They (13 page)

He told her all about it as they stood at the baggage claim area waiting for his luggage. She listened patiently. He didn’t know whether he should tell her about his conversation with Reverend Powell and he almost let it slip out, but stopped himself before it could become fatal. Better not bombard her with too much at once. “That’s so terrible, all that happening at once,” she said as he stepped up to the conveyer belt and lifted his tan suitcase up and double-checked to make sure it was his; it was. “It’s also sad. That poor woman.”

“Lillian or my mother?”

Tracy playfully socked him in the arm. “Both, silly! I can’t believe you would say a thing like that! Your mother was murdered horribly! I know you were…well,
estranged
from her and all, but—”

“I know,” Vince said, dragging his suitcase along, the little wheels clacking along the tarmac. Tracy and Vince exited the terminal, heading down the airport toward the parking structure. “It
is
awful, the way she died. You should have seen it.”

“Did you see the body?”

“No.” Vince shook his head. “But I saw the room she was killed in. It was pretty gross.”

“Do the police have any idea why whoever killed her would, you know…do all that to her when robbery was the only apparent motive?”

“No, they don’t.” They were silent as they walked through the parking garage, holding hands, Vince dragging his suitcase along. It was a warm day, but it was a touch cooler in the shade of the parking garage. The sky was a clear blue, unusual for a summer day in Southern California, but there was a nice offshore breeze and that helped blow some of the smog away. Vince could actually see the San Gabriel Mountains fifty miles to the north. On a normal summer day it would be so smoggy, the air so still, that you couldn’t even see them.

They reached Tracy’s car, a black BMW, and Tracy disengaged the car’s alarm system and opened the trunk with the remote. Vince helped lift the trunk up and was just about to hoist the suitcase into it when he heard a clink of keys. “Oops,” Tracy said, her other hand fumbling with her purse, a small black pouch that hung by thin straps from her right shoulder. “I’m always so clumsy.”

“Poor baby,” Vince said as he bent down to scoop up the keys,
hearing a sharp
ping
! strike the metal of the open trunk and the tin
kling of glass and feeling the whoosh of air over his head.

“What the…?” Vince stood half-bent over, hands clutching Tracy’s fallen keys, wondering what had just happened. He saw Tracy turn her head slowly toward the cars across the lot, a look of puzzlement on her face, and then he stood up, not knowing at first what to make of the small hole that had been punched through the hood of the BMW and the shattered glass of the car’s rear windshield until there was another pinging sound that winged past his left ear, followed by the sound of more shattering glass, and now his stomach leaped in his throat as he looked out and saw a man crouched behind a car four rows over, and his eyes opened wide in surprise and fear as the man raised the weapon in his hands and rose to his feet and Vince dove for Tracy, yelling “
Get down
!”, the momentum of his body shoving her to the concrete just as the man let loose with a volley of rounds from a semi-automatic rifle, a
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat
of shells that were now flying with deadly accuracy toward them, blowing holes in the BMW, breaking windows, and as he pushed Tracy ahead of him down the side of her car toward the next row, the bullets seemed to follow them, sending up showers of glass in their wake and his heart was beating so fast, and the noise of the shots was so loud, that he couldn’t hear himself screaming, “
Get down, get the fuck down
!”

Tracy was crawling on her hands and knees, scraping them on the concrete, and Vince was yelling for her to “
Move, fucking move, goddamnit
!” and now there was a brief reprieve, as if the gunfire had suddenly died without warning. They darted out in front of a car cruising down the aisle, and all around them were the sounds of cars and people, some exiting the airport, some opening trunks to stow away luggage, and those in the immediate vicinity were all now standing with numb shock, looking at Vince and Tracy as they scrambled madly in a half-crouched position, weaving their way between parked cars as their assailant made one more try, this time having obviously come out of his hiding place to pursue them. They heard his footsteps running down the parking lot, then felt and heard the
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat
of automatic gunfire spray up concrete and glass as it showered around them, and then it suddenly stopped, only to be replaced by the sound of running feet, the slam of a car door and the squeal of tires as a vehicle raced out of the parking lot, and now there were a lot of excited voices but Vince didn’t know the danger was over. He was pushing Tracy under a parked car, telling her, “
We’ve got to hide, get under there
!”, and by the time the police came Vince knew that the immediate danger was over.

