Т Паркер - Swift Vengeance

Back downstairs I went through the mail on the kitchen counter. Found the envelope that the letter had come in — postmarked the same day as the threat to Lindsey, with a San Diego postmark and a return address belonging to World Pizza of Ocean Beach. Shot that and looked through what else was there.

I rolled off a paper towel and dampened it under the sink faucet. Cleaned my prints off the garage doorknob and the front-door deadbolt. Squeezed the towels dry over the sink, set the soggy wad in my coat pocket. I’d faithfully confess to America’s Deadliest Police Force the basic truth of what I’d done, but I saw no use in advertising my curiosity. No, sir. I had no idea what I was walking into.

I stepped outside and closed the door behind me.

Lindsey was leaning against the porch railing. She offered me a hard stare and smeared a tear off her cheek with her palm.

Voss stood beside her. “We’ve just broken a bunch of laws,” he said. “I think we should at least get our stories straight.”

“Don’t get creative,” I said. “Tell the cops exactly what happened. I’ll take point. When I’m done sending these pictures to myself, I’ll call Bakersfield PD.”

And Taucher.

“Lindsey, you need to answer a very important question. What was Brandon Goff’s relationship to Kenny Bryce?”

“Friends. Air Force. We had us some times.”

“Did they have a fight or a falling out?”

“Never.”

“Was Bryce trying to get close to you since the divorce?”

“Absolutely not.”

I glanced up toward the early-afternoon sun, a dazzling orange ball high in the blue. Wondering, if I could take away the roof of Kenny Bryce’s upstairs bedroom, would that powerful sun burn away the blood and the bones and the horror? Burn them right down to nothing? I knew the answer, though: not in my lifetime. But if I could replace the roof with a magnifying glass of the same size — stupendously heavy and thick and perfectly proportioned and polished — maybe then? In the end I figured if I really wanted it all cleaned up right, I’d have to pour a gallon or two of gas over it and light the match.

I lit a cigarette instead, sat in one of the little bistro chairs and started tap-tap-tapping on my goddamned phone, bouncing images of headless Kenny Bryce from one point on planet Earth to another.

Twenty-seven hours later I was back home, outside on a chaise longue, bundled in my barn jacket and watching the black-orange December sunset. My grandfather Dick had just delivered to me a bruising bourbon. Just a splash of water. Dick doubts my well-being when I don’t have a cocktail in my hand, and this time he wasn’t totally wrong. I couldn’t get the Bakersfield images from my brain. I wondered if I ever would. I wanted that drink.

“Judging by your face, I’d say your trip was not a huge success,” said Dick. He sized me up over his highball glass, took a sip, and sat down on the chaise next to me.

“No, not huge.”

I’d been detained and questioned for ten hours over two days, since calling 911 from Kenny Bryce’s front porch. At the end of the first day I’d talked our way out of an overnight discretionary hold and into the Marriott downtown. A little sleep, then round two. I felt bent and folded and torn, but I had not yet been charged with any crime.

“Lindsey looked ready for the grave,” Dick noted. “Might I have an executive summary of events?”

“No,” I said. “Events involved a freshly slaughtered human being. That’s all I’ll say. And keep it to yourself.”

I watched orange and black compete low in the western sky, black winning out. Listened to the clink of ice in Grandpa’s glass. His wife, my grandma Liz, walked past him without a look and sat on the other side of me. She carried a balloon glass half full of red wine. They’ve been married fifty-something years, raised three children, helped to spoil eight grandchildren, and now reside in respective casitas at opposite ends of the pond.

“Welcome home, Rollie,” she said, studying me. “Looks to me like you and Lindsey must have closed the nightclub twice.”

“I wish I looked better for you two.”

“Honey, can’t he just enjoy a sunset?” asked Dick.

“Overall, though, Lindsey is quite fetching these days,” said Liz. “And apparently her custody battle is going in her favor, too.”

I nodded, sipped the bourbon. “It’s nice to have her back,” I said, regretting it immediately.

“I would think so,” said Liz, swirling her glass.

“In what way is it nice, Roland?” asked Dick.

“In the way that a strong young man likes having a lovely woman around,” said Liz. Another lift of her balloon glass.

“I’ve forgotten,” said her husband.

“Fifty-one years of marriage and Dick lost interest halfway through,” said Liz. “Garaged the car with plenty of miles still left on her.”

“Do we have any noise-canceling headphones around here?” I said.

“I’ve got a pair in the house,” said Dick. “Believe me, they’re well used!”

Liz sighed and leaned back on the chaise. “Rollie, just FYI? The electrical in my place is acting up again. My brand-new microwave sparked and fizzled out last night. Had to drink my hot toddy cold.”

“Why not use the stove?” asked her husband. “You remember how to boil water, don’t you?”

“This Chilean wine I found must be really good. Halfway through and even you seem funny, hon.”

“What’s the latest on the cat?” asked Dick.

Owner Tammy Bellamy had left me four emails when I was closing nightclubs in Bakersfield. There had been two false sightings yesterday, Tuesday, and two more today. People were reporting average-weight gray striped cats — not twenty-two-pound Oxley. One was not even gray, and only one of them had Oxley’s green eyes. Tammy said that the brief rain shower on Monday night had ruined most of the posters. Would I take a few minutes to replace the soaked posters with fresh ones from my stack?

“Tammy needs some help putting up new posters,” I said. “You guys up for that tomorrow?”

“There are hundreds of them,” said Dick.

“The rain ruined them,” I said.

“She should never have let that cat get over ten pounds,” said Liz.

“Tammy needs our help.”

“You’re making the big money off of this cat, not us,” said Dick.

“I’ve got some of Tammy’s apricot-brandy jam and you’re welcome to it.”

Dick shrugged. “Okay. Liz and I will put up more posters. But it’s been what, ten days? Every time I hear those coyotes yapping I think Oxley just got lunched. What a racket those things make. And almost every night. Maybe Dale can shed some scientific light on why those animals are running around unchecked. Maybe find a way to cut their numbers down. Dale’s won awards, you know.”

“Coyotes have to make a living, too,” Liz pointed out.

Dale being Dale Clevenger, award-winning video-journalist now residing in casita number two. Who, judging by the lights already on in the barn, was hard at work on his next program.

After the last strip of orange had blipped out over the black hills, I got a handful of LOST CAT flyers from my office and brought them down for Dick and Liz. They were disputing the truth of the “flash of green” in Key West sunsets: Liz pro and Dick con, on and on as always — poster models for how not to grow old. Or maybe they had it right: the secret to longevity was dispute.

Liz took the flyers and squared them on her lap. “We’ll find this kitty.”

Clevenger and Burt were in the barn. Radio news playing low, every light on. Clevenger had taken over one end of the space, arranging two long utility tables in a wide V shape for a workstation. One table for his three custom-made computers, three monitors, a bank of wireless speakers, and an audio mixing board. The other table for his drones and their corresponding tools. He had four, five, or six drones — the number kept changing. Tonight it was five, three of them whole and two taken apart for maintenance or repair.