Red Light

by T. Jefferson Parker

  I hope we have a thousand hot nights to figure all this out!

  Aubrey

  P.S. I saw a painting in a book today—Into the World Came a Soul Named Ida. It was the grossest painting I've ever seen—a woman who's gotta be a hooker, just eaten alive by decay, a putrid, sad ruined body all fucked up by time and men. You're ready for maggots to jump outta the thing. It made me cry, and it made me think of what I never want to be. And to think you called me a Wise Young Woman. Sometimes I could just die, but who'd make the payments on my Caddy? Help! Help! Mr. Big Strong Policeman!

  Merci bundled the letters back up and returned them to the pistol case. Shut the top and heard the lock click shut. Sat there for a minute on Mike's unmade bed and listened to a car heading down the road away from the house.

  What a strange feeling. Surprise. Shock. It was like seeing herself in the world for the first time. Like realizing she wasn't who she thought she was, never had been. She had never felt so utterly fooled since the morning she got into her car and felt the hands of the monster she was looking for lock over her face. Was there no end to her stupidity' seemed limitless.

  She told herself there had to be an explanation.

  And she remembered what he had said: I bought a silencer. I had dinner with her then iced her. Arrest me.

  Explain that, Deputy.

  • • •

  The garage was actually a small barn, with two pads for cars, a workroom, and a storage area upstairs.

  Merci stood by the big workbench, looked at the toolboxes and cabinets, the yard tools hanging neatly from brackets in the pegboard walls, the canisters of gasoline and motor oil, the big bags of dog food Polly, Molly and Dolly went through like water, the old freezer.

  She could see her breath, the dew in the corners of the windows, spiderwebs in the holly bush outside still beaded with moisture.

  On one far end of the workbench were Mike's reloading tools, pulled away the plastic covers. Mike reloaded ,45s for his Colts, .3 for his Smith, 20-gauge shotshells for his Remington and ,30-'06 loads for his rifle. Merci looked at the red Meac reloader. There was an open coffee can of .45 brass beside it, and the primers still stacked in the long tube looked like .45’s to her.

  She wished she could know which of these shells had been fired through Mike's Colt. She could take one, the lab could run it against empty that Lynda Coiner found in Aubrey Whittaker's flower vase, all this foolishness would be over.

  Over, one way or another.

  She remembered that the .45 used on Aubrey would have to fire a subsonic round for the silencer to work. Heavy bullet, light powder. She found the bullets in a green cardboard box:: 255-grain Hornadys, round nosed, jacketed. The powder canister on the Meac had a grains set on the neck, which she wrote down in her blue notebook. She had no idea if Mike was making up heavy loads, light ones, or something between. Timmerman, out at the sheriff's range, would know. The other end of the bench had a belt-driven grinder and a band saw bolted in, a row of big clamps screwed into the bench top, more toolboxes on top. Two small fly-tying vices were fastened near the corner. Mike's fishing rods were hung horizontally on the pegboard, neatly organized from shortest to longest. There were three reel boxes, three more tackle boxes, then all the fly fishing containers. She pulled them out one by one and looked through them.

  The old pine box caught her eye, because it used to be in the bedroom. Mike had made it in woodshop, seventh grade, and the workmanship had survived the years. He'd stuck a decal on the lid before varnishing it, a blue-and-white oval that read Hooked Up! with the silhouette of a fisherman holding a dramatically bowed rod below the words. She knew it was where he kept his dry and wet flies, his nymphs and terrestrials, many of them handmade, all of them collected over two decades of enthusiasm for the sport. Now, it rested at the back of the bench, between two big plastic tackle boxes. One of Mike's fishnets lay on top, almost hiding it from sight. It was the Hooked Up! decal that she noticed through the black mesh.

  Something about the box and the decal brought a lump to her throat, brought all of her shame and guilt boiling up, let the voice inside her start haranguing again: You sneaking, distrustful, guilt-loving, dirt-hungry bitch, leave him alone while you have the chance . . .

  But she reached over and worked out the pine box anyway, centering it on the bench in front of her. The top tray held some of Mike's fly boxes and wallets—two aluminum, two leather, two plastic. She pulled it out and set it down on the bench, where it rested unevenly on the wood.

