Red Light

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "Fine," said Zamorra.

  "Let's start with the body," said the director.

  Aubrey Whittaker had died of massive coronary failure due to shot. The bullet had entered and exited the right ventricle, making centimeter entry tear and a 11/2 centimeter exit passage. Missed the ribs, the sternum, missed the vertebrae. Death was almost instantaneous judging from the lack of edema at the entry and exit wounds and the level of blood histamines. The projectile shock was prodigious, Gilliam said: The impact was great enough to burst capillaries in her eyes. From the tearing of the dress, the blast destruction of flesh and the tattooing of unburned powder around the entry wound, Gilliam said it was either a Zone 1 or a Zone 2 gunshot—contact or near contact with the body. She had eaten within two hours of expiration: chicken, a mixed green salad with pine nuts and tomato. No alcohol. No drugs. No evidence of recent sexual activity, forced or otherwise. No evidence of strangulation, blunt force trauma, maiming or torture. No signs of struggle.

  "We found four very light abrasions, one almost directly over each shoulder cap, one in the middle of each lower armpit. Ante or post mortem—we can't say. They were very difficult to see until we hit them with ultraviolet."

  Merci tried to picture the scene, then wrote in her blue notebook: drag marks.

  "Now, for the guns and ammo," said Gilliam. He opened his file to read from the criminalist's report. "You can check with Dave Sweetzer for follow-up, but here's the gist of his findings."

  The shell casing found by Lynda Coiner was a ,45-caliber Colt; center-fire, of course. This information came from the headstamp on it. The cycling toolmarks indicated an extractor and ejector, thus a semiautomatic.

  "Dave makes a big note here for you guys," said Gilliam, "that the casing wasn't new. It had been fired before and reloaded at least once. Keep that in mind when you make your case for the DA."

  "We're thinking sound suppressor," said Paul.

  "So is Dave. There wasn't enough powder tattooing to match the tearing of the skin or the silk. The sooting isn't enough, either. And the bullet wiping—that's the ring of material around the hole where he looks for the lubricants—that wasn't pronounced as it should have been in a contact shot. He suggests that two or three extra inches of a baffle would account for all that. Not to mention that nobody in an apartment house heard a forty-five go off. Of course, a forty-five caliber Colt is a good candidate for a sound suppressor. It's subsonic by a couple hundred feet per second, so there's no sonic crack to deal with. The bullet hole in the plate glass is consistent with a forty-five bullet. From the exit wound and the straight flight path Dave's thinking a hard, jacketed round."

  Merci made a note of this as Gilliam continued.

  "Of course, we can't prove a bullet from that casing was the one that killed the woman. We can't prove a bullet from that casing went through the plate-glass door. We can't prove the bullet that killed the woman ever went through the plate glass. We've got no bullet. From what I understand, it's somewhere out in the ocean."

  She hadn't seriously considered it at first, but now she wonder how you could retrieve such a thing. The dive team? If she could bullet-path projection, maybe. How deep was the water a half a mile or more out, where the bullet would finally hit?

  She cursed herself for not being able to dredge up a bullet in the vast gray Pacific.

  Gilliam looked at Merci with absolutely the oddest expression she’d ever seen from him, then back down at the criminalist's report. Did he really think she should have come up with that bullet? What the fuck is going on here?

  "No fingerprints or conspicuous anomalies on the brass," Gilliam said. "So, let's get on with the other physical evidence, shall we?"

  They had analyzed carpet fibers found on the kitchen floor that didn't originate from Aubrey Whittaker's apartment or her car: beige in color, a polyester/nylon blend. Gilliam said they appeared to be of an ordinary commercial type used by a number of carpet manufacturers. Such a carpet would be relatively inexpensive and relatively common. Gilliam could be more specific later, when they'd had time to compare samples more exhaustively.

  Merci made a note, but common beige carpet was about as helpful a witness who saw two arms, two legs and a head.

