Red Light (44 page)

So I was in the
middle, spying on both sides, but I never gave Owen and Meeks anything really
good. Corrupt old shits. They'd arranged to get Jesse Acuna beaten half to
death, just to get his hundred acres. Tried to use me for that, but I refused.
They bragged about it to Bailey, the arrogant fools. When Bailey threatened
them with the tapes, they did just exactly what we thought they'd do: They sent
one of their flunkies to tell me to shut her up and get the evidence. The
flunky was Chuck Brighton—a real smoothie, a real kiss-ass. My so-called
right-wing friends also thought that it was a good idea to shut her up.
Surprised me. I said I wasn't going to kill a woman just to keep a couple of
old pols safe In office. I said, are you guys crazy? And they said, it's for
the good of the department, Jim. We've got to stick together. We can't have a
hooker bringing down the sheriff and the head of the Board of Supervisors, even
if we don't agree with them on everything. They said, don't worry, we'll
collect all the evidence from the crime scene, we'll clean it up and no one
will know—we just got to shut her up. I said I'm still not going to kill a girl
just for that. Then they said, kill the hooker or we'll tell your wife what
you've been doing with her the last few months—then you'll really wish Patti Bailey
was dead. They meant it. I knew they'd do it. Some friends. They were guys I'd
die for—and this is what they did for me. So I shut her up. It ruined me, son.
It was evil and it was selfish and I spent twenty-seven years killing myself
over and over for it. That's why today's such a great day—I'm finally doing it
for real. Anyway, my great friends, they didn't destroy the crime-scene
evidence to save my sorry ass. They kept the evidence and the tapes, turned it
all over to damned Brighton. Brighton turned on his bosses then, used the tapes
to get rid of Owen, make his own way to sheriff. I'm sure he got Owen to back
him in the next election as part of not turning the tapes over to the
newspapers and TV. McNally got a great promotion, tagging along on Brighton's
coattails. So, it wasn't for the good of the department—it was to get Owen and
Meeks out. Everybody got something out of it but me. Me? I was betrayed and
guilty and wanted to die. I couldn't do anything because Brighton and Big Pat
had the crime-scene stuff—they could use it against me any time they wanted.
So I split for San Bernardino as soon as I could. Said good-bye to all those
treacherous Orange County bastards. Best thing I ever did. Too late, though.
Way too late to do any good.

I needed to get that
off my chest. I feel better. Still not good enough to go on living this
miserable life. I'm on to the next thing. You? You take care. Know I loved you.
I was a rotten man and a rotten father, but nobody can accuse me of not loving
my only son. I hope you get what you want out of life. Stay straight, be clean,
and don't let your friends do to you what mine did to me. Look out for
yourself, because nobody can do it for you. Don't mess with girls. Pick out a
good one and stick with her. It's all the same in the end, so you may as well
make someone a little happy if you can. I love you, Evan. Do not shed one tear
for me. I'm happy now. I'm in the better place, wherever that is. I'll send you
a postcard when I get a chance.

Love, Dad

When
she finished the letter she understood what had happened Mike McNally. When she
looked over at Evan, she understood just how close she had been to the truth.

He
stood there, leaning against the entertainment cabinet, a revolver in his hand.

"Dad's
gun," he said. "I got it out of evidence when they were done. Put it
right back here in the cabinet, where he always kept it."

"I understand," she said. "You should
put that thing down, Evan. "Dream on."

He lifted the barrel at her, made a soft clicking
sound.

"Gotcha, girl."

"Come on, Evan."

"At
first I didn't want you to see that letter. But the long ride out here gave me
some time to think. I'm still in the driver's seat."

Merci
stared at his face for any sign of O'Brien's mean humor, any sign of his
sarcasm. None. No humor, just a calm alertness. She tried to think of a way to
lead him away from all this, let him off the hook.

"That letter's
between you and your father. We'll keep it that way. Let's head out, get back
to work."

"Now you come
on. This is it, Lady Dick. Don't move either hand. Not one inch."

Her arms were at her
sides. She still had the letter in her right hand. She dropped the sheets to
the floor without looking down, then tilted her palms outward, spreading her
fingers.

Evan tilted the
revolver sideways like the TV cops, then righted it. The barrel was steady on
her, no waver at all.

"It's better
this way. I'm so damned proud of things, Merci. The way I led you into it, let
you do the fun part. I'm tickled pink."

"You ruined Mike
to get Big Pat back for what he did to your father. To get back at the whole
department."

Evan shrugged,
grinned. He was twenty feet away. She figured if she went for the H&K he
might shoot her before she got her hand inside her coat. There was a sofa
between them and that was all.

"But
you left the mystery prints in Whittaker's kitchen.
Your
prints."

"I'll work
around that. I knew Mike was working with one of the outcall girls, thought
there might be an opportunity. I got her name and address off the wiretap
request that was never filed. I got her picture from her sheet. Nice face. So I
set up my own recorder on her phone and what do you know? Things developed.
Pretty girl, horny guy, what do you expect? Waited outside the night they had
dinner, went up and iced her. Planted the silencer and chukka boots when he was
at work."

"I
knew
something was wrong at Mike's, but I couldn't nail it. You should never have
known where the kennel key was. But you did, because you'd been inside."

O'Brien smiled.
"No. I knew where it was before I ever picked the locks. Mike described it
to Aubrey one night. He was talking about how knowing her made him question
everything he did. Why he wore the clothes he wore. Why he shaved with a blue
razor instead of a yellow one, why he kept the kennel key under the cabinet,
why he always carried his wallet in his left pocket, why he combed his hair
the way he did.

She had him all shook
up. The second I handed that key to you, I knew I'd made a mistake. I didn't
know if you'd catch it or not."

The
wind whistled against the windows, sent a spray of dust across the yard.