  Below were the larger boxes, each bristling inside with flies. She remembered him showing her all these flies and naming them: mosquitoes and caddis, midges and buggers, blue duns and black gnats, Quill Gordons and Lt. Cahills, Royal Wulffs and Royal Trades.

  More than she could remember, plus designs of his own. Mike had actually named one for her—Blue Merci—because she was mourning the loss of Hess and unhappy every waking hour. Mike had caught a "more than satisfactory" German brown trout with it up on the Walker that month. He considered it lucky.

  She liked the Lt. Cahill the best because it sounded like a cop. Put them back, get out of here, forget you ever did what you’re doing . . .

  She did put them back. She put the tray back on top. And that when she noticed the small bundle of cloth taped to the bottom of it, the reason it hadn't sat flush on the bench.

  She held it up and looked: white cotton rolled tight, held with duct tape. The size of a film canister, maybe, but longer. Mike had fastened it to the bottom of the tray with an elastic band and four thumbtacks.

  The tacks were hard to pry from the heavily varnished wood, got two off one end and the bundle dropped into her palm. The tape rasped off. The white cotton unfurled quickly and something heavy cold dropped to the bench. She recognized the packaging—a pair of underpants she had allowed Mike to keep some months ago after a night in bed that particularly pleased him. Against her better judgment. She’d felt strange letting him have them, like it was evidence, something nobody should see but her. He promised nobody would.

  But it was nothing compared to what was inside. She stared down at the heavy cylinder on the bench top, a welded contraption with small holes all over it and something that looked like steel wool packed down beneath the holes. The inside was smooth, with more, bigger holes, end was flat, with an opening in the middle about the size a .45 w need. The other was welded to a rectangular fitting lined with gasket material. There was a heavy band locked down by a screw so you could loosen and tighten it. There were light black burns at the exit end.

  She looked at it in all its squat ugliness, its low purpose, its unaccountability. An object made of steel, fashioned by hand to do a job.

  No more.

  She knew there was an explanation, even if it was the one she’d never wanted.

  Merci's hands were shaking as she wrapped it and put it back, but the voice inside her was silent.

  On her way out of Mike's house, Merci was forced to speak with Mrs. Heath, the next door neighbor. She was a rosy faced, overly sociable woman whom Merci found kind but intrusive. She loved living near a detective. She had an envelope in one hand, a dog leash in the other. Reggie, her Yorkie, bounced up and down at Merci's ankles like something powered by fresh batteries. Merci realized what a problem this was, but she was still shaking from what she found in the barn, and she couldn't think a clear way out of it.

  "I got some of Mike's mail," Mrs. Heath said, holding out the envelope. "I was just going to drop it in the box."

  "I'll do that." The box was on the porch railing, protruding out where the postman could fill it without getting out of his little truck.

  Mrs. Heath studied her, then the house. "Mike's not home?"

  "Just left."

  Merci watched her to see if she'd look for her car, nowhere in sight. She didn't. If Mrs. Heath had seen her walk up to the house, it was over. Either way, the chances of this getting back to Mike were now running about eighty-twenty.

  "I'm alw
ays running late on Mondays," Merci offered.

  "Beautiful, after the storm," said Mrs. Heath. The Yorkie stopped bouncing, sat and stared at Merci.

  "It was a whopper, wasn't it?" Her mind was racing to find a white lie to cover herself, but Merci was never good at thinking on her feet unless it was police business. She hit on something far-fetched, but it might play into Mrs. Heath's romantic enthusiasms.

  "Mrs. Heath, can you help me keep a secret from Mike? His birthday's coming up in a few weeks, and I came back here to hide a couple of things around the house while he's gone. Little surprises."

  "Like an Easter egg hunt?"

  "Exactly. Some things for Danny, too."

  "That's sweet. I won't say a thing."

  "For a few weeks, anyway."

  "You got it, dearie."

  "Well, I'll put that letter in."

  Mrs. Heath looked puzzled. "How come you parked so far down the street?"

  Merci blushed, then ran interference with a smile. "Oh, he'd notice the tire tracks on the drive. You know how those detectives are."

