Disorderly Conduct

by Mary Feliz

  “David’s back in with the orthopedist,” Elaine said. “Bay eleven.”

  Max and I located David in an exam cubicle with a sliding glass door. A fluorescent light flickered and hummed, giving the whole area a timeless blue glow. “This is Dr. Paine,” David said.

  “Give me a sec to finish wrapping this splint,” the doctor said. David’s left leg appeared twice the size of the right and looked mummified, wrapped in beige Ace bandages from toe to mid-thigh.

  The doctor fastened the edges of the last bandage, then tilted the foot, watching David’s face to gauge his reactions. “No pain?” he asked. David shook his head.

  “Great. I’ll see you in a few days for a cast. When does school start?”

  “Two weeks.”

  Dr. Paine turned so that he could address all three of us at once. “We’ll get a cast on there later this week. The appointment will be on the discharge papers when they come, but you can call my office to change it if the time doesn’t work. You’ve got a great kid here, and he should heal fast. From the looks of the break, he must have gotten his foot stuck and twisted his body as he fell.” The doctor held out a tablet to show us the X-ray and pointed to faint fuzzy lines encircling David’s bones. “He’s got spiral fractures of the tibia and fibula. Typically we see these in kids who’ve been abused or who get their foot caught in something like a playground or bunk-bed ladder. We need to completely immobilize the bones. David won’t be able to get away with a plastic boot, I’m afraid. We’ll keep him in a splint for a few days until the swelling goes down, and then cast the leg from above the knee to below the ankle. We recast at three weeks with a shorter, lighter cast. After five weeks, he can put some weight on it and may be able to do without the crutches.”

  After providing more information about pain management and the logistics for taking a shower, Dr. Paine left to see another patient, and an orderly came to help David into a wheelchair. “We’re giving you the VIP treatment,” he told David. “I’m to return you to your family while you wait for your crutches and discharge paperwork. Ready?”

  “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  When we reentered the waiting area, Elaine greeted us with her finger to her lips, pointing to Teddy, who, like me, had succumbed to his exhaustion and trauma, and was fast asleep on a sofa. Someone had removed his shoes, and the hospital appeared to have supplied a blanket and pillow that Brian eyed enviously. It was time to get this whole crew home and in bed. My recharge walk had been everything the doctor ordered, literally, but the benefits wouldn’t last forever.

  “Jason just left,” Elaine whispered. “The vet called. Mozart is recovering, but they want to keep him sedated for several hours in case he has an adverse reaction to the antivenom or any of the other medications they’ve given him. Jason sent me a picture to show Teddy.” She swiped through the pictures on her phone and held it out to us.

  “He looks like he’s having a funny dream,” I told her. “Like he’s laughing in his sleep.” The tissue on Mozart’s nose was badly swollen, exposing his teeth in an expression that resembled a snarl, except for the fact that the rest of him seemed calm and relaxed. “They’re sure he’ll be okay? Teddy and Tess need him.”

  Elaine paused before answering. “The biggest problem may be wound care. Venom can kill the tissue, particularly in that bony area of the snout where there’s less circulation. He won’t be winning any beauty contests for a good six months, with the skin sloughing off. Teddy will need to watch for infection, especially with Mozart’s tendency to stick his nose everywhere. The doc says to keep him on a short leash outside, and restrict activity as much as possible while he heals.”

  She handed me an appointment card and a stapled sheaf of papers printed from the Internet. Between the ones I’d been given for Brian and David, I was amassing a small collection.

  “Thanks so much for staying with us,” I told her. “You’ve been such a help. But Mackie must be missing you. Do you want to head home?” Mackie, Elaine’s West Highland terrier, was more high-strung than the larger dogs and apt to get himself into trouble if he was left alone and unexercised for too long.

  Elaine glanced around. “If you don’t need me for anything more. Do you want me to take Teddy home with me?”

