Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

“We can talk about it later.” He glanced after Evelyn and shrugged. “The police are coming.”

She nodded.

“I didn't kill that man. Someone else did. The same person who killed another six people.”

“That's what your friend said.”

“His name is Laurence Sobek. He was one of Woz's informants. When the story is out, you're going to have the press and the police bring up everything that happened on that day.

They're going to dig into Woz again. Do you understand?”

“I don't care.”

“It could hurt you.”

“It can't.”

Behind them, Evelyn spoke in a voice so soft that Paulette hadn't heard it since Evie was a child.

“Why could it hurt her, and why do you care?”

Paulette turned and looked at her daughter. Evelyn was peeking around the corner like a five-year-old, her face distant and smooth.

“Did you call the police?”

Evie shook her head.

Pike said, “Go call. Your mother and I have to talk.”

Evelyn went to the bookcase and took down the picture of her father and Paulette and Joe Pike.

“She keeps this out where anybody can see it.” She looked at Paulette. “Why do you keep this goddamned picture? Why keep a picture of someone who killed the man you loved?”

Paulette Wozniak considered her adult daughter for a time, then said, “The man I love is still alive.”

Evie stared at her.

Paulette said, “Joe didn't kill your father. Your father killed himself. He took his own life.” She turned back to Joe and looked at the placid blue eyes, the eyes that made her smile. “I'm not stupid, Joe. I figured it out years ago when I went through his notebooks.”

Joe said, “The missing pages.”

“Yes. He wrote about the Chihuahua brothers, and that whole mess. And then, later, just days before it happened, he wrote how he felt trapped. He didn't say he was planning on it. He didn't say what he was going to do or how, but he wrote that there was always a way out, and that a lot of cops had gone that way before.”

Evie was pulling at her fingers now, pulling and twisting like she was trying to rip them off.

“What are you talking about? What are you saying?”

Paulette felt a horrible pain in her chest. “I didn't know for sure until I went through his books after he was dead, and then, I don't know, I just didn't want you to know the truth about him. You loved him so. I took out those pages and destroyed them so you could never find them, but I know in my heart what he was saying there. Joe didn't kill your father. Your father took his own life, and Joe took the blame to protect you, and me.”

Evie shook her head, and said, “I don't believe you.”

“It's true, honey.”

Paulette tried to put her arm around Evelyn, but Evelyn pushed her away. Paulette looked at Joe then, as if maybe he would know what to do in the sure certain way of his, but that's when a large, muscular man wearing sunglasses stepped out of the kitchen behind Joe, aimed a black pistol, and pulled the trigger.

Paulette screamed, “Joe!”

Her shout was drowned by a deafening sound that hit her like a physical blow and made her ears ring.

Joe hunched forward, then spun so quickly that he seemed not to move at all, was just suddenly facing the man, a big gun in his own hand, firing three huge times so fast that the shots were one BAMBAMBAM.

The big man slammed backward, hitting the kitchen floor with a wheeezing grunt, and then there was silence.

The moment was absolutely still until Joe hunched again, and that's when Paulette saw the blood spreading on Joe's back like some great red rose.

She said, “OhmyLord! Joe!”

Joe winced when he tried to straighten, then looked at Paulette, and smiled. She hadn't seen that smile in so many years that her heart filled and she wanted to cry, though the smile was small and hurt.

He said, “Gotta go now, Paulette. You take care of your baby.”

Joe Pike held her gaze for another moment, then turned away as the large man sat straight up on the kitchen floor as if rising from the dead and shot Joe again.

Joe Pike fell hard.

* * *

The two women finally arrive, and Sobek eases down the hill to Paulette's house. He knows from watching that none of the neighbors are home, so he strolls up the drive and into Paulette Wozniak's garage without fear of being seen.

He creeps through the garage past Paulette Wozniak's ticking car, and puts his ear to the utility door, but doesn't hear anything. He knows that doors like this usually open to a laundry room or a kitchen, and decides to take the chance that Pike and the others aren't poised on the other side. He turns the knob, then cracks the door, and sees a washer and dryer.

He can hear voices now, and then a woman shouts, “What could you possibly have to say? You killed him! Mother, he's wanted! He just murdered someone else!”

Sobek grips the .357, pulls back the hammer, then eases into the laundry. He peeks into the kitchen. No one. He creeps through the kitchen, careful not to make any noise, getting closer and closer to the voices until they are just around the corner in the family room. Two women and the Pikester.

Sobek takes a deep breath, then another, then steps around the corner and shoots Joe Pike in the back.

Ka-Boom!

The .357 kicks harder than the little .22s, and before he can shoot again Pike has a gun in his hands and fires BAMBAMBAM. Three bricks hit Sobek in the chest all at the same time, knocking him flat on his ass, and making him see stars.

He thinks he is dead, then realizes that the Kevlar vest he's wearing under the sweatshirt has saved him. Most cops wear lightweight vests designed to stop common rounds like the 9mm or .45, but Sobek wears the heavier model, rated at stopping anything up to and including the .44 Magnum.

Control.

He hears voices. They're talking. Pike is still alive, but wounded.

Second chance.

Sobek sits up and shoots Joe Pike again even as the younger woman screams.

Pike drops like a bag of wet laundry, and Sobek says, “Cool!”

The older woman falls to her knees beside Pike and grabs for his gun, but Sobek runs forward and kicks her in the ribs. He is dizzy from the hits that he's taken, but his kick is solid and upends her.

A red pool spreads through Pike's shirt.

Sobek looks at Paulette Wozniak, then the younger woman. “Are you Abel Wozniak's daughter?”

Neither of them answer.

Sobek points the .357 at the older one, and the younger one says, “Yes.”

“Okay. Let's get a couple of chairs, and you two sit down.”

Sobek feels disoriented and nauseated from the chest trauma, but he tapes their wrists and ankles to two wooden dining-room chairs and puts more tape over their mouths. Then he peels off his shirt and vest to inspect his wounds. The entire center of his chest is a throbbing purple bruise. The bullets probably broke some ribs. Christ, that Pike can shoot. All three bullets would've been in his heart.

Sobek spits on Pike's body, and screams, “FUCK YOU!”

The screaming makes his head spin worse, and he has to sit or throw up. When the spinning subsides, he considers the women.

“You're next.”

He is thinking about how best to kill them when he hears a car door out front and sees two deputies strolling toward the house.

Sobek drags the two women into a back room to hide them even as the doorbell rings. He puts on his shirt, not even thinking of the three bullet holes, and hurries to the door as it rings again. He plasters on a big smile, opens the door with a surprised expression, and says, “Oh, wow, the Highway Patrol. Are we under arrest?”

The two deps stare at him for a moment, and then the closer one smiles. Friendly and getting the joke. “Is Mrs. Renfro at home?”