Red Light

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "Oh, I remember two thirty-one, all right. They'd meet and you'd have twenty black-and-white Harley Electra-Glides on the front lawn. Scared the daylights out of the neighbors, except the kids. They loved those big bikes. The teenagers thought we were pigs. But the kids s liked us."

  Merci said nothing. She remembered—very dimly and dreamily---suburban lawn filled with bright cop Harleys glistening in the even sun. A JBS event? Probably. Her house? Pat McNally's? Who knew'

  Rainer looked at her, gathering his thoughts. He sat upright now, stoop gone, his eyes steady on her. "I'm surprised I don't remember meeting her. I got nervous before speeches, tended to block the world out while I got ready."

  She searched for the chink in Rainer's calm armor, but she found none. No tic, no looking away or blinking, no brazen eye-lock, looked like he was remembering.

  "That's understandable. What I don't understand is what a hooker doing at a Birch Society meeting to start with. That's a jarring combination if there ever was one."

  "What's the old saying—politics and strange bedfellows?"

  "There's no mention of murder in that saying."

  "No. Or blackmail."

  She waited for Rainer to take his nostalgia down a notch, to come a little cleaner with her. She had the feeling she was being stroked. She hated being stroked.

  "Let me try this, Mr. Rainer—I don't understand how Patti Bailey got there. She's in tight with Meeks and Owen. You right-wingers were banging hard on both those men. So, what's Bailey doing? Was she with the Birchers, keeping her eyes and ears open for Meeks and Owen"; with Meeks and Owen, keeping her eyes open for you guys?"

  Rainer sighed, then turned and looked out the window, then back at Merci. "Or with both, maybe? She was a prostitute, working for money.”

  "I know that. I was hoping you might be a little more specific, Rainer. I was hoping you'd skip the obvious generalities and tell me who the hell brought Patti Bailey to your speech that night. I'm working on a deadline here, and I'm about thirty-two years late."

  He was nodding, like he knew her question in advance. "I don't know. I don't remember her. But I'll tell you that Pat McNally and Jim O'Brien were always good with the ladies. They were married guys, but they reputations. Maybe neither one of them so much as laid eyes on her that night. Maybe she dressed decent and said she was a secretary worried about fluoride in the water. I don't know. But if there's a most likely candidate for who brought a hooker to a JBS meeting, it's one of them."

  McNally or O'Brien, she thought. The happy conservatives, the family men, with a little stoned-out pleasure girl on the side.

  Merci felt a little haunting go up her spine: father and son, Big Pat and Mike, both mixed up with prostitutes. And she'd been unsuspecting enough to waltz into Cancun Restaurant and ask Big Pat what he knew about the Bailey case.

  Merci smiled and shook her head. Girl, she thought, sometimes the things you do surprise me.

  But what if O'Brien and/or McNally had arranged for Patti to get to know the enemy—Meeks and Owen. Maybe got her to make a tape in case they said something interesting?

  Flip it, she thought next: What if Owen aimed her at the bad boy Birchers of Chapter 231 to see what she could learn about them?

  Or put both together, figure the common denominator is money, and you've got a hooker taking a little from both sides—like Rainer said. Any job that pays.

  But someone put KQ onto her, KQ put two bullets through her body in an orange grove one evening and the whole circus came to an end.

  Meeks and Owen quit.

  O'Brien split for the desert and a better job. Twenty-five years later he killed himself. Were the seeds of his own destruction in him then? she wondered. Did they grow from what happened to Patti Bailey?

  Pat McNally stayed where McNally was. Pat rose through the ranks, comfortably linked to Brighton. Who won? Who profited from Patti living, and who from her dying?

  "I'm looking for a man with the initials KQ. Ring any bells?"

  Rainer thought a minute. "No. Not many last names start with a Q."

  Merci looked at the photographs of Rainer with all the Republican presidents since Kennedy.

  "I read that your picture was one they gave to Jesse Acuna."

  Rainer laughed. "In fact, it was. I was in charge of collecting those pictures."

  "How did you choose which officers' pictures to give up and whose to not?"

