The Third Rule of Ten

by Gay Hendricks

  I tried to remember to breathe, but my lungs weren’t cooperating. The officers stayed put. I mentally went through the checklist with them: log relevant information; scan the perimeter for any suspicious people or vehicles; evaluate potential dangers, using your eyes, ears, and even your nose, to ensure there is no immediate threat; check victims for signs of life.

  I was in for a long night. I revised my own list of priorities and started a pot of very strong coffee, using my very best beans. Whatever this visit from the authorities meant for my future, coffee was bound to help. With two dead bodies and an escaped gang-recruit in the mix, I wanted to make the best coffee they’d ever tasted.

  I watched through the kitchen window as the deputies played their spotlight over the two sprawled bodies. They climbed out of the car, guns drawn. Time to make an appearance. I flashed my outside lights a couple of times to get their attention and inched onto the deck with my hands raised.

  The driver was about 40, with a thickset body and the bushy overhang of mustache favored by law enforcement. His thick, black eyebrows canted sharply upwards, as if attempting to fly off his face, using his forehead as a launching pad. The other sheriff was younger, with high cheekbones and a shaved head. Like me, he looked vaguely Asian. Both wore the LASD uniform: tan shirts with epaulets, black-and-yellow arm patches, and a six-sided sheriff’s badge pinned to the left front pocket. I had never laid eyes on either officer. This could get tricky.

  The young one carefully walked over to the bodies to confirm they were dead. He nodded to his partner and rejoined him by the car, both still wielding their guns

  “I’m the homeowner. I’m ex-LAPD,” I called out. “Burglary/Homicide Division.”

  They approached, lowering their weapons slightly. “Deputy Sheriff Gatti,” one of the cops said, “and this is Deputy Juan Herrera. Malibu/Lost Hills Station. You can lower your hands.”

  “Tenzing Norbu,” I said. “Glad you’re here, Deputies.” Some lies are a matter of self-preservation.

  Officer Gatti jerked his chin toward the two bodies. “You drop both those guys?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I was under attack. Two semiautomatics and a .25, to be specific. I wounded the third man in the leg, but I took my eye off him, and he escaped in their vehicle. Black Hummer; couldn’t read the plate in the dark.”

  Deputy Gatti jerked his chin toward the two bodies.

  “Center mass?” he said, referring to the chest shot that brought my first assailant down.

  “Yes. Plus a neck shot. One of the guys was wearing a vest.”

  He nodded, his expression neutral, but his eyes appeared to reassess me.

  “How many rounds total?” Herrera asked.

  “From me? Three,” I said.

  Herrera whistled. “Fuckin’ A.”

  I assumed he meant this as a compliment, but two corpses didn’t feel like such a great accomplishment. A big part of me wished I could rewind the previous 40 minutes and make a different choice.

  “We have some questions for you,” Gatti said, just as his radio crackled to life. He raised it to his ear; listened, nodding; and then grunted a few times. He ended the interchange and consulted with Herrera, both of them glancing at me, their expressions unreadable.

  “Everything all right?” I attempted a weak smile.

  “Guess we’re waiting for the brass,” Gatti said.

  “Your brass,” Herrera added.

  Bill to the rescue. My shoulders lowered slightly.

  “Did anyone catch the Hummer?”

  Gatti and Herrera exchanged a glance. “We might have passed one on the way up here,” Gatti said.

  Typical Sheriff’s Department tunnel vision, I thought. But who was I to judge. I was the one who let Miguel escape in the first place.

  “Want to come in?” I motioned. “I’ve got coffee on.”

  They shrugged, as in “Why not?”

  Inside, Gatti eyed the two guns on my counter but refrained from asking any more questions. I passed them both mugs of the fresh-brewed, French-roasted Sumatra. Herrera took a sip. His eyes widened. “Fuck, man, that’s good.” He gazed into his mug, his expression morose, as if he half-regretted having tasted such superior coffee.

  Gatti got a call on his cell phone.

  “Yessir,” he said. “We’re on it.” They both stood up.

