"I'm extremely honored."
"Let's see what you think after."
We agreed on a time and place to meet and I drove home. It felt like the tires of my Mustang were floating a foot over the asphalt, though car still handled quite well.
At first I thought it was the alcohol but I was stone sober by then, heart was beating hard and fast so I rolled down both the front window and let the wind blast in.
I didn't think about Will, or the men in those cars, for almost five straight minutes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I used that endless summer evening to do something I'd been wanting to do for days but never had the chance to.
Back at my little house in Orange, I pulled Will's car out of the garage and into the driveway beside the house. There's a gate across that driveway, and when it's closed you get a nice privacy back there: the little house, the little yard, the big orange tree, the detached garage, the drive.
After changing from my funeral suit, I used that privacy and the long evening light to wash the car, by hand, every inch of it inside and out. The blood was impossible to get out of the tan leather, but I cleaned and conditioned it as best I could. The right front floor mats was drenched in it, so I shampooed it twice, let it sit, then shampooed it again. There's no getting blood off of things like that.
So the dank and meaty smell of it mixed with the chipper aromas of shampoo and leather cleaner, and I guessed the car would smell that way forever.
I felt very close to him then. We spent so many hours in that car together. I could see him sitting there, leaning forward to check the tach, asking me how fast, bracing himself for one of those curves he liked so much. Or opening the black briefcase on his lap and peering in. Or leaning back and squinting out at the world with that disapproving but somehow hopeful gaze.
In the fading light I walked around his car, running my fingers along the smooth black paint. Nice animal. I'd washed it twice a week by hand, waxed it every month, steam cleaned the engine compartment and under carriage every sixty days. I did Will's modifications myself, damn lease: installed the Dinan chip; replaced the stock muffler for one that upped the horsepower a little and gave the sedan the rumble of a '70 Road—runner; traded out the sixteen-inch alloys for stainless custom wheels. The only thing I didn't do was the scheduled maintenance, which fell to the County. I decided to keep the car until they demanded it back, even though it cost three times my yearly salary.
But I wasn't really thinking about these things as I ran my hand over the black flank of Will's car: I was wondering again if we'd been follow or ambushed.
Did they lead us there or follow us there?
I wanted to believe they had led us there. That they knew all along where we would finally land, on Lind Street in Anaheim.
And how could they have followed me? It was night, but I was paying attention to the lights and the cars around us. I always did. And when Will said to flog it, I'd definitely flogged it. I remembered the needle hitting 114 mph. How had two cars kept up with me at speeds like that, without me seeing them?
Idea.
I jacked up the rear end of the car. That done, I got into a new pair latex gloves, then lay down on my mechanics' sled and rolled under the car. Not enough light to see. So I pushed out, got the flashlight from the trunk and went under again.
The undercarriage was clean, just the way I had always kept it. I ran my left hand along the sides of the fuel tank, the muffler, the differential. Then along the axle and the rear struts. And last, under the plastic fender skirt and along the chassis. There, I found something I didn't recognize by touch.
It took some time to get it off—two trips to the workbench to find the shortest screwdriver I had. Just enough clearance.
Finally I lifted it off with two fingers and set in on the concrete beside my head. I turned my head and looked at it.
A short-wave transmitter, about the size of an electric razor. Designed to broadcast just one frequency.
A frequency broadcast for just one thing: to be followed.
I thought about that for a long moment. And about Will and Savannah, five men with guns, and a million dollars in a tennis bag. Even with the transmitter I still didn't want to admit they'd followed me there.
I took it inside the house and dusted it for fingerprints. I've been practicing fingerprint technique on my own, ever since I was twelve, when Will told me he'd like me to be a deputy someday. Good thing. Three nice latents—a thumb on the side and two fingers on the top. The lifts came out perfect: Dragon's Blood powder on white tape.
I took the transmitter outside and looked at it closely in the fading sunlight. I wondered. Since they knew I was dumb enough to fall for it once, maybe they figured I'd fall for it twice.
Maybe I already had.
So I slid under the car and screwed it back into place.
Then called my friend Melissa in the crime lab and asked her another favor.
I got Will's black leather briefcase from the floor safe.
The familiar smell came to me first. Then the familiar shape. I could hardly imagine him without it: on his lap in the car while I drove; in his hand as he marched into a room and made that room his own like only Will could do; dangling at his left side as he shook hands and looked somebody in the eye and won their vote with a firm grasp and a well chosen word or two. Or sitting on the hot asphalt parking lot of the HACF as he listened to Jennifer Avila say she loved him.
Yes, I wanted to be close to him right then. And it had also occurred to me that the reason for his death could be in there, somewhere among the people he knew. This, because of something Will had told me a thousand times: love a lot, trust a few.
I took the briefcase into the garage and got into Will's BMW. I sat in his place so the steering wheel wouldn't be in my way. I set the briefcase across my lap, just like Will used to do. I turned on the reading light opened the case.
I surveyed the everyday tools of my father's life: date book and calendar; calculator; checkbook and wallet; a yellow legal pad with his handwriting on the top page; a small tape recorder; a multipurpose tool folded out to provide everything from pliers to screwdrivers to a small saw, a disposable camera; four manila folders in bright colors containing papers on various subjects; the minutes of the last Board of Supervisors meet the agenda for the next one.
