Betrayal dh-12

by John Lescroart

  "I don't want to go down that road."

  "What road?"

  "PTSD. You get that label, you're damaged goods. The Army says I'm good. Physically and mentally I'm the miracle child. Now, if one of our own shrinks says I've got PTSD, I'm done."

  "That's not exactly accurate."

  Evan shook his head. "It's close enough. Post. Traumatic. Stress. Disorder. Disorder, Lieutenant. That's a mental illness. I'm not copping to that, period. That's not what I'm dealing with. I'm fine, sir. Maybe I just need to let a little more time go by." Again, Evan let a long breath escape.

  "There!" Lochland said. "That's what I'm talking about."

  "What?"

  "You don't feel that when you do it? You're sighing like a bellows, Evan. Every time you open your mouth, it's like you're lifting this burden and dropping it on the side before you can say anything."

  After a second, Evan hung his head. He came close to whispering, "That's the way I feel." Raising his eyes, he looked across the top of the desk. "So how am I screwing up? On the job, I mean."

  In spite of military guidelines supposedly guaranteeing that police officers who got deployed to active duty from the reserves or the National Guard would be returned to their civilian work without demotion or loss of time served, Evan's assignment since he'd come back to work as a Redwood City patrolman was roving grammar school officer for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program. In that role, he visited classrooms of fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders all over the city, spreading the doctrine of clean and sober living. Though it wasn't a technical demotion and paid what he was making when he'd been called up, it still was not a job normally held by someone with three full years on the force. But it was the only opening they'd had when he was discharged and ready to go back to work, and he had taken it.

  Now Lochland reached out and took a small stack of papers from his top tray. Removing the paper clip from the top, he leafed through them quickly-there were perhaps a dozen pages-then put them all down on his desk. "I don't think we have to go over these one by one, Ev. They're pretty much the same."

  Evan sat stiffly, his back pushed up tight against the chair. He had little doubt as to what the complaints had been about. "I just can't stand to see these kids who've got everything-I mean everything, Lieutenant-iPods, two-hundred-dollar shoes, designer clothes-I can't stand to see how spoiled they are. How they don't take anything seriously. I mean, this whole DARE thing, it's a joke to them. And when I think of the kids I saw over there in Iraq, with nothing, no shoes, no food, begging for MRE handouts…" He shook his head, the rave worn down by its own momentum.

  Lochland sat forward, elbows on the desk, hands templed in front of his mouth. "You're not there to yell at them, Evan. You can't let yourself lose your temper."

  "They don't listen, Lieutenant! They don't listen to a word I say. They've got everything going for them in the whole world and they don't give a good goddamn!"

  "Still…" Lochland pushed the papers around in front of him. "The point is, school's out soon enough anyway. Anywhere you get assigned next, I solemnly promise you'll have more aggravation than these kids could give you on their best day. Serious aggravation. You can't go out there on the streets half-cocked and ready to explode. That just can't be any part of the job." He pulled himself up in his chair, lowered his voice. "Look, Evan, we're all proud as hell of you, of what you've done, of the fact that you've come back at all. You're our poster boy too. But you've got to get yourself under control. You've got to let this stuff go."

  "Yes, sir. I know I do. I'm sorry."

  "Sorry's a good start, but I'm thinking maybe you want to think about anger management, maybe take a class, maybe talk to somebody, some professional. I'm afraid that if I get any more complaints after this little talk, it won't be a request. And next time we'll have an HR person in here with us. Understand?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You think you can do this?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I think you can, too, Evan. But get some help. And some sleep."

  "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I'll try."

  He wasn't supposed to engage in any sports that had a physical risk or contact element for at least another year and, depending on his follow-up neurological examinations, maybe forever. This left out his favorites, softball and basketball-he'd been active at least a couple of nights every week on a city-league men's team in both sports before he'd been deployed. But the police department had a bowling league and while it wasn't much in the way of exercise, it was something to do to get out of the apartment at night and mix with some of his colleagues, even if they were generally from a somewhat different subset-heavier, slower, and older-from the softball and basketball guys.

