C Box - Blue Heaven

She was calm, he thought, not skeptical of him from the minute he had appeared in her door. She seemed to trust him immediately. He wondered to what he owed this pleasure, since they had never met. It was almost as if she knew him somehow. He had stolen glances at her as he drove, looked at her profile. She was attractive but obviously exhausted. Her skin reflected light blue in the passing cones of pole lights, the hollows of her eyes and cheeks were shadowed. Her voice was soft when she said, “I knew they were alive. I don’t know how, but I knew it.”

It made him feel good to know he was bringing her together with her children. She seemed to want nothing more than to be with them.

He thought of what Karen had said about her, that she had a bad reputation. How Fiona Pritzle had denigrated her ability as a mother by saying in the newspaper, “…But I just figured that there was no way those kids would have just taken off like that without their mother’s permission and approval.”

Consider the source , Jess thought. He knew nothing about the woman in the seat next to him except that she wanted to be with her kids. The rest didn’t matter.

“You’re familiar to me,” she said, “even though we’ve barely met. I’ve always thought of you as what was old, tough, and good about this valley, before everything changed.”

He looked at her, puzzled, said, “You’ve got the ‘old’ part right, anyway.”

AS HE PULLED in front of his house, he told Monica to wait for a minute in the truck.

She started to protest.

“Look,” he said, “Annie is sitting in there holding a shotgun. I told her not to open the door unless she was sure it was me. If she panics and something goes wrong, I don’t want her to shoot her own mother.”

“Annie has a gun?” Monica said, her jaw dropping.

Jess suddenly smiled.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I don’t even want to say it,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“When you asked me that I thought of Annie Get Your Gun . I don’t know why I thought that was funny.”

“I don’t think it’s very funny now,” Monica said, but in a self-mocking way he liked.

Jess walked up to his door and knocked hard on it. “Annie and William,” he said, “it’s Jess Rawlins. I’ve got your mom with me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jess saw the living room curtain pull back and William’s face, cautious at first, break into a grin when he saw his mother in the cab of the pickup.

JESS STAYED out of the middle of the reunion and went into the kitchen to make coffee after he saw Monica sink to her knees, crying, and take both of her children into her arms. He heard William and Annie talking over each other, retelling the story about the murder they had witnessed and Mr. Swann, about the dark man who had come to the house that afternoon. How Jess Rawlins had taken care of them.

Halfway into measuring coffee for the pot, he remembered the shotgun in the living room and went to get it. He tried not to stare at the Taylors, who had now settled on the couch, with William clinging to his mother, his head in her lap, Annie next to her, talking a mile a minute. Boy, that girl could talk. Monica looked different, as if she were glowing from within. William looked more like a little boy, her child, and he didn’t seem to care if Jess saw him hugging his mother like he’d never let go. This scene, this snapshot, Jess thought, made what he had done to Swann worth it.

Jess put the shotgun next to the Winchester on the kitchen table, wondering if Monica took her coffee with cream or sugar, lamenting that even if she did, there hadn’t been any cream in the house in four years.

As their talking subsided in the living room, he noticed the silence from the roof. The rain had stopped. He parted the curtain over the sink and looked out. There were pools of rainwater in the ranch yard reflecting stars as the sky cleared. Beyond the ranch yard was the muddy ribbon of road that led into the wooded hills and the locked gate. He recalled Gonzalez standing on the porch, and Swann bloodied and stunned behind the couch in Monica Taylor’s house. And there were two others involved in the shooting Annie and William had witnessed, making four in all.

That chain and lock on the front gate would mean nothing to four armed ex-cops who had already murdered and had conspired to manipulate every event since the children had seen the execution. These were men who had not only infiltrated but literally taken over local law enforcement.

Then he felt a presence next to him, his waist being squeezed, and he looked down and saw Annie, her wide-open face turned up to him.

He couldn’t speak, so he didn’t. Instead, he reached down and mussed her hair gently, then cupped her chin in his palm.

“I’m so glad she’s here,” Annie said. “Thank you for bringing her. I’m so happy it’s all over.”

Jess, feeling his lips purse, his own eyes sting from holding back tears, thought, It’s not over, Annie. Not even close.

THE SMELL inside the car was of bourbon, rain, and burning dust from the heater/defroster that hadn’t been used in a while. Villatoro tried to adjust the level of the fan to keep the glass from fogging up inside. Newkirk, damp, drunk, and agitated, had fogged the glass.

After leaving Rodale’s driveway, Newkirk said, “Go that way,” pointing to Villatoro’s left with the mouth of the open pint of Wild Turkey he’d produced from his jacket. Villatoro turned the wheel, heard the hiss of water spraying from beneath his tires on the undercarriage of the little car. He wasn’t sure what road they were on, or which direction they were going. Everything looked the same to him; dark wet trees bordering the road like walls, wet asphalt, no lights. It wasn’t until Villatoro recognized the same sharp corner and turnout for the second time that he realized they’d been going in circles for over two hours. It alarmed him, and he said, “Where exactly are we headed?”

“Want some?” Newkirk asked, handing over the bottle.

“No thank you.”

“Better take some. You’ll need it.”

“You’ve kept me driving for half the night.”

“I’m thinking.”

Because the retired detective wanted Newkirk to talk, he took the bottle and sipped from it. The bourbon was sweet and fiery at the same time. It burned his lips, which were chapped from the altitude, the intense sun, and the thin air.

“Pull over here,” Newkirk said.

“Here? Why?”

“Just do it and get out.”

Villatoro did as he was told. Newkirk got out of the car at the same time. Both men left their doors open. What? Villatoro wondered. Does he want to drive?

“Put your hands on the hood, feet back and spread ’em,” Newkirk said. “You know the drill.”

“This isn’t necessary…”

“Do it,” Newkirk said. “What I’m going to tell you is for your ears only. I’ve got to make sure you’re unarmed, and that you’re not wearing a wire.”

“I’m retired.”

“So you say.”

Villatoro complied, placing his palms on wet sheet metal. Newkirk stepped behind him, expertly frisked him from his collar and shoulders to his shoes. Villatoro felt Newkirk roll his socks down.

“What are you doing down there?”

“Making sure you don’t have a throw-down,” Newkirk said, standing up, satisfied that he was clean.

A throw-down? Villatoro thought. The fact that Newkirk had even thought of that said a lot about where Newkirk was coming from. Villatoro had never considered carrying an illegal weapon in all of his years in the department. There had been no need. Obviously, Newkirk came from a different world, where throw-downs were common.