by Matt Coyle
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
He ignored my question and told me how smart he was.
“According to the county assessor, this home belongs to a Moira Jocelyn MacFarlane, who happens to be a private investigator. The woman who called us claimed to be Joan Brown, but the photo we found for Moira MacFarlane looks a lot like the woman standing in the corner pointing a gun at me. It seemed strange that a private investigator would hire someone to spy on her cheating boyfriend when she could do it on her own for free. So we dug a little deeper and found that you two have worked together before.”
“If you figured all that out, why did you show up?”
“Maybe we can work something out. How about we go back into the living room and talk about this?”
“We’re fine here. Start talking. Who hired you to bug my house?”
“Like you said, Jules Windsor.” Armstrong looked me straight in the eye.
“When?”
“Last Saturday.”
“What time did he call you?”
“I don’t remember the exact time. Late morning.” Still looking at me in the eye. Hadn’t blinked yet.
Too easy. First he was defiant when I mentioned the police, now he was giving me what I wanted without trying to bargain it for something else.
“Why did Windsor want you to bug my house?”
“We don’t ask that question.”
“What does Windsor do for a living?”
He still kept his eyes on mine, but they went blank for a millisecond. “My arms are getting tired. Can I at least put my hands down?”
“Keep them up.”
“That’s not a fair deal. You’re keeping me hostage in this bedroom in the back of the house and holding guns on me while I tell you the whole story.”
The hair spiked on the back of my neck. Too late. A hissing sound came from the front of the house. Moira spun her weapon toward the hallway just as a smoking canister landed in the bedroom. Tears bled from my eyes. I fought to keep them open. I spun from Armstrong and aimed my gun at the bedroom doorway. Coughs erupted from my mouth as my throat closed up. I couldn’t breathe. My eyelids snapped shut. Face on fire. Gun hit the floor. Hands to my face. Eyes, nose, and throat burned. No air. I lunged blindly at the doorway fighting to find oxygen. A noise. Pushed to the floor. Armstrong’s gun ripped from my waist.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“EDDIE! PUT THIS on!” A muffled voice.
Footsteps and vibrations next to my head. I pushed off the floor. Fire down my throat as I gagged for air. My eyes welded shut. I yelled Moira’s name, but all that came out were hacking coughs. No air on the intake. I stumbled forward and banged into something. Moving. Human. I clawed at it and felt hair. A woman’s. Moira. I grabbed around her waist and we stumbled forward. Blind. Tears. Snot. Coughs. A breeze on my face. I pushed us toward it. Stronger. Forward. Stairs. Midair. Hard landing. Face on the ground. Cool. Grass.
I rolled onto my back and forced one eye open. Night. Stars shimmering through my tears. Coughs racked my chest. I found wisps of air after each hack. More coughs. Not mine. I rolled onto my side and forced my other eye open. Moira on all fours coughing and dry heaving into the grass.
“Water. Hose.” I managed real words.
She pointed one hand behind her toward the front of the house and a flower bed. I crawled toward the flowers and found a coiled hose connected to a faucet. I grabbed the end of the hose and turned on the faucet. Water roiled out. I turned the hose on my face. Relief. My eyes still stung and my face was still on fire, but the heat had been turned down. I forced my eyes to stay open and poured water into them one at a time. More relief.
I climbed to my feet and ran over to Moira with the hose. She was still on all fours coughing and retching into the lawn. I pushed her over and sprayed her face with the hose. She coughed and rolled back onto all fours. I sprayed her in the face some more as I coughed and coughed. I put the hose in my mouth, then spit out the water. Again and again. Some relief. I did the same to Moira as she tried to push me away.
I continued the outdoor shower for five minutes. Ten? Fifteen? I don’t know how long, but Moira and I were soaked through and her entire front lawn was a puddle by the time I turned off the water.
Moira lay on her back on the soaked lawn taking big gulps of air and only coughing after every fourth or fifth breath.
“You ruined my best outfit,” she said between coughs. “This is going on an expense report.”
“I didn’t know you could expense stuff on a pro bono job.”
“I will now.”
I reached down a hand, which she grabbed, and pulled her up to her feet. We sloshed up the stairs onto the porch and looked through the open door of the house. An empty canister lay on its side in the living room, a mate to the one that Armstrong’s partner had tossed into the bedroom. The second man, probably Ketchings, must have set it off right before he threw the other one into the bedroom. Maybe that’s why the tear gas took effect so quickly. The entire inside of the house must have been one big gas cloud. Moira and I stood on the welcome mat and sniffed for the smell of any lingering tear gas.
“I’ll go in and open all the windows so we can air the place out.” I looked down at Moira and saw my arm around her shoulders. I didn’t remember putting it there. “You shouldn’t stay in there until we’re sure all the tear gas has dispersed.”
“I have to get out of these clothes. I’m cold. Let’s go in and grab something to wear and change out here.”
“Deal.”
