Betrayal dh-12

by John Lescroart

  "That was the spin he put on it. But you ask me, it was to rub it in."

  "Why would he do that?" Eileen asked.

  "Because that's who he is, Mom. He's a mercenary who shot up that Iraqi car because he wanted to, period. Because he could. And if you want my opinion, he came to Walter Reed, among other reasons, to show me he'd gotten clean away with it. And while he was at it, he stole my girlfriend. This is not a good guy, believe me."

  "Then what does Tara see in him?"

  "That's what I've been getting at, Mom. She's not who you think she is."

  "I still don't see how you can say that."

  Facing his mother's implacable calm, her hard-wired refusal to think ill of anybody, Evan suddenly felt his temper snap. He slapped a palm flat down on the table, his voice breaking. "Okay, how about this, Mom? When Nolan told her I'd been wounded, you know what she said? She said I made my bed, I could sleep in it. Her exact words." His eyes had become glassy, but the tears shimmering in them were of rage, not sorrow. "She just didn't care, Mom. That's who she is now."

  For a few seconds, the only sound in the backyard was the susurrus of the breeze through the leaves of the fruit trees.

  "I can't believe that," Eileen said finally. "That just can't be true."

  Evan drew a deep breath and raised his head to look straight at his mother. Exhausted and angry, he nevertheless had his voice under control. "No offense, Mom, but how can you know that? That's what she said."

  Eileen reached out across the picnic table and put a reassuring hand on her son's arm. "And when was this?" she asked.

  "When was what?"

  "When she heard that you'd been wounded and said you'd made your own bed and you could sleep in it."

  "I don't know exactly. Sometime in early September, right after Nolan got back home, about the time I got to Walter Reed."

  "No, that's not possible." She told him about meeting Tara just before Christmas in the supermarket. "I may be terminally predisposed to seeing the good in people," she said, "and I know that sometimes I'm wrong. But there is no possible way that she had heard about your being wounded before I told her. And that was in December."

  "If that's true, why didn't she call me then? Just to see how I was doing? Wish me luck? Some-?" He stopped abruptly, suddenly remembering the reindeer on the wall across from his bed, and that her call to him at Walter Reed-when he'd refused to speak to her-had been just before Christmas.

  Or, if his mother was right, within a few days of when Tara had heard for the first time that he'd been injured.

  Eileen patted Evan's arm. "She didn't call you because maybe she was already going out with this Nolan man by then. Maybe she felt guilty about that, or maybe she just thought it would be too awkward. But my point is, she certainly didn't know back in September that you'd been hurt. And it really doesn't sound like her to say you'd made your own bed."

  "But then why would-?"

  Jim, who'd been listening carefully to the debate, suddenly couldn't keep the enthusiasm from his voice. He knew the answer before Evan finished asking the question. "Why would Nolan come all the way to Walter Reed to tell you a lie? Could it be so that you'd get to hate Tara so much that you wouldn't be tempted to call her when you got back?"

  Evan's flat gaze went from his father, over to his mother, back to his father again. "You know, Dad," he said, "you've gotten pretty smart in your old age."

  The sun was just settling in behind the foothills as Evan ascended the outside steps at Tara's apartment building and rang her doorbell. When there was no answer, he walked down to the kitchen window and peered inside, where the lights were off and nothing moved. He should have called first and made sure she was home, but the determination to go directly from his parents' house and talk to her had come as an impulse, and acting on the impulse-he was mostly sober, well-rested, recently showered and shaved, there'd never be a better time-he'd told his parents good-night, jumped in his car, and driven down.

  Since she hadn't been with Nolan at the bowling alley, Evan had more than halfway convinced himself that her relationship with him was over. And if that were the case, he'd talk to her and see once and for all if there was any trace of a spark left to what they'd had, in spite of everything. At least they'd be dealing with the truth.

  He'd parked not in the building's parking lot, but out in the street, in the same space his unconscious had apparently picked the other night. Now he went back to the car and got in. Taking out his cell phone, he began to scroll down to her numbers, both cell and home, but then stopped. If she was still going out with Nolan, or worse, if she was out with him at this moment, the timing would be disastrous.