  “Securing the scene?” I asked. They walked outside. “I’ve got spare barrier tape if you need any,” I called to their backs. They ignored me.

  More tires crunched outside. Moments later, Bill clumped into the kitchen. He headed straight for the coffeepot and poured himself a mug. He sat down in his usual chair.

  “Okay, Cowboy,” he said. “Want to tell me what the fuck happened here?”

  For the first of many times that evening, I described the incident, starting with Miguel’s visit the previous day. In good detective fashion, my ex-partner had me recount the sequence of events twice, to check for inconsistencies. When I was done, he had one question.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “What do you mean?” I widened my eyes, which was a rookie mistake.

  “Ten, I’ve been interviewing suspects for almost twenty-five years and have known you for more than twelve of them. You’re lying about something. And unless I know everything, I can’t help you here.”

  So I had to give up the drug-filled backpack.

  Bill stood up without another word and walked outside to confer with Gatti and Herrera. As the responding officers, they would pass anything we offered them along to the investigation team. Bill pointed to the garage, and my heart vacated my chest. Sure enough, Gatti and Herrera immediately walked over to the garage, unspooling barrier tape to include it within their crime scene. They opened the door and played their flashlights over the gleaming shanks of my Mustang, although, oddly, they didn’t actually look inside it.

  Bill ambled into the kitchen, replenished his coffee, and had a seat. I was dying to know what they had discussed, and he was going to draw this out as long as he could.

  “Bill …”

  “So here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, finally taking pity. “LASD has jurisdiction, so they’ll be leading the investigation. But they’re letting me tag along, and my plan is simple: to make sure your mouth doesn’t get you into trouble. We’ll leave out the little petty-theft of meds for now, okay? I think I’ve steered them in another direction. And for fuck’s sake, don’t tell them this whole thing started with Mac Gannon. He’s not their favorite dude, you know.”

  “So what about the, um, backpack?” I asked.

  “What backpack? Sounds to me like they were after the Mustang,” Bill said. “How much is that car worth?”

  “At least a hundred thousand,” I said. “Maybe more.”

  “And your little escapee was trying to jimmy his way inside, right? Make sure you mention that early on. Question: You think you got all this on your security cameras?”

  “Enough to show I’m not lying.”

  “Then we’re good to go.”

  A County Coroner’s van arrived, followed by a second Sheriff’s Department car, no doubt carrying a crew of crime scene investigators armed with the usual kit of tools: high-intensity lights, bindle paper and tape for transporting evidence, protective clothing, cameras, a latent-print kit, biohazard bags, and the all-important tweezers.

  It was a familiar enough scene; I had just never been the cause of it before. I twisted in my seat.

  “Bill, they were going to kill me,” I said.

  Bill nodded. “Question is, why?”

  Gatti and Herrera took me into their custody. It was time to remove me from the scene and transport me to the Lost Hills station for questioning. They placed me in the back seat of their black-and-white, but I wasn’t cuffed. Bill followed us up and over the canyon and north on the deserted 101 to the sprawling, two-story brick station in Agoura. I was escorted to an interview room and dumped onto an uncomfortable metal chair, wher
e I squirmed, on the wrong side of a slew of questions from two sheriffs from the Homicide Division. Bill sat to one side and listened. Toward the end, I slumped with exhaustion over the ugly Formica table, my elbows propping me up. My skin felt scalded.

  After a couple of hours, which felt like a couple of days, they were done with me. Everything I’d said was supported by the evidence, most notably my Guard-on, which captured and affirmed the home invasion better than any description of mine could. I sent Julius an inner bow of gratitude.

  The consensus? I was the victim of a possibly gang-related home-invasion burglary gone wrong, with my Shelby 350 as the target. It had just been on display at the mechanic’s for all to see, and possibly the wrong people saw it. I reviewed and signed a statement. Herrera returned my gun, as Gatti stood to one side, arms folded, his eyebrows ready for blastoff.

  The sky was glowing pink by the time Bill and I pulled back into my driveway. The bright yellow tape was still up, and it fluttered in the morning breeze, like the tattered remains of a garden party. The bodies were long gone.

