Over the sound of the flurry of bullets, Furyk heard the siren. He paused the fusillade, letting the sound fill the air. Brant couldn’t get away, no matter who he killed. “That’s it, Brant. The cops are here. There’s no way to talk your way out of this!” Furyk had stopped walking, crouching now near the passenger side of the Councilman’s sedan. No one was in sight. The wheel protected him from Brant trying to shoot from under the car, and the Councilman’s body was probably also in the way.
Brant’s voice came from exactly where Furyk knew he had to be, by the trunk, just a few feet away. “Fuck you, Furyk. I’ll just kill Harte, then you, and no one will know shit. It’ll all be on him and no one is going to believe that stupid whore Wick over me.”
It sounded good but it was bullshit. There were too many dead bodies, too much of a trail leading to Brant. Maybe even some clients who knew of his involvement and would talk to save their asses. Brant read his mind. “Harte’s the only one who knows about me. The rest think it’s just Wick and the lawyer. I’m clean.” It was absurd having this conversation, this close to one another. If both men stood up, there’d be fewer than five feet between them.
The guy was nuts but he had a point. Furyk knew he only had one card to play, shy of just throwing himself around the corner and hoping he could kill Brant before the shotgun took his head off.
“Prole knows. The whole thing.” There was silence. In fact, there was too much silence. Furyk realized the siren he’d heard a moment ago was receding, then abruptly cut off. Didn’t make sense. It also took away some of his advantage.
Behind the car, hunched down and pointing the shotgun at Harte’s neck and head as the councilman stayed in the fetal position that he wishfully thought would protect him, Brant ran through his options. Kill Harte, kill Furyk. It could work, if the cops didn’t show up first and it sounded like they were just over the hill. Then he heard the same thing Furyk did – no more siren. The assholes were heading away. Maybe he had a couple extra minutes, enough to do the murders. He could shift the blame, set it up to look like Furyk had been in on it. But then there was Prole. He tightened his grip on the shotgun, pressed it up against Harte’s neck, then jabbed it harder. Fucking Prole. His mind flipped between scenarios, looking for the best way out. Move some blame to Cordoza, put Furyk in it, make Harte an innocent victim. Convince everyone it was all the work of Wick and Margolin. Suddenly there was a new sound, faint but increasing quickly. Sirens again, a lot. They were closer now, and coming off the freeway, not hesitating like the first one had. There was no more time. He raced between possibilities and then he understood. The answer was simple.
Furyk heard the sirens at the same time. This was a whole herd of cop cars, whipping off the freeway and onto the ramp, then into the park. He looked over, above the hilly area where the scene was unfolding in what felt like slow motion time, and saw the flicker of lights. They were coming closer. “C’mon, Brant, that’s it. Killing Harte won’t help.” Furyk knew that was only partly true. He paused, tried to think of a better argument, and knew there wasn’t one. Into the frying pan was his only choice. He calculated how many bullets he had left and began to walk toward the back of the sedan.
One shot broke the heavy air that had quieted except for the insistent sirens coming closer and the echo of Furyk’s last words. Furyk ran the last few steps fully upright and spun around the end of the car, hoping the first shot at the councilman had not been fatal and he could stop the murder, but not hopeful. He froze as he rounded the rear bumper, his momentum taking him a couple steps further toward where Brant should have been crouching. Instead, he was sprawled flat on his back, two feet away from the trunk, the shotgun resting on his stomach where it had fallen. The blast from the sawed-off 10-gauge had torn Brant’s lower jaw off and shredded the rest of his face. He was unrecognizable except for the heavy belly and stained uniform. The shotgun slid off his stomach, unable to stay perched, and a death twitch made it look like Brant was trying to grab it with his left hand. The tremor stopped and Furyk could see as the lights from the encroaching police cruisers started to illuminate the scene, still fifty feet away, that the Sheriff had pissed himself in death.
