Yesterday's Echo

by Matt Coyle

  The whites of his eyes got big and he wasn’t the Turk I knew anymore. He was a man mountain you didn’t want to be on his wrong side. But he no longer had a right side. Something had changed in him. The whole morning was wrong. Everything about today was an overreaction. The Turk I used to know wouldn’t have fired me. But this one had and his finger was still pounding my chest. I’d taken down bigger men before, and I welcomed the pain of a battle to go with the ache my life had become.

  “Call it whatever you want.” I knocked his hand away with my left forearm.

  He exploded into me like I was the blocking dummy in a tackling drill. My straight arm glanced off his left shoulder, and we both spun sideways, but his momentum drove me down onto the rooftop gravel. I landed on the back of my left shoulder with the majority of Turk’s two hundred fifty pounds on top of me. Gravel bit into me and the air exploded out of me, but I shot an elbow to his temple before he could leverage his superior position. The blow stunned him and I pushed off, rolled away, then spidered up to my feet. Turk was slower to rise. His ribs and head were exposed as he hand-and-kneed his way up. A kick to the head and I could finish him. I stepped back and dropped my hands to my sides.

  We were already finished.

  I pulled the restaurant keys out of my pocket and threw them down onto the gravel next to Turk. He picked them up and slowly rose to his feet. When he straightened up the rage was gone from his eyes.

  I sat down hard on the air compressor and stared out at the ocean below. The office building behind Muldoon’s blocked my view of the morning surf, but I could see the water out past the breakers. It lay still and gray and blended with the morning haze to smudge the horizon.

  “Sorry it had to be this way, Rick.” His eyes went soft like he wanted to say more. Like he was still my friend. But then he turned and walked back to the door that led off the roof. The crunch of gravel under his feet, an army marching away from ruin.

  Muldoon’s

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I left Muldoon’s at 10:25 a.m.

  Alfonso’s, the Mexican restaurant across the street, opened in a half hour. A friendly bartender there was sure to serve me a liquid lunch of two-for-ones. A pathetic start to the rest of my life. There’d be plenty of time to wash down feeling sorry for myself and a less public place to do it. My car and a chance to further recede from life was three blocks up the hill. Melody’s arraignment was three blocks in the opposite direction.

  I started walking. The gray morning closed down around me and my pulse picked up. I felt eyes on me. There weren’t many people on the sidewalk that time of day, but I sensed someone watching me. It could have been because of my starring role in the YouTube customer-abuse video or it could have been paranoia born from the residue of the last week. I scanned both sides of the street, but everyone seemed to be engulfed in their own little worlds.

  I was trapped in mine.

  The arraignment had started early, and I’d gotten there late. The gallery of the tiny courtroom was almost full. I sat in the back to keep out of view of the media types I saw scribbling on notepads. Thankfully, it looked like the judge had banned cameras from the courtroom.

  Melody, in jailhouse orange scrubs, was already standing before the judge. Next to her was what looked to be a homeless man in a wilted business suit. Except he was her lawyer. He had a gray ponytail, a scraggly beard, and looked like he couldn’t argue himself out of a drunk and disorderly.

  I had to get to Melody and tell her about Stone’s offer to bankroll Alan Fineman for her defense. I didn’t get the chance. The judge ruled Melody remanded for trial. Bail set at one million dollars. Back to jail. She turned and scanned the gallery as the bailiff cuffed her wrists. I didn’t know if she’d killed Windsor or if she’d try to implicate me to cut a deal. Right then, I didn’t care. I just wanted her to know that, in the worst moment of her life, she wasn’t alone.

  Not like I’d been in mine.

  I stood and caught her eye just before she went through the door. She smiled for an instant and then her eyes clouded with pain and, maybe, shame. She dropped her head, and the bailiff led her out of the courtroom through a door near the jury box.

  I turned to leave and saw Heather Ortiz standing near the front row of the gallery talking to a silver-haired man dressed in a three-piece banker’s suit. Only thing missing was a pocket watch. He looked sad, yet resolute. Jules Windsor, father of Adam. Next to him stood Chief Parks in dress blues. His black mustache pulled his mouth down into a permanent snarl. He caught me looking and his coal eyes could have crushed diamond.

