Nothing to Hide (A Roland March Mystery Book #3)

by Bertrand, J. Mark

  So I grab my car keys and the black gym bag I keep next to the gun safe. The weight feels good in my hand. In my new empty life, there is one way I’ve learned to forget everything. And it’s early enough in the evening for me to catch up.

  ———

  On the way I stop over to see the Robbs. The couple who used to live in our garage apartment started looking for a bigger place once Gina’s pregnancy started to show. They took their time, hoping to find something large enough for a growing family but not so expensive that Carter couldn’t afford it on his ministry salary, since Gina hoped to quit teaching once the baby was born. He worked in Montrose at something called an “outreach center,” splitting his time between helping the destitute and proselytizing the heathens. In his off-hours he’d try proselytizing me, too, but it’s not so easy when the heathen has a badge.

  With my wife’s help, the Robbs found a rental bungalow not far from Carter’s work, a tiny cottage of maybe nine hundred square feet, no garage, with a tear-down on one side and an incomplete glass-and-steel domicile on the other, the kind of place a Miami Vice drug lord would have been proud to call home. When the market tanked, the architect-builder went broke and left the site mothballed in temporary fencing and plastic wrap.

  I’d gone over to see them a few times, bearing gifts, but without Charlotte things were never as smooth. Any day now, that baby would arrive, throwing their lives into rhapsodic turmoil. The thought makes me a little sad. I guess I’m starting to miss them.

  Carter comes to the door in a T-shirt and shorts. He doesn’t look happy to see me.

  “Is this a bad time? I was just passing through—”

  He shakes his head. “No, come in. I could use the distraction.”

  “I was heading over to Shooter’s Paradise. You should come some time.” Catching his expression, I pause. “What’s up, Carter?”

  From the sidewalk I’d noticed a bluish glow from the front window. Carter nods his tousled head toward the living room, the source of the strange light. Stepping through the arched entryway, I find the furniture pushed into the corners, stacks of books and paper teetering on every available surface, making room for a bubble of empty space at the far side of the room, ringed by light boxes and a lithe and shadowy brunette hoisting a huge-lensed camera. Gina Robb, swathed in some kind of bedsheet, sits perched on a stool, arms and legs bare, frowning intently into the light.

  She’s let her hair grow out a little, and tonight it hangs in self-conscious ringlets. I’m more accustomed to seeing it tucked behind a vintage barrette. Her ironic cat-eye glasses are gone, too. She looks beautiful, honestly, almost radiant, her hands on her belly in an earth goddess pose. I feel like I shouldn’t be here.

  I give Carter a look and he shakes his head. I expect him to say something, but he lopes down the hall to the kitchen. Before I can follow, Gina squints my way and gives a nervous giggle.

  “Oh boy,” she says. “This will take some explaining.”

  The photographer introduces herself, shifting the camera so she can shake my hand. Long, cool fingers. Black-rimmed eyes. Gina tells me she’s some kind of artist, that the photos are for a “study,” whatever that is, and they met in one of her night classes at the University of Houston, where Gina’s been working on her master’s degree in English Lit off and on while teaching at a private school out in the suburbs. To prove her point, she indicates a stack of textbooks on the arm of the couch, then adjusts the draped fabric at her shoulder.

  I glance at the books. “That’s a lot of reading.”

  “It’s, like, crazy,” the photographer says.

  “And you . . . paint pictures?” I ask.

  “Something like that. I’m working on a series called ‘Madonna and Child.’”

  “You’re starting early.”

  She bites her lip, confused.

  “I mean, the baby’s not here yet. You have a madonna, but no child. Never mind. Just an attempt at humor. I should stick with my strengths.”

  Gina starts to get up, but the photographer waves her back into place. “No, no, I need a couple more. Don’t move.”

  “Go ahead,” I say. “I’ll find Carter.”

