A Cold and Broken Hallelujah

by Tyler Dilts

  “Oh, no, I didn’t—” Patrick cut himself off in midsentence.

  That afternoon I tried to come up with leads on Rudy Guerra. Because we had virtually nothing on him prior to the current case—no criminal record, no known associates or affiliations—there was little to work with.

  I spent half an hour on the phone with his manager at the car dealership, and the only complaint he had was that Rudy had a way of inconveniently flexing his work schedule, but his shifts were always covered and other than that he’d been a model employee for the eighteen months he’d been there.

  And I spoke to his next-door neighbor, an elderly woman who had nothing but nice things to say about him. When her arthritis was acting up, he took her trash out. “Such a nice boy,” she said. “I hope he’s all right.”

  The next morning, with a fresh search warrant and backup from the Brea PD, Jen and I tossed his condo and found nothing that would indicate he was anything other than a mild-mannered Orange County Infiniti salesman.

  We talked to other people he worked with, and to more of his neighbors, to see if we could turn up anything, but it came to nothing. He’d done such a good job of staying off of the law-enforcement radar for so long that it wasn’t surprising he’d never let himself slip up while going through the motions of his upstanding-citizen routine.

  We had nothing. We’d keep trying, but it was becoming clear that Rudy had disappeared and that unless he made the kind of mistake he seemed too smart for, like making a withdrawal from an ATM or getting pulled over in a traffic stop or using his burner again, our chances of finding him were diminishing with each passing day.

  That evening I once again waited for Benny in the parking garage beneath his office. When he found me leaning against the door of his Jaguar, he said, “Hello, Detective.”

  I tried to read his expression but couldn’t. When I didn’t say anything he added, “I still don’t know where Rudy is.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” I said. “Jesús Solano isn’t going to testify. He doesn’t know anything. He wasn’t involved in any of it.”

  “Are you going to threaten me again?”

  “Do I need to?”

  As he smiled, the overhead fluorescent light shone on the scar beneath his left eye.

  31

  TIMEX IRONMAN WRISTWATCH: BLACK AND GRAY W/ ORANGE HIGHLIGHTS.

  By the end of the week, the worst of the heat had passed, and Long Beach was settling into a slow downward slide toward fall. I slept relatively well that Friday night and woke later than I usually do. Two cups of coffee and a shower stretched out and filled more than an hour. I dawdled around the house, checking the news online, trying to play a few bars on the banjo, watching The Today Show. Matt and Al and whoever that woman was who replaced Ann Curry were enough to put a sour spin on my enthusiastic aimlessness. So I put on some shorts and a short-sleeved plaid button-up and drove to Palm Beach Park.

  I got out and walked along the bike path. The last time I had been there, the relentless heat that beat down onto the concrete and reflected up off of the slow-moving water had made it feel like the height of the summer, but now the cooler temperature and the light breeze blowing inland suggested we were well into autumn. It seemed to me as if Bishop’s death had occurred months ago, rather than just a few short weeks.

  As I was passing the RV park, a small flock of five or six white birds floated on the water of the biological reserve. I knew they weren’t ducks or geese, but that was the closest I could come to identifying them. Some kind of egret, maybe? What did an egret even look like? I really had no idea.

  Just when I had started walking again, I heard someone behind me say, “On your left,” and a cyclist on a sleek racing bike rolled by. As he rounded the curve that opened up onto the long straightaway north along the concrete river, I heard the chink of his chain upshifting, and he stood on the pedals and accelerated into the distance.

  Two miles north, a small park was nestled in alongside the river. I lost track of the time and distance, and before I knew it, I was passing Pacific Coast Highway and wandering along the winding dirt pathway flanked by orange and yellow wildflowers and other indigenous plants. I found a sign that read, “Cressa Park: A Native Habitat.” How long had the park been there? I’d never even heard of it. Had Bishop? For some odd reason, I found it easy to imagine him there.

  The company, even though it was only in my head, didn’t really suit me, so I walked back down the bike path all the way to my car at the river’s end.

  “How’s the taco?” I asked Jesús. It was his last weekend before going back to school. He’d missed more than two weeks and was worried about returning, so I took him for lunch at Enrique’s. Carne asada makes everything better.

  “When you said that thing about Jack in the Box,” he said, “I didn’t think you knew what a taco really was.”

  “That’s why I brought you here. Had to prove I had some street cred.”

  “It’s good.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  The DA was building the case in such a way as to keep Jesús’s involvement to a minimum. It was unlikely he’d need to testify. Once we’d gotten Siguenza in custody, Francisco and Pedro had opened up and given us what we needed. Jesús’s knowledge of the plan was so limited in relation to theirs that his testimony would add little to the case. Rudy Guerra seemed to have vanished, and I’d gone out of my way to make it clear to Benny that Jesús knew nothing of any value to the prosecution. Was that enough to keep him safe? I hoped so.

  Watching him eat, listening to him worry about his little sister and his mom, about how far behind he was on his schoolwork, and even about his concern for Pedro, I thought maybe he had a chance.