  He broke from Heather and Windsor and headed right at me, his uniform snap-creased, polished brass gleaming. He was about my height, but heavier. The kind of weight that comes with age and fills up space, creating a presence. I held my ground at the door leading out of the courtroom. Parks looked like the kind of man you didn’t want coming up behind you.

  “Cahill.” His voice sounded like a Mack truck radiator boiling over. “I’ll lock you up if I find you’re obstructing this murder investigation.”

  Something beyond hatred poured out of his eyes. I’d seen hatred before. Colleen’s father, Santa Barbara cops, my own eyes in the mirror long ago. This was different, darker, malevolent. I felt it in my gut and on the back of my neck.

  “How could I be obstructing your investigation?” Did he know about the flash drive? “I’ve got a right to be here, just like any citizen.”

  “If you have any information or evidence about the death of Adam Windsor, you need to hand it over to me right now.” He leaned in on me, sending hate and cologne my way. The same strong cologne Detective Moretti wore. “This is your one chance. Next time it’ll be jail.”

  Maybe Parks was right. This was my one chance to hand over the drive and the key and move on. Nothing I’d seen on the drive could hurt Melody. I could tell the cops the truth exactly as it happened. I found the evidence in the dog food. Melody must have put it there. Ask her why, not me.

  I’d been in jail. I wasn’t going back for anyone.

  Parks pushed his face in closer, trying to read me. His cologne seeped under my skin.

  Then it clicked like a nine millimeter chambering a round. The stink I’d smelled on my carpet the night someone broke into my house and poisoned Midnight. Cologne, mixed with sweat. The same cologne worn by Parks and Moretti.

  One of them had broken into my house, poisoned my dog, and been willing to risk prison to find the evidence Melody had hidden. What else were they capable of?

  I wondered if the man staring me down had been the one who poisoned Midnight. My hands closed into fists and my neck flexed tight. I held his hatred and gave it back to him. If he wasn’t wearing the badge, I’d be the one asking the questions.

  “If I find any of your evidence, you’ll be the first to know, Chief.” The last word came out like spit.

  I spun away from Parks and out of the courtroom slamming the door behind me, sending an echo through the halls of justice.

  I bolted out of the courthouse, the wooden steps creaking under my feet. A voice floated over my shoulder before I hit the sidewalk.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Cahill? May I have a word with you?”

  I turned and saw the homeless man who couldn’t get Melody reasonable bail.

  “Timothy Buckley.” There was a trace of Texas hidden under years of Southern California in his voice. He stuck out a leathery hand. “I’m Melody Malana’s attorney.”

  I one-pumped his hand and waited.

  “I understand you’re a friend of Melody’s. Is that true?” Buckley made it sound like it wasn’t.

  He squinted at me under the eaves of the wooden courthouse that was once a church. The steeple had been torn down to separate church from state, but Buckley sounded like he had me in the confessional.

  I didn’t have anything to confess. At least, not to him. “Why don’t you ask her?”

  Buckley smiled creamed-corn teeth at me. “You don’t like lawyers
much, do ya, pardna?”

  “Compared to what?”

  Buckley let out a hoot like he was calling the pigs back to the barn.

  “You hungry, Rick? You like flapjacks?”

  I didn’t have a job anymore. Best to grab a free meal whenever I could. And the one thing I could do for Melody was convince this homeless cowboy to tell her that she needed a new lawyer.

  “I could eat.”

  “Well then, follow me.” Buckley slung an antique leather satchel over his shoulder. “There’s a little ol’ cafe around the corner that makes great pancakes.”

  I walked next to him along the sidewalk that led into downtown La Jolla. The morning haze still hung low, filtering pale sunlight.

  Joe’s Waffle Shop was a little hole-in-the-wall that stood as a civic treasure on Girard Ave. in Old La Jolla. Girard mostly maintained the small-town feeling that the whole village had once exuded. Family owned stores and restaurants populated nothing-special concrete buildings under palm trees that were as old as the town they towered above.