"Put
down the gun.
Now."

"Merci,
shut up.
Now.
You're taking your orders from me, babe. Get used to
it."

He
raised the revolver, steadied it with both hands, bringing the black of the
barrel into line with her chest.

"Zamorra's
off to the wrong address," he said. "It's on the other side of the
county. San Bernardino County is the size of Delaware, in case you didn't
know."

Keep
him talking, she thought. Her heart was racing and her mind was jumping.

"What
about the brass? How did you get brass from Mike's gun into Whittaker's flower
vase?"

Evan
smiled. "Mike went to the range twice a month. I followed him one day,
watched some of the guys shoot, shot some targets myself. Picked up one of his
empties along with my own. Easy. The hard part was lining up the shot so the
bullet would go out the window and not stick in a wall stud. The lead wouldn't
have matched the brass. I pick the lock on Whittaker's place one day, let
myself in and figured it out. The picture windows gave me the idea. Figured I'd
have to shoot her right there in the doorway, fast, on an up-angle, to get the
bullet out ii the ocean."

"You
let Coiner find it. Nice."

"That
was easy. She's a good CSI. The only thing that really was wrong was the
struggle in the kitchen."

He
smiled, laughed quickly, stopped smiling. "That had you and Zamorra
pulling out your hair, didn't it?"

"There
was no struggle," said Merci.

"So
true."

"You
had a seizure right there on the floor. Ripped up the drawer. Tore your coat,
snagged one of your latex gloves. No blood, but you did your prints in places
you didn't have time to clean up. You were dazed. You didn't know how much time
had passed, how much noise you made. That's why there was a ten-minute gap
between the time you went up and the time you came down. That's why you
hesitated on the stairs. You were steadying yourself."

"Pretty much.
I'm surprised you came up with Dad's prints from CAL-ID. You'd have to throw
your parameters all the way back to deceased law enforcement to come up with
them. Who'd ever think of that?"

"Zamorra."

"He's like a
Gila monster: clamps onto something and won't let go 'till the sun goes
down."

A
grudging respect joined Merci's surprise and fear.

"You've
been working on this for years."

"The
hours fly when you're having a good time."

"You transposed
your prints with your father's, after he killed himself. You were still
working in Sacramento then, on the CAL-ID computer changeover. You couldn't
just delete your own, somebody would realize a set was missing. So you traded
yours for your father's. It got you out of the system. Just in case you ever
left a print you wished you hadn't. Just in case you ever tore a glove. You
knew those prints would be tough to find in the registry, attached to a dead
man. Later, you got the job here in Orange County so you could do what you did.
But you'd been thinking about it for almost two years."

"I was
undecided, actually. But when the hiring committee passed on me for my minor
medical condition, I figured fuck it, I'll stick the clowns were it
hurts."

"You
have."

O'Brien looked
relaxed behind the gun. The barrel wasn't moving much at all. She could hear
the wind howling behind her outside, could hear the sand hitting the
windowpanes.

"I used to watch
you and Mike in the living room at his place, Sergeant. There's a nice little
clearing in the brush on the hillside behind the house. You can sit there and
see right in the back window. I spent hours there. Remember the night you did
him on the couch when
The Ten Commandments
was on?"

"Easter."

"You climaxed when Charlton Heston was coming down with the
tablets. From the hillside, it looked like his hair turned white when saw you
having that big
O.
I started falling in love with you at that moment.
Hated you, too. I still kind of love-hate you. I hate the way 3 smug bastards
with the badges think you own the world. Nothing made me sicker than watching
you and that big idiot McNally, walking around together like you owned the
Sheriff Department, barging into my lab to tell me what to do. You don't
deserve anything you have. I knew I was as good as you. Even when the personnel
board turned me down for epilepsy, I knew I was as good as you. And I proved
it. I got Mike in for a murder he didn't commit. I got you to investigate him.
I got Brighton's department
looking like
a bunch of whore killers and incompetents. I won. The little bastard who wasn't
good enough to wear a badge beat all you arrogant suck-ups."

"You
killed an innocent woman to get all that."

"She got what
she deserved. So did Bailey. Whores ruin lives. Don’t even bother me with that
kind of thinking."

She watched his face
for a tic or twitch, hoping the situation might breed a seizure. His eyes
looked steady behind the barrel.

He smiled. "I
took an extra Dilantin this morning. I'm steady a pack mule right now."

"Why go to the
trouble? Why not just take care of Big Pat and Brighton and be done with
it?"

He shrugged, but the
gun stayed trained on her. "Sure, I could have run over that drunkard Pat
in a parking lot some night. I could have shot Brighton on one of his morning
jogs. I thought about it. But, you know?” That's too easy. I want them to watch
their own ruin and not be able stop it. I want Pat to watch his son rot. I want
Brighton to watch department fall apart because of the
shit
they pulled
on Jim O'Brien. I want them to feel what Dad felt—ashamed and useless and
betray. You know what my dad got for being a deputy, for being a friend to
those guys? He got a drunk wife, a fucking epileptic son and his own bullet in
his brain. That sucks. Death is too good for any of them. I wish you hadn't
figured this out because now I've got to kill you and it kind of spoils things
a little. On the other hand, I like the fact that someone knows. Makes it complete.
It was delicious hating you, because really to me, you're so beautiful—big and
dark and proud and completely self absorbed, completely full of yourself.
You're two gallons of shit in a one-gallon bucket, Rayborn. I couldn't pass up
using your undies when I found them in one of Mike's drawers. The whole show
would have been great, watching you watch Mike go to prison. It would have
eaten you alive. Better than cancer."

O'Brien smiled again
and moved his feet apart just a little, into a more stable shooting stance.
Merci's ears were roaring and she wondered if he could hear them.