  After I dropped him off at home, I went to see the new Alfonso Cuarón astronaut movie everyone had been raving about. It looked pretty, but ultimately I just got pissed off by its failure to grasp the basic principles of middle-school-level physics and the completely gratuitous underwear shots.

  Still, though, I was glad I went. It had been a good day. I felt a kind of unburdened and leisurely ease that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

  I called Harlan. “Got any dinner plans?”

  “There’s a Marie Callender’s chicken pot pie waiting for me in the freezer. Why?”

  “How about if I pick up a pizza at Domenico’s and swing by?”

  “You got yourself a date.”

  Not only did Domenico’s have pepperoni, they had two kinds. Sliced and ground. Suck on that, Michael’s.

  We’d finished eating and headed out to sit on Harlan’s porch with a couple of bottles of Sam Adams and give each other a hard time. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a slip of paper torn off of a real-estate agent’s promotional notepad. He handed it to me. There was a phone number written on it but nothing else.

  “What’s this?”

  “Banjo teacher. Call him.”

  “He have a name?”

  “Gary. I told him not to take your call, but he seemed really desperate. His kid needs new shoes or something.”

  “Thanks, Harlan,” I said.

  “Don’t thank me. Just practice.”

  32

  BIC LIGHTER: PURPLE W/ LOS ANGELES LAKERS LOGO.

  When I dropped Rose’s second DNA swab at the private lab, I paid an extra $160 for expedited service.

  The results came back in two and half weeks.

  “I got the DNA results back on Bishop and his daughter,” I said to Jen.

  “Let me call you back,” she said to whoever was on the other end of her phone call. She swiveled her desk chair around. “And?”

  “No surprise. They’re a familial match.”

  “When are we going?”

  It was after four, so we wouldn’t be able to make the drive before the end of the shift. “Do you mind doing it tonight? I know the Friday traffic will be—”

  “Let’s go.”

  “I’ll give her a call.”

/>   I left my car at Jen’s house, and we took her RAV4. She had a Caltrans FasTrak transponder so we’d be able to take the express lanes on the 91. The express lanes had adjustable tolls—the worse the traffic was, the more you paid. I generally refused to use them because I didn’t think rich assholes in BMWs should be able to zip past all the poor people who couldn’t afford the luxury of paying ten bucks a pop to get home in time to have dinner with their families.

  “You sure you don’t mind compromising your ethics?” Jen said. Needling me seemed to be the most enjoyable thing she’d done all day.

  “Special circumstances.” I wanted to enjoy the banter, but I was thinking about having to give Rose the bad news.

  “Yeah.” Jen laughed. “That’s exactly what all the guys in the Caddies and the Corvettes say.”

  The guard at Solida del Sol remembered us.

  “Ms. Fischer’s expecting you guys. You know the way, right?”

  Rose had coffee waiting for us in the living room. Two cups, black, with cream, sugar, and Splenda on a lime-green serving tray on the table in front of the comfortable couch.

  She was dressed more casually than she had been the last time we were there, in jeans and a brown cable-knit cardigan sweater. There was a sadness and resignation in her posture, and she looked like she might have been crying.

  She knew what we were there to tell her.

  “How are you doing?” Jen asked.

  Rose sighed and said, “I’ve been dreading this.”

  Jen looked at me and waited for me to say the words.

  “We got the results of the DNA test back,” I said.

  Rose nodded.

  I looked at her steeling herself for the bad news she knew was coming, and something stopped me. I remembered how she’d seemed at peace with the memories of her father, how she’d come to terms with his absence, how she’d been able to believe that his last words to her had signaled some small measure of healing for him. The truth, I thought in that moment, doesn’t always set you free.

  “They weren’t a match,” I said. “Our murder victim wasn’t your father.”

  Rose looked up at me, surprised, and uttered a soft “Oh.”

  I smiled at her. Without even looking, I knew Jen’s eyes were drilling into me. I could feel them.

  “We thought you might be happy to hear that,” I said.

  “I am, it’s just that I—well, I assumed if you were coming all the way out here it had to be bad.”

  Rose began to tear up, so Jen pulled a tissue out of the box on the table and handed it to her.

  “It’s not often we get to deliver good news. It was worth the drive.”

  On our way home, Jen was quiet.

  “You mad?” I asked her.

  “No.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “I’ve never seen you lie to a victim’s family member like that before.”

  “Yes, you have. We lie with almost every notification we make.”

  “Not like that.”

  “What’s the difference?” I asked her sincerely, without a trace of irony in my voice. “He didn’t suffer. She never knew what was happening. It was quick. We lie all the time.”

  “That’s different.”

  I knew what she was saying, but, in that moment, I couldn’t make sense of it. I thought about the truth I knew. The truth I’d seen in the files of Megan’s death investigation. Of my father’s, too. I thought of the times I’d tried to soften the truth by being less than honest. I thought of all the times someone had questioned me about the death of a loved one and how I’d lied to their faces. “How is it different?”

  She just shook her head.

  When she didn’t speak, I said, “It made her feel better.”

  After another mile or two of silence, looking straight ahead through the windshield, she said, “You’re not worried about it coming back on you?”