  He turned on the car's engine for a minute so he could roll down the driver's window, and saw that the clock on the dash read nine-fifteen. One of the inviolable rules of Tara's life while they'd been going out was that she wouldn't stay out too late, or party too hard, on a school night. And Sunday was a school night. Setting his seat back down a couple of notches, but to where he could still see above the ledge of the window, he turned the engine off and settled down to wait.

  It didn't take long.

  There was still a trace of natural light left in the day when a yellow Corvette, top down, turned into the lot. Tara was in the passenger seat and still with Nolan, all right. He got out and came around and opened her door and they walked, casually familiar, hand in hand, across the parking lot and up the stairs. She opened the door and they both went inside and Evan felt the blood pulsing in his temples. He put his hand gently over the area when he'd been wounded and imagined that it felt hotter than it had been.

  In the apartment, the kitchen lights went on in the front window. A shadow passed into the frame, occupied it for a moment or two, then moved out. The room-and the entire apartment-darkened again.

  Evan placed his shaking hands on the steeering wheel and tried to get some physical control back into his body. Swallowing was difficult. Sweat had broken on his brow and down his back.

  What was he going to do?

  "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon," he said to himself. But it was an empty imperative with no meaning. Seeing them together, knowing that they were in fact a couple, rendered unimportant the day's discovery that perhaps Tara hadn't cruelly ignored his injuries. What did that matter if she was sleeping with Nolan? If he was in her life, and Evan wasn't.

  Suddenly, rocked with self-loathing and hatred, he allowed a steely calm to wash over him. Like most off-duty cops, he kept his weapon available for emergencies. His.40 semiautomatic was locked in his glove compartment, and now he took it out. Checking the chamber and the safety, he took a breath and then opened his car door, tucking the gun under his Hawaiian shirt into his belt.

  He stepped out into the street.

  Evan sat at one of the computers at police headquarters. There wasn't much call for accessing the Department of Motor Vehicles database with his work in the DARE program, and this was the first time he'd actually had occasion to use the department's software. So far, it hadn't gone as quickly as he would have liked. In a perfect world, he could have already been in and out and nobody would have seen him, which would have been his preference.

  But his world hadn't been perfect for a long time.

  And sure enough, suddenly, at nine-thirty on a Sunday night, when the whole station should have been all but deserted, somebody called out his name from the doorway. Straightening his back, he hit the "ESC" button and jerked his head to the side so quickly he felt a crick in his neck as he looked over to see Lieutenant Spinoza from the Totems now coming toward him. Breaking a casual smile, he said, "Hey, Fred, what's going on?"

  "People keep killing each other, that's what. So we poor public servants have to burn the midnight oil and then some." He gripped Evan's shoulder. "But, hey, how are you feeling?" he said. "I didn't like the way that dizziness came up on you all of a sudden the other night."

  "No, I'm fine. I don't know what that was. My brain whacking out on me aga
in."

  "Well, whatever it was, you looked like you got hit by a train, and I mean that in the most flattering possible way." He pulled around the chair next to Evan and straddled it backward. "You're aware, I hope, that when you're not feeling good, you can call in sick. Everybody knows what you've been through. You don't have to push it. Nobody's going to bust your chops if you need a little time off. Plus, the major issue, just to keep life in perspective, we need you sharp for the game next Tuesday, rather than frittering away your energies trying to convince kids not to smoke dope."

  "I'm all right, Fred. Really. I don't need to take time off."

  "Obviously, if you're down here now. What's so important on a Sunday night?"

  Evan gestured vaguely at the screen in front of him. "Honing up on my computer skills." He crossed his arms over his chest, all nonchalance. "But why are you here?"

  "I'd say the usual, but it's not." Spinoza had clearly put in a long day already. "Does the name Ibrahim Khalil mean anything to you?"

  "Should it? Is that an Iraq question?"

