Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

“Why not?”

That Charlie is something.

Later, Charlie spoke with the prosecutor handling the case, a young woman named Gilstrap out of USC Law who wanted to be governor. He came back and told me that I could plead guilty to the one felony charge of interfering with a police officer, and they would drop the obstruction of justice charge. If I took the plea, I would receive probation with no jail time served. I said, “It's copping to a felony, Charlie. It means I lose my license.”

“You fight this, you're gonna lose your license anyway. You'll also do eighteen months.”

I took the plea, and became a convicted felon.

The next day I went into the hospital to have my shoulder rebuilt. It took three hours, not four, but left me in a cast that held my arm up from my body as if my shoulder were dislocated. I told the doctor that it made me look like a waiter. The doctor said another centimeter to the left, and Sobek's bullet would've severed the nerve that controlled the small muscle groups in my hand and forearm. Then I would've looked like overcooked macaroni.

Thinking about that made me feel better about the cast.

That evening, Lucy brought flowers.

She let her fingers drift along the cast, then kissed my shoulder, and didn't look so mad anymore. A kindness came into her eyes that frightened me more than Laurence Sobek or getting shot or losing my license.

I said, “Are we over?”

She stared at me for a long time before she shook her head. “I don't know. It feels different.”

“Okay.”

“Let's be honest: This job was an excuse to come here. I came to Los Angeles because I love you. I changed my life to be with you, but also because I wanted to change. I had no promises or expectations about where we would go with this, or when, or even if any of it would work out. I knew what you were and what it meant the first time we met.”

“I love you.” I didn't know what else to say.

“I know, but I don't trust that love as much as I used to. Do you see?”

“I understand.”

“Don't just say that.”

“I get it, Lucy, but I couldn't have done anything else. Joe needed me. If he's not dead, he still needs me, and I will help him.”

“You're angry.”

“Yeah. I'm angry.”

Neither of us said very much more, and after a while she left. I wondered if I would see her again, or ever feel the same about her, or she about me, and couldn't believe that I was even having such thoughts.

Some days really suck.

The next morning, Abbot Montoya wheeled Frank Garcia into my room. Frank looked withered and old in the chair, but he gripped my leg in greeting, and his grip was strong. He asked about my arm, and about Joe, but after a while he seemed to drift, and his eyes filled with tears.

“You got that sonofabitch.”

“Joe got him.”

“You and Joe, and the woman who came to my house.”

“Her name was Samantha Dolan.”

His face screwed up, concerned. “They haven't heard anything about Joe?”

“Not yet, Frank.”

“Anything you need, you let me know. Lawyers, doctors, I don't care what. Legal, illegal, it doesn't matter. My heart belongs to you now. If I can do it for you, I'll do it.”

He started to sob, and I felt embarrassed.

“You don't owe me anything, Frank.”

He squeezed my leg harder, so hard I thought the bone might break. “Everything I have is yours. You don't have to understand that, or me. Just know that it's so.”

I thought about Rusty Swetaggen, and understood.

When they were leaving, Abbot Montoya stepped back through the door.

“Frank means it.”

“I know.”

“No. You don't know, but you will. I mean it, too. You are ours now, Mr. Cole. Forever and always. That is a blood oath. Perhaps we are not so far from the White Fence, even after all these years.”

When he left I stared at the ceiling.

“Latins.”

Later that afternoon, Charlie Bauman was filling my room with cigarette smoke when Branford, Krantz, and Stan Watts dropped by.

Krantz stood at the end of my bed with his hands in his pockets, saying, “A couple of kids found Pike's car outside Twentynine Palms.” Twentynine Palms is a barren, rugged place northeast of Palm Springs where the Marines have their Ground Combat Center. They do live-fire exercises out there, bringing in the fast movers to napalm the sand.

Charlie sat up.

I said, “Was Pike in it?”

Branford glanced at my cast. “Nope. Just a lot of his blood. The whole front seat was soaked. We've got the States out there doing a sweep.”

They were staring at me like I had helped him park the car.

Bauman said, “You're not still going to prosecute Pike for this Dersh thing, are you, Branford?”

Branford just looked at him.

“Oh, for chrissake.”

I said, “Krantz, you know better. You saw how Sobek was dressed, just like Pike. He's who the old lady saw.”

Krantz met my eyes. “I don't know anything like that, Cole. Mrs. Kimmel saw arrow tattoos. Sobek didn't have tattoos.”

“So he painted them on, then washed them off.”

“I heard you ask Sobek if he did Dersh. I heard Sobek deny it.”

Charlie waved his cigarette, annoyed. “You want a signed confession? What are we talking about here?”

“I want facts. We haven't been sitting on our asses with this, Bauman. We ran everything Pike said about his alibi through the system, and it came back just the way I thought it would: bullshit. No hits on a black minivan, Trudy, or Matt. We flashed Sobek's picture in a six-pack for Amanda Kimmel, but she still puts the finger on Pike.”

Branford said, “We've got the murder weapon, the GSR, and the motive; that gives us Pike.”

Charlie said, “Pike's statement wasn't a secret. Sobek could've tossed the gun off the pier to match with Pike's story. If Sobek didn't kill Dersh, why was Jesus Lorenzo killed just a few hours later? You writing that off as a coincidence?”

“I'm writing it off as something I can't ask Sobek because Sobek is dead. Look, Pike saved Krantz's life, and those two women's, but I can't just forget about Dersh because we owe him one. You give me some proof that he didn't do it, or that Sobek did, I'll think it over.”

Charlie Bauman waved his cigarette like he didn't believe Branford for a second, then considered Krantz. “Tell me something, Lieutenant? You really draw down on Pike after Pike saved you?”

“Yes, I really did that.”

“Even after he saved your life?”

“He murdered Eugene Dersh, and he's going to answer for it. What I feel doesn't matter.”

“Well, at least you feel something.”

No one said much after that, and pretty soon everybody left but Watts.

He said, “We buried Samantha this morning. Had over a thousand officers in the ranks. It was nice.”

“I'll bet it was.”

“We get any word on Pike, I'll let you know.”

“Thanks, Stan. I appreciate it.”

Thinking back, I'm sure the only reason Stan Watts tagged along with Krantz and Branford that day was to share Samantha Dolan's final moment with me, and to tell me that a thousand officers had seen her off.

I don't think he would've come for any other reason.

I wish I could have been there to see her off with them.

I left the hospital the next day.

The doctors raised hell, but I couldn't take lying in bed with Joe still missing. I hoped that Joe was alive, and thought that if anyone could survive it would be him, but I also knew that if Pike had found his way into the ravines and arroyos of the desert, his body might not be discovered for years.

I took too many painkillers, but still couldn't drive with the cast, so I hired a cab to take me out to the desert. I went back to Paulette's house, then up to Twentynine Palms, and tried to imagine what Joe might've been thinking, and where he might've gone, but couldn't.