by DL Fowler
Tess! How?
I hug Mercedes like she’s all I have to keep me from tumbling off a cliff. “I thought ….”
Mercedes holds me tight. “It’s going to be okay.”
Tess rasps. “You two are right about one thing—he’s got to be alert enough to sign my papers.”
Mercedes mutters, “I’d rather take my chances with what’s in his will.”
Tess laughs. “Always the little smart ass. To set the record straight, I did save you from Bryce. Who the hell do you think fixed it so you could escape?”
Mercedes sneers. “Yeah, but he beat me for years, and he raped me for weeks before I got away.”
“I did what I had to for both of us to survive—and I took the first chance I got to get you out of there.”
“But what about her? You let him go on abusing her for two more years. You did nothing to save her.”
Tess grunts. “She’s the reason we’re in this mess in the first place. And you’ve picked the wrong side. So here’s the new deal—we get out of here alive with my papers signed and I give you a twenty-four hour head start to disappear and never be heard from again. Cross me, and you die on the spot. I only need one of you to get what’s due me.” She clears her throat. “I know Amy, here, won’t put up a fight. She never does.”
Mercedes pulls away from me. Nudges me aside. “Guess that leaves me without much choice. So we better start saving him. We need to get him more water and see what kind of nourishment there is around here. His body’s got to start building back its blood supply. Gotta fight off infections.”
Tess laughs. “What? All of a sudden you’re a doctor?”
“When you spend two years alone in the wilderness with boxes of books and magazines, something’s bound to stick.”
I touch Mercedes elbow. “I’ll get some water. You can use those night eyes to see what he’s got around here in the way of food.”
After feeling my way to the cabinet, I bring back as many bottles of water as I can carry. Trickle some on his forehead … try to cool his fever.
A beam of light flashes on across the room. Mercedes calls over, “Found a flashlight.”
Tess spits out, “Good. Now I can keep an eye on you.”
A couple minutes later, Mercedes is back with me at Jake’s side. She hands me a bottle … the bright blue liquid sparkles in the beam of the flashlight. The label says ‘Energy Drink.’ She unscrews the top, props up Jake’s head, and tries to get him to take some.
Mercedes shines the light on Tess.
Tess yells at her, “Put that thing down—jeez. Don’t shine lights in people’s eyes.”
“Sorry.”
“Not funny,” Tess screams.
Mercedes shines the light on the cabinets across the way. “We need to give him more medicine—fight off infection.”
“All right,” says Tess.
When Mercedes comes back, she nudges me. I watch her fill the needle just like Jake did. She hands it to me.
I look up at her … scrunch up my nose.
She whispers, “When I give the word,” she gives a quick nod over her shoulder, “stick the needle in Tess’s arm and push this thing all the way down so the medicine gets in her veins.”
I glance over at Tess.
Mercedes spins around and shines the flashlight in Tess’s eyes. “Now,” she says.
I turn … lunge at Tess … grab her arm … jab it with the needle … push the medicine into her.
Tess yelps … jerks away … slams the butt of the rifle into my shoulder. I drop to my knees. A few seconds later, the rifle crashes to the floor … a loud thud … Tess is on the floor, too, reaching for the rifle.
I scream. “Mercedes!”
Tess collapses.
Mercedes crouches down and grabs the rifle … puts a hand on my knee. “You okay?”
I stare at Tess’s limp body.
Mercedes sighs. “I recognized a word on the medicine bottle—‘anesthesia.’ Remembered it from one of the books I scarffed off—uh—I guess it’s okay to call him ‘grandpa.’ Anyway, it’s a drug that makes people go to sleep so doctors can cut them open.”
I lean into her, and she stokes my hair while I cry.