  I watched Teddy for a moment as he snored softly on the sofa. “Let him stay. He needs the sleep. Will you give me a call tomorrow? We need to take another look at everything we know about Patrick’s death. Our suspects so far all have alibis. So, either we need to focus on someone else or recheck our timelines and the alibis. There has to be an answer somewhere.”

  “Fretting won’t do anyone any good,” said Elaine. “Can you set aside your worry overnight? I’ll come up first thing, and bring breakfast. We’ll tackle those timelines then and develop a new plan. I don’t care how careful this killer was, we’ll find him. I’m confident of that. But we all need a good night’s sleep first.”

  Elaine gathered up her belongings and said good-bye to the rest of my family. “One of the food service people stuck their heads in about half an hour ago. They said not to worry about cleaning up. And to leave any food we don’t want when we leave. They’ll make sure the leftovers find a good home.”

  “Where are Steven and Munchkin?” I asked, suddenly becoming aware of their absence.

  “Where do you think? They’ve headed to your house to organize extra security, just in case.” The door swung shut behind her, but opened again immediately. “I forgot to tell you. Paolo will swing by your house in the morning to update us on some apparently significant progress. It has something to do with Martín.”

  It took us another hour to complete the paperwork for the boys. Max went to get the car while I collected our gear and reams of forms, instructions, and appointments. Teddy was awake but groggy, and said nothing as we climbed into the car. All three boys and Belle were fast asleep before we left the parking lot.

  Earlier, I’d planned to talk tactics with Max on the drive home, but we were both too tired for clear thinking. My thoughts revolved around getting everyone safely into their beds as quickly as possible.

  As we turned off the freeway and then up the hill toward the house, lights flashed against the low-hanging clouds and fog. I heard what I thought was a gunshot, but I told myself it must be someone tossing heavy items into a construction dumpster. I checked my watch. Two o’clock in the morning. Construction activity was unlikely at this hour. But gunshots? Again?

  I glanced at Max, who’d scrunched down in an awkward position, trying to see more of the mountain ridge. “It looks like a war zone up there,” he said. “What kind of fire crew needs a mobile weapon like that?”

  I peered out the windshield, squinting in the direction Max had indicated. What looked like a Jeep with a roof-mounted gun was silhouetted against the flickering lights behind it. “Could it be a water cannon kind of thing?” Rapid-fire reports broke the silence that followed my statement. “Maybe not. Are we safe here?”

  “Call Stephen,” Max said. I tapped my phone to get Stephen on speed-dial and waited. As the car wound up the narrow roads, I began to feel sick, but I wasn’t sure whether to blame my fear of impending doom or motion sickness.

  Chapter 29

  The best way to prepare your car for emergencies is to prepare the driver. Drivers should be rested, with eyewear that matches current prescriptions and protects against sun, glare, and reflections. Limit distractions. Older drivers may wish to take courses offered by the American Association of Retired Persons to refresh their skills.

  From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald

  Simplicity Itself Organizing Services

  Thursday, August 10, Early morning

  The boys stirred in the back seat of the car, and I felt Belle’s cold nose snuffling the back of my neck. I willed them all back to sleep. The last thing I needed while we tried to figure this out was to field questions a
nd suggestions from alarmed kids.

  Stephen didn’t answer his phone, and his voice mailbox was full. “No luck,” I told Max.

  “Let’s keep going. The activity seems to be isolated beyond the ridge. We’ve got to be reasonably safe down here, right?”

  I squinted up at the hillside again. Max was right. As far as I could tell, there were no flashlights, vehicle headlamps, flames, or muzzle flashes illuminating the darkness on the lower slopes of the foothills. That put at least a half a mile between us and the activity on the dirt and gravel ridge-crest road. Ranger Kon Sokolov had told Max that assault weapon shots could easily traverse that distance, but if we weren’t in anyone’s gun sights, we’d be safe.

  That’s what I told myself, but “relatively safe” wasn’t secure enough when it came to protecting the health and welfare of three teenaged boys. I tried Stephen’s phone again with no more luck than I’d had the first time.

