Red Light

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "The porch bulb and the fixture from Whittaker's are in my trunk.

  "I'll get them."

  "The suicide note. Get a copy from San Bernardino sheriffs, and get it back to me. Soon."

  "Done. Merry Christmas."

  "I'm sleepy."

  "Rest."

  "Get Brenkus."

  That night came Clayton Brenkus, white-haired and stately. He sat. He questioned. His pen rolled across the paper in short bursts.

  "He confessed?"

  "Whittaker. The phone recorder. Planting evidence. His father killed Patti Bailey for his alleged friends. They betrayed him with it. Evan wanted restitution."

  A long silence, a burst of pen on paper. "Last words are evidentiary and admissible."

  "Get Mike out, now!"

  "For starters, yes. An appropriate Christmas present. Imagine the lawsuit we'll be up against."

  "Imagine."

  Pen on paper. Walls melting. Darkness filling in.

  "I'm sleepy."

  "Get some rest."

  Morning.

  ". . . misses you all the time. So he lurches around your room trying to figure out where you are and I keep telling him but you know how that goes. He's eating tons, though, and sleeping a lot, so he's fine. When you get home we're going to spoil the heck out of you, we'll be your patient recovery team. Now look, try some more of these eggs. You've got to get your strength back or they'll never let you out of this place. You are needed at home, young lady. That's a direct order from Tim."

  Clark leaning forward with a pile of yellow goop on a spoon, a pitying smile on his face.

  "Kiss him for me."

  "I have been. Gary Brice from the Journal has left twelve messages. I've talked to him three times. He said he's ready to collect payment for not running the articles on you and Mike. He said you'd know what he's talking about."

  "I'm sleepy." "Rest, honey."

  • • •

  Evening.

  Brighton, tall and ancient, stood in the doorway with a bouquet.

  "We're springing Mike soon."

  "Um-hm."

  "Gilliam and his people are going over everything O'Brien did the last week. All the evidence he handled, lost, tampered with, planted. Everything."

  "Lots."

  "What can I do for you?"

  "I'm sleepy."

  "Get some rest."

  He turned and walked away, then came back in, still holding the flowers. He set them on the floor because the little nightstand was already full of them.

  • • •

  Late night. Out the window she could see car lights creeping up and down Interstate 5, the gay domes of a theater complex in the distance. Rain rolled down the glass and smeared it all.

  Merci walked around the floor, still tethered to the drip trolley, her right leg aching, her rib aching, her butt burning where the grafts had been taken. A nurse walked along beside her, talking about her children.

  Gary Brice was waiting outside her room when she returned

  "Merci," he said. "You look great for six days in two hospitals."

  "I can't talk now, Gary."

  "I know. I just want you to know that when you're ready, I am. You promised me the truth."

  "You'll get it."

  "O'Brien framed Mike, didn't he?"

  "It's a long story. Later."

  "Promise?"

  "Promise."

  "Exclusive?"

  "All the way."

  Zamorra came very late, shut the door and sat down by the window. In the harsh hospital light his eyes looked black and his skin looked gray. He was dressed in a dark suit as always, his white shirt collar pressed and his tie neatly knotted. The only thing his neatness did was reveal the exhaustion in his face.

  "Janine," said Merci.

  Zamorra nodded. "Let's just sit here a minute."

  The minute seemed like an hour. It might have been. Merci opened her eyes, felt her head lagging to the side. The rain came down hard outside the window but she couldn't hear it over the hum of the heater, the muffled buzz of the hospital around her.

  "What happened, Paul?"

  "She went into a grand mal seizure Friday morning around eight. Not long after you told me you were going out to Jim O'Brien's house with Evan. She died at nine forty-three."

  Zamorra turned his eyes from her and looked out the window, brow furrowed and his breath caught in his throat.

  "That's why I... couldn't make it. I called the San Bernardino sheriffs with the address, told them there might be a deputy in trouble. Later, I realized that O'Brien might have given you the wrong address. So I got personnel here to dig out Jim O'Brien's address, called it in. By then, well, you were down and bleeding half to death. And your partner was just one building from where he is now."