  The positive aspect of this population was that it included men who had attained seniority or rank-Evan's three teammates included two sergeant detectives and a lieutenant. All of whom were more than happy to have recruited a returning young war hero with an average of 191-they all thought the kid had a chance to seriously turn pro. He was a natural. Tonight his three-game score of 621 was fifty points better than any of them individually, and more than enough to ensure the Totems' victory over their opponents, the Waterdogs.

  "So here's to the Totems," intoned robbery-division sergeant Stan Paganini, hoisting a gin and tonic in the Trinity Lanes bar after the games, "and their upcoming undefeated season."

  Lieutenant Fred Spinoza raised his glass of bourbon on the rocks. "And to our own uncontested rookie of the year, Doctor Evan Scholler!" Spinoza often bestowed random honorifies, such as "Doctor," on his colleagues when he got enthusiastic or excited. "Six twenty-one! That's got to be close to the record set. I know I've never heard of a higher one. Three two-hundred games in a row! That just doesn't happen in this league. In any non-pro league."

  "They ought to write you up, Ev. Get your name in the sports page." This was white-collar-division sergeant Taylor Blades, drinking a Brandy Alexander.

  "Thanks anyway, guys." Evan had acquired a taste for scotch but couldn't afford any of the single malts, so he was drinking a Cutty Sark and soda on the rocks. "But I've been in the paper enough to last me for a while."

  "Yeah, but not as a sports hero," Paganini said. "You get known as a sports hero, you become a babe magnet. It's a known fact."

  "He's got a point," Spinoza acknowledged. "Your teammates could benefit too. We could pick off stragglers from the swarm around you. Think about that, what it could mean to us and our happiness."

  "Yeah, but you guys are all married anyway," Evan said. "You'd just get in trouble. And besides which I think the whole babe-magnet question in an amateur bowling league, even if it's a really good article, is going to be more or less underwhelming."

  "No!" Blades said. "There's got to be bowling groupies. In fact, I think I see a bunch of 'em coming in right now. Maybe the word got out about your set already." He snapped his fingers. "YouTube. Somebody was filming you on their cell phone, and they posted it right up, and all these chicks…"

  But Spinoza was holding out a hand, stopping Blades midrant. "Ev?" he said. "Is everything all right?"

  In the bathroom, Evan threw water in his face a few times, checking his reflection in the mirror to make sure nothing showed in his expression. When he went back to the guys, he told them that he'd just gotten whacked by a wave of dizziness-an occasionally recurring symptom from his head wound. He excused himself, apologizing for raining on the postgame parade, saying he thought he'd better go home early, like now, and lie down, if he was going to be any good for work the next day.

  Instead, he went outside and moved his car to the back of the parking lot so they wouldn't see it when they left. A half hour later, after he'd seen them all leave, he got out of the car and walked back into the alley, where he took a stool at the bar and ordered another Cutty Sark, a double this time, on the rocks.

  Tara's lane wasn't fifty feet from where he sat. She was with three girlfriends, all of them acting animated and happy.
She wore a short white polka-dotted red skirt that showed off her shapely legs, and on top, a red spaghetti-strap silk blouse that he fancied he could see shimmering to the beat of her heart.

  Drinking off his scotch in a couple of swallows, he ordered another double and watched the group of young men from the next alley strike up, if not a conversation, then from the body language a running, flirtatious banter. At least, Evan thought, she wasn't here with Ron Nolan. That would have been very hard to take, far harder than seeing her alone, which was difficult enough. Was she still seeing him, he wondered, or could she in fact be unattached again? And if she was unattached…?

  But what was he thinking? This was the woman who hadn't even cared about his near-death in Iraq. Whose self-righteousness made her write him off forever when he was simply trying to do his duty. Who never even wrote him one letter or returned one e-mail from the minute he left.