WHEN THE AIRPORT police officers helped Tracy out from under the Datsun they had crawled under, she started to cry. Vince’s heart was still pounding, and he still felt in fight-or-flight motion—he wanted to get the hell out of there
now
! But when he saw Tracy’s composure, that beautiful face crumpled in tears, his heart melted and he immediately went to her. She threw her arms around him, sobbing against his neck. “Wh-wh-why! Why was he
shooting
at us like that?”

Vince could only hold her, comfortable now that the danger seemed to be over. There were two or three cops with them, and he could hear police sirens growing louder as more raced to the scene. “I don’t know,” he said, holding her in his arms. “I don’t know, Tracy. I don’t know.” He closed his eyes, trying to retrace their steps, to recall the face of the man that had suddenly popped out of nowhere and tried to kill him. His mind flashed backed on that first single shot that had gone through the trunk of the BMW and smashed the rear windshield. If he hadn’t bent down to retrieve Tracy’s keys he might be dead now.

There was no question about it. Vince had been the target of this assault.

The next few hours passed quickly. They were questioned briefly by the airport police and then the Irvine Police Department. Detectives came and scurried about, retrieving shell casings and examining the damage. In addition to the tremendous damage to Tracy’s BMW, thirteen other vehicles had been hit, three of them severely. Some of the owners of those vehicles began showing up during the preliminary investigation, and they were made to wait behind the yellow crime scene tape that had been strung up until it was complete. In the meantime, after an initial questioning by Irvine Homicide detectives, they were whisked away to the police station.

They rode to the station in the same squad car and Tracy clutched his hand during the entire trip. He could tell she was deeply disturbed by what had happened. She stopped crying, but her eyes were dark, her brow furrowed with lines of worry. She kept telling him over and over that she just couldn’t believe what’d happened. He stroked her hand and told her he couldn’t believe it either. He tried to comfort her as best as he could, but the more he tried, the more scared and confused he became.

Once at the station, they were led to separate rooms. The room Vince was led in was small and barren, with a single table and two chairs. Unlike crime dramas on television, there were no two-way mirrors. He mentioned this to the detective that accompanied him in the room. The detective, a burly man in his forties with dark hair smirked. “Well, you aren’t a suspect, Vince. Just a witness. We save those rooms for guys like the ones that shot at you and your girlfriend.”

Vince guessed Tracy was in a similar room being questioned too, so the best thing to do was cooperate and try to remember as many of the details as he could. The detective began by asking him what happened, telling him to take his time, to try to remember as much of the incident as possible. Vince thought hard and went slowly, starting with how he and Tracy were walking through the parking garage to their car, how she’d dropped her keys and he’d bent down to retrieve them and that first shot came zinging at him. The detective nodded. “Count yourself lucky, Mr. Walters. Count yourself
very
lucky.”

Vince nodded and continued. He told the detective that the gunman had fired at least two single shots at them, but once they started running he’d let loose with automatic fire. The detective nodded, jotting notes down in a small spiral notebook. He told the detective how scared he was, how strong the instinct of flight had been, and that he was fairly positive the gunman popped out of his hiding place to pursue them briefly. Then the gunfire stopped and he thought he heard running feet just as he and Tracy slipped under a car, but he didn’t know where the gunman was running. He thought he was running toward them, and that’s what propelled him to keep him and Tracy moving. The next thing he remembered was the first police officers arriving on the scene.

The detective asked him to repeat the story one more time. Then he asked Vince if he’d gotten a look at the gunman. Vince shook his head.

“Do you know why you might have been the target, Mr. Walters?”

Vince sighed. “No. Until lately, nothing like this has ever happened to me.”

“What do you mean, ‘until lately’?”