We held our breath, rushed inside, and ran to the windows first. My eyes stung again. Not as badly as before, but bad enough to want to get the hell out of there. We threw open all the windows in the living room and darted back to Moira’s bedroom. She opened the window over her bed, and I grabbed a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt I’d hung in the closet to dress the room for Armstrong and company. Moira grabbed a couple things out of her dresser and running shoes from her closet, and we hustled back to the front of the house. I picked up the tennis shoes I’d dropped near the door and the windbreaker off the hook near the door and bolted outside.
We both let go of our breaths and sucked gasps of air like we had when we’d tried to recover from the tear gas. Moira looked at me and giggled and I started laughing. We sat down in a love seat on her porch and laughed until we cried. The stinging in our eyes made it easy. We stopped and I patted Moira on the back. We looked at each other like we never had before. The danger. The pain. The moment. We leaned toward each other. She shot her lips against my cheeks, then pulled backward.
“What are you trying to do, Cahill? Kill our blossoming friendship in the crib?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I released her hand, which I had somehow been holding. “Let’s get out of these wet clothes.”
I walked to the far side of the covered porch and kept my back turned on her. I took off my shirt and put on the one I’d taken out of the closet. I started to button it. My skin stung. I ripped the shirt off and threw it onto the ground.
“Moira!” I turned and saw her naked back. “Don’t put the clothes on. They have tear gas on them.”
She dropped the sweatshirt she’d had in her hands.
“What the hell am I supposed to do, go to the store naked and buy some new clothes?” She turned toward me with her arms crisscrossing her chest, a hand over each breast.
“I’ve got some clothes in my car.” I always kept a quick change in my trunk for long surveillance jobs to have a different look. “Wait here.”
She went back to the love seat and sat down, keeping her chest covered. I went through the gate of the white picket fence and jogged the two blocks to my car without a shirt. I hopped in and drove back to Moira’s and parked in front. I grabbed a duffel bag out of the trunk and took it up to the porch. I pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie and tossed them to Moira. She let them hit her and fall to the ground.
“You hop
ing I’d catch those so you could cop a peek, Cahill?”
I turned my back to her and looked out at the darkened street.
“Let’s go to my house while your place airs out. Take a hot shower. Figure out what just happened.”
“Roger.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
WE DIDN’T TALK on the drive to my house. Both lost in thought. I wondered whether the information Armstrong had offered was valid. And why he’d come if he knew the job was a setup. I pondered what the hell almost happened on the porch with Moira, too. The danger we’d survived had jacked our adrenaline and other hormones had gotten caught up in the rush. Heat of the moment or hidden feelings? I had too much danger in my life already to even consider exploring those feelings.
I glanced over at Moira. She stared out the window in the passenger seat, bundled up in my sweats four sizes too big like she was wrapped in a blanket. She had to be wondering if the offer to help me was worth a home invasion and maybe more turmoil to come. I doubt she’d ever held a gun on someone before. It was an unsettling experience the first time. Wondering if you could pull the trigger if you had to. I already knew the answer to that question. Four times.
Midnight greeted us at the door. He sniffed my wet jeans and sneezed. He backed up, crooked his head, and looked at me. The faint residue of tear gas on my pants had already attacked his powerful nose. I led him to the sliding glass door in the living room and put him outside.
“Bathroom with a shower is upstairs. First door on the right. I’ll try to find you something that fits better.”
“Thanks, Cahill.”
I followed her upstairs and went into my bedroom after she peeled off into the bathroom. I went into the master bath and kicked off my shoes, jeans, and underwear, and put on the terrycloth robe that hung from a hook on the door. Moira needed something to wear. There was only one option that would come close to fitting her. I opened the bottom drawer of the dresser in the bedroom. A plastic clothes bag sat in the drawer. Nothing else. I hadn’t opened that drawer or the bag in it in years.
I pulled out the bag and opened it and found a pair of blue and gold UCLA running shorts. I’d bought them for Colleen the day after I met her when I was still a Bruin and she was down visiting from UC Santa Barbara where I would follow her via a transfer the next year. We got married three years later.
I pulled out a green t-shirt with a Lake Tahoe logo from the bag. From our honeymoon. There was a hairbrush in the bag, too. With long whips of blond hair intertwined in the bristles. I left the brush in the bag and took the shorts and shirt down the hall and hung them on the doorknob of the bathroom where Moira was already in the shower.
I went back into my bathroom when I heard the water stop and took a shower. The hot water felt good, except for my face, which still burned from the tear gas. I turned off the hot water and let the cold run on my face to take some of the sting out.
When I went downstairs, Moira was sitting on my couch in Colleen’s clothes. She’d let Midnight back inside and was scratching his head. I sat in the recliner opposite her.
“He wanted to keep me company,” Moira said.
“Feeling better?”
“Yes. Thanks for the clothes.” She pulled her shirt and let it go. “You keep a set of women’s clothes around for situations like this?”
“No.”
Moira studied my eyes and read something in them. “I’ll make sure you get them back, Rick.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at her kindness. “Beer? Something harder?”
“Someone just gas-bombed my house. What do you think?”
“Exactly what you’re thinking.”
I went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Bushmills off the top of the refrigerator and two rocks glasses from the cabinet. I left the rocks in the freezer. I set the glasses down on the coffee table between Moira and me and poured two fingers in each.
