Robert Crais - The sentry

"It's going to be okay, buddy. It only hurts for a while."

His voice a whisper meant only for himself.

Then the cat growled, somewhere to his right and below on the slope. It started low, and spiraled louder like a terrible war cry until it filled the canyon with an anguished wail as if the cat was in pain. Cole thought it was the cat. He was pretty sure it was the cat.

Cole leaned over the rail, trying to see. He stretched as far into space as he could, trying to find the cat by listening to its scream, but saw nothing. The cat was there, but so well hidden he could not be found.

Sometimes you want to help them, but can't.

The air felt clean when it cooled in the evening. Pike opened the Jeep's windows, letting the air chill his skin. Oncoming headlights, flaring brake lights, and neon signs scribed molten arcs on the Jeep's gleaming hood. As he neared the ocean, streetlights cast halos in the mist, each halo brighter than the last. Pike drove back to the canals.

Gomer had been murdered in an empty lot on the west side of Grand Canal where a home had recently been razed. Pike had visited the site earlier when the police cut him free, but Gomer had been killed at night, so Pike wanted to see this place in the darkness as Gomer and his killer had seen it. He had no place else to go.

Pike parked on the street, and walked past an abandoned trailer across bare ground to the canal. Earlier, the area had been filled with officers, but now it was deserted. Not long after the project was started, a new foundation had been poured and the trailer was brought in for the construction manager, but somewhere along the way the money dried up and the project had been abandoned. Gomer had driven up onto the construction site and parked facing the canal.

Smith's house was several houses to Pike's right on the opposite bank not far beyond the mouth of an adjoining canal. The location offered a good view of Smith's backyard, half the ground-floor windows, and the second floor, but Pike thought Gomer was an idiot for having parked where he was openly visible. Pike could see families in the houses across the canal and people crossing the footbridge that spanned the adjoining canal, and knew any of them could see him just as they could have seen Gomer. One of the people who'd seen Gomer that night had left him soaking in blood.

Pike studied the houses and the shadows beneath the pedestrian bridge and the play of light on the water. He felt he understood everything that had happened until Mendoza and Gomer returned to the canals to be murdered. He did not understand why they had returned, why they were killed, or who had killed them, and now this business about Dru and Wilson made him rethink himself, and them, and everything he had believed was true. Maybe that was good. He believed the answers were here in this place, so his task was to recognize the signs. If he found them, he could re-create the events, and then he would know what happened. The same as reading the words in a book. Reading each word and adding it to the next to build a sentence, then connecting the sentences to learn the story. The task was to find enough words.

Pike slipped out his cell phone and called John Chen, who answered in his typical paranoid whisper.

"Yes? Who is this?"

"Pike. Two bodies were bagged on the Venice Canals this morning. You know about them?"

Chen didn't answer.

"John?"

"Sorry. I thought you were asking about something else."

"Their names were Mendoza and Gomer."

"That's Sandy Lancaster. I'm not on it, but she's here in the next cube. What do you need?"

Pike asked if either showed signs of defensive wounds or ligature marks, and whether the police had located the place of Mendoza's murder. Chen told him to hang on, and Pike could hear murmurs as Chen spoke with the criminalist in the next cube. A few moments later, Chen was back on the line.

"Nah, man. Nothing defensive and negative on the ligatures. These guys didn't see it coming, if that's what you're after."

"What about Mendoza?"

"They think so, but they can't confirm until the blood work comes back. She said they found a good-sized splatter on one of the pedestrian bridges they have down there. I don't know which one."

"That's okay, John. I can figure it out."

Pike was staring at the pedestrian bridge that joined the north end of Smith's street. There would be another bridge at the south end. With Gomer watching the north side, Mendoza would have been watching the south. Each fact was a word to build the story.

Pike started to end the call, but his eyes found Dru's house again.

"Did you find any prints on the things Elvis gave you?"

Chen's voice grew wary.

"What things?"

"The things Elvis gave you today."

"I didn't see Elvis today."

"I just left him, John. He told me about it."

Chen hesitated even longer than before.

"You're not mad, are you? He told me not to say."

"I'm fine. Did you get anything?"

"I haven't even had time to piss. I'm sorry, man, I'll get to it before I leave. Promise."

"That's okay. Just asking."

"I know it's important, her being your girlfriend and all."

Pike was sorry he brought it up.

"She wasn't my girlfriend."

"All women are rotten, bro. Nobody knows that better than me. I can't even get a bitch to break my heart."

Pike closed his phone, then forced himself to think about Mendoza and Gomer, imagining them set up to watch Wilson's house. It occurred to Pike that Azzara might have had them killed. Maybe he found out they murdered Wilson and Dru, and was angry they did it against his orders. He could have ordered them to the canals for a phony reason, then sent a crew to kill them. Pike was considering this when he remembered the upstairs light and jimmied window. A crew sent by Azzara to murder Mendoza and Gomer would have had no reason to enter the house. The window had been jimmied by someone else, and Pike now suspected this was their killer.

Pike reset the image of Gomer and Mendoza watching the house. The killer was good. Neither man had fought back or tried to defend himself. He had taken them by surprise, and killed them cleanly and efficiently with overwhelming speed. This suggested a professional, or someone with professional training. If the killer had jimmied the window, then he was probably already in place when they arrived, which meant he had not come for Mendoza and Gomer-he had come for Wilson and Dru.

Pike felt the pieces begin to fall into place. The words began to feel like a story.

The killer had come to the house early as evidenced by the time of his entry, did not find what he was looking for, so he had set up to wait. This meant he was somehow connected to Wilson and Dru. Pike had assumed Mendoza and Gomer abducted Wilson and Dru, but maybe their first attempt failed, so they returned for another chance. The killer had probably watched them take their positions, and either knew they were waiting for Wilson or concluded they were by their actions. He might have watched them for hours. Then he killed them, and probably continued waiting for Wilson and Dru.

Each new thought was a word, and the more Pike tested the words the better he liked the story. The signs were here. He just had to read them correctly and in the right order. There were still holes and questions, but he saw it unfolding and liked the way it felt.

I am here.

A new player had entered the scene, but maybe he had been in the game longer than anyone thought.

Pike turned from the water, and drove the few short blocks to Wilson Smith's shop.

Pike parked at the curb in front of Wilson's store. A cafe and the coffee shop on the next block were still open, along with the Mobil station and the tattoo shop across the street. Pike waited for a strolling couple to pass, then went to the new glass window with his flashlight and shined the light inside. The heads and entrails were gone, and the interior had been cleaned. The city might have sent a hazmat team, or maybe Betsy Harmon and her son had cleaned it themselves. None of it mattered now, not to Pike or anyone else.