Furyk, oddly saddened by the figure lying in front of him, lowered his gun and spat on Brant. Hunching down, he peered under the car. “You can come out now.” His voice was flat, no hint of the respect Harte was used to commanding. As the councilman crawled out, trying to be dignified as he brushed off the dirt and leaves while figuring out how Brant had died, Furyk rose with him and stood close.
“I don’t know what twisted shit you were doing with those girls, but it’s over. So’s your promising political career.”
Harte somehow managed to pull off looking confident and in control, despite the twigs in his hair. “I don’t think so, Mr. Furyk.” He straightened his shirt and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know exactly who you are or why Brant seemed to be worried about you, but it doesn’t matter.”
Furyk was impressed with how quickly Harte had recovered from his ordeal. He punched him with a short, hard jab to the jaw. It rocked the man back against the trunk, almost taking him off his feet. Another surprise as Harte, bent over sideways now against the car, stood and rubbed the jaw like he was checking to see if was broken but not too concerned either way. “Do that again and I’ll have the officers who are about to walk in on our chat shoot you.” He stood back up, eye to eye with Furyk. “You think Brant was right about your word against his? Damn right he was. He only gave up because the other cop knew about him. But she doesn’t know about me.” He let Furyk think about it for a second, then laughed. The sound sent a chill up Furyk’s spine and he wanted to shoot the guy in the gut. “I’ll get patched up, tell them Brant wanted to talk to me out here, confess to some crazy scheme he’d gotten involved in. Couldn’t take the pressure, the shame, and killed himself. The rest isn’t related to me – you can tell whatever story you want.”
Furyk could read the cards. This guy had a bullet in the arm, had almost been executed by Brant, and was nursing a bruised jaw that Furyk knew hurt. And he was going toe to toe while the cops were about to descend. He was right – at best Furyk would completely screw up his own life by going after him. That wouldn’t necessarily keep Furyk from doing it anyway, to take down an unconscionable prick like Harte, but he would have to wait. Put some thought into it. There would be time later.
The warning came as Furyk had expected. “Put the gun down! Show me your hands, both of you!” The first cop into the clearing had his gun trained on Furyk and three colleagues were just a couple steps behind. In the glare of the powerful flashlights and high beams from the cruisers, Furyk tossed his gun to the side and turned to face them. Harte whispered just loud enough for him to hear over the increasing hubbub, “smart choice, buddy.” Furyk looked forward to working out how to take this asshole down after things had cooled off. The first cop reached them and Furyk didn’t protest when the others arrived a second later to put both Harte and Furyk on their knees with their hands clasped on their heads until someone could figure out what the hell was going on.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two
Three days passed while the cops sorted things out. Prole was only in the hospital overnight, and that long only because she was unconscious and then sedated. She stepped her boss through what she believed had been going on, with Furyk’s account providing the color commentary. He’d spent nine hours the first day in various interview rooms while a parade of detectives played bad cop/bad cop, then half as much time the second day. By the third, he was just “on call” as in “don’t leave town.” He was bored with the process and furious that Harte looked to be getting off scot-free. The councilman did not appear in any of Wick’s records. All the evidence pointed to Wick and Margolin running a pimping operation, but none of the girls could be found and the list of patients – including those who were potentially customers – remained confidential despite containing many of the city’s movers and
shakers. Without an accuser or witness or defendant, no judge would open up access to the records for a full investigation. Other than cleaning up the murders now tied to Cordoza, and clearing Prole in Cordoza’s death, only Brant’s suicide left open serious questions. And no one was motivated to pursue that too hard.
Furyk sat in the kitchen where Carl Wick had been murdered. It felt very different from the three previous times he had been there. Merrill was gaunt but looked stronger than before. She sat on one of the tall stools at the island in the center, her back to the spot where Felicia had been killed less than a week earlier. A cup of coffee sat steaming in front of her. The damage from Cordoza’s shooting had been erased except for some spackle on the far wall where a bullet hole had been covered but not yet papered or painted. She looked more at home than she had before.
