“I’ll come with you,” Cindy said. “There are a lot of windows with no treatments. Just in case something’s lurking.”
It took Grant twenty minutes to pack his belongings into two suitcases. By that time, the view outside had faded to charcoal with starlight sitting above the twinkling city lights. Outside the air was mild with crickets chirping. The roadside was nearly black, with streetlamps being few and far between. Grant struggled to get the key into the lock, the sole illumination a yellow-tinged porch light. Because it was so quiet, Decker heard the pops and because it was so dark, he saw the blinding orange flashes. Without thinking he pushed Cindy into the camellia bushes on the right while falling on top of Grant Kaffey, rolling the both of them into the shrubbery on the left. As he lay sprawled out on Grant, he managed to extract his gun, while screaming to Cindy to ask if she was all right.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine,” she screamed back. “I got my gun.”
“Don’t shoot!” Decker screamed.
And then the night turned deathly quiet.
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Don’t shoot. Let your eyes adjust.”
“I’m with you, boss.”
His own eyes were intensely focused, staring through the bushes, seeing whatever he could make out: some pinpoints of light but mostly shadows. Houses…parked cars…trees. Nothing in human shape appeared to be moving. To Grant he whispered, “You okay?”
“Yeah. My leg hurts.”
Grant was grunting. Not surprising because Decker must have outweighed him by fifty pounds. “Bad?”
“I think I scraped it. I’m okay.”
Decker’s ears suddenly perked up to the sound of receding footsteps, but he couldn’t see any shape or form. Within a moment, an ignition fired followed by the screech of tires laying down rubber. The noise grew softer as the seconds ticked on.
“Can you reach your phone?”
“Yeah…I think so…”
Decker waited stock-still while his eyes continued to look for a change in the shadows. “Call 911 and hold it up to my ear, okay? You still there, Cin?”
“I’m still here with my metallic friend in hand.”
The crickets had started up again. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally felt the cell upon his ear, an operator saying those beautiful words.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
In a calm whisper that belied his rapidly beating heart, Decker explained that he was from LAPD, that shots had been fired, that one person may be hurt, and they needed immediate backup. He gave the address and the street to the operator and told her to tell the cruisers to stop any vehicle they met coming up the mountain. “Use extreme caution. The driver of the car may be armed.”
She repeated the address back to him.
Decker told her yes. He wasn’t even aware that he had memorized the street numerals. But such was the force of habit after thirty-plus years on the job. He had always made it a point to know where he was, had done so unconsciously.
Five minutes later, Decker could hear the wail of the approaching sirens. Using Grant’s cell phone, he pinpointed his location to the uniformed cops. It took a while to secure the area and extract them from the foliage.
All around were blinking black-and-whites. Curious neighbors stood behind yellow crime tape. As the three of them brushed dirt off their clothes, Grant discovered that his pants were torn and he was bleeding from his leg. Decker took a flashlight from a uniformed officer, knelt down, and carefully parted the torn cloth on Grant’s pants leg.
Could be a nasty scrape or it could be a graze wound. In better light, he could have discerned if the skin had been burned or not. He could see that it was oozing—wet and shiny—but it wasn’t spurting. He looped his arm around Grant’s waist and asked Cindy to help him carry Grant to a cruiser. The best thing to do was to keep him settled and let the professionals handle this one.
As soon as Kaffey was seated in a black-and-white, Decker radioed for an ambulance.
“I’M HUNG UP at work.” Decker was trying to keep his voice neutral. “Do me a favor and stay overnight with your parents.”
“How late are you going to be?” Rina asked him.
“I don’t know. I’m at a crime scene. Maybe pretty late.”
“What crime scene?”
“Can’t go into that right now. I’ll talk to you later, okay? Call me when you get to your parents’.”
“Peter, you sound very tense. What aren’t you telling me?”
“I can’t get into that.”
