Т Паркер - The Last Good Guy

Two burnt, bullet-shredded corpses were heaped directly under the shattered windows of the barn loft where they had fallen. I wondered how many more were inside.

In a remote patch of the barnyard, under heavy guard, sat the captured ambushers, tied at their wrists and ankles, propped up in a line with their backs against the bunkhouse — Adam Revell and eight men I recognized from the wasp-cams but didn’t know by name. They looked like POWs, defeated and hostile, smeared with dirt and blood, their eyes flickering orange.

Lark and a SWAT sniper escorted Battle from the Suburban, cuffed him, and propped him up next to his SNR followers. Two of the SWATs dragged blood-dripping Glassen out of the vehicle and into the barnyard dirt.

Lark had a brief confidential word with one of his agents, who nodded toward two tarp-covered bodies that lay in the middle of the loosely circled law enforcement vehicles.

A rear door of the Bearcat swung open and Marie got out and clambered toward her husband in her blue dress and new Jack Purcell sneaks. Two sheriff’s deputies caught her and pulled her back.

Then sirens in the wind, sounding far away. Flashing lights coming our way on a distant road.

My bullet-holed truck started right up and Lark let me go.

I picked up Daley in El Centro. Steered west through the black night, eyes fixed on the yellow dividing lines. We climbed the boulder-piled mountains, my thoughts crowded with death and destruction, my mood calm and bad. Burt behind us in the Eldo.

Daley dozed beside me after talking briefly but emotionally with Penelope. Burt scanned the road behind and ahead of us while trading messages with Penelope: Daley’s frame of mind and physical condition, our own conditions, our estimated time of arrival in Oceanside, would we have to stop for gas or food?

The road signs accelerated into my high beams. A small owl lifted off from the road shoulder.

Burt on the phone. “What was the body count back there, Roland?”

“At least six SNR guards, one FBI agent, and a sheriff’s deputy are dead. Battle rolled an ATV, but it looks like he’ll make it. Marie’s fine. Connor Donald is in the wind, waving a machine gun.”

I needed some hard intel. “Daley, did you leave Nick’s place with Connor and Eric willingly?”

“I knew them. I called them to come get me. I felt safe at first.”

“Did they force you to stay with them after that?”

“Yes.”

“Did Reggie Atlas sexually assault you?”

“He did not. He often looks at me very strangely.”

“Do you have any idea how much torment you’ve put your sister through?”

“She lives in fear,” said Daley. “Because of me. As she constantly reminds me.”

“She’ll be glad to have you back.”

Oceanside was misty and cool, a world away from Imperial Valley. I could see Daley registering the city, her neighborhood, her street. She looked exhausted and unhappy, and I had the thought that I didn’t want to be Penelope Rideout tonight. We passed the sprawling Oceanside Transit Center, lit but quiet at this late hour. “You turn at Myers,” said Daley. “I take it you’ve been here before.”

I nodded.

“Did you go in my room?”

I nodded again.

“How’s my Gibson?”

“Looking good,” I said. “Penelope has really missed you. I hope you can find some kind words for her.”

“I lost my Martin, half my clothes, and my backpack full of CDs,” she said dreamily. “Back in all that gunfire. That was really scary.”

“Did you hear me about the kind words?” I asked.

“I can find some good words,” said Daley. “Sisters always fight. I’m happy to be home again. I think, maybe, I’m about to be really happy.”

When we pulled into the little driveway, Penelope burst through the front door, charged across the porch and down the drive toward us.

Daley met her halfway and they collided in a hug that sent them spinning like dancers. Both of them yelping and crying at once, hands on each other’s faces, words rushing over words.

“No Toto,” said Burt at my window. “But you did well, Roland. You’ve earned some overtime pay and a good long vacation.”

For a moment I watched them through the windshield, then checked the rearview and stepped from the truck. Penelope came over and threw herself into my arms and locked on like a constrictor. Over her shoulder I saw Daley coming toward us with an amused smile.

Inside, I set the window blinds for a good view and the four of us crowded around the dinette. Burt and I sat facing the small living room and the front door. Penelope thanked God for the food and for Daley’s return. Then served hot rolls and butter and a stew she’d made.

Daley shoveled down her dinner, then brought her Gibson into the living room and started playing. She stopped and looked at us once, briefly, then dropped her attention to the guitar again, devoted to her instrument, as musicians always are.

“You shouldn’t be here tonight,” I told Penelope. “Too much mayhem in the air.”

She eyed me. “I feel it.”

“You two can come home with us. I’ve got a casita free. Or the Hyatt Grand downtown has good security. We can drive or follow you there. Talk to Daley if you’d like.”

“We’ll go with you,” Penelope said. “I want us all to be close.”

Burt smiled, staring through the living room window, then broke open another roll.

Early-morning darkness still over Rancho de los Robles, the stars fading, coyotes yipping not far away.

Francisco stood in the porchlight of his casita, strapping a cooler of food and water to his bike rack for the very long workday ahead. He had groomed and dressed as would any Central American beginning his workday in Fallbrook: showered and cleanly shaven, hair recently cut, long-sleeved shirt tucked in and buttoned up, long pants, wide belt, and boots. Triunfo watched us, tail wagging. They came down and Frank greeted Penelope with a charged smile. She introduced him to her sister.

“You are the girl is loved,” he said.

“Sounds like a song,” said Daley.

Penelope and Daley got casita three, two small bedrooms with a shared bath, a sufficient kitchen, and a cedar-walled living room with a fireplace and a view of the pond and the sunsets.

An hour later we were all sitting side by side along the western edge of the big patio, facing the pond and the rolling acres and the hills.

An odd eight-pack: Burt and me, Penelope and Daley, Dick and Liz, Frank and Melinda. Coffee and English muffins. Small talk with big pauses. A softly murmured account from Melinda, of a pleasant dream from which she’d just awakened, about riding a horse facing backward and guiding it by the tail. From behind us the rising sun touched its light to the hills, and the sky above them went from black to gray.

Francisco excused himself, got on his bike, and rode down the driveway toward the gate.

I got two hours of sleep, snores thundering from my bedroom, I am told.

I left Burt in charge, and three hours later met Mike Lark at the entrance of Paradise Date Farm.

I looked out at the legions of disgruntled reporters and their vehicles, all having baked in the sun for hours by then, with more hours to come if the reporters wanted the story. I saw Howard Wilkin, my friend at the San Diego Union-Tribune , and he saw me, not necessarily a good thing for a PI with privacy for himself and his clients in mind.

Lark picked me up in one of the armored Suburbans, the thick plexiglass windshield chipped and cloudy with dust, its flanks well dented by recent bullets.

“You wouldn’t believe what these people were going to do,” he said.

“I thought dirty bomb,” I said.