LA Requiem ec-8

by Robert Crais

  Paulette shook her daughter with a fierceness she hadn't felt in years. "No! You won't!"

  "He killed Daddy!"

  "You won V."

  Joe spoke quietly. "It's okay, Paulette. Let her call."

  Evelyn looked as surprised as Paulette felt, the two of them staring at Joe for a moment before Evie ran back toward the bedrooms.

  Paulette said, "Are you sure? I saw on the news."

  "I'll be gone before they get here. You look good, Paulette."

  He spoke with the absolute calm at which she had always marveled, and secretly envied. As if he were so certain of himself, so secure and confident that there was no room left for doubt. Whatever came, he could handle it; whatever the problem, he would solve it.

  She felt herself blush. "I've gotten older."

  "You've grown more beautiful."

  She blushed deeper, suddenly thinking how odd this was, to be here with this man after all this time, and to blush like a teenager because of him.

  "Joe, take off those glasses. I can't see you."

  He took off the glasses.

  My God, those eyes were incredible, so brilliantly blue that she could just stare. Instead, she got him the water.

  "Joe, I've seen the news. A friend of yours was here. What happened?"

  "We can talk about it later." He glanced after Evelyn and shrugged. "The police are coming."

  She nodded.

  "I didn't kill that man. Someone else did. The same person who killed another six people."

  "That's what your friend said."

  "His name is Laurence Sobek. He was one of Woz's informants. When the story is out, you're going to have the press

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  and the police bring up everything that happened on that day. They're going to dig into Woz again. Do you understand?"

  "I don't care."

  "It could hurt you."

  "It can't."

  Behind them, Evelyn spoke in a voice so soft that Paulette hadn't heard it since Evie was a child.

  "Why could it hurt her, and why do you care?"

  Paulette turned and looked at her daughter. Evelyn was peeking around the corner like a five-year-old, her face distant and smooth.

  "Did you call the police?"

  Evie shook her head.

  Pike said, "Go call. Your mother and I have to talk."

  Evelyn went to the bookcase and took down the picture of her father and Paulette and Joe Pike.

  "She keeps this out where anybody can see it." She looked at Paulette. "Why do you keep this goddamned picture? Why keep a picture of someone who killed the man you loved?"

  Paulette Wozniak considered her adult daughter for a time, then said, "The man I love is still alive."

  Evie stared at her.

  Paulette said, "Joe didn't kill your father. Your father killed himself. He took his own life." She turned back to Joe and looked at the placid blue eyes, the eyes that made her smile. "I'm not stupid, Joe. I figured it out years ago when I went through his notebooks."

  Joe said, "The missing pages."

  "Yes. He wrote about the Chihuahua brothers, and that whole mess. And then, later, just days before it happened, he wrote how he felt trapped. He didn't say he was planning on it. He didn't say what he was going to do or how, but he wrote that there was always a way out, and that a lot of cops had gone that way before."

  Evie was pulling at her fingers now, pulling and twisting like she was trying to rip them off.

  "What are you talking about? What are you saying?"

  Paulette felt a horrible pain in her chest. "I didn't know for

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  sure until I went through his books after he was dead, and then, I don't know, I just didn't want you to know the truth about him. You loved him so. I took out those pages and destroyed them so you could never find them, but I know in my heart what he was saying there. Joe didn't kill your father. Your father took his own life, and Joe took the blame to protect you, and me."

  Evie shook her head, and said, "I don't believe you."

  "It's true, honey."

  Paulette tried to put her arm around Evelyn, but Evelyn pushed her away. Paulette looked at Joe then, as if maybe he would know what to do in the sure certain way of his, but that's when a large, muscular man wearing sunglasses stepped out of the kitchen behind Joe, aimed a black pistol, and pulled the trigger.

  Paulette screamed, "Joe!"

  Her shout was drowned by a deafening sound that hit her like a physical blow and made her ears ring.