Figuring they were going to find out sooner or later, Vince told the detective about the trip he’d just returned from and the details of the murder of his mother. The detective looked real interested in this and jotted down notes. He asked Vince the name of the Police Chief in Lititz. “And they don’t have any suspects yet in your mother’s murder?”

Vince shook his head. “No.”

“And you say that the detectives in Pennsylvania think it’s a robbery gone bad?”

“That’s what they think.”

“What do
you
think?”

Vince shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Will you excuse me for a moment?” Vince nodded, and the detective left the room for a few minutes. Vince sat silently, his mind twisting and turning, going over the events of the last few days. It was obvious somebody had targeted his mother; it
hadn’t
been a robbery gone bad. Somebody had wanted her dead and now they wanted
him
dead as well.

The detective returned ten minutes later. “Just got off the phone with the Lititz P.D., and told them what just happened to you. They tell me that all indications in their investigation points to a robbery. I asked a detective there, a guy I believe you spoke with named Jacobs, if he had any reasons to believe that what happened with you today might be related to your mother’s murder and he told me probably not. Just the same, I think we’re going to check things out on our end just to be sure. Why don’t you tell me a little about your mother?”

For the next two hours, Vince told the detective—Rob Staley—everything he knew about his mother’s murder, how she’d lived as a religious recluse. After awhile, another detective joined them. Detective Staley asked Vince if his mother had any enemies. “As far as I know she didn’t,” he said, telling him what he’d told the detectives in Lititz. When he was finished they started over again, taking him through the last few days. Vince didn’t alter his story in any way, nor did recurring narratives bring to light anything he might have forgotten.

Detective Staley mustered a smile. “Sorry this all seems so rigorous, but we do this for several reasons. Sometimes talking about what
happened can bring certain things back that the subconscious has bu
ried. You remember more when you relive it.”

“Sorry.” Vince shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it. Sometimes it takes a few days. If you remember anything later, be sure to call me.” He handed Vince his card. Vince pocketed it quickly.

There was a knock on the door and the detective whom Vince wasn’t introduced to answered it. After conferring for a few minutes with somebody outside, he motioned to Detective Staley, who rose and joined him. Both men exited and closed the door, but Vince could tell they were standing right outside the door.
Probably comparing notes
, he thought.
I wonder if they think we have anything to do with this
. Vince thought it weird that he was thinking this way. He had always been a law-abiding citizen. Why would the police consider him a suspect in anything? Especially in what happened today at the airport? He and Tracy had clearly been the victims.

After a few minutes, Detective Staley and his unknown partner returned. “Tracy’s outside waiting for you. Her car’s been towed so we can continue our investigation into what happened, but your luggage was retrieved. I’ve got an officer lined up to drive you home.”

Vince rose to his feet and held out his hand. “Thanks. And I’m sorry I wasn’t much help.”

“You were a great help,” Detective Staley said. “Just get in touch with us if you remember any more details. And, between you and me, if I were you I’d get out of town for a few days. It’s obvious somebody has a grudge against you and until we can ascertain otherwise, it’s probably best that you lay low. Do you have any place you can stay for awhile?”

Vince shrugged. “I guess I can see if Tracy can put me up.”

“We’ll have you driven to her place then,” Detective Staley said. He clapped Vince on the back as he escorted him out. “And we’ll have your house checked out as well. I can’t guarantee you twenty-four hour police protection, but I can make sure you aren’t being followed to Ms. Harris’s place and that your place isn’t under surveillance.”

“Thanks.”

Tracy was talking on her cellular phone in the lobby. That worried look hadn’t left her face. Her eyes met his as he entered the lobby. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.” Then she hit a button and folded the phone up. “Hi,” she said. She tried to smile.

“Hi yourself.” He kissed her. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “That was my mom,” she said, indicating the phone as she deposited it in her purse. “I…she gets worried about me and I had to tell her what happened.”

“And worry her even more?” Despite the gravity of the situation, Vince couldn’t help but try to keep the tone light.