Merrill looked down at her coffee, the silence between them awkward but not uncomfortable. Her hair was clean and fresh, hanging down but not covering her face. She brushed it back with a hand and he noticed a touch of makeup, a light coating of lip gloss. A small smile parted her mouth. “Thank you, thank you more than I know how to say.” She reached for the cup, but stopped. They were sitting close, knees almost touching, as though she didn’t want to be too far away from anyone. Her hand instead came to rest on his arm, his sleeve rolled partway up. She clasped it firmly, her delicate fingers not making it all the way around his wrist. “I don’t know how to…if you hadn’t helped, I don’t know what I would have…” She searched for words, not failing out of weakness but just reaching for the depth of her gratitude. He put his hand over hers.
“Merrill, you’re strong. Stronger than you know. And Carl didn’t deserve you.” Before she could respond, the kitchen door flew open and Cheyenne blew in. She ignored them both, heading straight for the refrigerator and practically climbing in as she searched for something in the cavernous space. Almost too quiet to be heard, she said:
“Mom, you want some yogurt?”
Merrill smiled as she looked Furyk in the eyes. “Yes, thank you dear. The wild cherry, if there’s more than one.” Cheyenne swept by and without stopping deposited a container and spoon on the counter between Furyk and Merrill, leaving as quickly as she’d come in.
Furyk looked at the yogurt and then at Merrill. “That’s an improvement.” Merrill gave an involuntary giggle, making her look more like her daughter’s sister than mother.
“It’s something, isn’t it?”
They sat quietly for a moment, the yogurt untouched, Merrill’s hand still on Furyk’s arm. “I want to tell you something.” Her voice was strong but the words stumbled slightly.
“You don’t have to say anything. It’s over. You just need to look ahead.” Furyk didn’t think she needed to spill her guts to a guy who ran a sandwich shop right now. Maybe a therapist later, though her track record with that profession was pretty spotty.
“Yes, I want to tell you.” She took her hand away and clasped the still hot coffee cup with both hands. She looked down and then to the side, but took a deep breath and looked Furyk square in the face. “What Carl did to me, when I was his patient, was wrong. I thought it was love. Maybe it was. But it was also wrong. Even sick.” Tears formed in the corner of her eyes but the smile remained. “In the last few weeks, I started noticing things. Things I didn’t pay attention to before. Or maybe didn’t want to pay attention to.” Her throat caught and he could hear the thickness in her voice. She wanted to sob, but held back. “Cheyenne, she was…she turned sixteen a little while ago. The same age I was when I met Carl. When he became my…therapist.”
Now the tears were streaming down her face. She couldn’t see clearly, but her gaze never wavered. “I saw small things, things that made me remember. I saw Cheyenne, sixteen, and I saw Carl.” She sniffled hard and cleared her throat. A full minute passed and she wiped her eyes with her sleeve and put the cup down. Furyk said nothing, just gave her the space to get through whatever she had to do.
“That night, the night Carl died, I came down and found him. He was bleeding, and he looked dead.” The tears had stopped and her glistening eyes looked far away, remembering the night, the kitchen the way it was in the moonlight. The spot behind and to her left where Carl had died. “But he wasn’t dead yet. He was struggling to breath, I could hear it. It sounded like an old man, rattling. I knew he wasn’t going to make it if I didn’t help him. He could see me, he looked me right in the eyes. But he couldn’t talk. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. I needed to call 911, I needed to save him.”
There was a deep silence in the house. Furyk’s heart thudded in his chest and he knew he was hearing her confession, one that she would never say out loud again. That she had let her husband die while she watched. This time it was Furyk who reached over and put his hand over her arm.
She took a deep sigh, one of resignation but not regret. “At that moment I thought of Carl twenty years earlier. I thought of my father before that. And I thought about Cheyenne. I didn’t know about the other girls, the things he and Perry were doing. But I thought about Cheyenne.” Smiling at Furyk, she told him: “I saw the knife next to him. I picked it up and stabbed Carl in the chest as hard as I could. I must have been lucky because it slid right in, no bones or ribs or anything. All the way in. And the rumbling noise stopped pretty fast after that.”