  Bill followed me into the kitchen. He stood wide-legged, pinning me with his eyes.

  “Okay. Show-and-tell time, kiddo.”

  I didn’t have to ask for further clarification.

  I crossed to the garage, unlocked the Mustang, retrieved the backpack, and returned inside. I unzipped the pack and dumped the contents onto the table. Bill’s eyes widened.

  “You weren’t kidding,” he said. “That be a lot of contraband.”

  “What I still don’t understand,” I frowned, “is how they knew where I …”

  My eyes narrowed. I snatched up the pack, fingering a slight bulge about the size of an electronic key fob in the nylon lining at the base of the pack.

  I dropped the pack and ran to my bedroom, unlocked my safe, and grabbed my knife, a Microtech Halo. Back in the kitchen, one slim slice was all it took to reveal a small black plastic gadget, maybe two inches by four inches, with a flashing green LED indicator. I held the tracking device up for Bill to see.

  “Well, hello there,” Bill said. “Looks like you brought those three bozos right to your door.”

  For a few minutes, we chewed on this new piece of information in silence.

  “This is pretty messed up,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense. Two dead guys, a missing maid, a drug-filled backpack with a tracker, and I’m still no closer to finding Clara Fuentes.”

  Bill ran his hands through his gray-blond hair. “Hate to break it to you, but your missing persons case may be the least of your problems.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you may not be flying quite as far under the media radar from now on.”

  “I don’t understand.” And then, suddenly, I did. As of the 911 call at 2:58 A.M. this morning, I was dead meat, and somewhere out there, the vultures were gathering, ready to swoop.

  “Can’t you do anything to stop them?”

  “Home invasion in upscale Topanga Canyon? Two dead, one more at large? There’s no way to keep ’em from swarming. You are about to become extremely un-anonymous, my friend.” Bill glanced at his watch. “I’m guessing you’ve got at best a couple hours left as a private citizen. Start practicing your smile.”

  He saluted me, his own expression wry, and pushed away from the table.

  “Bill! A little help?” I said.

  Bill sighed and sat back down. He held out his mug, and I filled it with the last of the coffee, which was stale and harsh but still the nectar of the gods compared to the swill they’d served at the Lost Hills station.

  “Okay,” Bill said. “I’ve had to deal with a lot more of this shit since I got promoted, and here’s what I’ve learned, most of it the hard way. There are people whose entire job seems to consist of trawling for news bites, so you can bet the phones are already jangling over this. In the next hour or so, a bunch of news directors all across L.A. County are going to start marshaling their troops. They will do whatever it takes to snag your handsome, young, multi-ethnic face for their morning news broadcast.”

  “Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

  Bill ignored me. “You’re going to have maybe fifteen seconds on camera for people to decide if you’re a good guy or a bad guy. Number one: Smile but not too much. Two men are dead, after all. You don’t want to look like a bad mug shot, but you don’t want to be reveling, either. Number two: Watch your mouth. Wiseass doesn’t play well on the news. And you, my monkish friend, have been known to be a wiseass. Number three, and probably most important: Tell the truth. Look the camera in the eye and do your best to answer honestly, in a way that doesn’t hang your butt out to dry later.”

  He stood up again.

  “Aren’t you staying?” My voice was more of a squeak.

  Bill shook his head. “I would only complicate matters.” He stuffed the drugs back into the backpack, grabbed the tracker, and stood. “I’m going to take custody of these for now. No argument. You’re lucky as hell I intervened with this investigation so they didn’t search your car.”

  I stood up as well, my voice stubborn. “I want to keep the tracker.”

  He stared at me.

  “It’s my only link between any of these events. I need it, Bill.”

  “Okay,” he finally said. “But get that geek-freak of yours to hook your security system directly to the morgue, because that’s where this business is going to land you if you’re not more careful. Ten, we’re eventually going to have to bring the powers that be into this side of things. You know that, right?”

  I did.

  “And I can’t promise you the Captain, or Chief Deputy Baca for that matter, won’t send you a one-way ticket to Tibet. Hell, I might even drive you to the airport myself.”

