by Robert Ellis
“He betrayed you,” Matt whispered.
She wiped her cheeks, still looking back, still in the trance.
“He humiliated me,” she repeated in a firm voice. “He cheated on me and made a fool out of me. Not for a week or a month but for a long time. A real long time. I sat there and watched as everything we had together was swept away. Everything we shared turned to dust. When he touched me, when he fucked me, it didn’t feel good anymore. It felt dirty. Everything about him hurt. And so I killed him. I shot him with his own gun. I’d seen the news about the three-piece bandit. I knew what it needed to look like. And so I did it. I pulled the trigger over and over again because he deserved it over and over again. And when the blame switched from the bandit to those three dirty cops in Hollywood, I took it as another gift, another sign that everything would be the way I wanted it to be. The way I dreamed it would be.”
A moment passed. The way Laura dreamed it would be.
Matt took a last pull on his smoke, got to his feet, and doused the butt in his coffee mug. Then he turned back to Laura without saying anything. He was still chewing it over, still thinking it through. For several moments he tried to look at her without loving her but couldn’t seem to get the ball to go over the plate.
“What did you do with the gun?” he said.
Laura didn’t answer, studying his face as she mulled it over.
He shrugged. “Where is it?”
“I buried it under some flowers.”
“Which flowers? Where?”
“Under the oak tree out back.”
Matt glanced through the window at the oak tree, then sat down on the arm of the chair beside the worktable. “What about the things you took?”
“What things?”
“His wedding band was missing. His badge and watch and the gun he wore on his belt.”
She batted her eyes, no longer showing so much gloom on her face. “Why are you asking me these questions? What does it matter now?”
Matt tried to look at her without loving her again. The exercise seemed futile, so he stopped trying.
“You shouldn’t have written to that woman,” he said. “Not after Kevin’s death. It was a mistake. A big one. When she finds out that he’s dead, she’ll come forward, and they’ll put it together. They’ll have copies of what she wrote to him and what he wrote back. They’ll have proof that you knew.”
She was trying to get a read on him and seemed confused. “What are you saying, Matt?”
He paused for several moments, sizing her up. “If we’re gonna make a run for it,” he said finally, “if we’re gonna get away with it, we need to get rid of everything you took that night.”
“Oh, God, Matt. Are you saying . . . ?”
His voice hardened with determination. “You need to give me everything,” he said. “Then you need to pack a small bag, one or two days’ worth of clothing. Some of your makeup, but not all of it. And leave your toothbrush. If they think we’re still here, it might give us an extra day or two. While you’re packing, I’ll dig up the gun.”
He could see the joy showing on her face. The surprise and relief, the glimmer of hope. She ran across the room and threw her arms around him. She was still trembling. She still seemed overwhelmed by it all. He looked into her glazed eyes and smiled at her. And then he kissed her, gently at first, then deeper and deeper still.
“Do you mean it, Matt? Do you really mean it? Do you love me?”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her again, but he was really thinking about Hughes. He was doing what Hughes would have wanted him to do. What a friend expects from a friend in a time of crisis.
“I’ll go get the gun,” he said. “You need to hurry.”
Matt watched her run down the hall into her bedroom, then packed up both laptops and carried them downstairs into the kitchen. The plastic bags were in the top drawer by the fridge, and he pulled two out of the box and headed outside. As he hurried down the steps, he became overwhelmed by a feeling that someone was chasing him, that he was watching himself from a great distance. Everything before him seemed so far away. He could see himself grabbing a trowel from Laura’s garden caddy. He could see the image flickering as he rushed over to the oak tree and started digging up the flowers.
The soil was fresh and loose. He found the Glock 20 about six inches down. As he stared at the pistol lying in the dirt, the oversized semiautomatic that had killed Hughes, he knew that it was yet another image he would never be able to shake. Another image just as hideous as seeing the sheet being pulled away from Brooke Anderson’s ruined face at the morgue.
He pulled himself together, digging the Glock out of the earth with his hand inside the first plastic bag and dropping the weapon into the second.
He shivered and turned. A gardener was watching him from the property next door. Matt guessed that he hadn’t seen the gun yet and stared at the man until he turned away. Then he replanted the flowers and rushed back to the kitchen, shielding the gun from view with his body.
Laura was just entering the room. She was carrying a knapsack and Kevin’s shaving kit, which she handed over to Matt.
“It’s all there,” she said. “Everything.”
Her eyes went to the Glock 20 inside the plastic bag, and she looked uncomfortable and anxious. Matt unzipped the kit and found the pistol Kevin carried on his belt, his watch, and his badge.
“Where’s his wedding band?”
She looked back at him but didn’t answer.
“Where is it, Laura?”
She took a deep breath and exhaled. Then she reached around her neck, unfastened a chain, and handed it over. Matt dropped the chain and wedding band into the shaving kit and zipped it up.
