. Then I cracked open
a new bottle of vodka. I took it into the living room and sat down on my couch,
waiting for the police to come.

Chapter 8

Half an
hour later a crime scene photographer was taking photos of Todd’s corpse where
he had fallen on my living room floor. Another investigator was prying a bullet
out of my wall. Two homicide detectives I didn’t know were standing in the
corner, talking quietly between themselves. Earlier one of them had asked me if
I minded if they made a pot of coffee. I told them I didn’t have any coffee.
One of the uniforms brought them some in paper cups from the 7-11 down the
street.

The boys in blue had stormed my front door a few minutes
after Todd’s death. I’d been in the middle of a long drink from my bottle and
held up a finger for them to wait. The uniforms recognized me instantly, of
course. They’d locked the house down and, after making sure I didn’t need
medical attention, gone outside to wait for the detectives.

Sarah Winters had arrived a few minutes later. She’d
brought along a blanket the EMTs outside had given her and had been trying to
keep it draped over my shoulders. I shrugged it off every few minutes. I wasn’t
cold. I was numb. They didn’t make a blanket for that.

I’d told Sarah most of the story, starting from when I’d
first seen Todd outside my house. At first she’d taken notes down on a little
pad, but after a few minutes she put the pad down on the table and just
listened to me.

“That was lucky,” she said, when I told her how I’d
dropped Todd.

“No,” I said. “It was an error in judgment. I didn’t
want to kill him.”

“He’d have killed you.”

I scoffed. “He’d have been doing me a fucking favor.”

There was an engine noise from outside like someone had
mistaken my street for a NASCAR track, and then I heard car tires screeching to
a stop. It was followed by a ruckus at the door as a familiar voice shouted at
the uniforms standing watch outside to get the hell out of his way. I sighed.
This had been inevitable.

Dan Evans barreled into my house like a wrecking ball,
his eyes wild. Sarah stood up to greet him. “Captain, I was…” she began.

“What in the
holy flying fuck
?” Dan interrupted.

“Captain…” Sarah tried again.

“No!” he snapped, stabbing a finger at her. He came over
to where I was sitting and looked down at me. “Get up!”

I stood, not really wanting to make eye contact with him.
“Hi, boss.” I’d been trying to sound cheerful to lighten the mood a bit, but it
ended up sounding kind of pathetic.

Dan put his hands on my shoulders and began patting me
down. At first I thought he was checking me for weapons, but I quickly realized
he was trying to see if I was hiding an injury. It was the kind of thing he’d
expect from me. “I’m not hurt,” I said gently.

“Shut up,” he said. He knelt down on the carpet and ran
his hands down each of my legs.

“He never hit me,” I said. “Ruined a jacket, though.”
Todd’s closest shot had punched a nice in-and-out hole in the arm of my jacket,
but the bullet hadn’t even grazed my skin. I wasn’t sure where it had wound up.
The CSI guys would find it eventually.

Dan stood up again. He glared at me for a moment, then I
saw his face crack. He put his arms around me and hugged me tight.

I had been expecting him to chew me out. This was…not
that. I put one arm around him and patted him gently on the back. “It’s okay,”
I said. “I’m okay.”

He pulled back. “This is really fucking far from okay,”
he said. He took a deep breath, then went over to look at Todd’s body. One of
the Medical Examiner’s guys was bringing in a gurney. In a minute they’d hoist
Todd onto it and take him away.

Dan put his hands on his hips. “Who the fuck is this
guy?” he asked.

Sarah started to talk but Dan waved her off. “From her,”
he said, pointing at me.

“One of Davies’s drivers,” I told him.

Dan grunted and knelt down to get a better look at the
body. “Name.”

“Todd something.” Dan gave me a dark look. “I don’t know
his last name!” I protested.

Dan took a moment to examine Todd’s body, then he stood
up. “Why did he come after you?”

The best lies are mostly made up of the truth. You just
change some of the details. “He had an affair with Heather Davies,” I said. “I
caught him on it this morning when he was driving me around. I think he was
afraid I’d rat him out to his boss, so he came over to make sure I couldn’t.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“He told me he was afraid Davies would kill him if he
ever found out, when I talked to him before. I told him I’d keep the affair
quiet, but I guess he didn’t think he could take the chance.”