  Joe hunched forward, then spun so quickly that he seemed not to move at all, was just suddenly facing the man, a big gun in his own hand, firing three huge times so fast that the shots were one BAMBAMBAM.

  The big man slammed backward, hitting the kitchen floor with a wheeezing grunt, and then there was silence.

  The moment was absolutely still until Joe hunched again, and that's when Paulette saw the blood spreading on Joe's back like some great red rose.

  She said, "OhmyLord! Joe!"

  Joe winced when he tried to straighten, then looked at Paulette, and smiled. She hadn't seen that smile in so many years that her heart filled and she wanted to cry, though the smile was small and hurt.

  He said, "Gotta go now, Paulette. You take care of your baby."

  Joe Pike held her gaze for another moment, then turned away as the large man sat straight up on the kitchen floor as if rising from the dead and shot Joe again.

  Joe Pike fell hard.

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  The two women finally arrive, and Sobek eases down the hill to Paulette's house. He knows from watching that none of the neighbors are home, so he strolls up the drive and into Paulette Wozniak's garage without fear of being seen.

  He creeps through the garage past Paulette Wozniak's ticking car, and puts his ear to the utility door, but doesn't hear anything. He knows that doors like this usually open to a laundry room or a kitchen, and decides to take the chance that Pike and the others aren't poised on the other side. He turns the knob, then cracks the door, and sees a washer and dryer.

  He can hear voices now, and then a woman shouts, "What could you possibly have to say? You killed him! Mother, he's wanted! He just murdered someone else!"

  Sobek grips the .357, pulls back the hammer, then eases into the laundry. He peeks into the kitchen. No one. He creeps through the kitchen, careful not to make any noise, getting closer and closer to the voices until they are just around the corner in the family room. Two women and the Pikester.

  Sobek takes a deep breath, then another, then steps around the corner and shoots Joe Pike in the back.

  Ka-Boom!

  The .357 kicks harder than the little .22s, and before he can shoot again Pike has a gun in his hands and fires BAM-BAMBAM. Three bricks hit Sobek in the chest all at the same time, knocking him flat on his ass, and making him see stars.

  He thinks he is dead, then realizes that the Kevlar vest he's wearing under the sweatshirt has saved him. Most cops wear lightweight vests designed to stop common rounds like the 9mm or .45, but Sobek wears the heavier model, rated at stopping anything up to and including the .44 Magnum.

  Control.

  He hears voices. They're talking. Pike is still alive, but wounded.

  Second chance.

  Sobek sits up and shoots Joe Pike again even as the younger woman screams.

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  Pike drops like a bag of wet laundry, and Sobek says, "Cool!"

  The older woman falls to her knees beside Pike and grabs for his gun, but Sobek runs forward and kicks her in the ribs. He is dizzy from the hits that he's taken, but his kick is solid and upends her.

  A red pool spreads through Pike's shirt.

  Sobek looks at Paulette Wozniak, then the younger woman. "Are you Abel Wozniak's daughter?"

  Neither of them answer.

  Sobek points the .357 at the older one, and the younger one says, "Yes."


  "Okay. Let's get a couple of chairs, and you two sit down."

  Sobek feels disoriented and nauseated from the chest trauma, but he tapes their wrists and ankles to two wooden dining-room chairs and puts more tape over their mouths. Then he peels off his shirt and vest to inspect his wounds. The entire center of his chest is a throbbing purple bruise. The bullets probably broke some ribs. Christ, that Pike can shoot. All three bullets would've been in his heart.

  Sobek spits on Pike's body, and screams, "FUCK YOU!"

  The screaming makes his head spin worse, and he has to sit or throw up. When the spinning subsides, he considers the women.

  "You're next."

  He is thinking about how best to kill them when he hears a car door out front and sees two deputies strolling toward the house.

  Sobek drags the two women into a back room to hide them even as the doorbell rings. He puts on his shirt, not even thinking of the three bullet holes, and hurries to the door as it rings again. He plasters on a big smile, opens the door with a surprised expression, and says, "Oh, wow, the Highway Patrol. Are we under arrest?"