  "Paul."

  His profile was clear against the black window but he still didn't look at her.

  A nurse came in, checked the IV drip and the monitor, asked Merci if she wanted a pain med. Merci said no. The idea hit her that Zamorra needed it more than she did, but what drug on earth could repair a broken heart?

  They sat for a while in the hourless time of the hospital.

  "She had a nice voice," he said finally. "She sang to me sometimes. Broadway stuff, with lots of dramatics. Funny."

  "What are you going to do, Paul?"

  "The San Diego guys want me down there. Get a place with a little acreage, maybe."

  "I mean now. Tonight."

  "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

  "Promise me."

  He turned her way. "If I was going to do that, I wouldn't be here right now. I'd crawl away and do it, like an old cat."

  "Remember about the broken places healing up stronger than before."

  "I know."

  "You're young. Everything's going to change. Then change again."

  Merci listened to the voices in the hall, the drone of the heater.

  "I let you down, and I'm sorry," he said.

  "I'll tell you something, Paul. I let my partner down once. It got him killed. There's nothing in the world that feels worse. I know that. You wish you could trade places, but you can't. And you won't forgive yourself for a long time. But you have to. We have to. It's the only way to keep going."

  He looked at her. "You haven't? Yet?"

  "I play it over all the time. This way and that. Try to change what I did, what I thought, what I believed. It can't be done. But look at me. I'm here. I made it. I'm alive. You don't have my life on your hands. So grieve for Janine. Grieve for yourself. But not for me. For whatever it's worth, Paul, I forgive you. Get over it. Go on."

  And with those words she felt something break inside her, peel away and sink out of sight. Black water closed over it then a halo of ripple wobbled outward. She knew that Hess would have said the same to her. He would have forgiven her. He would have told her that the first person to forgive is not your enemy but yourself, that only the fool extends his suffering.

  In that moment she loved Hess again, and she loved Paul Zamorra and she loved Mike McNally and she even loved herself. For the first time in many months she believed she would be all right.

  In the eye of her mind the last black ripple was gone now and something that could have been moonlight shone on the water.

  "I can't go home tonight."

  "Turn off the light. Sit back down. The nurse will bring you blanket."

  She woke up three times that night. The third, Zamorra was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  A week later, on the second day of the New Year, Merci rented a little two-bedroom place on the sand at Ninth Street in Newport. It was cheap and smelled of pine cleanser and the ocean. There was old carpet, old furniture, old prints on the walls faded by the sun. Clark helped her and Tim move in, still trying to talk her out of it.

  She had cut her hair short. She bought some baggy clothes that wouldn't hang up on her bandages. She rented the place as Gail White, trying to sweet-talk the old landl
ord into accepting cash in advance in lieu of proper ID. When he resisted she badged him and asked him to help her out damnit and he did. He showed up later that first afternoon with a bunch of carnations.

  When Clark left she took Tim down to the waterline for a walk. She watched Tim waddle after the hunkered gulls. She watched the half-day boat put down anchor near a kelp bed. She passed a couple of kids smoking a joint by the lifeguard stand, glowered at them, then reminded herself who she was. Things that are not my problem for a hundred, she thought. She liked being "Gail." It was her way, off center as she often was, of showing respect.

  She read the papers. She slept. She played with Tim. She watched the tube. She talked on the phone a little. She took more walks.

  She attempted to call Paul Zamorra twice, as she'd been doing for the last week. No answer at home. No response to her messages. He'd taken a bereavement leave. Nobody in the department had any idea where he was. She made some inquiries with the San Diego SD but couldn't identify any of Zamorra's friends.

  If I was going to do that I wouldn't be here right now. I'd crawl away and do it, like an old cat.

  Merci also called Joan Cash at the close of each workday. No, Zamorra had not contacted her office with regard to counseling or anything else. Cash and Merci talked for almost an hour each time. They were long, wandering conversations that Cash without subtlety guided toward Merci's feelings about O'Brien, the Purse Snatcher, Hess.