Rina could hear voices in the background. One of them sounded like her stepdaughter. “Is Cindy there?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Obviously I hear her. What are you doing in Hollywood?”
“Maybe she’s in West Valley. I’ve got to go.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on. I’ve been a cop’s wife for seventeen years. I’m not going to melt. Tell me right now!”
Decker gave her the abbreviated version, hoping that would satisfy her.
“But you and Cindy are okay?”
Her voice sounded shaky. “Rina, we’re both fine. My face got scratched a little, but other than that, I am completely whole.”
“Baruch Hashem. I’ll bench Gomel for you.”
The prayer for surviving a dire situation. “Do it for Cindy as well.”
“I will.” Now her voice sounded teary. “What are you doing right now?”
“We’re trying to find all the bullets and reconstructing the trajectory.”
“So you can know how lucky you were.”
Decker smiled. “I just wish I could have seen something. You know how dark it is in the hills, and I was literally hiding in the bushes.”
“Could you hear anything?”
“Receding footsteps and a car peeling rubber. I’ve called in a tech to see if we can lift a tire print from the skid marks. Maybe we’ll catch a break.”
Rina didn’t answer.
“Are you still there?” Decker asked.
“I was just thinking about the blue Saturn that was parked across the street.”
“The one with the tinted windows and Popper Motors license plate. I had Marge check it out. They do sell new and used Saturns. Marge spoke to a salesperson named Dean Reeves. They’re checking the records. If it came from them, they have a record of the tires on the car.”
“It would be interesting if the treads matched your skid marks.”
“It would be more than interesting, it would be downright scary. I’ve got to go. Call me when you’re at your parents.”
“I will. You’re not so far from them. Maybe you’ll get off earlier than you think.”
“I’ll come over whenever I can.”
“Good to hear,” Rina said. “I’ll keep the night-light on and the sheets warm.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE PAIR LOOKED like Marge and Oliver. The woman had on a gray sweater with the sleeves hiked up at the elbows, dark blue trousers, and sneakers, but the man’s dress was a giveaway—a spiffy blue sports jacket, khaki slacks, and oxfords. As they came closer, their faces took form.
“What are you doing here?” Decker said.
“I called up Marge,” Cindy said. “I thought she’d want to know.” To Oliver, she waved. “Hello, Scott, how have you been?”
“I’ve been dandy, Cynthia. How’s married life?”
“So far, it’s an excellent fit.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re well.”
“Thank you.”
Marge said, “Now that we got the pleasantries over with, you wanna tell us what the hell happened?” She looked at Cindy. “Either one of you.”
Although there was no reason for them to have come down, it was good to see friendly faces. Decker said, “As we were leaving the house, someone took aim and fired. We’re here, we’re whole, but Grant went to the hospital w
ith a gash in his leg.”
“He was shot?” Oliver asked.
“I don’t know. It was dark and I couldn’t tell. Maybe his leg was ripped open when I fell on him.”
“Did you discharge your gun?” Oliver asked.
“Nope.”
“That’s good,” Marge said. “Less paperwork.”
Cindy said, “They came, they shot, they left—”
“They?”
“They, he, she…I couldn’t see a thing,” Cindy said. “Last thing the Loo wanted was to accidentally pop a neighbor out walking the dog.”
Marge said, “If Grant was shot, that means every single Kaffey has had a close encounter with molten lead.”
Decker rubbed his forehead. “I was thinking the same thing. We’ve run out of family suspects.”
“And maybe that’s the point,” Marge said. “To confuse us. Because all three Kaffeys are all alive.”
“Maybe all three were in on the hit together,” Oliver said.
“Could be,” Marge said. “It appears that Grant got away with the least damage.”
“Mace’s wound was minor as far as shotgun wounds go,” Decker pointed out. “And don’t forget Antoine Resseur is still missing.”
“Why would he shoot Grant?” Oliver asked.
“To have Gil all to himself.” Decker held up his hands. “You asked for a motive, I gave you the first thing I thought of.”