  "I do know. I should have thought of that."

  If you ask about the footprints I'll have to shoot you, thought Merci.

  "Won't he notice your footprints?"

  Merci looked back at the drive. She wasn't heavy enough to leave good prints in the packed, graded dirt, but the rough outlines were there.

  Mrs. Heath was looking, too. "How about this, Detective Rayborn? I'll walk up to the door, stepping where you did. I'll leave the letter in the box. That way, he'll be looking at my footprints, not yours. Reggie's, too. If Mike asks, you can evade the truth without lying. They're not yours."

  Fuck, Merci thought, this is getting to be an Agatha Christie novel. She faked what she could of patience and good cheer.

  "Good thinking, Sergeant Heath!"

  She watched the old woman deliver the letter, watched Reggie jump around while his mistress opened the rusty old mailbox door, watched Mrs. Heath return, carefully choosing her steps.

  "Our little secret," she said. "We'll tell Mike about it after birthday."

  Merci smiled, waved and headed down the road toward her Mike's birthday wasn't for five weeks, but who knew, he might be in jail by then.

  • • •

  Before going in to headquarters, Merci went to the Sheriff's Firing Range in Anaheim. She talked briefly with the Weapons Instructor, she was thinking about going to a .45 instead of her nine, wanted more stopping power.

  Timmerman told her that stopping power and knockdown power were subjective and mysterious, some experts saying they were more related to velocity than to bullet mass. Others disagreed. With relish, he broke down Einstein's E = MC2 into layman's terms for her, then argued its relevancy to shooting someone.

  He himself drew his opinions from LaGarde's research for the classic Gunshot Injuries, in which suspended cadavers swayed very little when shot by .38-caliber guns, but oscillated dramatically when shot by a .45. This, he explained, is why LaGarde had recommended the .45 as the American Armed Services sidearm—in 1904.

  "Remember," he said, "what stops a charging animal isn't the momentum of the bullet, it's the kinetic energy of the bullet on the functioning of the living body."

  "I'll remember."

  "There's also velocity, caliber, shape of the bullet point, its frangibility and penetration. Lots of factors."

  Merci nodded along like she was interested, then checked out a Colt .45 to carry and test fire for a couple of weeks. He was kind enough to loan her a shoulder rig and a hip holster, too, and he threw in some wad-cutter ammo to use on the range.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mel Glandis reclined his big torso against the back of his chair nodded at her. His office was every bit as bland and bureaucratic as Glandis himself, but it was a welcome calm in the storm that Mike McNally had caused.

  Merci couldn't think straight about Mike right now. But she could make herself think straight about this.

  "How come nobody cared about Patti Bailey? You're asking me?” A laugh from the assistant sheriff.

  "Maybe back then you guys thought it was funny when a woman got: and you couldn't find the creep who did it. It isn't funny now."

  Glandis straightened, his face going from amused to bovine. "Hell, I didn't mean it that way. What I meant was I was a fourth-year guy. Out of the power loop."

  Merci knew Glandis well enough to understand that winning was what interested him: power and politics, vengeance and reward, who had what on whom, who could step on you, crush you, help you. A pack animal. As a lifelong disciple of Chuck Brighton, Glandis had had early good luck to attach himself to a winner.

  "That's why I asked you," said Merci. "You weren't the establishment around here—yet."

  He smiled, taking this as the compliment she knew he would. He up, moved across the floor on his small, dancer's feet, closed the door.

  "Yeah. What you have to understand is nobody cared about any of the caseload that year. Everything here was in upheaval. The old sheriff, Bill Owen, he was in tight with the head of the County Board of Supervisors—that was Meeks. Ralph Meeks. And Meeks was getting heat for a kickback scheme from developers. You know the old story, the pols make the rules and throw the business to their friends, the friends aim some of it back. Someone gets in trouble and the fingers start pointing. Big stink in the press. About the same time Meeks was getting investigated by the Grand Jury, Bill Owen got down real low. You know, real low, real quiet, like he was looking out of a foxhole. Expecting fire."

  "Was he on Meeks's payroll?"

  "Nothing that obvious. Nothing you could prove. They were friends. Meeks got favors, Bill got favors. You know, friends."