“I’ll grab the laptops,” he said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 59
Matt raced down the hill on Pacific Avenue, then slowed some as he passed Glenoaks Boulevard and another cop hiding in the lot at the Jack in the Box. Once he reached the entrance to the 134 Freeway, he gunned the Honda up the hill and slid into heavy traffic. The entrance to the Golden State Freeway was just ahead, and as he steered into the curve, he glanced down at what was left of the Los Angeles River. It wasn’t much to look at even before the heat wave dug in and the wind picked up. But now it seemed more like a dry creek bed walled in with concrete that had been scarred by layer after layer of graffiti.
He looked back at the road. He thought that he could hear Laura saying something, but he couldn’t make out the words. He couldn’t seem to focus. In spite of the clear blue sky, it seemed like he was rolling through a thick patch of fog. Everything felt like it was upside down. He was still drowning in that ocean at the end of the way. Still watching himself from a distance. Still thinking about what it meant to be a decent friend when everything he knew and wanted had burned up before his eyes.
Laura touched his arm. “Where will we go?” she said. “What will we do?”
“I know a place,” he said.
“Will we be safe?”
He nodded. “It’s a special place.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
“Is it in Mexico?”
“No,” he said. “That’s the first place they’d look.”
“Then we’re going to Canada?”
He shook his head. He felt dizzy.
“It’s here in California. If we’re smart, if we take it easy, it’ll all work out.”
Matt exited off the Golden State onto Los Feliz Boulevard and started up the hill toward Hollywood.
Laura seemed concerned. “Why did you get off the freeway? Why here?”
“My bank,” he said. “I have a safe-deposit box. We’re gonna need cash. At least in the beginning.”
Laura sat back in her seat and appeared to relax. Matt wheeled the car up and around and down again, until he reached Sunset Boulevard and made a right off Western Avenue. He was cruising. He was on autopilot.
They
drove past the movie studios on Gower, then Denny’s restaurant on the corner. As the street sign to Wilcox Avenue came into view, he heard Laura crying softly and turned to her. She was staring at him and appeared hurt and wounded and extremely nervous. He could see tears beginning to drip down her cheeks.
“Please, Matt, don’t do this,” she said.
“Don’t do what?”
“What you’re doing. Where you’re taking me. Please don’t do it.”
Matt didn’t say anything. He made a left on Wilcox and another left into the rear lot at the station. Then he pulled up to the building.
“You said you loved me. You said it, Matt.”
“I said a lot of things.”
He pushed the gearshift into Park but left the engine running. He looked around the lot, then at the rear entrance to the building. No one was around. Unfastening his seat belt, he dug his cell phone out of his pocket and sent his partner a short text message. Laura’s eyes rose to his face.
“There’s still time,” she said. “We could get away. We could go to that place. That special place.”
Matt could see that place in his head. He could see himself holding her and loving her until the end of time.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered to her.
“We’ve been through a lot, Matthew. I know that. But eventually we’d get over it. It could all work out. We could love each other and be happy.”
He looked at those blue eyes of hers. Her dirty blond hair, her full lips, the near-perfect cut of her cheeks and chin. He could see himself making love to her on the stairs, on the kitchen floor, or on a blanket on the lawn by the pool.
“He was my friend,” he said quietly. “And you killed him, Laura.”
“But he wasn’t a good man.”
“Maybe he wasn’t, but somebody has to pay for his death. And since you did it, it may as well be you.”
“Please, Matt. I know that you love me.”
“That’s true, too,” he said. “I love you. But at the end of the day, when everything’s said and done, all I’ll have left is who I am and what I want to become. At the end of the day it won’t matter that I love you, that I want you, or even that I need you. At the end of the day it’ll come down to this: Kevin and I were brothers in arms. We fought the good fight and somehow both of us were lucky enough to come home. He had my back, and now I’ve got his.”
The station door opened and Cabrera started down the walkway with Lieutenant McKensie.
Laura looked at them, her hands trembling, then turned back to Matt with tears still streaming down her cheeks.
“Please, Matthew. Don’t do this. Tell them that you made a mistake. I’m in love with you. I can’t live without you.”
A moment passed with Matt staring at the fork in the road. Everything swimming in his chest, his guts. Everything ripped out.
“I’m not sure I can live without you either,” he said. “But our timing was off. It’s just the way it is. It’s just the way things turned out. Now let’s go.”
He met Cabrera’s eyes through the window and nodded. Then his partner opened the passenger door, unbuckled Laura’s seat belt, and helped her get to her feet. Matt popped open the trunk and grabbed the shaving kit, the Glock 20, and Hughes’s laptop computer.
“Here’s the murder weapon, Lieutenant. Inside the shaving kit you’ll find everything Hughes was carrying on the night she killed him.”
In spite of the fact that Matt had given both Cabrera and McKensie a quick heads-up text message more than half an hour ago from the bathroom off the kitchen, they were staring at him and still appeared to be deeply shaken by the new reality. The new way. When Matt handed over the computer, his lieutenant’s voice was low and imbued with emotion.