  While they snap photos, I find myself lingering near the couch. The first time I met Gina Robb, it took me two seconds to pigeonhole her, and she’s been surprising me ever since. Modeling for an artist during the countdown to having her first kid? I didn’t see that coming. Down the hall I can hear Carter moving around in the kitchen, closing the fridge, scooting things along the counter. I don’t know if it’s the bedsheet that makes him uncomfortable or the whole idea or just the thought of me walking in on the scene.

  I find him in the crook of the counter, between the stove and the sink, downing a glass of some kind of sugary orange stuff, his eyebrows cocked upward in shock.

  “You seem a little put out by all this,” I whisper. The camera clicks and the cold blue light barrels down the hallway, strobing over the kitchen appliances. “You shouldn’t be. It’s not so bad, having a wife who can still surprise you.”

  “It’s not that,” he says. “It’s the artist. Gina’s doing this to try and help her, to be supportive. But she’s got some baggage. I think she’s bad news.”

  “That’s funny, coming from you. You go out of your way to support people, right? It’s your job. So what’s the harm in her doing the same thing?”

  “Yeah, I know.” He shakes his head. “It’s just . . . Ever since, you know, the baby . . . I just want to keep her safe. To look out for her.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, that makes two of us. But I think this will be all right. She’s having a good time with it. If it were Charlotte in there and I was sulking like this, I wouldn’t hear the end of it. Now come on, let’s go back in.”

  He puts his glass in the sink and follows me.

  “All done,” Gina calls to us, sashaying up the stairs holding the sheet at the back. In the living room the photographer is packing up her things. Carter puts on a smile and goes to her assistance. While they chat, I check my watch and survey the mess. I should get going, but I want to say hello to Gina first.

  I’m going through her stack of schoolbooks when she returns wearing a knit dress that clings tight to her belly, both her hands on her hips for support. Her hair is clipped back and she makes a show of wiping sweat from her dry brow. “You’re still here,” she says. “I was afraid you were going to disappear on us.”

  “I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to stop in and say hi. Make sure you guys aren’t missing the old garage apartment and want to move back.”

  “Tempting,” she says. “In my condition, stairs aren’t a girl’s best friend.”

  Carter and the photographer start carrying gear out to her car. Gina eases herself into an empty space on the couch, then starts moving books over so I can sit, too. The one on top is Dante’s Inferno, the Robert Pinsky translation. It’s dog-eared and sticky-noted and creased down the spine. Gina is nothing if not a good student.

  “Let me do that.” I move the stack for her. “You like the Dante?”

  “I’m only halfway through.”

  “If that’s halfway, I don’t think the book is going to survive the experience.”

  “You’ve read it?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” I say. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t. But I knew someone once . . .” My voice trails off. “Let’s just say, I have a special relationship with that thing.”

  As I speak, the stack I’ve just moved topples of its own accord.

  I lean over to straighten the books. One of them is an old paperback with a Norman knight on the cover. The nasal piece on his helmet juts out and he presses a curved horn to his lips. “Well, well. This looks like my kind of reading.”

  She rolls her eyes. “The Song of Roland. Don’t get me started. That was the first one we had to read. If that’s chivalry, then you can have it. That book infuriates me.”

  “Really.” I flip th
rough the pages, many of which are underscored. I’m familiar with the story, of course, though I can’t recall having actually read the poem. In fact, before now I’m not sure I realized it was a poem, with all the stanzas and verses. “He’s supposed to blow the horn to signal the ambush, is that it?”

  “He’s supposed to blow it if they need help. Only Roland’s too proud for that, so he waits and waits until everybody’s basically dead. Does that sound like heroism to you?”

  “Actually, it kind of does.”

  She snatches the book in mock outrage. “It’s not bravery, though. It’s stupidity.”

  “Don’t let your professor hear you. That book’s a classic.”

  “It’s all right,” she says. “We’re allowed not to like them. It’s even encouraged.”

  I could sit and argue about books I haven’t read for hours. I want to stick up for my namesake, for the whole tradition of chivalry, for the stupid pride that would lead a man not to give his enemies the satisfaction of blowing the horn. At the back of my mind, some history stirs, something I saw on television or maybe read years ago in college.