  Looking at her now, so carefree, it suddenly seemed impossible to him that the person he'd known and loved for two years had changed so much. She had always had strong opinions, but one of her best traits, and what his mother had always loved about her the most, was her innate kindness. Tara had always been a good person. What had happened that had changed her so very much?

  Well, he was going to find out.

  Putting a twenty-dollar bill in the bar's gutter, he again emptied his glass like a man dying of thirst. When he stood up, the dizziness he'd invented for his teammates came and whopped him upside the head for real. He stood leaning against the bar for a few seconds, getting his bearings, surprised at how tipsy he'd become-he'd only had four or five beers during his games and then the five shots of scotch in the bar. Or were they all doubles? He took a step or two and had to grab the back of a nearby chair at one of the tables for support.

  This wouldn't do.

  He wasn't about to approach Tara as a stumbling and slurring drunk. He didn't want to make it easy for her to dismiss him out of hand as a common nuisance. He would pick another time, when he was sober. Looking down at her and her friends one last time, he concentrated on his walking and made it to the front door without mishap, then down the steps and out to his CR-V in the darkness at the back of the lot.

  Settling into the front seat, he locked the car doors and fastened his seat belt, lowered the backrest nearly to horizontal, leaned all the way back, and closed his eyes.

  Evan heard the reports from heavy rifles, bullets pinging now off the asphalt all around him. He was screaming at Alan and Marshawn. "Get down! Get down! Take cover!"

  The barrage continued, a steady staccato as the car was hit and hit again. He turned to look and the second car behind him now was a twisted wreck, the bodies of two more of his men bleeding out onto the street where they'd been thrown from the force of the blast. And then suddenly he was aware that it was dark and that the beam from Nolan's headlamp was on him, blinding him as he tried to get his Humvee moving from his position up on the roof of it. His hands up in front of his face, he yelled down to the driver. "Kill that light! Now!"

  More bullets raked the car, but as the muffled sound filtered into his consciousness, it became more of a repeated thudding, a knocking. When he opened his eyes, the light was still in his face, but this time he recognized it for what it was-a flashlight outside the car. Still shaking from the fear and immediacy of the dream, he took another second or two before he knocked on his own driver's window, then held his hand up to block the light. He could see enough in the pool of the streetlight above them to make out a couple of uniforms.

  Cops. His brethren.

  He rolled down the window halfway. "Hey, guys, what's going on?" He shot a glance at his watch. It was three thirty-five.

  The officer with the flashlight moved back a step or two. "Could you please show us your driver's license and registration, sir?"

  "Well, sure. I, uh…" He reached for the door handle and pulled it to open the door.

  But the near officer outside slammed it back closed, spoke through the half-open window. "Please stay in your vehicle. License and registration, please. Where've you been, buddy?"

  Evan stopped digging for his wallet for a moment and sat back, closed his eyes, tried to remember. "Trinity Lanes," he said at last. The view of a suburban street out his car's windshield had him disoriented. "I was bowling."

  "And drinking."

  "It would appear so."

  "Which leads to the question of how you got here." But as he opened Evan's wallet, the officer would have had a hard time missing the badge. "Holy Christ," he said with disgust, and flashed it at his partner, handing him the ID. Then, back to the car, he said, "You know how you got here from the lanes? Somebody must have driven you, right?"

  Evan just looked at him.

  "Cause you wouldn't have tried to drive in the state you're in, would you?"

  But then the second cop butted in. "You're Evan Scholler?"

  This one he could answer. "Yeah."

  Number two said to his partner. "The guy from Iraq." Then, to Evan, "Am I right, pal?"

  "Right."

  "You don't have your gun on you, do you?"

  "Nope. In the glovebox."

  The first cop shook his head in frustration, then said, "You want to get out now, you can." He pulled open the door. "Smells like a distillery in there, pal."

  "Not surprised," Evan replied.

  "You might want to open the windows, let it air out for the next time you're driving," the first cop said. "So, for the record," he continued, "do you remember who drove you over here?"

