J. Jance - Fire and Ice

“What do we do now?” Deb asked.

“I want you to go see Bobby Fletcher,” Joanna said. “Take your computer and that memory card with you so you can show Bobby the photos. It’s one thing for him to put his foot down about exhuming his mother out of respect for her or even because he’s at war with his bossy sister. But if Bobby realizes that exhuming his mother’s body might prevent some other poor patient’s suffering, I think he’ll step up and give us the go-ahead.”

“Dr. Machett isn’t going to like it,” Deb said.

“Too bad for Dr. Machett,” Joanna answered. “That’s why the county pays him the big bucks.”

Mel pulled up and stopped. I waved at her, got back into the Mercedes and drove off with her tailing behind while I followed the confident turn-by-turn directions issued by the Lady in the Dash. Just as she told me my destination was one half mile ahead on the right, I caught sight of a bright blue Chevy Cobalt parked on the shoulder of the road overlooking a bluff. It could have been a sightseer parked there to enjoy the view, but a quick glance at the text message on my phone told me otherwise. It was Jaime Carbajal’s rental, all right, and it was empty.

“Bingo,” I said aloud. It seemed likely that he had parked here and hiked the rest of the way down the hill to Miguel Rios’s house.

“You are arriving at your destination,” the Lady in the Dash announced.

Ignoring her, I drove another three hundred yards or so beyond the turnoff and pulled off onto a wide spot on the shoulder that was lined with mailboxes. That’s where I parked and got out. Mel did the same. Once out of her car, she hurried up to me and handed me a windbreaker.

“Put this on over your vest,” she said. “That way you won’t look quite so much like a cop.”

And a target, I thought.

I put on the jacket. Together we walked back toward the steep driveway that led down to Miguel Rios’s waterfront home at the base of the bluff.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Mel asked.

We had already discussed the matter on the phone. The fact that there were no emergency vehicles in sight made me think that we might have arrived in time to avert disaster, but if it all went bad, it was important to have someone up at the top of the driveway to sound the alarm and call for reinforcements.

“I’m sure,” I said. “Jaime’s a cop.”

“A cop who’s bent on revenge,” Mel said.

I couldn’t disagree with that, and I didn’t.

“Right,” I said. “I get that. My job is to talk him out of it.”

“What if talking doesn’t work?”

“Then we drop back and punt.”

It was a joke. Mel wasn’t smiling. “Is your Bluetooth on?” she asked.

I nodded. I hate walking around with the damned thing in my ear. It makes me feel like I’ve turned into a pod person, but she was already dialing my number.

“I love you,” she said into her phone. “But I’ll be listening every step of the way. If anything goes wrong…”

I could hear her voice coming from two directions, through the phone and not through the phone. On my way by, I stepped close enough to give her a glancing kiss. If she had tried to talk me out of it right then, I might have relented, but she didn’t. We both felt responsible for the part we had played in putting Jaime Carbajal in harm’s way, and we both needed to extricate him.

“Be careful,” she said.

“You, too,” I told her.

With my heart pounding a warning tattoo in my chest, I started down a single-lane paved driveway that wound through a stand of windblown cedars. It was steeply pitched. Walking downhill hurt like hell. It felt like my knees were on fire.

Why does going down hurt so much more than going up? I wondered. But all the while I was walking, I was also listening-listening for the dreaded sound of a burst of gunfire or for a car passing by on the road above me. What I mostly heard, however, were the loud squawks of a massive flock of seagulls that wheeled back and forth in the air far overhead. Other than that, it was quiet-deathly quiet. Scarily quiet.

At last I emerged from the trees and could see Miguel Rios’s place laid out below me. It was sprawled in a huge clearing at the base of the forested bluff. At first glance the house looked like a misplaced Mediterranean villa, complete with white stuccoed walls and a red tile roof. It was surrounded by an expanse of green lawn that ended in another steep drop-off where a series of wooden steps led down to a long dock that jutted out into the water. A big sailboat was moored next to the dock. Clearly Rios had done all right for himself. I also noted there was no sign of a yellow Hummer, although it might well have been parked behind one of the closed doors on the three-car garage.

“Do you see anyone?” Mel asked in my ear.

“Not yet,” I told her.

But even as I said the words I spotted someone. On the far side of the yard, near the steps that led down to the dock, stood one of those new-style swing sets-not the kind of tire-on-a-rope affairs that were in vogue back when I was a kid. No, this one was built of cedar planks that formed a playhouse sort of fort. A slide led down from that. There were also a couple of swings and a teeter-totter. I could see the figure of a man resting his butt on one of the swings. Silhouetted against a bright blue sky, he was too far away to identify, but I was pretty sure it had to be Jaime Carbajal.

“I think I see him,” I told Mel. “He’s on a swing over by the dock.”

“Maybe nobody’s home,” she said.

“Or maybe we’re already too late,” I replied.

Stepping closer, I waved at him. I could see that his carry-on bag lay open on the ground at his feet. I suspected he was armed, but I couldn’t see a weapon, not from there.

“Hey, Jaime,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Get out of here, Beaumont,” he said. “This is none of your business.”

I kept walking, moving closer all the time. “You’re wrong,” I said. “It is my business. I’m a homicide cop too, remember?”

“Tomas Rivera killed my sister.” His voice was taut, a bowstring wound too tight. “Most likely he did it on Miguel Rios’s orders, but do you think the law will ever hold him accountable? No way. I know how the system works. He’s got money. He’ll hire some hotshot attorney to get him off or else he’ll negotiate a slap-on-the-wrist plea bargain. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m going to get him to confess. Then I’m going to take him out.”

“Right,” I said sarcastically. “Sure you will. Let’s see how the old eye-for-an-eye routine works for you. Maybe you’ll end up wringing a confession out of the guy, but if you do it at gunpoint, without reading him his rights, you’ll be winning the battle and losing the war. Nothing he says will stand up in court. He’ll get off on a technicality.”

“He won’t get off because there won’t be any technicality,” Jaime said. “I’m a good shot.”

I was close enough now that I could see the weapon. He was holding it at his side, pointed at the ground. I was glad it wasn’t pointed at me. It looked like a.45 caliber Smith amp; Wesson. That’s not the kind of handgun you use if you’re intending to wing someone. They call it a deadly weapon because that’s what it is-deadly.

“I know you’re doing this because of Marcella,” I said. “But I’m here because there are five other victims, five victims who are all just as dead but whose names we don’t know. I think there’s a good chance that Miguel Rios killed them as well-that he’s responsible for wrapping them in tarps and setting them on fire. But if you wreak your revenge on Rios for Marcella’s death, you’re taking away any hope of justice for those other families.”