  “Sir Francis Drake,” I tell her, “when he was sailing into some Spanish port or other, and all their cannon started firing at his ship—or maybe it’s Walter Raleigh I’m thinking of. Anyway, when the Spanish artillery opened up, instead of shooting back, he got his trumpeters on deck and had them blow a note.”

  “What?”

  “That was his reply. His way of putting them in their place.”

  “That sounds stupid, too.” She shakes her head at the ways of men. “If he was smart, he should have fired his guns at them. Unless those were really nasty trumpeters or something.”

  “It was like he was saying, Your efforts are beneath my contempt. He was insulting them.”

  She gives me an indulgent smile.

  “Hey, I’m just saying, that stuff speaks to me. Don’t dismiss Sir Roland out of hand. You weren’t there.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Just promise me you’re not going to follow his example.”

  “You sound like Charlotte.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It is a compliment, kid.”

  After the last of the gear is packed, the photographer leans down to touch Gina on the tummy and kiss her cheek. “New life,” she says under her breath. Gina beams up at her, a bookish, impish, argumentative and glowing earth mother at the height of her charms.

  ———

  The uncle who raised me, after leaving the Houston Police Department on disability when a stray truck jackknifed his cruiser during a pursuit, used some settlement money to buy himself a modest gun shop on Richmond. He’d give his former colleagues deep discounts on their purchases, which ensured the place was always filled with cops. When I was a teen, I used to work with him behind the counter, learning everything there is to know about firearms. And every time a tropical storm blew through, dumping so much rain into the parking lot that we and the little jewelry shop next door would end up with an inch of standing water on the floor, it was me who mopped up the mess.

  The Shooter’s Paradise on I-10 couldn’t be more different than my uncle’s establishment. Vast and brightly lit by shining fluorescents, its spotless glass cases are packed with an endless variety of pistols and revolvers, from entry-level Glocks and SIGs to exotic race guns with fancy anodized frames. If longarms are your preference, they have those, too, along with a selection of custom leather holsters that would normally require months of waiting to obtain. As I know too well. Every surface gleams, every item is displayed with the care of a museum exhibit. It’s a pistoleer’s boutique, a lifelong NRA member’s idea of what heaven will be like.

  But the attraction for me is in back.

  One of the managers recognizes me from behind the counter, motioning toward the double doors at the rear of the shop.

  “They’ve already started,” he says, “so you better get moving.”

  I nod my thanks.

  An acquaintance on the SWAT team first tipped me off to the league, suggesting I might want to brush up my skills. The Shooter’s Paradise, in addition to the showroom, boasts a state-of-the-art pistol range with twenty lanes, excellent ventilation, and even a soundproof observation gallery so you can watch the action without having to wear ear protection. On Thursdays, a loosely organized club gets together, arranging a series of tactical targets and running one member after another through the course. At the end of the night, the shooters compare rankings and head over to the taquería next door.

  In the vestibule I run into a couple of latecomers.

  “Hey, Roland, how’s it hanging? We thought you were bailing on us this time.”

  We shoot the breeze as we strap on our gear. Meaningless small talk. There are a couple of law enforcement types in the club, but no one who knows me. I keep pretty much to myself. I’m here to blow off steam, not make new buddies. Still, there’s a charm to it all—the macho camaraderie, the obsessive focus on performance, the specialized vocabulary. Egregious rule-breakers, when they’re penalized, are charged with a “failure to do right.” I like the term. What is a homicide detective if not the living embodiment of such a charge. Do right and you’ll never tangle with me. Fail to do right, and there I am.

  “I see you dropped some dollars on a new rig,” one of the guys says.

  I pause in the midst of adjusting my new holster, the new matte-silver Browning inside. “I didn’t plan it. You just get sucked in, you know?”