  Merci thought it was easier talking to Cash on the phone than it was face-to-face. She liked the idea of miles between them, even if their voices flew with the speed of electricity. Cash thought that Zamorra’s "old cat" statement was a clear warning and, without saying so, suggested that Merci should prepare herself for anything.

  Clark had saved for her all the newspaper articles relating to Mike’s arrest, O'Brien's death, and the subsequent investigation of the framing of Mike.

  She read them and saw that without Jim O'Brien's suicide letter there was no visible motive for Evan to have done what he did. Not even Gary Brice from the Journal could figure out why the CSI had gone to such lengths to make an innocent man suffer.

  Brighton had acted mystified. Glandis had a lot of no comments. The rank and file expressed support for Mike, who refused to speak with the media. And Merci told none of them that she had the key to it all---photocopy of Jim O'Brien's suicide letter—secured for her by Zamorra before his vanishing.

  By the third day she was bored with Gail White, so she got Mel Glandis to come over after lunch.

  • •

  He slumped his big body into the chair by the window in the living room, following her with his bovine eyes, face flushed and hands folded.

  "My getting the Bailey case was no accident," she said. "You gave it to me for a reason. You knew something was wrong with it from beginning, from way back in sixty-nine. You even had the evidence prove it, but you didn't have the balls to try."

  He smiled. "What are you talking about, Merci?"

  "Evan said he wanted to get to the truth about Bailey. When he asked you to help him dig it up, you jumped at the chance. You knew if you could cast a shadow on Brighton, you could muscle yourself into his office the same way he did. Evan mailed me the key to the storage area, but I think the storage unit was yours. Brighton and McNally had tried to hide that evidence, but you found out where it was. You took it. Kept it for a rainy day. Your little investment in the future. You just never had the nuts to use it, until Evan showed up. Dirty work's not your thing. All of which makes you more than the garden variety buttkisser I thought you were. It makes you an accomplice to murder."

  His mouth dropped open, his face went redder. "Nothing you just said is true."

  "Evan O'Brien said it was. Dying words, Mel. Admissible in court. He ratted out your fat ass."

  Glandis stared at her. The part about Evan's admission was a lie, but she had no problem telling it because she figured that most of it had to be true.

  "Mel, I don't think you knew Evan was going to murder Aubrey Whittaker. You wouldn't have the stomach for that. You just saw a way to open a can of worms, let the stink get onto Brighton. I'm going to let you take it from here. Tell me what happened and you'll walk back to your job. Lie to me and I'll have you arrested as a co-conspirator with O'Brien. I'll ruin you."

  Glandis looked out the window. She guessed he'd roll over in less than thirty seconds. It took ten.

  "Yeah, okay. I knew the Bailey case wasn't right, but I didn't know how. I thought Brighton was covering something. McNally, too. I smelled Owen and Meeks in it, but I wasn't sure where. So I kept my eyes and ears open. I was partnered up with Rymers back in seventy-three and we got pretty tight. He got bills from Inland Storage in Riverside every month. Sent to him at headquarters. I wondered why. I heard him and Brighton saying something about the storage unit. I wondered. I saw Rymers get a key back from Big Pat one day. I wondered some more. So I took that key, went to Inland, had a look. They'd kept aside the evidence—the gun, Bailey's clothes, the tapes, her appointment book. Just in case Jim O'Brien's conscience got too heavy. Had goods on Meeks and Owen. When O'Brien killed himself I knew they’d ditch the stuff, so I broke in and took it. Took everything in the unit, so they'd think it was a routine burg job. Rented my own little spot across town, stored it all."

  "You think just like a rodent, Mel."

  Glandis shrugged, as if the comment didn't bother him. Some in his face looked pleased.

  "You must have drooled when Evan got hired, started talking about digging up the truth on Bailey."

  "Yeah. When Brighton gave me the unsolveds to assign, you got Bailey. I wanted our best homicide investigator on it. I figured if anyone had the endurance to solve it, you did."

  "I'm flattered."