  Max slowed the car to a near-crawl. With no traffic at this hour, he could have stopped the car entirely. He glanced at me, his face full of questions.

  “Keep going,” I said. “I haven’t heard any shots since that last batch. I’ll call Paolo and see if he knows anything.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Jason was just at the hospital with us. If he’s awake, Paolo’s got to be awake too, right? They’re a team.” Jason had been Paolo’s mentor and partner when the younger man joined the Orchard View Police over a year ago. Now that Jason was chief, Paolo had been assigned a new partner we’d not yet met. But that early bond they’d formed hadn’t diminished. Orchard View was also a small town, with few opportunities for the adrenaline-fueled escapades that most young law enforcement officers thrive on. If something was happening in Orchard View involving gunfire, flames, and Jeeps, Paolo would be close by.

  But Paolo’s phone sent me directly to voice mail.

  Max pulled into our steep driveway. Our front yard resembled a military training camp. Several black SUVs were parked in front and at the side of the house.

  A few more were in front of the barn. Some were equipped with emergency lights and sported law enforcement insignias I couldn’t identify. Others were unmarked. A young woman dressed in black with SWAT insignia stooped to speak to us as Max rolled down his window.

  “Mr. McDonald, I was asked to watch for you,” the SWAT officer said from behind her clear face shield. “Please pull the vehicle close to the front porch. Sergeant Paolo Bianchi is inside and will brief you.”

  “What’s going on?” Max asked.

  “The sergeant will bring you up-to-date. For your safety, I need you to put the house between you and the law enforcement action as quickly as possible. Leave everything in the car, please. We’ll bring it in later.”

  Max started to ask another question, and the boys woke up, wanting answers of their own. I put a finger to my lips to shush the boys and used my other hand to gain Max’s attention. I shook my head and whispered, “Now’s not the time for questions. Let’s do as she says.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. If you’ll pull up over there, sir.”

  Inside the house, static filled the air as Paolo, Stephen, and a friend of Stephen’s I knew as Rocket spoke into cell phones and radios. A young woman in the uniform of the sheriff’s department appeared at the top of the stairs and, moving silently, descended to join us.

  She spoke first. “Mrs. McDonald, I’m sorry you’ve come home to all this. We tried to reach you at the hospital before you left. We want you to get down to the basement as quickly as possible.”

  I sighed, not realizing how much I’d hoped for a quick reunion with my pillow, and to regain the security that moms feel when their children are safely tucked in bed.

  “You heard her, boys,” I said. “Basement now. Questions later.”

  We trooped down the stairs, where I knew there was little to offer in the way of comfortable seating or the bedding we craved. My eyes teared up in frustration, and I felt my knees shake the way they had in the hospital before I’d collapsed. I gritted my teeth. Not now. Please, not now.

  Several mismatched folding chairs leaned against the wall between the laundry area and the open part of the basement at the foot of the stairs. Max set up two dust-covered webbed aluminum lawn chairs that dated back to our university days, as David struggled with his crutches and Teddy unfolded chairs that matched a card table we no longer owned. Brian sneezed and disappeared into the laundry room, reappearing with a stack of beach towels he spread on the floor. Belle snuffled them, thinking it was a game.

  Stephen descended behind the deputy, ducking his head to avoid knocking himself out on the stairwell’s low ceiling. Munchkin followed, sniffed Belle, and curled up on the towels as if he’d slept there all his life.

  The rest of us stared at Stephen, waiting. For what, I wasn’t sure.

  He rubbed his hand over the top of his bald head in a motion that would have brushed the hair from his eyes if he’d had hair. He sighed.

  “I’ve got to get back upstairs. We’re wrapping things up, and I’ll be able to answer questions in about a half hour. Apologies for descending on you like this. I stopped by to make sure you all would be safe here tonight, and ran into the rest of this operation. It turns out your attic is the perfect vantage point from which to spot stragglers from the raid up on the hill. We’ve caught two already. Armed and dangerous.”

  “Two of what?”