Deputy Sheriff Baker
Shades of grey—from ash to charcoal—nature’s new palate for a landscape that used to be greens and browns. What was once a tangle of Manzanita looks more like bundles of twisted rebar. Blackened spikes—the remnants of tall pines—stick up out of the smoldering landscape. All that’s left of this multi-million dollar cabin—save a crumpled, blistered metal roof and heaps of charred timbers—are blue-grey steel doors and thick concrete walls protecting the bunker entrance.
I tell the SWAT commander, “No idea who or what’s in there, but somebody gave the security company operator the impression they were in trouble.”
He looks at me sideways, “No shit. They were trapped in an inferno.”
I furrow my brow. “A place that solid—they could have waited for the fire to burn over them. No, they wanted out of there for some other reason—just when it was supposed to be the safest place around.”
“We’re going to have to blast it open.”
“You’re the experts. Besides, I don’t see any other options.”
“We’ll get it set up. Keep your people back until we give you the all clear.”
“Will do.” I motion to Grimes and the others to back up to the gravel road where two EMT trucks are standing by.
The SWAT team forms behind portable barriers as the demolition guys rig their explosives. The second they hear the blast, they’ll charge forward, carrying the barriers in front, then fan out inside.
Amy
After I feed Jake more of the blue liquid, Mercedes shines the flashlight on the medicine bottle—the one Jake used on himself. She carries the empty bottle to the cabinet and searches, then she goes over and feels along the wall next to the big metal doors. When she comes back she shows me the medicine bottle and says, “This is the one.”
I hold the flashlight while she fills the needle. Shine it on to Jake’s arm so she can see what she’s doing when she sticks it in.
She looks up at me. “Couldn’t find any way to open the doors. Guess we’ll have to wait for him to wake up or hope someone comes looking for him.”
We sit on the floor and wait. Mercedes insists we turn off the flashlight to save batteries—except now and then, she shines it on Tess’s limp body to be sure she’s still asleep. She could be dead for all I care.
The air tastes stale—like we’re breathing it for the umpteenth time. My cheeks burn the way they do on a hot day. Mercedes coughs. Jake groans. He mumbles something that makes no sense.
We jump up at the same time. Mercedes switches on the flashlight. I touch his forehead—clammy, cool. He turns his head away from my hand.
“Jake,” I whisper.
He blinks. “Uhh ….”
Mercedes grabs the blue liquid. Props up his head. “Here, drink some.”
He opens his mouth—lets her dribble some of it in. Coughs, sputters. He lifts his hand to his face, wipes his mouth, whispers, “More.”
Mercedes helps him drink until the bottle’s empty, then lays his head back on the table. He sighs.
“Can you hear us?” I say.
He lifts his hand off the table … whispers something … opens his eyes. “’S dark.”
“Lights went out,” I say. “The humming stopped.”
He coughs. “Generator … must’ve blown.”
Mercedes and I shrug.
He takes a deep breath. “How long?”
“A while,” Mercedes says.
He moves his head a little, side to side. Twists his body, tries to prop himself up on his elbow. “Gotta get up.”
Mercedes blurts, “No. You need to rest. You lost lots of blood.” She rolls him onto his back.
A sound like thunder from the big metal doors—stompi
ng feet—men yelling, “Police! Police! Everyone down! Down on the floor!” Bright lights shining in our eyes.
“Down now! On the floor! Everybody!”
I drop to the floor and cover my head with my hands … peek to the side … Mercedes feet … she’s still standing by the table.
She yells at the men, “He’s hurt—needs help—get a doctor in here.”
A man shouts again, “Down! Everybody on the floor! You too, ma’am.”
Someone shoves her to the floor. I’m too afraid to move.
I turn my head to see Jake. One of the men is standing at the table. He shouts, “I’ve got a pulse. Get the medics in here—stat.”
Another yells, “Got another one over here. Unresponsive. Gonna need a bus for this one, too.”
A hand reaches down … someone helps me up. They’re helping Mercedes, too.
A man says, “Come this way.”