  "Then what was Owen's problem, besides being Meeks's friend?"

  "Politics. Some of the deputies didn't like his ideas. You gotta remember, this was a real political time. Not like now. There was a clique of John Birchers in the department, and they really couldn't stand him. They thought everybody who wasn't a Bircher was a communist, and that included Owen, because he wasn't conservative enough for them. Wasn't tough enough on crime. That was part of the communist conspiracy, you know—let America rot from the inside out, let the criminals get the streets, like they did in Watts. Bumper stickers back then said No Watts in Orange County. Owen, he wouldn't issue concealed carry permits to anybody with a right-wing slant. So, when Owen tried to stay low on the Meeks scandal, the Birchers turned up the heat. They had him grilling on both sides."

  "Who were they?"

  Glandis gave her an odd look then, something guarded in his usually readable face. "There were a lot of them. Beck Rainer was the ringleader. The Birchers thought he'd make a good sheriff someday. There was a big, funny guy named Bob Vale, one of the lieutenants. There was Ed Springfield, Dave Boone, Bob Emmer. I think Roy Thornton, too, and his partner, Rymers. There was Pat McNally—Mike's old man. A bunch of the traffic guys on motorcycles—North and Morrison and Wilberforce. Your dad had something to do with them for a while, if I remember right."

  Merci thought again of that Birch Society rally so many years ago, set up to support the local police. She tried to relate it to the body of a prostitute dumped near the corner of Myford and Fourth.

  "Where's Bailey come in?"

  A wry expression from Glandis then, like little Merci would never learn.

  "Well, Merci, I don't know exactly where she comes in. I'm just setting the stage for you. What I'm saying is, there's all this shit coming down at Owen and there's the Birchers agitating him from the inside so this place is like a . . . like a cauldron. Everybody's worried. They’re paranoid. And in an atmosphere like that, it's no wonder nobody really cared about a dead hooker in an orange grove."

  Merci tried to draw a line again, the same one she'd tried to draw between Patti Bailey, Jesse Acuna and the cops he claimed beat him

  "Any of those men hang out at the De Anza Hotel in Santa Ana?

  Glandis nodded approvingly. "We al
l did. It was a great place, until the hookers ran it over."

  "Ralph Meeks and Bill Owen?"

  Glandis smiled. "They were big men back then. You wouldn't find them at a place like the De Anza. That was for us little guys. No."

  He leaned forward then and looked at her, lacing his fingers like he was getting ready to pray.

  "How about a change of topic, Merci?"

  "Shoot."

  "I'm going to be blunt and candid here for a minute. I want you to be the same."

  She watched and waited.

  "You think Brighton's a good sheriff?"

  She thought for a moment, not about the question, but about why Glandis was asking it.

  "Yes."

  He nodded. "I always did, too. He always put the department first. Now, though, I wonder when he steps down if he's going to leave with somebody good or somebody not-so-good. You've heard what idiot Abelera wants to do—run this place like a Fortune-Five-Hundred company. Privatize half the work we do. I hope Brighton doe endorse him."

  "Me, too."

  "What do you think of Nelson Neal, as sheriff, I mean."

  Here we go again, thought Merci. She told him the same thing about Nelson she'd told Brighton—not inspirational.

  "Craig Braga?"

  "He'd be good."

  "Mel Glandis?"

  She hesitated, looking for some hint of humor in Glandis's placid eyes. There wasn't any, and she understood what he was after.

  "I'd be happy to work for you, if you got the nod from Brighton."

  "What if I didn't?"

  "You'd be a good sheriff, Mel. I didn't think you were angling that way."

  But why not, she asked herself. Glandis was a rider of winning horses. He'd gotten where he was with loyal devotion to Brighton. Now he was worried his leader was going to overlook him. In fact, she could think of worse people than Mel Glandis running the department. In his own clunky way he managed to get the job done, keep people working together.

  "I'm just testing the waters," he said quietly. "I've asked a few deputies, people I respect. I don't want to make a fool out of myself. Don't want to upset the apple cart around here. But if there's a gap I can fill, if I can help the department, then I'll do it."