Down in a compartment for pens and pencils I found a key that I recognized because I had an identical one of my own. They both fit the same deposit box in a Santa Ana bank.
I remembered asking him about it three years ago, when he gave the second key.
Since I have the key, sir, what's in the box?
Crap. Nothing.
I slid the key into my pocket. I'd have to clean out that box sooner than later.
There were two things in the briefcase that I didn't expect to be there; a picture of our family together, taken when I was six. It was unframed, tattered and bent. I could see the smudges of fingerprints on it.
I thought about being six, one year into my new life, still wonder when I'd wake up from the wonderful dream of the house in the hills the beautiful people who weren't afraid of me. Still feeling the first stir of love and having absolutely no idea what it was.
The other thing that surprised me was a little collection of articles clipped from the papers, held together by a paper clip. There were six. And they were all about Luria Bias and Miguel Domingo.
No annotations by Will. Just the articles. I scanned them and put them back.
I brought out the date book and opened it to that last week of my father's life.
I looked over his meetings and appearances, his lunches and committee meetings, his public engagements and his personal ones, all organized for me to see.
Two things stood out. Both were daytime dates that took place while I was working, neither of which he'd said anything about.
The first was a noon meeting with fellow supervisor Dana Millbrae and Transportation Authority director Carl Rupaski.
This was held on Tuesday at the Grove, the day before Will's death. Will and Millbrae were antagonistic members of the same elected board. Millbrae represented the more moneyed south county; Will the poorer and more populous central county. They often argued, and often voted against each other.
Lately, however, Millbrae had joined Will on a few key votes relating to transportation issues.
One vote in particular came to my mind. It took place in late May. The issue was whether or not the county should buy one of the money-losing toll roads built with private dollars a few years back. The road was eight miles long. The toll at peak hours was $2.65. Nobody was using it. The consortium that built it was losing about a thousand dollars a day. They wanted Orange County to pay twenty-seven million dollars for it.
Will had argued hell no—let the private money take the loss, not the taxpayer. Rupaski had argued in favor of the buy-out, saying that his Transportation Authority could operate and maintain the toll road cheaper than the current owners and turn a profit by 2010. He said the toll road was a bargain at twice the price.
Will said the only bargain would be for Rupaski's friends—the private consortium that built the road—and that the county shouldn't be in the business of bailing out high rollers who face a loss.
Rupaski said it was do-gooders like Will who were clogging the county with traffic and making life miserable for everyone.
Will said Rupaski was a dummy sitting on the lap of developers.
I remembered that night very clearly.
The Board of Supervisors is a seven-member body. And Millbrae cast the surprising "nay" that kept the County from buying a money-pit road from friends of Carl Rupaski.
I clearly remembered Rupaski's face after that vote. Millbrae's, too. Rupaski looked like he'd just sat on a fish hook. Dana Millbrae—earn soft-spoken, bland as a cup of milk—looked upset, almost afraid.
Will had turned off his microphone, closed his briefcase, come down off the dais and nodded me toward an exit. On the way home he'd gloated about the vote. He called Millbrae "Millie" and said that Carl Rupaski was the ugliest thug he'd ever met.
Anybody who's got their own goons driving their own beat cars enforcing their own laws has got too much power, Joe. Good for Millie, voting the sonofabitch down for once.
Those were his words, exactly. And I knew what cars he meant, because the Orange County Transportation Authority had a fleet of brand new, gleaming white, dark-windowed Chevrolet Impalas that were purchased and maintained by the county for the take-home use of the OCTA management.
Joe, it frosts my balls to see low-level bureaucrats in giant gas-guzzling muscle cars, especially ones with dark windows so you can't see which suckass TA geek is behind the wheel.
This was one of the reasons he petitioned the county, and finally got a car allowance adjustment that let him lease the giant gas-guzzling luxury muscle car in which I now sat. The hypocrisy wasn't lost on Will. He told me once that if the world was fair, supervisors would get GEO’s and everybody in the OCTA—from Carl Rupaski on down—would have to walk.
So, a lunch date between the three of them at the Grove stood out odd. Will hadn't mentioned it to me. He'd said nothing about it afterwards, though I do remember him being fretful and anxious those last few days his life.
Are you carrying?
The other surprising entry in Will's calendar was an afternoon meeting with one Ellen E. on Wednesday, the day he died. The time was 2 P.M., the place a small Mexican restaurant out in Riverside, just over the county line.
I got out his address book and scanned through the E listings. An Ellen Erskine was listed, with two phone numbers and an address. I didn't know her, hadn't heard of her. A little late to call.
I lingered there in his car a while longer, running my hands over the things that he had touched, remembering, wondering.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I stood in an observation hall behind the big mirror in one of the sheriff's
department interview rooms. Rick Birch opened the door for John Gaylen. I felt a flutter in my guts when Gaylen came into the room, turned, folded his hands and looked at me through the one-way mirror. More a flutter: a buzz.
I looked away, took a deep breath and looked back.