Furyk kept himself from tightening his grip on her arm. Maybe the paramedics could have saved him. Maybe Wick would have died anyway. But to a jury – and to Merrill – she had killed him. And it had been the right thing to do. Furyk patted her arm instead, then picked up his empty coffee cup and her full one, bringing them to the sink. He came back to Merrill, who hadn’t moved, and from behind kissed the top of her head. Wordlessly, he left the kitchen and the house, sure that whatever demons Merrill had created by ending her husband’s life were far outweighed by the ones she’d put to rest.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Three
A couple weeks passed and Furyk was busy with the sandwich shop as fall was fully under way and the summer slowdown had long faded. Much to Furyk’s surprise, Hamid had somehow lived long enough to let the paramedics do their magic and he was still recovering in the hospital. Furyk visited him every other day. The gratitude was now Furyk’s and they were more than even, though Hamid still acted as though he were in debt. Prole had now become part of that circle of indebtedness, having saved the children from Cordoza, and the deaths he had caused to Hamid’s family did not take away from the role Prole had played in saving the others. Prole felt differently, but it was not her choice to make.
Somehow, the names of several of the girls who had been ostensible patients of Wick had come into Furyk’s possession. An anonymous source, he told the cops who asked him about it. It had only taken him a few days to track several of the girls down. After some persuading and one or two reunions with parents who weren’t the evil tyrants the girls made them out to be, Furyk had convinced most to make statements. They named names – as well as dates, times, places, and very specific acts. This morning, the Los Angeles Times was running the first in a series, part of their investigative report on what appeared to be a long-running prostitution ring run by a prominent attorney and therapist, both now dead. Merrill’s previously pending and now defunct trial had created a media frenzy that needed feeding and the story was the perfect fodder. The first article hinted at names that would be revealed. The second article identified several known business men, two from Hollywood circles, who were implicated.
A week later, as the series reached its conclusion with a large piece on Sunday, Councilman Gerald Harte announced he was dropping out of the mayoral race that was now just three weeks away. Family commitments were cited and no direct connection was made to the Wick case. The morning the news broke, Furyk pinned the article on the cork board he kept above the urinal in the men’s room so people could read while they made room for another soda.
Late Monday morning, the sandwich shop was crowded with early lunch ea
ters and Furyk was making hoagies and salads along with Alycia and Jimmy. She had recovered from her ordeal, uninjured but fully armed now with a story she excitedly told to anyone who would listen. That included customers who made the mistake of engaging in chit-chat while Jimmy put together their club sandwich or turkey-cheddar wrap. She was going to milk her experience until something more exciting happened. Most people never knew Furyk’s involvement, but she looked at him with a new shine in her eyes. He was even more dangerous and heroic than before and he would catch her watching him while a customer stood with money held out, waiting for her to make change.
Furyk thought about having a chat with Alycia, but wanted her to enjoy the notoriety while it lasted. He had his head bent down as he made sandwiches along the long plastic board behind the counter. He was putting together three at a time, all variations of the same ham and cheese, but with slight modifications that the three guys who’d ordered them together had insisted on. He knew if he made the smallest mistake, they would want him to remake them. From directly in front, he heard the gruff voice.
“You’re a real magician back there, ya know? Like a maestro, or something.” Furyk smiled and didn’t lift his head. “You want a turkey sandwich or should I just toss you some raw meat?” He looked up and kept spreading mayonnaise on the slices of three different kinds of bread on the counter. Prole had a mild sneer on her face, but she didn’t put much effort into it. She looked good, a little thin still from what turned out to be an infection she got – not letting the ER doc redo the bandages right away – but the sling was off her arm and she looked relaxed and ready for a fight.
She looked around the crowded shop and back at Furyk. “Yeah, I’ll catch you later when you’re not so busy with important work.” She turned and headed toward the door. Furyk didn’t rush, since she wasn’t moving that fast. He flipped off the apron and went around the corner of the service counter.
A Twisted Path Page 26