Cindy checked her watch. It was almost ten. They’d been at the scene for three hours. “Luckily, I was off duty, and I didn’t discharge my weapon thanks to Papa’s instructions. Instead of doing extra paperwork, I get to go home.”
“That sounds like a good idea.” Decker kissed his daughter’s cheek. “Until we know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is, keep an eye over your shoulder.”
Cindy pointed to her chest. “We’re the good guys.” Then she swept her hand across a twinkling L.A. basin. “Those are the bad guys.” She kissed Marge and Scott. “Take care of the Loo in my absence.”
Decker watched his daughter slide into the driver’s seat of her car and kept staring until her taillights faded into nothingness. “I’m ready to pack it in.”
“I told you we shouldn’t have bothered,” Oliver said to Marge.
“And I told you, you didn’t have to come with me,” she countered.
Decker said, “Since you two were nice enough to drive all the way out here, come to Beverly Hills with me. We can kick around a few ideas.” He exhaled forcefully. “My brain is still in overdrive, and I could use some fresh input.”
“What’s in Beverly Hills?” Oliver asked.
“Rina’s parents. We’re spending the night there.” He gave them the address. “It’s about twenty minutes from here.”
Oliver made a face. “You’re voluntarily sleeping at your mother-in-law’s?”
“I’m sleeping at my mother-in-law’s, not with my mother-in-law,” Decker told him. “I like Magda. She provides us with room service and first-class food at any hour. Plus, the accommodations are spacious and cheap.”
Oliver thought about it. “Does she need any borders? Maybe she’d like a handsome police detective to protect her.”
“She already has that. It’s called a son-in-law.”
MAGDA’S SPREAD INCLUDED finger sandwiches, vegetable crudités with onion dip, fresh fruit, slices of pound cake, slices of chocolate cake, almond cookies, potato chips (for a little crunch), mixed nuts, and mint candy.
“I’ll go make a fresh pot of decaf if anyone wants,” she said.
The woman was on the dark side of eighty, as thin as linguini, and never appeared in public without makeup. Her blond hair was meticulously coiffed—teased and sprayed for maximum volume. Rina often said that her mother was the night person while her father, Stephan, got up with the sun. He was sleeping while she was in her element playing hostess. She wore knitted black pants that hung on her clothes-hanger hips and a red cashmere sweater.
“If you’re having some, I’ll take some,” Oliver told her.
“I’ll have a cup,” she told him. “What is cake without coffee?”
Rina said, “I’ll do it, Mama.”
“No, no,” Magda insisted. “I like to make coffee. You sit and eat, Ginny.” She smiled at Oliver. “By the way, my granddaughter made the pound cake.”
“Obviously Hannah learned from the best,” Marge said.
Magda patted Rina. “I don’t know if you mean me or Ginny, but we both take the compliment.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
To Decker, Rina said, “You made her very happy when you said you’re a little hungry.”
The Loo smiled. “Do I know my mother-in-law or what?”
“This is really good,” Marge said as she bit into an egg salad sandwich. “I feel like we should be having high tea.”
“If you would have given her a little more time, I’m sure she would have baked scones.” Rina stood up. “I’ll keep her company. You two keep an eye on him. He’s out of my sight for a couple of hours and he gets shot at. I am not pleased.”
As Rina was walking out, Decker said, “It wasn’t planned, you know.”
She turned and looked over her shoulder. “Unlike last time?”
“How many times do I have to apologize…” Decker was talking to the air. “That woman has a gigabyte worth of memories, most of them infractions that I’ve committed for the last nineteen years.”
“That’s the point,” Oliver said. “You exist so she can tell you what you did wrong.”
“That is neither just nor fair,” Marge said. “And Rina is certainly not like that. The situation was unusual.”
Decker said, “We can change the subject now.”
Oliver complied. “What do you guys think about all the Kaffeys having war wounds? Do you think it’s possible that there’s actually someone out there who wants to annihilate the family or is it collusion?”