  The response slowed Spinoza down. "No," he said, "but where you're coming from, I can see that's how it would hit you. But no. Mr. Khalil lives-lived-in this mansion in Menlo Park. He owns about half the 7-Elevens on the Peninsula. Owned. He and his wife don't own anything anymore, though. If it is him and his wife…"

  "What do you mean? You don't know?"

  Spinoza shook his head. "Well, we know it was their house. And we know there were two bodies in it. But it's going to be a while before we can put the pieces back together."

  "The pieces of what?"

  "Their bodies."

  Evan digested that for a second, then asked, "Did somebody cut 'em up?"

  "No. Somebody blew 'em up, like with a bomb or something. Which of course set the house on fire and burned half of it down around them. So we won't for sure know much of the details for a while. But the neighbors all heard an explosion and then the fire."

  "Somebody trying to get rid of the evidence."

  Spinoza broke a small weary smile of approval. "Not only does he bowl," he said, "he also thinks. I think I see a detective badge in your future, my son."

  "Let's get me out of DARE first."

  "That's a good idea. How much longer you on that?"

  "Well, after school's out." Evan let out a tired breath. "I can handle it if I can just keep from strangling any of the kids."

  "Yeah, don't do that. Parents get all upset." Suddenly Spinoza's gaze went to the computer and he clucked in a schoolmarm fashion a couple of times. "This, boys and girls, is a bozo no-no."

  "What is?"

  "'What is?' he asks. I'm sure. You think I'm an idiot?" He spoke in an exaggerated stage whisper. "We-and by 'we' I mean the department-we officially frown upon this method of meeting pretty young women." He lowered his voice further. "But really, privacy issues, don't go there. If you got busted, it wouldn't be pretty."

  "I'm not trying to find a girl, Fred."

  Spinoza nodded. "Of course you're not. Perish the thought. I just thought, on the off chance that you were, that I'd point out to you the department's policy. So whose address are you looking for, then?"

  "Just this guy."

  Spinoza raised his eyebrows. "Same rules go for cute guys," he said. "I know we're not supposed to ask about sexual orientation, but-"

  "I'm not gay, Fred. Some of my DARE kids say this guy's selling dope."

  "So why don't you just kick it over to vice?"

  "'Cause they'd just put it on a back burner, and if I find out this guy is really selling drugs to my kids, I'm going to hunt him down and kill him."

  "That's different, then. Why didn't you just say so?" Spinoza moved in closer to the keyboard. "So you got a plate number?"

  For the first time since he'd left Walter Reed, Evan felt he needed to talk to his therapist, Stephan Ray. He didn't know if there was a technical term for what he was experiencing, but subjectively it felt somewhat similar to his inability to recall the names for things in the first months after his surgery. Except that now, and several other times in the past few days, he had found himself in the middle of some activity, or in the grip of some emotional reaction, and didn't seem to have a memory of how he'd come to be there. Or any control over his actions.

  Earlier tonight by the Corvette with the gun, for example.

  What did he think he was going to do with the gun? What did he want to do with the gun? He didn't know, didn't recall any moment of actual decision. First he was sitting in his car, waiting for Tara to come home so he could have a reasonable discussion with her. And the next thing he knew-the next thing he remembered-he was standing by the Corvette in the parking lot with his gun in his hand. Wondering why his gun was in his hand.

  Surely he wasn't planning to shoot Nolan. Or Tara. Or, God forbid, both of them. Maybe he'd decided to shoot out one or more of Nolan's fancy-rimmed tires. In the dim light of early evening, that at least seemed like a semibaked idea. But his sentient mind realized that this would produce a loud noise and the very likely possibility that he'd at least be seen and possibly be recognized. It would also-perhaps-announce himself as interested in Nolan's activities in a way that he'd rather keep to himself, until he made some rational decisions about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

  With Tara.

  The stop at the police station had been a rational decision. He knew what he wanted there, though he wasn't sure why he wanted it, and he knew how to get it.

