the Pallbearers (2010) (23 page)

After I told him what happened, he said, "Are you telling me O'Shea beat you up again?"

"I'm getting real tired of saying this more than once."

I hesitated for a minute, swallowed my pride. "Look, we're running out of time. I got the FBI circling because of Jack. O'Shea knows I'm a cop and that's bound to produce bad results. We need to get the pallbearers together and pool our knowledge. If it's not too much trouble, I'd really appreciate it if we could meet at my house."

"What about Diamond?" he asked after another long pause.

"Invite her. She's okay."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. O'Shea didn't know I was a cop 'til he found my badge. If Diamond was in on it, she certainly would have told him."

"I'm glad."

"Me too."

We set up the meeting for an hour from now. It would allow me time to get home, take some ibuprofen, ice my wrist, and try to get my head to start working again.

It was hard driving with one hand, but I made it. My sprained left wrist was throbbing almost as badly as my right arm by the time I pulled into my drive.

I put the MDX in park, which was no easy task with the wrong hand. Then I got out and lumbered into the house. I opened the refrigerator, fumbled some ice into a bowl, took it to the counter, and spent a frustrating ten minutes trying to get the cubes into a baggie. I tore off some adhesive tape using my teeth and made a clumsy icepack compress for my left wrist.

Next, I went into the bathroom, put the roll of fiberglass gauze in the medicine cabinet, and took the ibuprofen. As I was clinging to the sink, I got a distressing look at myself in the bathroom mirror.

I won't bother to describe my appearance except to say it was startling.

The pallbearers all showed up at a little past five. We sat in my living room. I stretched out painfully in the lounge chair, and then we discussed my broken arm, swollen wrist, and how Rick O'Shea had changed my tires for the second time in two days. I told them not to worry, it wasn't going to happen again. They settled into chairs in my living room and regarded the remark skeptically.

"Shane, you called this meeting, so I guess you're on," Sabas said.

Diamond, Vicki, and Seriana also sat there, waiting for me to dispense some wisdom. I almost couldn't summon enough energy to start talking.

"Some stuff happened since we split up," I began slowly. Then I told them about the gift Jack had left for me in my mailbox. I handed Sabas the SD card, and he loaded it into my computer. They all watched it, then turned to face me.

"Mesas house?" Vicki asked, and after I nodded she said, "Hes got a long board just like Pop?"

They spent a few minutes discussing that, and I gave them my theory about Pop and E. C. Mesa maybe being surfing buddies. Then I told them how Alexa and I had culled the Rolodex and about last nights trip to the house on Avalon Terrace, which led to the underground fight at the Hayloft. Lastly I filled them in on everything Alexa had learned at Mesa's table. After I finished, the room was quiet.

Sabas finally said, "I thought we agreed we were gonna all work this together. You couldn't make a call and let us in on what you were up to?"

"It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment decision," I defended. "We were only going to check it out but when we saw that party, it sort of developed into something else."

"You aren't the only one who needs closure on Pop's murder, Shane. We're all hurtin'. You gave us your word if we let you call the shots, you wouldn't freeze us out. But you went ahead and did this on your own anyway."

I'd had a bad morning. I was starting to get annoyed. "It was late, almost eleven P
. M
. when we got there," I said. "Last time I called and woke you up you chewed my head off."

"Boys, boys, boys," Vicki said. "Let's stop bickering and deal with what Shane and Alexa found out. What's it mean?"

"I don't know," I admitted, taking a breath to cool down. "Haven't a clue. But we need to review everything we know. See how quickly we can unpack this and figure what the elements were that really got Pop killed."

So we began.

Some of it was just theory, some of it was feelings. A lot was sad memories and regrets about Pop.

Diamond kept asking why E. C. Mesa might have that big, rhino
-
chaser cigar-box board in his garage. Seriana wondered if it could be a coincidence.

"In law enforcement, the rule is never trust a coincidence," I told her.

Vicki said, "The suicide note seemed like hooey even when we still thought Pop had killed himself. Now that we know he was murdered, it's gotta be bullshit."

I got up and limped over to the desk and found my copy of the note. I handed it to Vicki and lowered myself painfully back into the lounge chair.

She began reading a few parts aloud. "'Got pulled down by leash drag ? 'Sorry about the yard sale? Tf you need the reason, tap the source, Walt? That doesn't sound right to me at all. Who writes a last note that sounds like that? But if somebody was forcing him to write it, Pop might have been trying to send a secret communication."

"You mean maybe it's like a code or something?" Diamond said.

Vicki looked at us and nodded. "If he knew he was going to die and somebody was making him write this, then maybe he was using all this surf lingo to tell us something."

I didn't give that idea much credence. We were beginning to grasp at fringe theories.

"Here's something that's been bothering me," Seriana said. "Why the six of us? I loved Pop, and I certainly owed him, but I don't think I was more special to him than a lot of other kids who were at the home when I was."

"Most people don't pick their own pallbearers," I said, nodding. "But Walt wrote that letter a week before he was killed, naming the six of us."

"Why would he do that?" Vicki asked.

"Alexa thinks Pop must have already known he was in some danger the week before he was killed and chose his pallbearers because he knew the kind of people we are."

"Which is?" Diamond said.

"Well, except for you, Diamond, we Ye nonconformists who don't do what were told. Alexa thinks maybe Walt picked us because in the event he got murdered, he knew we wouldn't accept the official version of his death and would keep looking until we found out what really happened."

"That's one fucking smart lady you got there, hoss," Vicki said.

"So you buy it?" I asked, looking around the room at everyone.