“Here’s to gas masks and hot showers.” Moira held up her glass. I sat down, grabbed my glass, and clinked it off hers.
I took a sip and my body warmed. In a good way. Not like burning tear gas.
“Sorry about tonight,” I said.
“Me, too.” Moira took her second sip of Irish whiskey.
“I’ll pay for any cleaning expenses or new clothes you have to buy.”
“That’s not what I’m sorry about.”
“Then what?” I drained the Bushmills from my glass, afraid of what Moira would say next.
“I’m sorry you don’t trust me enough to tell me what this is all about.”
“Aside from Midnight, I trust you more than anyone else in my life right now.”
“That’s sad.” She looked down at her glass. “You should have at least one person in your life who you can tell secrets to.”
“Who’s yours?”
“My son.”
Her son, Luke, was a sophomore at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I didn’t know the two of them were that close. I guessed I didn’t know Moira as well as I thought.
“The stories he could tell.” I poured more whiskey into my glass and topped off hers.
“He’ll never tell, Cahill.” She smiled. “He shares my blood.”
Blood. Inescapable. The secrets it hid.
“Why do you think Armstrong came to your house if he smelled a setup?” I had a theory. I wanted to see if Moira’s was a match.
“I think he wanted to learn what you knew.” She leaned forward on the couch. “I think he had a bug on his body and his partner was listening in while you questioned him.”
“Me, too. His partner was listening live, but I’m sure he was recording it for whoever hired them.” I leaned forward, too. Eager to have someone to throw ideas at even if I couldn’t tell her the bigger story. “Armstrong gave me Windsor because I mentioned his name first. When I pressed him to see what he knew about Windsor, he signaled his partner. Time to abort.”
“So Windsor didn’t hire them?”
“No. Not directly, at least.”
“But you think he’s somehow involved in … in whatever this is that you won’t tell me.”
“Yes.” I hit my drink and avoided her eyes. “I promise, I’ll tell you what this is all about if I ever find the truth I’m looking for.”
“You’re telling me the president of the largest independent bank in La Jolla is involved, but you won’t tell me how?”
“Not yet.”
“I know you’re new to the concept of friendship, Cahill. Here’s a tip. It goes both ways.” She squinted the round out of her eyes and pressed her full lips into a straight line. Heat turned her tan cheeks maroon. “I volunteered my services and my house to help a friend. Now I’m wearing borrowed clothes, my house is a wailing wall, and I’ve probably made an enemy of one of the most powerful men in La Jolla.”
She was right. I didn’t know how to be a friend. I knew how to be an ex-lover still carrying a torch and play hero for a woman who had moved on, but I didn’t know how to be a real friend. Moira did. For some reason I hadn’t figured out yet, she’d chosen to be one to me. And she’d already sacrificed for the one-way friendship.
I finished off my fourth finger of Bushmills and set the glass down.
“You’ve probably heard about my father.”
“I know he was a cop. Is he still alive?”
“No. He died eighteen years ago.”
“Does all this have something to do with him?” She spread her hands out, as if encompassing the whole world.
“Yes. He was a cop until he was pushed off the force. The rumor was he was doing favors for the mob.”
“I heard about that when a friend at LJPD tried to talk me out of working with you on the Randall Eddington thing a couple years ago.”
“Maybe you should have listened.”
“Maybe, but that’s my decision to make.” She wagged a finger at me. “Nobody else’s.”
“Okay.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I stumbled onto some evidence that probably proves the rumor to be
true.”
Moira looked at me, then shook her head. “So all this is about proving your father was a dirty cop?”
I’d opened the door, now I didn’t know when to close it.
“It’s about finding the truth.”
“Where does Jules Windsor come into your truth, Cahill?” Her staccato voice had a harder edge than usual.
“I found a key to an active safe deposit box my father had at Windsor Bank that no one seemed to know about.”
“How is that possible if he’s been dead for eighteen years? Doesn’t the bank have to report those to the state authorities after a year or so?”
“If the box is left abandoned. His box has been paid for by a joint account he had with a woman named Antoinette King.”
“Who’s she?”
“I haven’t been able to find out yet. There’s no trail of her anywhere online that I could find.”
“What was in the safe deposit box?”
How long could I leave that door open? Long enough for her to learn that my father may have hid evidence in an unsolved murder? My father, my blood. Our secret.
“That’s not as important as what happened after I opened the box in Windsor’s presence.” A lie. How many lies had I told in the last week? “He made a phone call and five hours later Armstrong and Ketchings bugged my house.”
“You’re not going to tell me what was in the safe deposit box?”
“Not right now.”
“Dammit, Cahill!” She slammed her hand down on the coffee table. Midnight bolted up to all fours. “How the hell am I supposed to help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on? I guess you haven’t been paying attention. I’m pretty damn good at investigating things and figuring them out.”
“You’re the best. I know.” I stared at my empty whiskey glass. Waiting to refill it with courage. Or amnesia. “It’s between my father and me right now. Blood. Like the secrets you and your son share.”
“Your father is dead and I’ve never pointed a loaded gun at someone over a secret Luke told me.”
“I know. I’m sorry about all of it. You are released from helping me and you can report what happened tonight to the police, if you want.”