  “Members of a drug cartel. We found two of their pot gardens, with help from Martín. Both are massive illegal grow sites. We knew they’d be back to check, because the buds are almost ready to harvest. Twelve thousand plants worth nearly twenty million dollars. We picked up two big bosses in our first sweep, but some of the underlings—the guys who do the work or manage the supply chain—got away. We’re picking them up now using dogs and infrared. We don’t know if they’re armed and might shoot back. That’s why we’ve got you down here.”

  “Cool,” said Teddy.

  Stephen grinned. “You don’t know the half of it, but I’ll fill you in as soon as I can.”

  “I’ve got complete faith in you and Jason,” I said. “Do what you need to do. We’ll stay out of your way.” After all they’d done to keep us safe, they were allowed considerable leeway as far as I was concerned.

  Stephen and his guys were energized, pumped full of adrenaline from the hunt and endorphins from the win. “I got to get back.” He started back up the stairs, but with one foot on the first tread, he turned and did a quick scan of the room. “You’re dead on your feet. You got sleeping bags and air mattresses, Maggie?”

  I nodded. “Attic? Barn?”

  “Attic.” I yawned, making the last word nearly unintelligible. In what seemed like seconds, young uniformed officers from a variety of law enforcement organizations, including what looked like California Fish and Wildlife, were shoving chairs aside, pumping up air mattresses, plumping pillows, and unzipping sleeping bags. I thought we’d all be too hyped up to sleep. Too alarmed by a house full of armed strangers. But then I was in my sleeping bag, feeling Max’s hand patting my back and thinking that I should move Belle’s tail off my pillow.

  I woke in the morning to the realization that I’d slept in my shoes. That, and the fact that the other sleeping bags were empty. Taking advantage of the basement bathroom, I brushed my hair and washed my face.

  When I trudged upstairs, my first thought was of the boys. I could pick their voices out of the cacophony. They both sounded strong and happy. But then I heard Belle and Munchkin snarl, snap, and scratch at the back door. Something was wrong. Again.

  As I reached the top of the basement stairs, Paolo opened the back door, struggling to enter without letting three hundred pounds of dog get past him. He pushed the door shut behind him and leaned against it, breathing hard.

  Max filled in the blanks. “They caught a straggler from the pot garden
this morning. Either that or someone higher up who came to check on the crop and schedule the harvest. Didn’t you hear the shots?”

  I took the coffee cup Max handed me and inhaled the aroma. “Nothing. Not last night. Not this morning. I’ve gained a sudden urge to create a comfortable oasis down there, though, with pullout sofas, desks, and a boatload of emergency food and communications equipment.”

  “We’ll add it to the list of essential home improvements. But I agree. If we’re going to be running a hostel for exhausted young law enforcement teams, we’re going to have to seriously up our game. Take a look on the front porch. SWAT team members are flopped around like throw pillows. “

  “Poor kids.”

  Max handed Paolo the last cup of coffee from the pot and sent him through to the dining room. Max dumped the grounds into a nearly full plastic dish bucket. He refilled the coffeemaker, using a pitcher of water to fill the reservoir to the brim. “The kitchen was packed earlier,” he said when he saw me eyeing the plastic bin. “I couldn’t get from here to the sink and garbage without using my elbows. Not in less than five minutes. This was my solution.”

  “Good idea. Where are the kids? What about David? Is he in pain?”

  “Kids are chowing down in the dining room. Stephen and Elaine laid out quite the spread. I’m not sure how Stephen ordered food at the same time he seemed to be coordinating the whole operation up here. Every time I think he’s just a normal guy, he goes all Ninja Marine/Caped Crusader on me. I finally met Rocket, by the way. Got three whole words out of him.”

  “Awesome. A new record.”

  “Grab some food. There are croissants, bagels, doughnuts, Danish, cinnamon bread—Elaine has completely derailed the low-carb diet train this morning. She’s touting quick energy and mood-enhancing B vitamins. Go get fed and catch up with the kids. I’ll be in as soon as this pot finishes brewing.”