  “It’ll be six or eight weeks before we get the official DNA results back. I’ll write it up vague and sloppy so there won’t be any actual lies in the paperwork.”

  “What if Rose finds out?”

  “She won’t.”

  “And I’m just going to back you up on it?”

  “Yes.”

  We were still a few minutes away from the freeway. The road ahead of us was dark and empty.

  Jen said, “It made you feel better, too.”

  She was right. It did.

  By the time we’d finished the long, quiet drive home, her attitude had changed. In the silence, I could feel her mood shift gradually and the initial exasperation she’d felt fade away. I knew her well enough to understand that it wasn’t so much the lie itself that upset her, but the fact that she hadn’t known it was coming, that I hadn’t let her in on it. She realized, I believed, that I’d been planning to tell Rose the truth about her father all along, but when the moment came, I just wasn’t able to do it. And how could I have let her in on the play when even I didn’t know it was coming?

  We said goodnight in her driveway, and she looked at me for a few seconds before she turned and walked toward her door. I couldn’t quite read her feelings, but I felt a sense of calm resignation in her, and it helped me convince myself that I’d done the right thing.

  Ten minutes later, I was getting out of the car in front of my duplex and stifling a yawn as I crossed the lawn.

  Something caught my attention.

  The lamp in the living room wasn’t glowing behind the curtain. On the porch, with my keys in my hand, I tried to remember the last time I had changed the bulb. Could it be burned out?

  I stopped and listened.

  Did I hear the floor creak inside?

  I took out my phone and dialed the number of Rudy Guerra’s burner. Three seconds later I heard it ring on the other side of the door.

  Something crashed in the living room and I knew he was heading for the back door.

  I vaulted over the railing on the porch and ran along the side of the building into the backyard.

  Rudy was halfway to the gate.

  When he got there, he made the mistake of reaching for the latch, and when he couldn’t get it open he readjusted his stance and put his hands on the top edge to pull himself up and over.

  It slowed him down.

  I charged across the yard and threw my shoulder into the small of his back with all the force I could manage.

  The impact ripped the gate off its hinges and I crashed to the ground on top of him. As soon as we hit the pavement I started driving my elbow into the back of his head and bouncing his face off of the concrete.

  His disorientation didn’t last long, and he bucked up and I went rolling to the ground.

  As he tried to stand up, I spun myself a quarter turn and drove my heel into his crotch as hard as I could.

  He collapsed back down on all fours, and I scrambled to my feet and threw a kick at his head. I felt it connect with a concussive jolt, and I thought I had him.

  I was wrong. He somehow managed to wrap his arm around my leg and rose to his feet, lifting me up into the air and dropping me on my back.

  Most of the wind was knocked out of me and I thought I was done.

  But the burst of energy that put me down took something out of him, and he rested his hands on his knees and took two deep breaths.

  By the time he stood up straight and started toward me, I had my Glock in my hands and I was pulling the trigger.

  Five hits. Center mass.

  He took two more halting steps, but he slowed enough that I was able to scramble away from him and get up on my feet.

  We stood facing each other for a long time, his eyes burning with rage and delirium. I opened the distance between us, watching his chest over the front sight of my pistol and waiting for him to make a move.

  The sounds of sirens were rising in the distance when he collapsed down to his knees and slumped over sideways onto the ground.

  I closed in on him, drove my knee down into his lower back, and cuffe
d him.

  There was a Smith & Wesson tucked into an inside-the-belt holster. I pulled it, ejected the magazine, cleared the chamber, and threw it onto my back lawn. He had a folding knife in one pocket and his cell phone in another. The same phone that had unlocked the entire case.

  Gasping for air, I pulled his head up and held the phone in front of his face. “You’re so smart?” I said, the adrenaline pounding in my chest. “You’re so smart? Do you even know why they call this a burner?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I was still trying to catch my breath when the red and blue lights flashed across his bloodied face.

  33

  ONE PACKAGE HANES MEN’S CREW SOCKS, SIX COUNT: SIZE LARGE, UNOPENED.

  We were all gathered in the squad room, my hopes of wrapping things up before sunrise vanishing as the first glow of morning light illuminated the window across the room.

  The adrenaline surge from my encounter with Rudy Guerra had long since faded, and I was left with the drained emptiness and bone-deep exhaustion that usually follow a violent physical confrontation. The paramedics thought the worst of my injuries were likely bruised ribs, but still they wanted me to go to the ER to have everything checked out. I told them I’d go to the doctor later in the day. The pain in my ribs was minor in comparison to the throbbing burn in my neck and shoulder.

  Rudy was in surgery at Long Beach Memorial. They didn’t give us a prognosis, and even though none of us acknowledged it out loud, I knew we were all hoping for the worst.

  Internal Affairs was responsible for the crime scene. That was standard procedure with all officer-involved shootings. I knew they’d be very thorough and that meant I wouldn’t be able get back into my home for two or three days.

  “I think we’re okay here,” Ruiz said. He looked at me. “Where will you be until they release the scene?”

  Jen said, “At my place.”