  We sat on two bolted-down red and chrome stools at the counter. A glass pie case on the wall opposite us made me think of having a slice of pecan after the sock hop. And I didn’t even like pie.

  I’d always had waffles when I’d eaten at Joe’s, but I followed Buckley’s recommendation and the pancakes didn’t disappoint. We small talked San Diego sports for a few minutes, but the whole time I felt Buckley measuring me. When I’d pause to eat, he’d narrow his eyes down on me like a scientist peering into a microscope.

  Maybe there was more to this guy than a tired suit and whiskey eyes.

  “Melody speaks very highly of you, Rick.” Buckley wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Thinks you’re a man of integrity.”

  I didn’t like being schmoozed, but I didn’t know where he was going. So, I stayed quiet and let him take me there. If he didn’t know about the Angela Albright sex tape, I wasn’t going to tell him. That would have to come from Melody.

  “Is there anything you can tell me about the morning of Windsor’s death that’ll help Melody?” Buckley grabbed a pen and legal pad out of his satchel. “Now, you were actually at the motel that morning. Right?”

  Buckley could play my “pardna” over flapjacks, but his job was to keep Melody out of prison. And he could do that by showing the jury that his client didn’t commit murder because someone else did. Back on the force it was known as “SODDI.” Some Other Dude Did It. Well, the cops had already looked at me once as that other dude. Buckley was sure to remind the jury of that fact.

  “You obviously talked to the police, so you already know why I was there.” I sopped up some syrup with the last bite of pancake on my fork. “However, I do have a message from a friend of Melody’s that could be helpful to her.”

  “What might that be?” Buckley sat back in his stool and crossed his arms across his chest.

  “I’m just the messenger, so don’t take this personally. But a guy named Peter Stone has offered to bankroll Melody’s defense if she hires Alan Fineman.”

  Buckley inventoried my face with sad eyes. “How well do you know Mr. Stone?”

  “I wish I’d never met him.”

  Buckley slowly nodded his head. Time had worn down his face and I guessed that it had gotten help from alcohol. His brown eyes were pink and watery around the rims and a purple spiderweb ran down his nose.

  “I reckon you’re not the first person to feel that way.” He put an elbow on the counter and rested his chin in his hand. “You think Stone’s the kind of man to help someone out of the goodness of his heart?”

  “I’m not sure he has a heart, but that’s beside the point.” This time I studied him. “I know you want what’s best for Melody and Fineman is her best chance to get off. Besides, sitting second chair to Fineman would be a great opportunity.”

  “Son, I’m way past opportunities.” His voice remained Texas iced tea smooth, but his eyes caught an edge. “But, you can tell your boss that I’ll deliver his message to Melody.”

  “I don’t have a boss, Buckley.” Not as of a half hour ago. “I’d never heard of Peter Stone until a week ago, and I’d do anything to get that week back. But I can’t.”

  Buckley pulled a toothpick out of his shirt pocket, nibbled on it, and then pointed at me.

  “What happened to your wrist?”

  I looked down at the bandages I’d put on my wrist to cover the slices I’d made trying to cut the flex-cuffs off last night. “I cut myself shaving.”

  “It seems you’ve had a run of bad luck lately.” Buckley pinched his eyes down on me again. “You file a report with the police that you were assaulted, are interrogated by detectives for murder, get caught on video roughing up some citizen, and now this shaving accident. A lot of coincidences, eh, Mr. Cahill?”

  Buckley was much better than he looked. Maybe Melody didn’t need Fineman. Maybe I did.

  “You trying to impress me with your homework, Buckley?” I tried to swallow down the anger boiling up from the whole day. “Melody involved herself with some bad people and then brought them down on me. Maybe she didn’t mean to, but they’re still poking around in my life. Just like you are. I don’t think she killed her ex-husband. But I’m not convinced enough to believe that you won’t twist things around to try and make me trade places with her.”

  “So you’re innocent. You got nothing to hide. Tell me what you know so we can both help Melody.”

  “I’ve been innocent before, Buckley. And that didn’t seem to matter.”

  I stood up, pulled a ten dollar bill from my wallet, dropped it on the counter, and left. Outside, the sun had sliced through the marine layer and painted the day in light and shadow.