I peek over my shoulder as I’m pushed along. People are standing over Jake … hooking up tubes. Others are kneeling next to Tess punching buttons on their machines.
Mercedes turns to me. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Chapter Seventeen
Deputy Sheriff Baker
This is one of those times I’ve had to call on every ounce of professionalism and every minute of training I’ve accumulated over my career. The dark-haired girl sitting at the interrogation table just told us a story that makes me want to take off my badge and dispense some form of primal justice directed at the Tess woman we already have in custody, not to mention the Bryce character who’s still at large. The female deputy from Central and the CPS caseworker don’t appear any happier.
“Okay,” I say. “Do you mind going over this one more time—just to be sure I’ve got things straight?”
She nods.
“You’re about seventeen?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you used to live in the shack across the lake from that bunker where we found you?”
“That’s right. ’Til about two years ago when I ran away.”
“And that was because this guy Bryce was—uh—he was raping you?”
She lowers her head and mumbles.
“Sorry, can speak up so I’m sure of what you say?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“This woman, Tess—she’s your mother?”
“That’s what she says.”
“And Bryce? Is he your father?”
“No … at least not to me.”
“She knew what Bryce was doing?”
The girl looks straight at me. “Oh yeah, she knew.”
I don’t know whether to smash a fist through that two-way mirror or cry. If I do nothing else the rest of my life, I’m going to nail this Bryce creep and make sure the ADA has everything she needs to put Teresa Armato away for a good long time. I take a deep breath. “Since you ran away, you’ve been living in an abandoned hut?”
“Over an hour hike from the lake … on the other side of Uncle Eric’s ranch.”
“But he’s not your uncle?”
“No. He’s RJ’s.”
“RJ’s your friend. He helped you get the other girl free from Bryce and Tess. But, they left him up on the ridge, tied up, so he’d die in the fire?”
Her eyes mist up. “Did you find him? I mean, his body.”
I swallow a lump in my throat. “We found a body. Not able to identify it, yet.”
“He has red hair.”
“Sorry, we couldn’t ….”
She turns away—starts to cry—looks back at me. “Hope you make Tess fry for what she did … and Bryce, too, if you catch up with him.”
“You said Bryce probably died in the fire.”
“Maybe. Tess strangled him with a rope—he seemed to be dead.”
“Okay. Now the man in the bunker. We know him as Jacob Chandler.”
“Amy called him Jake. Tess always said Mr. Chandler.”
“Now, you say he’s your grandfather?”
“That’s Tess’s story. But she might have made that up—just to get his money.”
“You also said Tess claims to be his daughter.”
“She claims—but she lies a lot.”
“We have ways of telling if people are related. There are tests we can do. We’d need a sample—a swab from your mouth. Would that be okay?”
She shrugs. “Sure.”
“Before we do that, I have a few more questions—do you mind?”
She folds her arms across her chest. “Shoot.”
“The other girl … Amy.”
“What about her?”
“Is she your sister, a cousin—or what?”
“No. When I was about five, she and Bryce came to live with me and Tess—if you can call what we did living.”
“Where’d they come from?”
“Don’t know.”
“Did Bryce or Tess ever say anything about where Amy came from—anything at all?”
“No.”
“No? Never?”
“No.”
I close the file. “There is one other thing—you talked about the night when you helped Amy. RJ’s uncle was shot.”
“I guess it was Bryce who shot him. He’s the only one who was there except me and RJ and Amy. He had a shotgun. He was shooting it off—shot at Amy and me, but missed.”
“Where was Tess?”
She purses her lips. “Getting it on with Uncle Eric. That’s why Bryce shot him.”
“Are you sure it was Bryce who was in the ranch house?”
“Yeah. He came storming out of the ranch house—into the barn, yelling for Amy and me. As much as I wanted to forget the sound of his voice ….” She points to her head, her eyes wide and wild. “I can’t get him out of here.”
