Eyes Wide Open (21 page)

Chapter Fifty-Five

T
hat morning I drove Gabby to the market to pick up a few groceries. She had asked me to dinner again that night and was making a Greek stew called
stifado
.

As we left, I noticed a white police car stationed along the tracks down from their apartment. I thanked Sherwood silently and felt better about leaving Charlie in the house alone.

While Gabby shopped, I got a cup of coffee and followed her around with the cart while she went to the meat department and bought inexpensive cuts on sale, and then went through produce, checking the onions for ripeness and examining the peppers for color and price.

I wanted to be alone with her, and after we went through checkout, with a small tussle over allowing me to pay, we rolled the cart over to the coffee bar and I bought a latte for her.

“Thank you for the coffee, Jay,” she said, “and for the groceries. This is a real treat for me.” She sipped her frothy latte with a smile. She wore a red knit shirt over a skirt, her blond hair in a ponytail. “Usually we bring our own cups here because they charge us fifty cents less.”

“I'm sorry for the way you have to live, Gabby . . .”

“This is our fate to bear, Jay, not yours. We are who we are. The way your brother is. You're nice, but there's nothing you can do.”

I shifted my stool around and looked at her. “I need you to help me, Gabby. I need you to tell Charlie to unlock the past. I need you to help me help you both.”

She smiled at me, a little fatalistically. “After Evan there is no life for us.”

“I know, but if someone conspired to kill your son, Gabby, wouldn't you want to know? Wouldn't you want that person brought to justice? Especially if it put the two of you in danger?”

“Danger?
I've thought about that.” Gabby put down her cup. “Believe me, I have nothing but hate in my heart for that person if it is the case. But maybe the feeling I have most is, in the end, what does it matter? My son is dead, Jay, and if in some way Charlie was involved, with things from his past . . .” She looked at me. “I don't want to lose my son and lose my husband too. That is the true danger. Can you understand that? I've never seen him quite like this, Jay. He's losing his mind.”

“Gabby, whatever's in his past is no longer buried. It's
here.
It's taken Evan, and it will take him too if you don't help me. Get him to talk about his time on the ranch.
Please
. I need him to tell me what he did there. I already have some idea . . .”

She nodded, a little tentatively. Then she pushed a hair in place on top of her head and finished her coffee with a smile. “I will do my best, Jay. For you. Now, come on, we have to go to the bakery. Do you like sourdough bread?”

She waved good-bye to her friend behind the counter, and I wheeled the grocery cart outside through the sliding doors.

I had parked the Lincoln in an open area around the side. All the spaces around us had filled in. I got to the car and popped the trunk. Gabby went to load up the bags.

“Let me help you . . . ,” I said, reaching for two of the heavier ones.

“No.” She laughed, her eyes blue and light. “I am old, but I am able to do this, Jay.”

“Okay, okay . . .” I hoisted a bulky bag containing milk and juice cartons into the trunk and went around and opened the driver's-side door. I smelled the acrid scent of oil coming from somewhere. I looked but didn't see anything. “I'll take back the cart.”

I wheeled it toward the lineup of carts in the front, and a pretty Latino woman happily took it from me.

Heading back, I watched Gabby close up the trunk. Though she was probably sixty, she still looked trim and attractive. Her smile, however brief, always lit her face, and I thought to myself that this was a woman who would have really enjoyed her life if things had been different. I felt sorry for the look of anguish that had replaced her quick smile, and all the pain. She had tried hard to be a good mother to Evan, whatever the outcome. How loyal she had been to Charlie all these years.

She caught sight of me staring at her and briefly smiled.

The same moment I realized something was horribly wrong.

Walking toward her, I caught that smell again, and my gaze fixed on a slick black river of flame traveling toward us on the pavement, one car away.

No . . .

I ran to try to put it out, but it sped quickly under the blue Ford truck parked in the space adjacent to us, a dangerous stream of fire picking up speed.

That's when I realized that the smell under my car wasn't engine oil at all, but
gasoline
!

My eyes were now drawn to the widening black circle pooled underneath the Lincoln.

No!

I stopped, knowing I was too late, and turned back to my Lincoln in panic.

“Gabby, no . . . !”

She had climbed back in the car and shut the door. Still a picture of that same happy smile glancing my way.

My own gaze unraveling into horror.

I ran toward her, shouting out her name, a passerby turning, just as the stream of flame met the pool of gasoline underneath my car—suddenly engulfing it in a bright whoosh of scalding yellow heat.

“Gabby!”

I stared, helpless, as a burst of heat shot at me as if the car was an enormous gas grill overloaded with propane. Scalded, I turned away for a second, blinded. When I looked back Gabby had her arm covering her face, a twisted expression of horror on it, frantically tugging at the door, the vehicle erupting around her in flames.

“Gabby!”

I darted over, ripping off my jacket as I went for the already scalding door handle, swatting the flames away from my face.

All around me, people screamed.