  Muldoon’s

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The feeling of being watched followed me all the way home. I checked the rearview mirror a few times, but never spotted a tail. Back in Santa Barbara, I’d developed a sixth sense working the graveyard shift. Sometimes I felt something bad was about to go down before it happened. It was in the air. A tingle, an itch, a silence. Now I couldn’t trust that extra sense. The last week had so frayed my nerve endings that a light breeze sent an alert up my spine.

  When I got home, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and settled into the recliner. I had plenty of time to do nothing but think, no matter how hard I tried not to. Hopefully, I’d get drunk enough to slow my mind. I couldn’t get away from the morning and the nagging feeling that Turk was right. Maybe I had been hiding from life in the fantasy that I’d someday own Muldoon’s. It had given my life a purpose that had been missing since Colleen had died. But it wasn’t real. I’d given Turk seven hundred and fifty a month to keep the fantasy thinly tethered to reality. A price I paid to believe the lie.

  I buried the empty beer bottle in the trash and found another full one in the fridge. My house suddenly felt emptier than it ever had before. Almost as empty as my apartment in Santa Barbara after Colleen’s murder. My last sanctuary now felt like a vacuum sucking out my insides. I’d come back to San Diego after Colleen because it had still been home. A place to heal and start life anew. But that life was over now. Turk had pulled back the hand he’d offered me seven years ago. My anchor had been cut loose. La Jolla and San Diego had nothing left for me.

  I rented a duplex. I could give notice, grab Midnight, and walk anytime. Turk had put business before friendship, leaving me with neither. The only true friend I had left was Kim. The one person I’d trust to watch Midnight. And the best thing I could do for her was walk away, and let her finally move past me. She could start her new life while I started mine in another city. All I had left in this town were my father’s shame and good memories gone bad.

  My father hadn’t walked away. He’d stayed and taken the looks, the whispers, and the accusations. He hadn’t run, but after a while he’d crawled into a bottle and then an early grave. What had he proved? What did I need to prove now? That I could stay and take it? That I was as tough as my old m
an? I looked at the beer bottle in my hand and thought how routinely I’d pulled it from the refrigerator to fill up a little of the empty inside me. What would replace it when the empty kept growing?

  Melody?

  She might spend the rest of her life in prison, and if Detective Moretti and Chief Parks had their way, I’d have an adjoining cell. And what if she got out? She was beautiful, sexy, and made me feel that I could love again. But at what cost? I’d already lost my job, been hounded by the police, and had my name splashed in the headlines since I met Melody. And could I really love a woman I could never fully trust?

  But if I left Melody and the town behind, the cops still wouldn’t forget about me. If they thought I was dirty, they’d try to track me down. Even if I managed to evade them, I couldn’t live my life running from something I hadn’t done. Down deep, even as I grew to hate him for the man he’d become, a part of me wanted to believe that’s why my dad stayed in San Diego. That he’d refused to run from something he hadn’t done.

  I remembered a ride-along he took me on when I was nine, about a year before it all went wrong. He was riding the squad car alone that night with me in the front seat. He pulled over a driver who’d been badly swerving between lanes on Torrey Pines Road. The man was obviously drunk. I didn’t know what he blew on the field sobriety test, but I could smell the booze on him when my father put him in the backseat of the squad car. The sun hadn’t gone down yet and it was a weeknight. Even as a kid, I thought it seemed like an odd time to be drunk. And unnerving to see a grown man cry. At that time of my life, my father only got drunk on weekends. Back when alcohol made him happy instead of mean.

  My dad hadn’t handcuffed the man, and I was surprised when we drove to the Pannikin coffee shop on Girard Street instead of the police station. We sat outside at a table under a pepper tree. Dad and the man drank coffee while I had hot chocolate under a burnt-orange sunset. The man sobbed for a while as my father put a hand on his back and spoke quietly to him. I didn’t hear everything and knew better than to interrupt, but I heard Dad say that the man had responsibilities and his family needed him now more than ever. Finally, after three cups of coffee, the man had stopped crying and sobered up a bit. But his eyes still leaked pain, and it looked like his face might crack if you touched it.