Т Паркер - Swift Vengeance

“Maybe six hundred dollars over the last few years.”

“Where are you going to get that fifty grand?” Taucher asked with a dry smile.

Marah rolled her eyes.

“What kind of car does he drive?” I asked.

“A small gold pickup truck,” said Marah. “I don’t know the maker. It’s old. You know, it’s fine that you’re so interested in Ben, but whoever this terrible assassin is, it can’t be Ben.”

“Why can’t it?” asked Taucher, her combat face back on.

Marah’s eyebrows rose in a mask of pleading disappointment. “He’s the baby . He’s golden Ben and he’s never hurt a living thing in his life. He hasn’t eaten an animal since he was fifteen. I understand it’s your job to be suspicious, but you want to be correct, too. Right?”

“We have to be correct,” said Taucher. “And we appreciate your efforts to help us be correct. So, with your permission, we would like to look through this room. Desk, closet. All of it.”

The disappointment on Marah’s face now deepened. I watched her will it away. A strong young woman wrestling with a weighty opponent — herself. Stoic acceptance then, and a flash of anger in her dark eyes. “I’d have to be present,” she said.

“Of course,” said Taucher. “You’ve done the right thing, Marah.”

“Alan would kill me.”

“Alan has issues that help no one,” said Taucher.

Alan’s issues struck me as more dangerous than that.

Taucher made for the closet and I sat at the desk. The two stacks of paper were neat and the glass desktop had been dusted recently. I turned on the lamp and opened the top middle drawer. Pens and pencils, paper clips, a stapler and staples, index cards in a rubber band, a yellow highlighter.

Farther back in the drawer was a faux-leather folder bulging with loose papers. I slid it out and opened it. A complimentary bank calendar with a red stagecoach speeding through a green valley. A paper-clipped batch of printouts and magazine pages related to rock climbing, surfing, and nature photography. A flyer for a public gun range in El Monte — rates and hours. That caught my attention. It looked like the stuff that Ben might have swept off his desktop just before leaving.

From the corner of my eye I saw Taucher’s blurred form at the closet. I could hear the clothes hangers rasping on the wooden rod, Taucher impatient and forceful. I went back to the folder in front of me, listening over my shoulder.

Taucher: “Marah, would you mind reading me a few of Ben’s texts and emails? Just so I can get to know him a little while I’m having a look here?”

A pause that grew longer and longer. The women silent. The hangers no longer scraping on the dowel.

Marah: “I’m sorry. I think I’ve made the wrong call. I don’t feel right about letting you do this.”

I slid the folder back where it had been and quietly closed the middle drawer. Felt our friendly citizen slipping away fast.

I opened the top left drawer, found hanging folders labeled “Bills,” “Surfing,” “Climbing,” “Campgrounds,” “Shooting,” Music,” “Truck,” “Computer.”

All empty.

Marah: “I think I’ve been an idiot. To allow you to go through Ben’s stuff.”

Taucher: “You’ve been smart and fair with us. We’re not here to bust anyone. We’re here to scratch people off our list. To establish Ben’s innocence.”

Marah: “Is innocence in your vocabulary, Agent Taucher?”

Taucher, her voice softer: “Marah, you certainly don’t have to share Ben’s communications with me. I understand your feelings, and I apologize.”

The bottom drawer had no folders at all, just two neat stacks of Surfer and Alpinist magazines reaching nearly to the top of the drawer. I slid it shut and looked at Marah just as Taucher spoke.

“Marah? Has Ben been just a little bit not himself lately?”

Marah’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Not at all. He sounds happier than he’s been since Dad. You heard his text. He wants to get married and buy a home. He’s never talked about settling down before.”

“Have you met the prospective bride?”

“No,” Marah said softly. “Not yet.”

“He’s had serial girlfriends, right? So this Kalima may or may not be serious.”

Back to the desk. In the top right drawer I found a plastic bag containing bars of surfboard wax and a surfboard leash, tightly wound and held fast by its own ankle strap. I wondered if Ben had stopped surfing. And if so, why.

The bottom right drawer was empty. I stood.

“We’re almost done here, Marah,” said Taucher. “And I can’t thank you enough for putting up with my obnoxious attitude and occasional bad manners. It’s obvious to me that your brother Ben has nothing to do with our investigation. As I said, half our job is clearing people. The pleasant half, I might add.”

“Okay. I’m sorry to be suspicious of you.”

“If we could just see that letter from Ben,” said Taucher, “we can finalize this deal.”

“Finalize what deal?”

“We have a sample of the assassin’s writing,” said Taucher. “Handwriting is like fingerprints in that everybody has their own unique signature. Mr. Ford is very familiar with handwriting analysis. Right, Roland?”

Marah looked to me for confirmation.

I nodded, disrespecting myself for manipulating a half-willing ally.

Suspicion clouded her face again. But something else overrode it, and I wondered what. “Handwriting. Okay.”

“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” said Taucher.

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” said Marah.

“We are not scoundrels,” said Joan. “And believe me, the aforementioned vigilance doesn’t pay much. The hours are long and we make mistakes sometimes.”

“I get a decent salary from Los Angeles County.”

“Great,” said Taucher. “So if you could just show us Ben’s letter, we can let you get on with your day. You mentioned that he sent it just a few weeks ago. So his current Santa Ana address is on it, right?”

“You people are relentless,” said Marah. “You’re enough to make good Americans not want to help you. Which is what we are. Al, Ben, and me. Good Americans.”

“Marah?” asked Taucher. “I couldn’t be more satisfied that none of you have anything to do with the man we’re after. Federal policy requires me to get the handwriting sample and address. Do you have anything to add, Roland?”

“Only thank you.”

Once more, those layers of conflict crossing Marah’s lovely face, like clouds at different elevations. “You’re not FBI, right?”

“I’m a private investigator, as Agent Taucher told you and Alan.”

“Why are you here?”

“I love working Saturdays.”

A smile.

But what better answer than the truth? “The killer we’re looking for is brutal and efficient,” I said. “He’s threatened a good friend of mine, a wonderful woman. She has a beautiful son. I don’t want her to be decapitated.”

“She and her crew killed Dad?”

“And nine others, including one Islamic State terrorist.”

“I’m sickened by what your friend did to Dad and the others,” said Marah. Her face had flushed. “And I’m sickened by what could happen to your friend, too.”

She took my card and she offered me her hand. Her shake was warm and firm.

“I’m curious,” I said. “Did you three siblings get twelve thousand five hundred dollars each for the death of your father? Or did you split it?”

“We split it evenly between his nine children,” said Marah. “About fourteen hundred bucks apiece. I donated mine back to Doctors Without Borders.”