  “Understood. But Bill, if I can’t flush out whoever’s running my attackers, I can’t do my job.”

  He put the tracker on the table.

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. And good luck with the reporters.” He shot me a rueful look and left.

  I eyed the blinking tracker and felt my breath catch. There’s a tiny Indonesian island, Komodo, which is famous for two things: convicts and giant lizards known as Komodo dragons. Heather’s parents took her to Komodo once when she was a teenager, and she said the experience scarred her for life. In order to lure the scabby reptiles to within viewing distance, tourist guides would tether a small goat to a pole, serving up the perfect Komodo dragon snack. “I’ve never heard a sound quite so heart-wrenching,” Heather said, “as that poor little goat’s terrified bleating.”

  I wasn’t quite at the bleating stage yet, but I could definitely relate to the feeling of being tethered bait. The fact that I’d just volunteered for goat duty didn’t help much.

  Tank had finally crawled out from under the sofa. He padded into the kitchen and nosed around his bowl.

  “Hey, Tank. Apparently, we’re about to be famous.”

  I gave him the rest of the liver bits—he’d earned that—as I downed two full glasses of water. I held my hands out in front of me, turning them front to back. They had stopped shaking, but I felt as if they were drenched in invisible blood. I undressed and moved into the shower and stood under the stinging hot water, scrubbing my hands and body until my skin was raw and red. As I toweled off, a wave of tiredness broke over my body, so dense I almost buckled under its weight. I staggered into the bedroom and collapsed, face down. After a moment, I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes, but every time I started to drift off, two figures approached me through the darkness. Adrenaline firing off multiple synapses, I raised my weapon, and my body was shocked awake. I opted for simply lying still, as my skin sparked and flickered.

  Tell the truth. So Bill, too, had joined the chorus of soothsayers, urging me to change my ways. I knew why, too. Dozens of interrogations with even the most skilled pathological liars underscored the foolishness of doing anything else. “It’s like this,” Bill told m
e once, over celebratory beers after a particularly boneheaded slip-up by a murder suspect. “Guy tells the truth, he doesn’t have to remember what he said. Boom. No worries. Guy lies, he’s gotta keep telling more to cover up the ones he’s already told. He gets so busy trying to keep track of what’s what, pretty soon he can’t remember his own goddamned name. It’s just a matter of time ’til he fucks up.”

  I wondered how much time I had left.

  My doorbell let out a hearty bing-bong!

  Shit. I glanced at my phone. Barely 8 A.M. I’d been resting for less than an hour. Now somebody was at my rarely used front door, ringing my rarely used doorbell, which meant it was somebody I didn’t know, who didn’t know me.

  I pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, and used the bedroom door to block my body as I craned my head around. I wanted a clear sightline on my visitor before I stepped into view.

  For a moment, my heart stopped. Pema. I shook my head. I was losing it. Lack of sleep and post-traumatic shooting syndrome had loosened a few bolts in my brain.

  But the resemblance to my first love was uncanny. Pema, age 13, glowing with fresh beauty. The Tibetan village girl who carried groceries up the hill to my monastery the summer of my 12th year. The girl who gave me my first kiss.

  Now, it was like looking at an age-progression image. Like Pema, this woman had angular cheekbones, glossy black hair, honey-colored skin, and dark brown eyes fringed with thick lashes. She was in her 20s and wearing a navy dress of some kind of clingy material that enthusiastically wrapped around her body a few times before meeting itself in front again. As I watched, the woman tossed her hair back with both hands, and her dress tightened across a perfect pair of breasts.

  I crossed the living room and opened the door. She flashed a shiny smile. Up close, I could see I was mistaken. Her lineage was Central or South American, not Tibetan. But my body couldn’t care less.

  She held out a slim hand. “Mr. Norbu? My name is Cielo,” she said. “Cielo Lodera, Channel 5 News.”

  Is she the one?

  “Cielo?”

  “It means heaven,” she said and laughed. “My mother loves to say she asked for an angel, but God sent her a hell-raiser instead.” She leaned past me and quickly scanned my living room. “Tell me I’m dreaming. Am I actually the first reporter here?”