Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

Stemple climbed out of his truck and, hand on his big gun, walked around the motel. He returned and nodded.

‘Let’s go talk to Señor Escalanza,’ Foster said.

The two agents started forward, the wind tossing her hair. She heard a snap beside her. She saw a weapon in Foster’s hand. He pulled the slide back and checked to see if a round was chambered. He eased the slide forward and holstered the gun. He nodded. They continued along the sand-swept sidewalk past yellowing grass and squatting succulents to the cabin registered in the name of Pedro Escalanza. Bugs flew and Dance wiped sweat. You didn’t have to get far from the ocean for the heat to soar, even in springtime.

At the door they looked back at Al Stemple — a hundred feet away. He glanced at them. Gave a thumbs-up.

Dance and Foster looked at each other. She nodded. They stepped to either side of the door — procedure, not to mention common sense — and Foster knocked. ‘Pedro Escalanza? Bureau of Investigation. We’d like to talk to you.’

No answer.

Another rap.

‘Please open the door. We just want to talk. It’ll be to your advantage.’

Nothing.

‘Shit. Waste of time.’

Dance gripped the door. Locked. ‘Try the back.’

The cottages had small decks, which were accessed by sliding doors. Lawn chairs and tables sat on the uneven brick. No barbecue grills, of course: one careless, smoldering briquette, and these hills would vanish in ten breaths. They walked around to the unit’s deck and noted that the door was open, a frosty beer, half full, on the table. Foster, his hand on his weapon’s grip, walked closer. ‘Pedro.’

‘Yeah?’ a man’s voice called. ‘I was in the john. Come on in.’

They walked inside. And froze.

On the bathroom floor they could see two legs stretched out. Streak of blood on them. Puddling on the floor too.

Foster drew his gun and started to turn but the young man behind the curtain next to the sliding door quickly touched the agent’s skull with his own gun.

He pulled Foster’s Glock from his hand and shoved him forward, then closed the door.

They both turned to the lean Latino gazing at them with fierce eyes.

‘Serrano,’ Dance whispered.

They were back.

At last. Thank you, Lord.

The two boys from the other night. Except there were three of them at the moment.

Well, now that David Goldschmidt thought about it, there might’ve been three the other night. Only two bikes but, yes, there could have been another one then.

The other night.

The night of shame, he thought of it. His heart pounding even now, several days afterward. Palms sweating. Like Kristallnacht , the ‘Night of Broken Glass’, in 1938, when the Germans had rioted and destroyed a thousand Jewish homes and businesses throughout the country.

Goldschmidt was watching them on the video screen, which wasn’t, as he’d told Officer Dance the other night, in the bedroom but in the den. They were moving closer now, all three. Looking around, furtive. Guilt on wheels.

True, he hadn’t exactly gotten a look at them the other day, not their faces — that was why he’d asked Dance for more details: he didn’t want to make a mistake. But this was surely them. He’d seen their posture, their clothes, as they’d fled, after obscenely defacing his house. Besides, who else would it be?

They’d returned for their precious bikes.

Coming after the bait.

Which was why he’d kept them.

Bait...

Now he was ready. He’d called his wife in Seattle and had her stay a few days longer with her sister. Made up some story that he himself wanted to come up for the weekend. Why didn’t she stay and he’d join her? She’d bought it.

As the boys stole closer still, glancing around them, pausing from time to time, Goldschmidt looked up and watched them through the den window, the lace curtain.

One, the most intense, seemed to be the ringleader. He was wearing a combat jacket. Floppy hair. A second, a handsome teenager, was holding his phone, probably to record the theft. The third, big, dangerously big.

My God, they looked young. Younger than high school, Goldschmidt reckoned. But that didn’t mean they weren’t evil. They were probably the sons of neo-Nazis or some Aryan group. Such a shame they hadn’t formed their own opinions before their racist fathers, mothers too probably, had got a hold of their malleable brains and turned them into monsters.

Evil...

And deadly. Deadly as all bigots were.

Which was why Goldschmidt was now holding his Beretta double-barrel shotgun, loaded with 00 buckshot, each pellet the diameter of a.33-caliber slug.

He closed the weapon with a soft click.

The law on self-defense in California is very clear...

It certainly was, Officer Dance. Once somebody was in your home and you had a reasonable fear for your safety, you could shoot them.

And for all Goldschmidt knew, they too were armed.

Because this country was America. Where guns were plentiful and reluctance to use them rare.

The boys paused on the corner. Surveilling the area. Noting that his car was gone — he’d parked it blocks away. That the lights were out. He wasn’t home. Safe to come get your Schwinns.

The door’s open, kids. Come on in.

Goldschmidt rose, thumbed off the safety and walked into the kitchen, where he opened the door to the garage. That location, he’d checked, was considered part of your home too. And all he had to do was convince the prosecutor he’d legitimately feared for his life.

He’d memorized the sentence, ‘I used the minimum amount of force necessary under the circumstances to protect myself.’

He peered through the crack.

Come on, boys. Come on.

‘And you, Officer Dance. Your weapon too. Let’s go.’

Without taking his eyes off them, the Latino tugged the curtain shut, a gauzy shield against passers-by.

‘I’m not armed. Look, Serrano. Joaquin. Let’s talk about—’

‘Not armed.’ A smile.

‘Really. I’m not.’

‘You say this, I say that.’

‘Listen—’ Foster began.

‘Sssh, you. Now, Agent Dance. How about you just tug up that fancy jacket of yours, turn around like my niece does, pirouette? I think that’s what it’s called. She in ballet class. She’s pretty good.’

Dance lifted her jacket and turned. Her eyes returned defiantly to his.

‘Well, they don’t trust you with guns, your bosses? My woman, she can shoot. She’s good. You afraid of shooting. Too loud?’

Foster nodded toward the bathroom, where a man’s legs were just visible. Crimson spatters covered the tiles. ‘That’s Escalanza?’

‘The fuck’re you to ask me questions?’ the man sneered. ‘Shut up.’ He stepped to the windows and looked outside. Dance could see through the slit in the flyblown drapes. She saw no one other than Stemple, gazing out over the highway.

‘Who’s that big boy out there?’

Dance said, ‘He’s with us, the Bureau of Investigation.’

He returned. ‘Hey, there, Officer... Or, no, it’s Agent . Have to remember that. Sí , Agent Dance. I enjoyed our conversation in the room, that interrogation room there. Always like talking to a beautiful woman. Too bad no cervezas . You get more confessions you open a bar there. Patron, Herradura, a little rum. No, I know! Hire a puta . Give somebody head, they confess fast.’

Dance said evenly, ‘You’re in a bad situation here.’

He smiled.

Foster said impatiently, ‘Look, Serrano, whatever you have in mind, nothing good’s going to come from killing law.’