Т Паркер - The Last Good Guy

My next move had to be Detective Darrel Walker.

I am actively disliked by most San Diego sheriff’s deputies because of a shooting death I was party to ten years ago. I didn’t fire, but my partner did. When the smoke cleared on that cool December afternoon, we deputies were alive, and an unarmed nineteen-year-old black man lay dead in an alley behind a strip mall. His name was Titus Miller. We knew him in the way that cops know citizens with histories of derangement, homelessness, and occasional violence.

I still replay that scene, frame by frame, though I try hard not to. It plays me. The sunlight streaming through the clouds above us like a graphic on a sympathy card. Titus combative that day, cussing our orders to stop and raise his hands. Screams and bright sun. Titus backpedaling away from us in his oversized coat and his scavenged athletic shoes, one red and one blue. Pulling something from his waistband and dropping into a one-knee shooter’s stance. This black object glinting in the sunlight in both hands and five shots from Jason punching the life straight out of him. Titus probably dead before he hit the ground. The wallet in his hands, still chained to his belt.

My partner’s name was Jason Bayless. A good enough guy, though hard to figure. Never gave up much of himself before the shooting. Nothing since. A family man. We’d worked together only a few times. Most SDSD deputies patrol solo, due to modest budgets and large territories to cover.

Jason had seen a gun in Titus’s hands and I had seen a wallet and that was the very gist of it. The complications came later, during the internal investigation. He honestly believed he was defending his life. And mine. I honestly believed Titus was brandishing his wallet, likely as a prelude to showing ID. My words damned Jason. Excessive force. He quit the department within the year and went into practice as a private investigator. Same as I did. We crossed paths just last year on a difficult case, and Jason did me a solid that helped save some lives. I owe him. We tried to talk out Titus but accomplished little. He told me that if he’s ever in the same spot again, he’ll do the same thing. I told him I would, too. Some mountains will not be climbed.

So, as a black man and a San Diego sheriff’s detective, Darrel Walker listened dubiously to me that hot, humid September morning as I told him about Alchemy 101, SNR Security, my still obvious licking at Paradise Date Farm, Reggie Atlas, and Penelope Rideout’s ugly story.

He entered something on his desktop keyboard, glanced at the monitor. All I could see from where I sat were the back-end cables and connectors of his electronics, and Darrel’s somber face studying the screen.

That screen had his full attention, interrupted by brief looks down at the keyboard. Tap. Tap. As I mentioned before, Darrel is bigger than I am. Hands like catcher’s mitts. They should make XXL keyboards for guys like us.

“What was your takeaway on Atlas?” he asked.

“Convincing,” I said. “Seemed concerned for this missing girl. Said he didn’t remember her visiting his church. He was aware of Nick Moreno, a semiregular. He wondered if my ‘car accident’ was really an accident. He asked me if he should be worried about his own well-being.”

“Big of him,” said Walker. Tap. Tap. Dark eyes moving back and forth across the screen.

“Reggie Lee Atlas,” Darrel read. “Evangelical minister, Georgia born. Married, four children. Board of Western Evangelical Alliance. Honorary degrees. Got the calling at eighteen. Drove a bus around the South. Name of the bus and his ministry was Four Wheels for Jesus. Guest appearances and his own programs. Actually used a tent early on. Grew his followers. Things took off in 2005 when smartphones boomed. Lots of social media. Four Wheels for Jesus went online about a year ago — sermons from Pastor Reggie Atlas. Reggie picked to lead White House prayer breakfast. Bought the Encinitas property two years back, tore down the old meditation center, built the cathedral, and opened for business a year ago. Plans to expand. Plans for Four Wheels for Jesus cathedrals in Texas, Florida, and Georgia. Forbes guessed Four Wheels for Jesus Ministry assets at twenty-two million last year.”

Darrel looked at me over the top of the screen. “I had no idea he’s raking it in like that. You figure his nonprofit tax exemptions must be good as — well, gold. The church buildings and real estate alone are worth twelve million. No complaints against Reggie Atlas. No civil or criminal filings. No lawsuits. Not a whiff of sexual misconduct, harassment, anything. Squeaky-clean, Roland.”

“Do you doubt my client?” I asked.

“I doubt everyone. Including this pastor man who thinks he hangs out with Jesus.”

“Has anyone seen Daley since San Clemente?” I asked.

Darrel’s eyes found me over the top of his monitor again. “Not yet.”

I didn’t quite believe him and he didn’t quite care. Later, I’d ask that question again. He sat back, put his hands behind his head.

“After I talked to her last week, I did some digging on Penelope Rideout,” he said. “The sister — or now, possibly, the mother. She came up clean. Good family, public schools. She was appointed legal guardian of her sister after the death of their parents. A car accident. I got the ODOT report on that accident. Used to do those myself, accident fatality investigations. Nothing suspicious about it. Penelope managed to finish college. An aerospace technical writer. Job shops. Moved around a lot. Stayed single. But just exactly how Penelope managed to pass her daughter off as her sister for fourteen years isn’t clear to me, Ford. Maybe you know something I don’t.”

I’d been thinking about that, too. The key was, Penelope hadn’t done it alone.

“Her mom and dad engineered it,” I said. “They were conservative southerners. Churchgoers. No abortions, especially not for their girl. Adoption? Well, why give away what you already love, sight unseen? Keep the child. Start the coverup early and move fast. Keep ahead of the gossip. Daley gets a normal-appearing girlhood. Penelope gets to help raise her daughter. It would account for all the family moves after Daley was born. The new neighbors didn’t have time or reason to question things. Nothing to question, by the look of things. June Rideout was only thirty-five when Penelope had Daley. I saw a picture of her. June looked young for her age. Easily a mother of two. You wouldn’t even stop to think about it.”

Darrel leaned his elbows on his desk and worried a yellow pencil in his large black hands. Stared at me. “And what was Atlas doing all this time?”

“Building his ministry and tracking Penelope and his daughter,” I said. “Demanding Penelope’s silence.”

“And she?”

“Trying to dodge him,” I said.

“Penelope thinks he’s after the girl now?”

I nodded.

“You believe he’d do that?” Walker asked.

“It’s not something that people like us can understand.”

“His own daughter?” asked Darrel, disgust in his voice and on his face.

I let the obvious answer go unspoken.

“What if she’s lying about all of this?” asked Darrel. “According to your story, she’s been lying successfully for fourteen years.”

“I believe her.”

Darrel set the pencil on his desktop. “Do you want to believe her?”

“Does it matter?”

“You bet it does, so don’t fool yourself. I’ve met her. She’s convincing. Beautiful, too.”

“I believe her, Darrel.”

A sigh and a dry smile from the detective. “My mom likes Reggie Atlas. Never misses Four Wheels for Jesus on her damned phone.”