  "It was strictly volunteer," he said, smiling.

  "Damn."

  "The P.D.s all did it that way, too. There's no way the ACLU was going to bully us into giving up confidential personnel information. That's not the way it works."

  "Damned commies, right?"

  "Damn straight."

  Merci looked out at the sky, the hills, the houses built on everything, the gas stations and boulevards, the schools and churches and stores. Cars, cars and more cars. Two point seven million people and growing, she thought. Sometimes Orange County seemed like a little tank with big school of fish in it, all hauling ass the same direction, nobody ask where they were going or why.

  "How come you left the department? You were a captain. You were doing well for yourself."

  "Brighton made my life miserable. He wasn't much on us right-wingers. He wanted to walk the middle of the road, please everybody he could to keep himself in office, be a moderate good guy. He thought Society made the department look bad to the public, which was probably true. Our time had passed. By the time Nixon resigned, the conservative era was over. It was over for me, anyway. I figured I could get from under his thumb, maybe run my own company. I'm glad I did. I make people feel safe. I keep the riffraff out of their neighborhood: If somebody applies for work here and I think he's a bad apple, I don't hire him. We got good guys. I make a good living. I see the cops on the beat or I see you, and I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore."

  "How come? This looks boring."

  "It is. But I'm alive and I don't have ulcers and I'm not drinking myself to sleep every night like a lot of the men I worked with. I'm not taking orders from some guy running his own popularity contest; year after year. I can say what I think without getting transferred to Traffic. Brighton actually threatened me with that. I figured, if he want send me to Traffic because I thought Russian imperialists would to eat this country alive, steal its wealth and drain its land like they drained their own, let him try. So I left the department. And I'm glad I did."

  Rainer seemed to think about this, deciding whether or not he believed himself. "You look out that window, Sergeant Rayborn, what do you see?"

  "Fish."

  Rainer furrowed his brow, slowly nodded. "Not me. I see thousands of people sucking this country dry, people who can't even speak the language holding it up at gunpoint, drug-addled leeches living off the government, illiterate gangbangers and pregnant twelve-year-olds breeding like rats, refugees from every failed third-rate democracy on earth feeding at the public trough. Everybody else is off at the malls or home watching TV. That's what I see, but everybody's got different eyes. I can respect that."

  "Why don't you leave?"

  "Thought about it a lot. But I hit my first baseball at a park two miles from here. I fell in love with my first girl at the high school around the corner. I buried my little brother here—he was killed by a sniper in Vietnam. So I intend to stick it out. It's mine as much as anybody's. I'm making a living. I'm one of the fish."

  "You swim against the school, Mr. Rainer."

  "You do, too. You're no-bullshit, on-target and generally pissed off about the world around you. It shows on your face. I admire that."

  Rainer stood slowly and extended his hand. Merci stood and shook it.

  "I hope you find out who killed that girl. Nobody's got a right to get away with that. You get tired of putting your life on the line every day for people who can't pronounce your name, come see me."

  Sitting in her car in the PPS parking lot, Merci called the lab and asked for Evan O'Brien.

 
"I need to talk to you," she said.

  "I need to talk to you," he answered.

  "I'll pick you up in twenty. We'll pay respects to our dead."

  "Why not Cancun, where all you gunslingers hang out?"

  "I don't want them hearing what we talk about."

  "Well, the dead don't blab."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sunlight slanted through the trees of Fairview Grove Memorial Park when they drove in. The headstones and earth were soaked dark, pines glimmered with rainwater and sun, the grass was a brilliant, startling green. Merci thought it looked like a commercial. The graves Hess and Jim O'Brien were both there, but far enough away you had to drive from one to the other.

  Merci had run into Evan here one afternoon right after Hess buried. Actually, Evan had recognized her Impala and had seen her standing by the grave. They'd visited here together only twice, Merci realizing after the first time that she preferred to be alone with Hess rather than sharing him with anybody.