Decker popped a cashew into his mouth. “Who’d want to hurt the family?”
Oliver took another piece of chocolate cake. “What about the guy back east who’s in competition with the Greenridge Project?”
“Paul Pritchard of Cyclone Inc.” Decker took a mint from the candy bowl. “Lee Wang gave me some articles that quote Pritchard. He says he isn’t worried at all about Greenridge. He thinks the project is a big lox. Now that could be bravado. But even if Pritchard was worried, do you think he’d be worried enough to murder an entire family?”
“Far-fetched, but not impossible.” Marge picked up another egg salad sandwich. “Is there another family member who’ll inherit if the rest of the family is murdered?”
Oliver spoke with a mouthful of chocolate cake. “Doesn’t Mace have a son?”
“He does,” Decker said. “His name is Sean.”
Marge said, “Even if all the principal Kaffeys were dead, Sean Kaffey wouldn’t inherit everything. Grant has a kid. And would Sean be stupid enough to gun them all down within a ten-day period?”
Oliver said, “What would be the harm if I looked into him? It sounds stupid, but greedy people act stupid all the time.”
“Sure, look into Sean, but don’t forget basic police work. We need to find Gil Kaffey and Antoine Resseur.”
Marge took out her notepad. “You want me to make that my personal mission?”
“Priority number one,” Decker told her. “Find out everything you can about Resseur. Grant said the breakup between Gil and Antoine was friendly, but maybe it wasn’t.”
Marge said, “Maybe their breakup was staged to keep Resseur out of the picture while Gil knocked off the rest of the family. It still strikes me as odd that whoever blasted Guy and Gilliam to smithereens didn’t bother to finish off Gil.”
“Agreed.” Decker took another handful of nuts. “But we all know that if Gil contracted for the hits, he didn’t do the actual shooting.”
Everyone agreed.
“Oh, we got some good news today,” Decker said. “Sheriff T from Ponceville
finally sent us a copy of Rondo Martin’s prints via FedEx. We found a match with a bloody print at the scene.” Amid high fives, Decker said, “Now we can prove that Rondo Martin was at the scene. We need to find him.”
“I’ll mark that as priority number two,” Oliver said.
Decker smiled. “Then this is number three. Brett Harriman identified Alejandro Brand’s voice as one of the voices he overheard at the courthouse. Unfortunately that’s not enough to indict Brand on murder charges.”
“You think he did it?” Marge asked.
“He knows something.” Decker shoved the nuts in his mouth and chewed. “Foothill picked up Brand on meth manufacturing charges so I got a copy of his print. Nothing in the system and no match from the unknowns at the crime scene.”
“That’s a bummer,” Oliver said.
“It should be that easy,” Decker said. “Brand is in jail and isn’t going anywhere soon. I’d like to dangle a carrot of a reduced sentence to get him to talk about the hit.”
“And you still think Harriman’s information is reliable?”
“He picked out Alejandro Brand’s voice after rejecting two other tapes. Plus, Rina identified Brand as the guy she saw at the courthouse. Also, if Harriman was making things up, how would he know about Joe Pine?” Decker paused. “On the other hand, he’s a weird guy. He showed up at my doorstep this afternoon.”
Oliver made a face. “Why?”
“He just wanted to talk to Rina. He asked if I had set up a lineup for her to identify Brand.”
“The P.D. would have a field day with that.”
“She sent him away,” Decker asked. “But as she watched him go, she noticed a car following Harriman.”
Marge told Oliver the story. “I’m checking out Saturns with Popper Motors.”
Decker said, “Be interesting to see if any of the skid marks from tonight’s getaway matched the treads on any of the Saturns from the dealership.”
“But first we have to find the car,” Marge said. “If the guy at Popper Motors can tell me some names, I can drive by the addresses and see if any of them own a navy Saturn with tinted windows.”
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