  They had analyzed animal hairs: two from the kitchen floor, from the dining-room table, one from a kitchen counter. Gilliam they couldn't tell goat hair from poodle hair in any absolute biological way, it was simply a matter of what looked right. His guess was a dog, horse or cow. Two were black; two were light brown; two were white. Each was between 1 and 2 centimeters in length.

  "Bring me an animal and we'll take it from there."

  Merci made a note to check if Aubrey had liked to ride, and to find out if any of her acquaintances were around horses, cattle or dogs.

  Gilliam flipped a page in his file, then looked at Merci again. We got some fibers off of the woman's dress after we unzipped her, before we took the photos and X rays. They're a black wool and Orion mix, definitely not from her dress. Possibly a sweater or outer garment of some kind, possibly a scarf or muffler, maybe even a cap or gloves. If they don't match up with something she owns, then we can look to the suspect. The fibers range from two to three centimeters long."

  Merci wrote: whole closet, check dry cleaners.

  "The shoeprint from the kitchen is a good one," Gilliam said. "Not real heavy, but clean. You can see the sole pattern, the nicks on the heel. Size eleven or twelve. The woman was a female size ten, by the way. We can put a guy inside her place, on that floor, if we can get the shoe. We ran it past our manufacturer's catalogues but nothing's come up yet. The problem is, sole patterns change all the time, but shoes can last for years. Decades, if they're not worn much. And they're manufactured everywhere from here to China and back. We might never find it."

  Gilliam said the sole pattern and print shape pointed to a work boot or outdoorsman's shoe of some kind, a shoe made for traction and longevity.

  Then he leaned back, took a deep breath and sighed. "On to the fingerprints?"

  "Is that where our problem is, James?" asked Merci.

  He considered. "Depends on how you look at it."

  "Then let's look at it."

  Gilliam fingered the file, closed it, then began.

  The lab had sent the fingerprint cards through the normal channels: AFIS, a federal registry; CAL-ID, which was state. Prints—as the detectives probably knew—were pulled from the apartment surfaces, the doorknobs and light-switch plates, the dining-room tabletop, etc. More specifically, they were also pulled from the dinner flatware left on the table and the food containers and cookware that hadn't been rinsed or washed.

  "We eliminated all the victim's prints before we sent the cards through," said Gilliam. "That's one of the reasons it took a while to get to the registries. In fact, we've still got some prints we haven't sent through yet. It takes time to view each one by eye and compare it to the sets we took off the girl."

  Gilliam looked at each of them then nodded, as if he were answering a question. Neither Merci nor her partner had said a thing.

  "Look," he said. "We got two, maybe three different people whose prints were in that place. Two of them might actually be the same person—they're partial, unclear, iffy. Not enough to take to the registries But the other one left his sign all over. Flatware, tabletop, doorknob, coffee cup. And, well... CAL-ID's got him. They've got all of us in enforcement, living and deceased. They're Mike McNally's."

  Merci felt feel her heart beating under the windbreaker.

  "Coiner knows," said Gilliam. "But I've got to go to Brighton it. Soon."

  Zamorra looked at Merci.

  She looked back, then to the director. "Let me talk to him first."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Spahn, the vice captain, told her that Mike had called in sick. He looked surprised she didn't know. All the sworn people in the department knew they were more or less together, and most of them, like Spahn, assumed more. The younger deputies treated them as an
item—respectfully. The oldsters had begun asking about wedding bells. To Merci it was all a flagrant violation of her privacy but there was nothing she could do about it.

  "I'm sure he's at home," said the captain, helpfully. She drove to his place out in Modjeska Canyon. The afternoon had gone dark and windy, with enormous cumulus rotating in from the northwest. She thought they were like God glowering at you, getting ready to teach you something. The storm was supposed to hit by midnight. She drove fast with her 9mm on the seat beside her, left hand on the wheel straight up, the other free for the shortwave or the phone.

  Mike's was a small home on a big lot, plenty of room for kennels in the back, neighbors not too close. The canyon was named after the opera star who had built a summerhouse there in the early 1900s. The house was set back off a dirt road, surrounded by tremendous oaks that cast the lot in eternal shade. The place was still heated with a woodstove in the fireplace. It was quaint to look at but even colder than her house, and never seemed to get any sunlight. She'd never liked it.