  When I started the league, I was shooting with my off-duty piece, a .40 caliber Kahr with all the sharp edges melted away. Long ago, the Kahr went to Teddy Jacobson for some work, coming back with an action slicker than glass. It’s a flat, short-barreled hideaway pistol, but I can hit targets with accuracy much farther out than you’d expect.

  But after a couple of weeks, all the club’s magazine changes and malfunction drills had me yearning for a full-size pistol. Instead of bringing my duty gun or springing for one of the usual plastic-framed, high-capacity numbers, I’d toured the glass cases at Shooter’s Paradise and gone a little crazy, ending up with a custom Novak Browning Hi-Power. Compact for its punch, slender, and all metal, with a crisp single-action trigger pull. It’s also a natural pointer, which I appreciate.

  In addition to the standard thirteen-round mags, I’d bought a bunch of hi-cap South African magazines, bringing the total up to eighteen with one in the spout. And I’d picked up a couple hundred dollars’ worth of saddle-tan holsters and mag carriers, keeping it all in the new gym bag ready to go.

  I feel a little guilty at all the expenditure. When Charlotte lays out money like this, I can’t help giving her a lecture. But she’s not here to return the favor.

  Out on the range I add my name to the sign-up sheet, then file to the back of the line. Already the air smells of gun smoke. I put my things in an empty lane, locking the Hi-Power’s slide back and slipping it into my belt holster, one of the club’s safety requirements.

  “Hey, man, how’s it hanging?”

  I turn to find Jeff, another new guy, unloading his gear next to me. He wears jeans and a tight-fitting linen safari shirt with epaulets and button tabs securing the rolled-up sleeves. The look is more fashion than function, but he’s the only shooter here I’ve really warmed up to. Maybe because, unlike most people here, we both know what it’s like to be shot at.

  In Jeff’s case, the experience was racked up doing private security work somewhere in Iraq—“outside the Green Zone” is as specific as he’s ever gotten. He’s in his mid-to-late twenties, square-jawed, and sarcastic. His Glock 19 has a gunmetal shine where the finish has rubbed away from use. Compared to my chromed new toy, his gun is a battered workmanlike tool. I like that about him, too.

  It’s hard to have a conversation with ear protection on and guns going off a few feet away. We lean through the lane openings, watching shooters work through the course. Tonight there’s a cardboard wall with a window in t
he middle. Downrange, two IDPA cardboard bad-guy targets are staggered on the left side of the wall, one at five yards and the other at ten. Through the window, a bad guy becomes visible, most of his body shielded by a hostage target, and on the right side of the wall a crowd of three bad guys stands between five and seven yards away. The shooter takes cover on the left, puts two rounds on each target, reloads, then puts one in the head of the hostage taker through the window. To finish, he angles around the wall’s right edge to put two rounds each on the three final targets. All this with the stopwatch running.

  “Right,” Jeff says. “This would happen in real life.”

  I shrug. “It’s just a game, but you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t like it.”

  He smirks and turns back to the range. One of the hardcore shooters is getting ready to run the course. He wears a white germ mask over nose and mouth, marking him as one of the club’s several handloaders. For economy, since they’re sending so many rounds downrange, these guys make up batches of their own ammo at home. When they get together, they brag to each other about their “lead count”—not the number of bullets they’ve churned out of their presses, but how much lead has infiltrated the bloodstream as a consequence.

  Jeff sighs. “Watch this guy.”

  The shooter stands still, waiting for the buzzer with his hands raised. Once it sounds, he pistons his arm down, clears his holster, and starts firing. Before the spent brass of his initial shots reaches the ground, he’s already reloading and lining up the hostage shot through the window. The speed and economy of motion is something to behold. After the last round is fired, he keeps his weapon leveled, scanning back and forth like he’s expecting one of the cardboard adversaries to get up. Then he unloads and re-holsters.

  “Perfect round,” someone says.

  Glancing down the lanes, I see the timekeeper shaking his head in admiration.

  But Jeff looks amused. “I wouldn’t want him on my side.”

  “Seriously?” I say. “He looked good to me.”