  Even a respectful co-mourner as Evan O'Brien—who to her surprise had checked his smart mouth at the entrance both times—was too much distraction when it came to Hess. She wanted to feel things about Hess, not explain him. And if what she felt was sad and disorganized and jagged with regret and longing, then so be it.

  She figured O'Brien felt something comparable about his father. Or maybe he felt nothing like she did, but that wasn't the point. Remembrance wasn't tourism. Nobody listened in when you talked out here.

  They stopped at Hess's place first. The headstone was simple black marble with white lettering, no chirping birds or sentimental quotes.

  They stood for a long moment in the spongy grass. Then O'Brien broke the silence. "What's going on in my lab? Now it's off limits to anybody but Brighton and lab personnel. They took the sign-in sheet down. Gilliam's reassigning projects left and right, like he's shuffling the deck against a cheater. He's got us on a twenty-four standby but he won't say what we're standing by for. Must be something big, something that needs to be turned fast. Now, cut to the latest rumor: Mike McNally's been held in one of the interview rooms for the last six hours. I heard they brought him in this morning. I heard they haven't brought him out yet. Clay Brenkus has been seen. Guy Pitbull—his number one prosecutor—has been seen. High-dig defense attorney named Bob Rule has been seen. Brighton is shuffling around with a white face and Merci Rayborn is gone. There. Maybe you can fill in some gaps."

  "They're questioning Mike for Aubrey Whittaker."

  Evan shook his head and whistled quietly. "I knew it, but I couldn't believe it. So, we're standing by for a warrant search."

  Merci nodded.

  "Shit," he whispered. "Mike."

  "We tried something informal early this morning. Mike wouldn't budge without counsel."

  "That makes him look bad."

  "It's the right thing to do if he's guilty."

  "Is he?"

  "Hell, Evan, it sure looks that way."

  Evan looked down at the grave. "What did you find?"

  "Nothing."

  "Somebody did. You've done an interview before a warrant search, you must know what's behind door number three. What did you find?"

  "I can't tell you that now."

  "Rumor is, they got a phone warrant about an hour ago."

  "Then you'll see it before the end of the workday."

  "If Gilliam lets me work in my own damned lab."

  "That's his call."

  Evan shook his head, toed the grass below him with his shoe. "I'd like to know what in hell Paul Zamorra found in Whittaker's place. Fingerprint cards, some fiber? It was hard to tell. If I got within twenty feet of him, he glared like I'd shot his dog."

  "I'm not free to discuss that, Evan. I'm sorry. But I can tell you it looked like a struggle in Whittaker's kitchen. Remember? The drawers out, the runner bent up. Zamorra went after that angle. Trouble is came clean with Gilliam about what he'd found. That pissed Gilliam off. I don't know if it's even going to matter when they get done with Mike."

  "It mattered enough to get the whole lab shut off. Hey, I don't mind that—less people in there the better. But when Gilliam starts watching me like I'm the next one to get thrown out, that worries me. If we missed something in the kitchen, then we missed something in the kitchen. Nobody's perfect, not even me. And poor Coiner, she's living on Tums and herbal tea. Now this rumor. She likes Mike. Thinks he walks water. I guess you know that."

  Merci looked at him, nodded. "Everybody likes Mike."

  "I mean, nothing serious."

  "Yeah."

  "More like a schoolgirl crush," said Evan. "Hell, she's half his age.”

  Merci listened to the breeze shiver the big pines. Droplets bursi the boughs, diamonds in the sun.

  "Evan did you try the iodine on the storage space envelope stamp?"

  "Gilliam took it over, personally. And he's not saying anything, to us anyway. I don't know what he's doing with it."

  Merci felt the anger jet through her, like something hot shot into her veins. "Now I have to beg for help on a case unsolved for thirty-two yea

  "I'll find out what I can."

  "I'll get Brighton to kick it out of him if I have to."

  Evan looked at her and shook his head. He let out a sharp, dismissive little exhale. "Unless Brighton ordered him to take it over and put a lid on it."

  She looked at him and wondered. "Why?"

  "How would I know?"

  "Gilliam's tough enough to run his own lab without the sheriff standing over him."