  Mike had moved to this dark home about three months back, corresponding to his darker prevailing moods. Corresponding to joining his church. Corresponding to more direct talk of marriage and more evasion on her part. He said he felt empty. He said he wanted to feel the spirit of God in him. He said he wanted security in his life with a woman, with her.

  Merci respected his confessed darkness and emptiness, though she wondered at their causes. He'd never lost a loved one to death. His parents and siblings were all alive and kicking. He hadn't gotten a partner killed. He had never been made a fool of by a psychopath. Career on track:: healthy, nice looking, plenty of friends.

  She had a hard time believing in things that were shapeless rather than specific, emotional rather than tactile. She believed that things made feelings: Tim, Jr. = Happiness; Too Much Scotch = hangover; Judgment = dysfunctional memory and nightmares. Sometimes she wondered if Mike was looking for things he wasn't ready to find.

  She parked by the woodpile and noted the fresh cord of eucalyplus stacked under the eaves, a plastic tarp roped over the top. His van with the built-in dog crates was up beside the house. The bloodhounds were already barking when she got out. Smoke rose from the chimney until the breeze tore it against the branches of the oaks.

  When he answered the door she could tell Mike was drunk. She’d seen him drunk maybe three times in her life, so there was no mistaking it. He was a lousy drinker.

  "Thought it might be you," he said.

  "Three martini lunch?"

  "Bottle of Scotch some jerk gave me for my birthday. Hits you hard. Come in."

  She stepped in to familiar sights. The braided rug on a hardwood floor scarred by dog nails. Non-matching green couches at right angles and big enough to sleep on. Steamer trunks used for coffee tables, littered with magazines and coffee cups and some of Danny's toys. Danny’s king snake in a glass tank by a window. The oak and glass case filled with long guns against one wall of knotty pine. And the framed reproductions featured in all the outdoors magazines Mike subscribed to---dogs, birds, trout.

  "I guess you talked to Gilliam," said Mike.

  "Yep."

  "Want to tell me what he found?"

  "I want you to."

  "I figured you would. You want some of this shit?" He waved a tumbler at her.

  "No. Talk to me, Mike."

  They sat on different couches, a traditional sign of contention between them. Merci preferred it that way, but Mike, unless he was pissed off, liked being close. She noted the hairs on the couch fabric, just like the ones Gilliam had described—bloodhound hair.

  He leaned forward on the couch and set his glass on a trunk. "I was there Tuesday night. Got there around eight-thirty, left around ten-fifteen. At that time, incidentally, she was still alive."

  Merci heard the dogs still yapping back in the run, some jays cawing out in the oaks.

  "Start at the beginning."

  He sighed, swept up his glass, took a gulp and looked at her. "It was strictly business."

  "Whose?"

  He glared at her. Beneath the boyish forelock of blond hair his eyes looked small and viperine. "Don't read shit into this that isn't there."

  "I'm just listening."

  He drank again. "I wanted to get some things straight on the Epicure Services sting. There were a couple of things we needed to agree on, get in place. We were going to wire her for a meet with Moladan."

  "You take in your piece for dinner?"

  He nodded. Merci knew Mike carried a .45 automatic. It was the gun the old-timers liked, known for its alleged stopping and knockdown power. Most of the younger guys used hot 9mm or .357-Magnum loads, known for their alleged stopping and knockdown power. The difference was about three hundred feet per second, which meant you could silence a .45 auto, whereas with the others you got a sonic crack that no silencer could suppress. Mike, low-tech and fond of the past, had opted for the bigger, slower load.

  "Where did you carry it?"

  "Usual place."

  "What did she say?"

  "Hang it on the chair, but I didn't."

  "What did you talk about?"

  "How to wear a wire, how to act a part, how to nail Goren Moladan, what do you think?"

  "Who's D. C.?"

  He blushed. Even in the dim lamplight of the mountain house she could see it.