Dan grunted and looked around the house, then motioned
Sarah and the two other homicide detectives into a corner. I took a seat on the
couch and watched as Sarah took the lead and described the progress of the
attempted hit to the others. The bullet hole in the door. The others in the
walls, which had been marked with tape by the CSI team. The confrontation
behind the couch. She even pantomimed my striking Todd in the throat, actually
coming close to the way I’d done it, although Sarah had no martial arts
training and her “karate chop” looked comical to my eye.

She had all of it right, except I hadn’t told her that
Todd had been acting on someone else’s orders. Or that I was sure Heather
Davies and her daughter had been abducted from their condo. That would have
been the smart thing to do, of course. But if I did, Dan would throw me over
his shoulder and carry me straight to a safe house, and the SDPD would take
over my case.

My
case?
I was a little surprised at
myself. I hadn’t thought of myself as having a case in a long time, but here I
was getting territorial over it. Old habits.

I
watched as two men heaved Todd’s body onto the gurney and then rolled him out
of my house. I had an almost overwhelming need to apologize to him, or to
someone, but I held it in. I could not let the people in this house see me
being weak.

My
bottle sat on the table in front of me. I didn’t touch it, as much as I wanted
to. I wouldn’t drink in front of Dan and Sarah. There would be time for that
later.

Dan
still had his hands on his hips, but he seemed satisfied by Sarah’s explanation
of events. The two nameless homicide detectives left the house and he and Sarah
came back to where I was sitting on the couch. “CSI is going to finish up and then
they’ll get out of your hair,” Dan said. “I get what happened here but they
still have to do their jobs. I can’t tell them to fuck off because you used to
work for me.”

“It’s
not a problem,” I said.

“Are you
sure that’s all it was with him? He was afraid you’d talk about the affair?”

“I can’t
think of anything else,” I lied.

Dan sat
down on the couch next to me. “All right.”

“All
right,” I said.

“You
need anything else?” Dan asked Sarah.

“No. I’m
done for now. I’ll need to follow up later, but we can do that at the station.”

Dan
nodded. “Step outside and wait for me. I have some other questions for you.”

Sarah
put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. I managed not to shake her off. She
gave me a sympathetic smile and left the house.

Dan
sighed deeply and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. “Well, this
is a complete goatfuck.”

I
shrugged. “Seen worse,” I said quietly.

Dan gave
me a meaningful look. I knew where this was going and decided to try to head it
off. “I’m fine, boss. It’s not the first guy I’ve killed.”

“I know
that.”

“It’s
not the second guy, either. Or the third.”

“I
know.”

“The
Union-Tribune
was making noise about it even before…” I didn’t want to say the name tonight. “Before
my last case. Said the police department had hired their own executioner.”

“That
was bullshit.”

“I don’t
know if it was.”

“I do. I
sent you after some really bad guys, and they didn’t always come in easy. Your
shoots were all clean. If any of them hadn’t been I’d have brought you up on
charges. You know that’s true.”

I smiled
weakly at him. Honest Dan. He really would have, too.

“I’m not
sure what you want me to say right now,” I told him.

“I want
you to tell me how you’re doing.”

I eyed
the vodka again, but didn’t reach for it. “I hate this,” I said quietly. “I
hate that there was a dead guy on my floor just now and I’m the one that put
him there. Okay? I fucking hate it.”

“Okay.”

“But I’m
all right. You don’t need to worry about me. I’m all right.”

He
glanced at the vodka. “You really call this all right, Nevada?”

“We’re
not getting into that tonight.”

He
sighed. “Fine. Not tonight. You’ve been through enough.”

I
reached out and patted his arm. It was as close to hugging him as I’d let
myself get. “You didn’t need to come,” I said. “Sarah was doing fine.”

“I
didn’t come to check on Sarah,” he said.

“I
know.”

“Besides,”
he said. “It’s not just me.
Everyone
came.”

I
frowned. “What do you mean, ‘everyone came?’”