  Glandis lit up for a split second, looked like he believed her.

  "But Merci, I didn't know what he was planning with Whittaker and Mike. I really didn't. After she died, I figured one of her johns, you know. Then when you found out all the stuff about Mike, I figured he got carried away with a girl who was going to blackmail him, so he shut her up. But Evan? No. I just knew the Bailey evidence would lead toward Brighton, so I made sure you got it. That's all. If I'd have known what Evan was up to, I'd have ..."

  Merci watched him, heard the failure of his language.

  "You'd have let Evan do it, Mel, then hoped he got caught. Because you want the department to fail. You want it to sink so you can rise to the top and rescue it."

  He glanced at her, then down at the ancient green shag carpet. He was breathing deeply. He was looking at his small dancer's feet. Then he sat back and rolled his shoulders like a boxer, and looked straight

  "Don't you?" he asked. "Don't you want to rise to the top?"

  "Damn right I do."

  He smiled. "You know, Brighton would have to throw his weight behind me for sheriff if I handled this mess for him. If I could get you to just forget about Bailey. Then, if I'm sheriff, you'll write own ticket. Anything you want, Merci Rayborn. Anything."

  She stared at him. "Get out of my sight, you craven rat."

  "What are you gonna do?"

  "Out of my sight."

  Glandis stood. The sweat ran down his face, onto the collar of his shirt. "Don't crucify me. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just a guy trying to get ahead, get what's mine."

  She opened the door for him and when he was out, she slammed it. The little house shook and a picture fell off the wall. Tim started crying from his room.

  One down, she thought, and one to go. She reached under the sofa

  and turned off the tape recorder, then went to get her son.

  • • •

  She carried Tim to the front gate of the Zamorra household in the Fullerton hills. The ornate wrought iron squeaked open at her touch. The courtyard fountain was still and the potted flowers were green and battered by the rain. She looked through a window and saw only the furniture inside. She rang the bell but no one answered.

&
nbsp; No newspapers. No mail. The garage doors wouldn't budge.

  She let herself through a side gate and followed the round stepping stones to the backyard. The swimming pool was covered with a pale blue tarp, leaves gathered in a brown puddle under the diving board.

  She looked through the panes of a French door: the Zamorra master suite, complete with hospital bed in a fully upright position and a king mattress and springs on the floor beside it. The cut flowers in a vase bent down like they were looking for something on the bedstand.

  Sometimes I wish I could just fly away.

  Don't you do it, she thought. I can forgive anything but that.

  ■ • •

  Brighton got there in the early evening. He'd been reluctant to meet with her at her place, but she'd talked him into it over the phone. He stood and looked at the chair where Mel Glandis had sat just a few hours earlier. He didn't sit down. It was like his instincts told him not to, Merci thought, like he knew it wasn't a chair you got good news in.

  Instead, Brighton knelt down and extended a big hand to Tim, who tried to pull off his wedding band.

  "Cute boy," he said. "You're a cute boy, Tim, Jr. You look a little like Dad, a little like Mom. That's a good combination."

  She set a copy of Jim O'Brien's suicide letter on the coffee table. Brighton looked up at her, rose and picked up the envelope.

  "Have a seat while you read," she said.

  "I'll stand." His eyes were wary in his lined, tired face. "I talked to Mike again today. He's doing okay. He'll be back to work in a week."

  "I haven't talked to him."

  "So he said. I think you might find him more forgiving than you believe. He understands what happened. He understands how Evan fooled us all."

  "Me most of all."

  "You. Me. Gilliam. All of us. It happens. If it didn't, we wouldn’t have jobs."

  "Some job, isn't it?"

  Brighton pursed his lips and shrugged. "It beats selling shoes."

  "Have you heard anything from Paul?"

  "He signed out for a month. Something tells me he won't be coming back. Hot for San Diego sheriffs, I think. I'm not surprised he has called you."

  "Why is that?"

  "It's his way. He doesn't complain. He doesn't explain. He just does what he does. When we hired him from Santa Ana P.D. we knew he was a little touchy."