The door was jammed. Gabby's mask of helplessness and fear inside whipped the quickening drumbeat of my own exploding heart.

“I'll get you out!” I screamed, tugging with my jacket over the fiery handle.

Goddamnit, open, please!

I pulled and pulled, but I couldn't get my fingers around the handle. Smoke began to rise, starting to fill up the inside of the car. Gabby's fear intensified and I realized that at any moment the whole thing might explode.

I flung down my jacket and squeezed, and finally the door mercifully released. I threw it open, grabbing on to Gabby's arm, ripped her out of the seat, as onlookers rushed from the market, pointing and screaming all around.

I picked her up in my arms and carried her over my shoulder, twenty feet away, just as I heard this chilling, enveloping whoosh from behind me and my rented Lincoln erupted into an orange ball of flames.

“Jay! Jay!
” Gabby was screaming.

Then it blew.

The blast knocked me down, and we hit the pavement, hurled up against another parked car. Gabby clung to me, shaking, coughing smoke out of her lungs, unable to look back, guttural sobs coming out of her, from both relief and fear.

“Oh, Jay, oh, Jay, oh, Jay . . .”

I turned around. My car was engulfed in smoke and flame. A stomach-turning, fuel-like stench was all around. Shocked shoppers ran out of the stores, eyes stretched wide.

“It's okay, Gabby, it's okay.” I stroked her, my own heart slamming against the walls of my chest, as I squeezed her close. “
It's okay . . .”

But no matter how many times I said it, I looked back at the smoking carcass of my car and knew it wasn't okay.

The truth came over me. As inescapable as the wall of flames I now watched in disbelief.

This was my car.

I was supposed to be inside.
If I hadn't wheeled the cart back . . .

The blazing fireball, a bonfire of burning oil and smoke, melting metal and leather
 
. . .

It was meant for me.

Chapter Fifty-Six

T
he police arrived. Two black and white sheriff's cars and a white county vehicle, lights and sirens blaring. They pushed back the surging crowd, some of whom had helped us.

“I'm a doctor,” I said. “I'm okay.”

A minute later the EMTs came.

No matter how I stared at the melted, smoking chassis, I still couldn't believe what had taken place.

I was okay. Just some slight burns on my fingers and a scrape on my arm from the tumble. Gabby had some first-degree burns on her face and legs. But she was completely in shock.

I muttered to one of the EMTs that I was a doctor.

They took her off to the ER in Arroyo Grande. I declined any treatment and stayed, taking the police officers through what had happened. I traced the black river of smoking fuel from beneath my own vehicle to a Dumpster around the back of the market where the fire, and whoever had set it, had originated.

Two local detectives came on the scene and took my story. The lead one was a young Latino with a shaved head. He asked if I knew anyone who might want to hurt me.

I didn't even know where to begin.

I told him I had to speak with Sherwood.

“Detective Sherwood's with the coroner's office in San Luis Obispo,” the detective replied. “We're here to help you. This isn't his terrain.”

“Find Detective Sherwood,” I said, not backing down.

It took a few minutes to locate him.

“I just heard what happened,” he said when I finally got him on the phone. “Are you all right?”

“I know what it's all about,” I said, my blood racing, ignoring his concern.

He didn't answer. Maybe he thought I was raving. Or a little wacky, from the shock.

“Sherwood, I know what my brother did back then. Why they want to hurt him. You can meet me at Charlie's later. I'll get him to talk.” I exhaled a breath, grateful Gabby and I were both alive. “We're going to bust this wide open now, Sherwood.”

Chapter Fifty-Seven

I
called Kathy on the way to check out Gabby at the hospital.

I knew she would freak out over what had happened. I'd been keeping so much hidden from her: the phone warning I had received before. My visit with Russell Houvnanian.

I started by saying it was all just some random accident. My car blew up, some kind of crazy oil leak. That Gabby that been in the car, but we were all right. Just a little shaken.

That was all I could say.

“Oh, my God, Jay!
” Her first reaction was one of shock, horror. She'd clearly figured out it was bigger than what I'd made it sound. “How did it happen? I'm just so glad you're alive!”

I felt like I was cheating on her, concealing the truth.

I didn't know if she even believed me, but it didn't matter. I just needed to hear her voice. “I'm okay,” I told her over and over. “I promise. I am.”

But something must have made her think I wasn't being entirely truthful. Maybe my shakiness.

“You say Gabby was in the car?” she asked after a protracted pause.

“She's going to be okay too. Look, everything's finally all out in the open now anyway. I'll be back soon.”

“What's in the open, Jay?” Worry turned to frustration. “This wasn't an accident, was it?”

I didn't answer.

“Jay, I don't even know if I know you anymore. What happened out there? What have you been keeping from me?”

“I'll tell you soon, Kathy. I promise. I know I've been acting crazy to you.” I didn't know how to explain it now. I felt like a fool hanging up.

I felt a lot of things slipping away right then and didn't do much to stop it. One of them was Kathy's trust.