  But now, having learned where Nolan lived and having driven up there, he found himself sitting in his car, parked curbside, again with his gun in his hand. If Nolan came home alone, it wouldn't be the same situation at all as it had been when Tara was with him. This was a quiet street, far less traveled than Tara's, lined with mature trees.

  The address was a nice-looking, stand-alone townhome with attached garage amid a cluster of similar units. Separate, yet somewhat isolated. Perfect for…

  For what? he asked himself.

  And suddenly, again, the awareness of where he was, of what he was doing, flooded back. He was doing something here-figuratively staring at a drawing of a reindeer and wondering what the name of it was-but the exact nature of what he hoped to accomplish continued to elude him.

  Looking down at the gun, he reached over and placed it back into the still-open glove compartment, then closed the door behind it, turned the key to lock it up. Then, the keys in his hand, he realized that he had to get out of here before he did something stupid. Something that he couldn't even explain to himself.

  So he hit the ignition. The dashboard clock read ten forty-two.

  Putting the car into gear, he pulled out from the curb and hadn't gone twenty feet when he jammed his foot on the brakes enough to make the tires squeal. His windows were down, he hadn't turned his headlights on, and running dark with a warm breeze over him sparked a jolt of familiarity.

  In the months since he'd been injured, it had left the forefront of his memory, but now, suddenly, all the elements of this night rekindled a vision of the episode with Nolan when they'd raided the insurgents' lair in the neighborhood close to BIAP. The bright light and the terrific explosion blowing out the windows; the flames licking into the night as gunfire erupted behind him.

  A mercenary mission to kill.

  An explosion and then a fire.

  A dog barked somewhere in the neighborhood.

  Evan let out the breath he'd been holding, turned on his headlights, and eased his foot off the brake.

  13

  "Well, my son, the latest theory, which might still be wrong," Spinoza said, "is that it was a thing called a fragmentation grenade. You ought to know about them. They're evidently using ' em in Iraq right now. Blow the shit out of everything so you need a snow shovel to pick up the pieces. Which pretty much fits what happened here, by the way." He sat back in his chair and picked up his sandwich. Putting his feet up on the desk, he took a bite. "So why do you want to know? You t
eaching execution techniques in DARE to the little fuckers?"

  "No reason, really," Evan said. "I just thought it was interesting. I don't think I've ever heard of somebody being killed that way. At least not here in the States."

  "Yeah, well." The lieutenant chewed thoughtfully. "It's not the norm, I'll give you that. Somebody wanted these people completely dead, in a big loud way. It wasn't some gangbanger taking potshots at a residence and hoping somebody gets hit."

  "Could the guy, the victim, have done it himself?"

  Spinoza shrugged. "Not impossible, I guess. There's no evidence pointing to anybody else. But also there's absolutely no sign so far of why Mr. Khalil would want to do that. The businesses were going great. He apparently loved the wife. No health problems. At least that's what we got from the rest of the family. And, believe me, there's a lot of the rest of the family. So I'm betting against murder/suicide, which leaves a pro. 'Cause I'll tell you one thing. Whoever did this did it right. At this moment, the only evidence we've got is-maybe-the bits of the frag grenade. And just between you and me, I'm kind of hoping we don't have that."

  "Why not?"

  "Because as we stand now, we've got a local murder of a businessman. At least we can get away with calling it that, since Ibrahim was a naturalized citizen."

  "Where'd he come from?"

  "I thought I told you that last night. Iraq. Half his family, evidently, still lives there. The other half has the 7-Eleven concession for the Bay Area wrapped up here."

  "So what's the issue if you've got a frag grenade?"

  "You can't own a frag grenade. It's a federal offense. Which means the ATF's involved. Which, in turn, sucks."

  "So how do you find out if it was a frag grenade?"

  Spinoza came down in his chair, brought his feet to the floor. "Fear not, my son. The ATF has already picked up samples from the scene. They'll have it analyzed by tonight and soon we'll all know for sure. If it is what it is, the FBI's in before morning. The preliminary call is yep, frags. So it's gonna be their case."