“What did you find on the laptop?”
Matt paused a moment, pulling himself together. “Hughes was cheating on her,” he said. “Check his e-mail. An old girlfriend from Austin. Sounds like it was going on for a long time. Sounds like he deserved some of what he got, but not all of it. I’ve gotta get out of here. I’ve gotta go.”
Cabrera grasped him by the shoulder and met his eyes. “Are you okay to drive, Matt? Anything you want or need, it’s done, man. Just say it.”
Matt still felt like he was in a vacuum, a tin can with no air, but lied. “I’m good,” he said. “Thanks.”
He turned and looked back at Laura one last time, hoping that if he ever did manage to forget the things that had happened, her face wouldn’t be one of them. The scent and feel of her skin. The sound of her voice. All of the things on that list of could-have-beens.
He’d fallen for her. He was all the way in with her.
He walked around the car and climbed in behind the wheel. Then he turned and watched her being taken away. When they finally vanished inside the station, he waited until the door snapped shut before rolling down the window and lighting a cigarette. Moments passed, the engine idling.
Where would he go? Who would he be with? How would he get through the night?
He took a hard pull on the cigarette. He was no longer able to think or feel. His body and mind had shut down and everything was gone. Everything was lost.
CHAPTER 60
He knew a guy.
A small-time dealer who only sold high-grade weed. Victor Colon claimed his stuff was grown about fifty miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge outside Santa Rosa. Colon worked at a café in downtown LA called the Blackbird and sold his reefer on the side. The situation was perfect. The café was hidden in the middle of a narrow alley and catered to artists and musicians who wanted to relax without being hassled. Matt had discovered the place through Colon when he worked narcotics. He liked the mood of the Blackbird, the art on the walls, the books on the shelves, the view of downtown, and the fact that almost everyone sitting at the tables whispered as if they were in a library. There was a certain reverence for the place. A certain level of comfort that he couldn’t get anywhere else.
But even more than that, Matt liked the coffee. The Blackbird Café brewed the best cup of coffee he had ever tasted. And he really needed a decent cup of coffee right now. He needed to relax without being hassled. He needed everything to slow down.
He walked in but didn’t see Colon behind the counter. After ordering a medium French roast with two sugars, he passed through the café and stepped out onto the terrace, where he could look at the city and smoke. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. A woman was sitting three tables away. Even worse, the minute their eyes met, he sensed some degree of recognition on her face.
He sat down and tried to ignore her as best he could. The coffee was piping hot, and he took a first sip through the steam. Once he settled back in his seat, he turned to check on the woman again and found her staring at him.
He tried not to react and took another sip of coffee. As he pretended to gaze at the city, he wondered if he knew her. He guessed that she was about thirty. Her hair was light brown with blond streaks from the sun, her eyes a dusky blue, her face angular and refined. Mulling it over, he didn’t think she seemed like the kind of woman anyone would forget. Even at a glance, even in this state of complete turmoil, he could tell that she had too much going on.
He tried to steal another quick look at her, but her eyes were still pinned on him. Even more troubling, he thought that she might be carrying a piece underneath her jacket.
He tried ignoring her again. He tried to imagine that she wasn’t there. That she wasn’t fixated on him. That she wasn’t measuring him. He didn’t need this. He heard her clear her throat.
“Are you okay, Jones?” she said.
A long moment passed before he finally turned and gazed at her. No doubt about it, she had a semiautomatic underneath her jacket big enough to be a .45.
“How do you know my name?” he said quietly.
She parted her jacket to reveal an LAPD badge clipped to her belt and black jeans. “Everybody knows your name. The word’s out that you’re the best and brightest.�
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He shook his head. “But I failed.”
“It sure doesn’t seem like it.”
“Baylor’s loose,” he whispered in a voice riddled with despair. “He’s free.”
“But it’s not over, Jones.”
Matt lowered his gaze and turned away. He couldn’t remember how the day got started. There seemed to be huge gaps in his memory. Did he make love to Laura before they got out of bed this morning or not? Did he really hear her admit to shooting Hughes? Didn’t he just turn her in to his partner? Before he’d read that e-mail on Hughes’s computer, before he’d read that love letter and knew, wasn’t he a man filled with hopes and dreams and a future worth fighting for?
“You don’t look so good, Jones.”
Matt’s eyes were wagging back and forth across the ground. “Leave me alone, lady. Please, just keep it to yourself, okay?”
He got up and staggered out, knocking over his coffee cup and spilling the hot liquid all over the table. He sensed that she had followed him out of the café. And even now, as he ran down the alley toward his car, he could feel her behind him. He needed everything to slow down. He needed everything to stop so that he could sort things out.
Who was he going to be with? Who would he talk to? Who was left?
He blinked his eyes and looked through the windshield at the traffic on the Hollywood Freeway. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here, and the gap in time frightened him. He couldn’t tell if his memory had been damaged from all the stress and anxiety, or if he might not be experiencing short blackouts while driving.