O
ne of the sheriff's cars drove me to the hospital. Inside the ER, Gabby was behind a partition receiving oxygen.

I introduced myself to the attending physician, a red-haired guy named Paulson, and he briefed me on how she was. Smoke inhalation. First-degree burns along her arms and neck. Lucky it was nothing more. Shock.

Charlie was already there. He was basically sobbing, resting his head on the gurney.

I said, “They're going to keep her overnight, just to be sure.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “They've given her something for the shock.”

He nodded, wiping his tears on the sheet. Pretty much all I saw was the back of his long gray hair.

I leaned down and brushed my hand against Gabby's cheek. “How're you doing?”

She blinked at me, her eyes a little glazed. “I was really scared, Jay. Really scared. I said my prayers. I thought this was it.”

“You ought to sleep,” I told her. “They're going to admit you and get you in a room, just for observation.”

“Thank you, Jay.” She reached out and took hold of my hand. Her dull eyes brightened. “Thank you for saving my life.”

I winked, smiling at her. “
No problema, señora.
”

Gabby smiled back, but weakly. She petted her husband's head. “Charlie, you go home. You have to talk to your brother now. You have to tell him. Everything. Do you understand? Everything you have not told me. Our son, Charlie . . . our son's soul will never rest. He has to sleep in peace.”

Charlie nodded, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, and lifted his head.

“You go home with Jay. You tell him. I don't blame you for anything, my husband. Not one thing.”

Charlie pushed himself up. “I'll come and get you tomorrow,” he said.

“Good,” she said, her voice a little hazy from the medication. “Now I'll get some sleep.”

I drove Charlie's clunky Taurus. We didn't say a word for most of the trip. He pretty much just sat there staring straight ahead. Something he had bottled up inside him for decades was slowly rising to the surface. We turned off Fourth down the less traveled road that led to the tracks. I knew I didn't have to say anything—Gabriella already had.

On Division, I slowed before turning into his carport.

“Stop here, Jay,” Charlie told me.

I pulled up on the side of the street.

He was silent a moment, puffing out his cheeks. Worry etched into his eyes. “I can't live knowing I hurt her.” He turned to me. “She's all I have left. It's hard enough to bear to think of Evan
 
. . .”

Tears streamed down into his beard. He mashed his palms up against his face.

And then it came. Like a flood. Everything I'd been waiting for.

“I had nothing to do with it, Jay—the murders. Nothing.” His eyes were swollen and contrite. “I swear. I was a lost soul back then. You know that. I was crazy. I felt at home there. All I ever wanted was to make music. It's all I ever did well. I felt I had a chance there
 
. . .”

“Why did they want to make your record, Charlie?”

“Because it was Russell's way.” He avoided my eyes. “It was his crazy way of getting everything out. Russell had his own songs. He felt if he could get a record made, the world had to listen. It was his way of reaching people. His stupid fucking message. The guy was insane, Jay. We were all insane . . .”

“When did you really leave there, Charlie?”

He pressed his hands on the top of his forehead and pushed, like he was forcing the demons out. “After it all took place. Everything started to get crazy there, Jay. Russell was ratcheting up all this fear. Tightening the screws he had on people. Everyone was freaked out on the fear that the storm troopers were coming to raid the ranch. The drugs didn't help. They only fed the paranoia. The music was going to die forever. The music was love, Jay. I know you don't see it that way, but it was. But I was never part of what took place. Not for a second. That was all his people. His inner circle. The ones closest to him.”

“Why would Houvnanian want to hurt you, Charlie?”

He just kept staring straight ahead and put his hands over his face.

I reached across and touched his shoulder. “You're Chase, aren't you?”

He didn't answer. He only turned. A kind of light flickered in his eyes, as if he was relieved to finally hear me. “How did you know about that?”

“You turned them in,” I said. “Russell, Susan, all the rest. To Zorn and Cooley. You led the police to their bloody clothes in the marsh. And then the weapons . . . They think you betrayed them.”

He didn't have to say a thing. The answer was etched on his tearstained face. He smiled. As if a lifelong weight was finally lifted from him.

“I've hid out for more than thirty years . . . More than half my life, Jay. Thirty-seven years of telling myself I didn't matter anymore. Afraid that one day they would find me. Or Gabby or Evan. I was afraid to even let Evan play ball. To let him have a life. To ever leave this shit hole. I knew one day they would find me. Russell promised they would and they did. That's what Zorn told Evan. That they knew we were here . . . That's what my son came and told me.”

He put his arm across his face and started to sob.

I drew him to me. “It's okay, Charlie.” I knew he felt responsible for Evan. “You couldn't have known.”

“No.” He turned and looked at me. “It's not okay, Jay.
There's more . . .”

His eyes grew sunken and shadowed, like a moon crossing the sun in an eclipse. “You wanted in, Jay, now there's no turning back. Park the car. There's something I need to show you inside, little brother. Come on in.”