“And later that night—you said you went to the lake—waited for Bryce to show up. When he did—at least you thought it was him—you walked up behind him with a shotgun pointed at the back of his head.”
“Actually, it was more like I was coming from the side than from the back—and all I could think was that I was going to rid the world of that scum.”
“But it wasn’t him.”
“I didn’t know that at the time. Not until Bryce and Tess ambushed RJ and me on the ridge.”
“Did you pull the trigger?”
Her head droops. “The door opened just as he reached for the latch. A shotgun went off … he flew backwards … dropped in a heap.” She looks up at me. “Don’t remember pulling the trigger. Can’t remember the recoil.”
I scratch my chin. Study her face for the slightest tic, but all I see are pleading eyes. I clear my throat. “He was shot in the face—and there wasn’t any buckshot on his backside. That’s what the forensics report says. So if you weren’t standing in front of him, there’s no way you’re the one who shot him.”
“Wish I could remember. Everything after the sound of that shotgun going off is a blur.”
“Thank you, Mercedes. You’ve been a big help.”
When we step out of the interview room, the case worker escorts Mercedes to meet her foster parents. A young couple has taken in both girls while CPS figures out what to do with them.
A couple of weeks later, Grimes is waiting for me.
“What do you have for me, Grimes?”
He hands me a folder. “Ballistics report, Boss.”
I scan it. “So in addition to having his face blown apart with Chandler’s pricey shotgun, our attorney friend, Roy Peterson, had a slug in him from his own hunting rifle.”
“Yeah, it’s the same weapon we found in Chandler’s bunker.”
“It was covered with Tess’s fingerprints—and it appears Chandler never touched it.”
“That’s what it says, and forensics says Tess’s DNA is all over Peterson’s house and inside his truck. But, it doesn’t look like the hunting rifle killed Peterson. The murder weapon was Chandler’s shotgun.”
I close the folder. “And there’s an unidentified set of prints on it—matching some we found at Eric Lamb’s ranch, likely belonging to this missing Bryce character.”
“Yeah. The same set was all over items we collected outside the shack by the lake, the one we thought Chandler burned down to cover Bryce’s murder.”
“Looks like I had Chandler all wrong.”
“I guess, but how do you explain the victim’s blood on Chandler’s shovel?”
“You said there were several sets of prints?”
“Yeah—in addition to Chandler’s, one of the girls, and the unidentified person who fired Chandler’s shotgun, killing Peterson.”
“So it’s either Mercedes smashing in the bum’s face in the aftershock of Tess shooting him, or Bryce trying to plant evidence to point us to Chandler. In any event, Chandler’s off the hook. Extend our apologies and let the hospital know that he’s no longer in custody.”
Jacob
Baker leaves it to one of his lackeys to break the news that I’m not a killer. Seems like Teresa and Bryce were the ones he should have been chasing after. I have to admit it. With those black holes in my memory, there were time even I thought I might have….
Carl picks me up at the hospital, and I insist we get lunch at the Sutter Street Grill in Folsom. Doctors say I need to build up my blood supply. I ignore their dietary suggestions—order up a big plate of biscuits and gravy that the diner’s famous for, plus a side of crisp bacon, a large orange juice, and coffee.
He looks at me across his plate of chorizo and eggs. “So what’s next?”
“Find Celine.”
“And the cabin.”
“Guess we box up the stuff in the bunker and store it somewhere. Clean up the lot and rebuild.”
He takes a sip of coffee. “What about the girls?”
“I suppose part of that’s up to them. They’re both almost eighteen. But as far as I’m concerned, anything they need, they get. And I hope that includes spending a lot of time with an adopted grandfather.”
He reaches into his valise and flashes a grin. “I have some copies of DNA reports I’ve been dying to show you. I just wanted to feel out your reaction first.”
“I don’t need DNA. I’ll know Celine when I see her.”
“Okay, but remember the DNA evidence they cited at your arraignment? It linked Celine to that shack.”