  By now, Evan knew where he'd gotten to and where he'd parked, although the piece of the puzzle concerning the actual drive over was a complete blank. "My girlfriend." He pointed to the apartment building across the way. "She lives right up there. We had a fight and she left me in the car to sleep it off."

  "That's a good story," the first cop said. "You want to lock up here and go up there now, we'll stick around till you get in."

  Evan leaned back against his car. He swayed slightly from side to side. "We're not living together. She won't let me in. I've got to get back to my place."

  The second cop handed the wallet back to Evan. "How you gonna do that?"

  Evan took a beat deciding whether or not he should laugh; he decided against it. "Good question," he said. "Excellent question." He looked from one of them to the other. "I guess I'll walk. It's not that far. Thanks, guys. Sorry for the hassle."

  He'd gone about five steps, none of them very steady, when one of them spoke from behind him. "Scholler. Maybe you want to lock up your car."

  Stopping, he turned back to them.

  The first cop said, "It'd be a bad idea to pretend to walk until we pulled out and then come back and try to drive."

  "Yeah," Evan said. "That'd be dumb."

  "Where's your place?" the second cop asked.

  "Just up by the college," Evan said.

  The second cop said to his partner, "Not that far. Only about four miles, all uphill."

  The one with the flashlight said, "Get in the squad car with me and he'll follow us to your place in your wheels. You barf in my car, you clean it up."

  "Got it," Evan said.

  12

  Evan was at his parents' home for a Sunday dinner that had become a more or less regular event since he had come back out to California. Once Daylight Saving Time arrived every year, Jim Scholler barbecued almost every night, and on this warm evening in late May he'd grilled chicken, which they'd eaten with fresh spring asparagus, a loaf of sourdough bread, and Eileen's "famous" tomato-potato salad with cilantro and red onions. Now, still long before true dusk, they were sitting outside, in the Schollers' large backyard in the long shadows cast by their mini-orchard of plum, fig, lemon, orange, and apricot trees.

  Over their last glasses of cheap white wine, and with Evan now reemployed with the police department, ensconced in his new apartment, and with the immediate physical danger from his head wound behind them, at long last Eileen had muster
ed the courage to ask Evan about his love life.

  He dredged up a chuckle. "What love life?"

  "You're not seeing anybody at all?"

  "That's not been at the top of my priorities, Mom. I'm not really looking."

  His father cleared his throat. "What about Tara?"

  "What about her?" The answer came out more harshly than he'd intended. "Didn't I mention that she never answered one of my letters-not one, Dad!-and I wrote about a dozen of them? That said it all clear enough. Plus, last I heard, she had another boyfriend."

  "When did you hear that?" Eileen asked.

  "At Walter Reed. In fact, the guy came to see me."

  "Who did?" Jim asked. "Tara's new boyfriend? Why'd he do that?"

  "I don't know. Guilt, probably."

  "Over dating Tara?" Jim asked.

  "Over stealing my girlfriend after I sent him over with one of my last letters to hand deliver to her? And instead he snags her away while I'm half-dead in the hospital? Could a person feel guilt about that? Or maybe if you were the reason a whole squad got wiped out?"

  "You mean your boys?" Eileen asked. "Are you saying that Tara's new boyfriend is the man in your convoy who shot too soon?"

  "You got it, Mom. Ron Nolan. I believe I've mentioned him once or twice."

  "Never nicely," Jim said.

  Evan slugged some wine. "What's nice to say?"

  "Evan." Eileen frowned and threw him a quizzical glance. "I don't think I'd heard before that he was seeing Tara."

  "But wait a minute," Jim said. "I thought you and Tara broke up over the war. Wasn't this guy Nolan over there too?"

  "Yeah," Evan said. "Funny, huh? So I guess maybe it wasn't the war with me and Tara after all. Maybe she just wanted out and that was a good excuse."

  "No." Eileen's voice was firm. "That's not who Tara is. She would have just told you the truth."

  He shook his head. "I don't think we know who the real Tara is, Mom. Not anymore, anyway."

  But Jim came back with his original question. "So this guy Nolan came to Walter Reed to apologize, or what?"