"I've also been wondering the same thing," Vargas said, nodding. "I always felt special in Walt's eyes, but then so did everyone else. I keep thinking, out of all the hundreds of people who went to Huntington House, why was I one of six that he wanted to carry his coffin? I feel the same as Seriana. There were so many others that he could have chosen."

Diamond broke the silence that followed. "So what's our next move?"

"I was waiting to go back and look at Pop's house until the coroner assigned a homicide number to the case," I said. "My idea was to take a forensic unit over to his house and redo the entire crime
-
scene investigation."

"Come on, that's nuts," Sabas sniped. "It's been a week and a half. There've been cops and newspaper people traipsing through there. That's a totally contaminated site."

I didn't have much patience for his tone. Despite a promising start after that fight at the gym, we were now getting on each other's nerves.

"I agree," I said, struggling to control my irritation. "So instead of waiting, let's go now. We knew Pop better than the cops who investigated this. Let's use our knowledge of him to see if we can find something they missed."

I rode with Sabas in the yellow truck. Halfway there, he looked over, staring at me with vato eyes. In that moment I could see remnants of the little nine-year-old shooter who had killed to protect his drug turf.

"Don't freeze me out," he warned. "Next time you torch me like that, I'll just take this into my own hands."

"Sabas, I wasn't leaving you out. We turned up the address on Avalon Terrace late at night. We didn't know there'd be a party and that Jack would be there. Why can't you cut me a little slack?"

"Why should I? Lookit you, you been getting beat worse than a birthday pinata. You ain't inspiring much confidence."

I decided not to argue with him. Despite all the mistakes I'd made, I felt I was on the verge of something. The answer seemed near. It was like the feeling I always got as a kid on sunrise patrol just before a big set rolled in.

As we neared Walt's old bungalow, in my subconscious I could hear Walt talking to me, using that crazy pidgin Hawaiian. Paddle hardf bra. We be in da zone fo shur.

The crinkly smile, the seawater-blue eyes, counting on me to get him to shore.

Chapter
42

Pop's house was a white bungalow with a red tile roof in a middle
-
class neighborhood not too far from Huntington House, and it was exactly as I had remembered. After his wife, Elizabeth, died, Pop had continued to live there alone.

He always kept the hide-a-kev in the same place--inside the feed drawer in the base of a large wooden birdcage that now hung empty from a chain on the far end of his front porch.

He used to sit out here on summer nights while a big green and yellow parrot sat in that cage squawking loudly. The bird spoke only pidgin and was named Hang Six. Pop had bought him in the early
-
seventies on the Hawaiian North Shore. Hang Six had to be at least forty by now, if he was still alive.

On nights when some of us were over here visiting Pop, having one of Elizabeth's home-cooked meals, we were always fascinated by the bird's island patois.

Hey hapa haole, boy. Surfs up, bra!" He would screech that stuff incessantly.

I thought it interesting that despite our age difference, every one of us knew that the hide-a-key was always kept in the feed drawer under the cage. Pop hadn't bothered to change its location in almost four decades.

That told me he hadn't been too worried about security. If his killer knew him, then he probably also knew where the key was and could have used it to get in here and lie in wait.

We opened the front door, turned on the lights, and stood in Pop's small living room. There was a lot of surfer art adorning this space. Over the fireplace hung a large painting of a forty-foot windswept wave, a magnificent aqua green crescent with white foam blowing off the leading edge. There were all kinds of surfer knick
-
knacks on the walls, along with half a dozen photographs under glass of huge storm breaks on the North Shore of Oahu.

Hang Six's indoor cage was also empty, standing in the corner. Diamond said the cops had taken him to animal control after Pop died.

"Where do you want to start?" Sabas asked.

"Yard sale. Let's look at the backyard," Vicki suggested.

I was sort of humoring this idea as we all trooped to the back and stood on Walt's wood porch, the same porch where he'd died.

"You know, I used to come here from time to time with two or three of the other kids," Seriana said wistfully. "It was ten years ago, when I was thirteen. We'd sit on this porch and drink lemonade. It was such a treat to be chosen to come. Before she died, Mrs. Dix would cook a meal for us. It felt for just a few hours like we had a real home."

"It's why Pop brought us here," Vicki said. "He wanted us to see what a normal family life was like."

Seriana nodded. "Did Pop ever let you take Hang Six out of hi
s c
age?"

"Yeah ," Diamond said. "He'd sit on our shoulders while Pop told stories about Hawaii."

"Sometimes when I was here, we'd get to help him shape one of his surfboards," Vicki remembered.

The garage was Pop's board shop.

"Let's go see. Maybe that's the yard sale--the boards," Seriana said.

We wandered across the little patch of lawn. Since Pop died, nobody had been watering it. We stopped in front of the garage.

"Where'd he keep the key?" Sabas asked.

"Never locked it," Diamond said.

Sabas tried the door, and found it was open.

We entered and turned on the overhead light. In front of us, lying across two sawhorses, was a newly shaped, almost finished, nine-foot cigar-box board. It had already been sanded, and the first coat of varnish had been applied. It looked as if it had been left there to dry. I crossed to the board and traced the rough, unsanded first coat of varnish with the fingers of my good hand.

"Leash drag," Diamond said. "He kept those in here."

She crossed to a cupboard where Pop's surf equipment was stored and opened it. Inside were some old leather-and-rope ankle leashes, some board resin and wax, half a dozen small-sized wet suits for kids. There was nothing else inside the cabinet. We all stood there, beginning to feel a growing sense of futility.

"These big old rhino chasers have large air pockets in the front to keep them from being too nose heavy," Vicki finally said. "I remember Pop had to drain them at the end of each day. Maybe he built this to hide something in there."