Buzz.
I tried to put it out of my mind, to just watch and witness. Mouth shut, eyes open.
Behind them was Harmon Ouderkirk, Rick's partner. Ouderkirk short, thick, around forty. He shut the door hard.
Gaylen stared in my direction, though he couldn't see me. He looked at the video camera in one corner. It's on a tripod, a decoy camera leave turned off most of the time. The operational one is hidden behind air conditioner vent on the opposite wall.
"You didn't say anything, about a taping."
Nerves rioted up my back. I felt my scalp get cold and tingle, voice—deep and clear, with the funny, slightly skewed cadence.
It came through the video mike, amplified just enough for me to well.
Will! Ah, Will Trona! Let's talk.
The voice of the shooter? So close. So hard to remember the exact sound of a sound.
"We're not taping," said Birch.
"That's right, you're not."
"Turn the damned thing to the wall if you don't believe him," said Ouderkirk. "Unplug it."
Gaylen looked at the camera, then took off his suit coat, folded and hung it over the lens end and the microphone.
"Who's behind the mirror?"
"Nobody."
Gaylen looked at me through the mirror again. "He looks like a nobody."
I breathed deeply and observed him, trying to steady my nerves, trying to be sure about that voice. I was as sure as the memory of a voice could make me.
He was tall, with copper skin and a strangely handsome face. High cheeks, heavy epicanthic folds, full lips. His eyes were wary and quick. He wore a navy suit with a silver-blue silk shirt and a silver-blue silk tie. His watch was a Rolex or a knockoff.
There was a table in the interview room, bolted to the floor. Four chairs, two on each side, bolted also. They were originally painted tan but the paint has worn from the edges and corners to show the metal underneath. There are still cigarette scars from the days when people smoked while they talked. No smoking now. But the deputies decided years ago to leave the marks there, figuring someday they might make some creep feel even more desperate to know he couldn't smoke.
There's a push button hidden under the tabletop, in front of chair four, that lets you control the real camera, but Rick had already turned it on from outside.
"Have a seat, John," said Rick.
Gaylen picked the chair facing away from the decoy camera. The usual move. That left me a clear view of his face on the monitor, and a good angle through the mirror. Ouderkirk leaned against the door and crossed his arms.
Birch sat across from Gaylen and brought out a pen and notepad.
"Wednesday night, John," Birch said. "We've got an eyewitness to Trona shooting. Told us it was the Cobra Kings."
"Take it up with them."
"Which ones?"
"I wasn't there."
"Really. Where were you?"
"With a woman."
"I'd like a name and number."
Gaylen looked at me, then over at Ouderkirk, then back to Birch.
"Ah, I'll bet you would, wouldn't you?"
Ah, Will Trona!
Birch sat back, tapped his pen on the tabletop.
"We got a good description of the shooter that night. And it sounds a lot like you. Here, see what you think."
Birch flipped back in his notebook. "Tall, average build, overcoat or trenchcoat. Dark skin, maybe African American. Right-handed. Deep voice."
Gaylen stared at Birch while he read. He nodded twice, faintly. ‘’That could be a lot of people."
"Not really. Five guys with long coats? What's the use of having colors if you don't fly them? Five guys with long coats is five Cobra Kings."
"I wasn't there."
&
nbsp; "Then who was? Help me out."
Gaylen sneered.
Ouderkirk walked out, slamming the door.
"Look, John, I'm going to bring your guys in. Every one of them. I'm going to rattle their cages. Hard. If you know anything about that night you better tell it now. After today, you're looking at obstruction of justice and that carries three-to-five. Think about three years without that woman you had two Wednesdays ago. Think about three years without any woman at all. If you're holding out on me, John, you're going to pay some pretty high rent."
Gaylen stared at him.
Ouderkirk joined me in the observation room. "That the guy?"
"Yes. The voice."
"We can't hold him on a voice, Joe. What about the face?"
I could hardly keep myself from going around the corner, into the interview room, and taking care of John Gaylen on my own.
"The fog blocked his face. But not his voice."
"Too bad. To me, he looks like the kind of guy who'd do two of his friends just to protect his own well-clad little ass."
"You might ask him if Sammy Nguyen knows about him and Bernadette Lee."
"The babe in the picture?"
"Yes. She's Sammy's girl. He's got a picture of her over his cell cot. He's a murderer, with plenty of friends on the outside."
"Got ya."
We watched as Birch continued. "John, maybe that wasn't you guys. Maybe it was five people trying to look like you guys. Not very likely, though, is it? We're on to you. We've got at least one witness—a good one. And one more, in the hospital. Cao's going to make it, you know. Tough young guy. And he'll be happy to talk, won't he? We know you shot him. Our wit, he saw everything."
"I don't shoot my friends. Maybe you do."
"Come on, John. Put yourself in Ike's shoes. Betrayed like that by his own guy? If he won't finger you, we'll crack one of your boys, maybe a young one, maybe somebody looking at his third strike. Maybe somebody who doesn't like you so much. And if your name comes up—wow. You're in the deepest possible shit. But right now you're in a position to help yourself, and help us."
Silent Joe Page 10