“Go look
out the door.”

I stood
up, reaching instinctively for my vodka to take it along, but let my hand fall
back empty. Not yet. I walked over to my open front door and looked outside. I
had expected a few squad cars to be there, and possibly the ambulance that had
come earlier if they’d stuck around. But instead the street was full of SDPD
cruisers, all with their lights flashing. They stretched all the way down the
block in each direction, lining both sides of the street. There had to be fifty
cops outside. Maybe more.

I took a
few steps outside and looked up and down the street, trying to get a count of
the cars. “What the hell?” I asked.

“Someone
tried to kill a cop,” Dan said from behind me. “This is what happens.”

I
glanced back at him. “I’m not a cop anymore.”

He stepped
forward and looked into my eyes. “You will always be a cop, Nevada.”

Turning
around, I saw that everyone was staring at me now. Nobody spoke. The silence
was almost unbelievably awkward. Were they expecting me to make a speech? Wave?
Dance a jig?

“What
was that you asked me earlier at HQ?” Dan asked. “Wasn’t it whether I thought
there was anyone in that building who wanted to help you?”

“I think
it was something like that,” I said softly.

Dan
sighed. “You’re a fucking idiot, Nevada.”

“I
know,” I admitted.

“What do
you think about the Davies case?” he asked, just a little too suddenly.

Bad
transition
, I thought. He wasn’t sure whether to believe me about Todd and
wanted to see if I’d slip up now that I was off my guard. Not likely. “I think
it’s a domestic problem,” I said. “I’ll track Heather down and make sure she
and the kid are all right. Shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”

“All
right,” Dan said. I wasn’t sure if he believed me, but I hadn’t really given
him a reason not to. And if I was acting off, I was more than a little drunk
right now.

“All
right,” I repeated. It seemed like we said that a lot, even though things were
never really all right.

“I’m
going to stick a couple uniforms on your house tonight,” he told me.

“You
don’t need to…” I began, but then I caught myself. It would make him feel
better, and he might get suspicious if I refused too strongly. “Just for
tonight, okay? I don’t think Todd has anyone coming to avenge him.”

“Just
tonight,” he nodded. “And tomorrow I want you to come in and talk to someone
about what happened here.”

“Sarah
will call me when she needs to follow up. I’ll go in and talk to her then.”

“Not
about the…not about the investigation. I want you to sit with a department
psychologist.”

“Oh, for
god’s sake,” I said. “I told you I’m fine.”

“You
spent six months in the psych ward,” he said. “And some of that time was in a
padded room. So I want you to talk to someone.”

I
sighed. Arguing with him now was going to get me nowhere. “I have a therapist.”

“You
seen her recently?”

“No.”

“So go
see her.”

“Fine.”

“Promise
me.”

“Fuck
off,” I said. “You already had a promise today.”

He
looked at me sternly. “Tell me you’ll go see her.”

“Fine.”

“Say the
whole sentence.”

“I’ll go
see my therapist,” I said.

“Okay.”

I looked
back at the street. “Can you get this riff-raff out of here?” I asked, waving
at the assembled police cars. “My neighbors are going to be pissed.”

“Your
neighbors have the pleasure of living in the safest neighborhood in San Diego
tonight,” he said. “They should be happy.”

“That
will last about ten minutes,” I said, “and then they’ll start bitching about
the parking.”

“We’ll
be out of your hair soon.”

“Okay.
And, Dan?”

“Yeah?”
he asked.

I looked
at my feet. “Thanks for coming.”

His brow
wrinkled. “Did you really think I wouldn’t?”

“No.”

“People
care about you, Nevada. As much as you’ve tried to shut yourself off from the
rest of the world, we’re still here.”

“I
know.”

“Do
you?” he asked, searching my face. “Do you know that?”

I looked
away. “I’ll show the CSI guys out when they’re done. Then I’m going to bed.”

He
sighed. “Good night, Nevada.”

“Good
night.” I left him on the doorstep and went back inside where CSI was finishing
up. They had taped an outline of Todd’s body onto the carpet where he had
fallen. I didn’t want to look at it.