  "I agree. But if it's not about helping Gilliam steer clear of all unscientific, gun-toting cowboys lurking around our sacred crime then what is it about?"

  Merci spoke before she thought. "It's about Bailey. Everything about Bailey stinks. An unsolved murder. An investigation that yielded less than it should have. And now, three decades later I've got some secret sonofabitch leading me straight to things Rymers and Thornton should have found. Now Brighton's square in the middle of it like some fat hen sitting on an egg."

  "I don't think it's Bailey, or the evidence itself. I think it's Brighton making sure the crime lab stays under his fist."

  "It was never under his fist."

  "Gilliam would disagree," said Evan.

  "Gilliam doesn't always see the big picture."

  "Hmmm. I guess I'd disagree with that."

  "Bailey," she said again.

  Evan shrugged. "Thirty-two years is a long time. What I heard was nobody cared about her then, so why should anybody care about her now?"

  "That's what everybody says. Let's go over to your father's. Maybe he'll tell me what he remembers."

  O'Brien smiled, something impish in his face. "Yeah. I'm sure Dad 'll help you out all he can."

  James and Margaret O'Brien's graves were under a big sycamore at the north end of the plots. The tree was naked now, but there were still some big brown leaves splayed out on the grass, big as dinner plates, pressed into the grass by the rain.

  Evan reached down and swept a soggy leaf off the headstone. "I got the black granite, too, because the sun's not supposed to fade it as fast."

  "That's what they say."

  Merci read the inscription on the stone.

  James and Margaret O'Brien

  Death Cannot Part-------- One Love in Two Hearts

  "That's a good saying," Merci said.

  "I made it up."

  "Nice. What was it like back then, Evan? I mean, when you were growing up out in the desert?"

  "I liked it. It was different. We had a swimming pool that collected scorpions all summer and stinkbugs all winter. Lots of land to run around on. Room to run and think."

  "What about your parents? Happy, pretty much?"

  "Oh, Hell, no. Fights. Lots of fights. Mom going after Dad. ' Dad defending. Ever see two drunks fight?"

  "No."

  "Don't."

  "Fights about what?"

  He looked at her askance, then seemed to reach an agree
ment with himself. "Usually about the desert. How it was Dad's fault they were there. She always said—yelled—that Dad got kicked out of a good job in a good place, then dragged her out to the desert, which she hated, upshot was Dad was a coward for leaving. What he was afraid, I don't know. Was she just busting his balls because she missed beach? I don't know. Mom thought that if Dad had stood up for himself and been a real man, she wouldn't be stuck in that dust bucket town, finally drank herself to death in seventy-six. Then Dad did what he did five years ago. The old house is mine now. That was part of his last and testament. I figured I'd sell it, but I haven't. It's one of those things that remind me of them. How do you sell a house your parents killed themselves in? Doesn't seem altogether fitting."

  Merci thought back to her conversations with Clark and Thornton. “I thought Jim got a good job—pay raise, promotion."

  "He did. He went straight to full sergeant. That wasn't good enough for her."

  Merci heard the disdain in his voice. Evan reached out and touched the stone again. "I took his side most of those fights. I mean, just to myself. If I said anything, Mom would swat me around as hard as Dad, so I just kept quiet. I remember the first seizure I ever had. I was five, six years old. They were fighting and I had my hands up over my ears and I was screaming to myself, know, screaming inside your head so nobody can hear you and you can’t hear anybody? Mom and Dad were going at it out by the pool. Same old miserable argument about going back to a real life. Next thing I knew I was on my back looking up through a bunch of blood and they were kneeling over me. I thought one of them had hit me again. Turns out, I just spazzed and cut myself on the coffee table."

  "That's a lot of pressure on a kid."

  Evan shrugged. "Yeah, but you know, they loved me. I knew they loved me. They were kind of fucked up, all wrong for each other probably, but they loved me and I knew that. They really weren't such bad parents. I'm not repudiating them. I don't whine about that. They stood by me when it counted."

  Merci thought about her next words, decided to let them out. "I'm told Jim had a reputation with the ladies."