  He shook his hair off his face. "Me."

  "Meaning what?"

  "Just a nickname. Aubrey had a real lively sense of humor."

  Merci let the silence work on him. She felt hollow and betrayed, and she felt the beginnings of fury.

  "Dark Cloud," he said finally. "Because I'm always serious, never smile."

  "You sent her that card. About friendship."

  "That's what it was all about, Merci. Friendship."

  Mike took another drink. Then he rattled the ice and got up. He had the drunk's deliberate motion through space, the aura of numb assurance. She glanced to the little table set up near the kitchen, with phone and answering machine and notepad on it. Mike hung his holster on the chair there, except when his son, Danny, was around—every other weekend—and when he went to bed at night. Then it was over a coat hook on the back of his bathroom door. It was on the chair now.

  He sat down, his refilled glass held overcautiously out in front of him.

  "Let me tell you what I saw in her, Merci. What I saw in her was someone young and full of potential and life. I saw a complete waste of a human being, doing what she did. That was my opinion of her and she knew it. From the first time I saw her. And she, well, she knew I was right. I was doing everything I could do, within reason, to get her out of that world. She wanted a friend. She wanted a man who wasn't just paying up and getting off. She wanted a father and a brother. A friend that's what I was trying to be."

  "How?"

  He huffed through his nose, stared at her. "How do you think? I took her to church with me a couple of times. We'd pray and talk about; options, other things she could do. We'd do everyday stuff. We walked on the beach. We went to a park. We'd just. . . be. That isn't too much to comprehend, is it? Two people who are just content to be?"

  Merci felt as if her skin were on fire. It was actually getting hard to see well. When she got mad her vision constricted and lost color, it was like looking at things through the barrel of a shotgun.

  "Not hard at all. What was in it for you, Mike?"

  "What do you mean, in it?"

  "I can't get any clearer than that."

  He drank, and set down the glass. "I liked her. I respected her, uh, predicament. She was a sweet person, with a good sense of humor, and she'd been screwed over by everybody she'd ever been close to, starting with her own parents. She hadn't seen them in three years. I felt like her ... protector. Like a guy who could give her a fresh start on things. And what that did for me, Merci, was it made me feel good about me. Because I didn't want anything back from her. I wasn't taking. I was just giving decency and r
espect to her. Just common everyday kindness. It made me feel... good. And needed. I think she needed me."

  "Was she in love with you?"

  He looked away, at the fire, out the window, then down. "I think she was starting to feel that way. When I saw all the trouble she'd gone to for dinner, I realized that. Not before."

  "Were you in love with her?"

  "Absolutely fucking not. Haven't you heard anything I've said?"

  "I never heard you say you didn't love her."

  "Don't play word games with me. You're better at it and it's a shit thing to pull."

  "I asked if you were in love with her."

  "And I said not. Which part of that sentence is so confusing?"

  She could feel his anger overcoming her own, nullifying it like a backfire. She said nothing for a beat, hoping he'd cool off. But she could see from the color of his face and the nervousness of his eyes that he wasn't.

  "I'm in love with you," he said. She'd never heard those words spoken with such venom.

  "Oh Damn, Mike," she said quietly. Then she stood and walked over to the fireplace. She could feel the heat. The old hardwood creaked under her boots. A gust of wind whistled through the oaks outside and she heard the plastic tarp slapping against the firewood. She walked over to the gun case, the telephone table, the window facing south

  She'd never had her job and her heart so mixed up in the same thing like this. Pulling different ways. With Hess there hadn't been discord, just disagreement. The heat near the stove and Mike's anger made her feel claustrophobic and faint. The hollowness inside of her had replaced by a dry fire.

  Was she just an incredibly selfish bitch who made her men dead or miserable?

  "There's a lot of you in this," said Mike.

  "Please explain that statement."

  "You never ... you never offer me anything."

  She looked at him. He was talking into the glass.

  "You don't touch. You don't kiss. You don't talk. You don't plan. You don't dream. You don't make me feel necessary or even present. You don't do anything."