  The two deps stare at him for a moment, and then the closer one smiles. Friendly and getting the joke. "Is Mrs. Renfro at home?"

  I

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  "Oh, sure. She's my aunt. Did you want to see her?"

  "Yes, if we could."

  "Come on in out of that heat and I'll bring you back. She's in the pool."

  The other dep smiles then and takes off his campaign hat. He says, "Man, I could go for some of that."

  Sobek nods, and smiles wider. "Hey, why not? I'll get you guys a beer or a soft drink, if you like."

  He holds the door and lets them step past him into the living room, then closes the door, takes out his .357, and shoots both deputies in the back, puts the gun to their heads, and shoots them again.

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  Verdugo to Palm Springs was less than an hour. Paulette didn't answer when I called, which none of us liked, but I left word on her machine that she should drive directly to the Palm Springs Police Department and wait for us there.

  During the drive, Krantz spoke several times on the radio, once getting a report that sheriffs had arrived on scene at Paulette's, and that everything was fine.

  We left the interstate at North Palm Springs and drove directly to Paulette's house in the hills above the windmills. A clean new sedan that I didn't recognize was parked in the drive. The garage door was down, and no other cars were parked on the block. The house, like the neighborhood, was still.

  I said, "I thought the sheriffs were supposed to be here."

  "They were."

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  Krantz got on his radio and told someone to confirm with the sheriffs, then have them send another car.

  We parked beside the sedan, and got out.

  Williams said, "Goddamn. It's hot as hell out here."

  We didn't make it to the front door. We were passing the big picture window when all three of us saw the body in the family room, and a cold sweat broke over my back and legs even in the awful desert heat.

  "That's Joe."

  Williams said, "She-it."

  Krantz fumbled out his gun. "Jerome, radio back. TelFm we need cars right goddamned now. I don't care who. Tell 'm to send an ambulance."

  Williams ran back to the unit.

  Two swerving blood trails led out of the living room through the family room and into the kitchen. I couldn't see any other bodies, but I thought it might be Paulette and Evelyn. Then I saw that the sliding back doors were open.

  "I'm going in, Krantz."

  "Goddamnit, we gotta wait for backup. He might still be in there."

  "Those people might be bleeding to death. I'm going in."

  The front door was locked. I trotted around the side of the house, popping fast peeks through every window I came to, not seeing anything unusual until I found Paulette and Evelyn in the rear corner bedroom. They were taped to chairs with duct tape covering their wrists and ankles and mouths, and struggling to get free. I tapped on the glass, and their eyes went wide. Evelyn struggled harder, but Paulette stared at me. I made a calming gesture, then spread my hands, asking if Sobek was in the house.

  Paulette nodded.

  I mouthed, "Where?"

  Paulette shook her head. She didn't know.

  I moved along the rear of the house to the glass doors, dropped into a push-up position, and peeked inside. Joe was slumped on his side, the back of his shirt damp with blood. I

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  was trying to see if his chest was moving when I heard a voice. The two blood trails ran past Pike through the kitchen and into the laundry room; that's where the voice came from. I looked at Pike again, and this time the tears started and my nose clogged, but I made the tears stop.

  Krantz came toward me from the opposite side of the house, stopping on the other side of the doors. He had his gun out, holding it with both hands. "I've got units and paramedics on the way."

  "Paulette and her daughter are alive in the room at the end of the hall. I'm hearing something in the garage. You get them out of here, okay? Get them safe."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Someone's in the garage."

  Krantz swallowed, and I could see then that he heard the voice. "Ah, maybe I should do that."

  I liked him then, for maybe the first time. "I'm better, Harvey. I'll do it. Okay?"

  He stared at me, and then he nodded.

  "Just get them out of the house. Where's Williams?"

  "Covering the front."

  "He got a radio?"

  "Yeah."

  "Tell him we're going inside and not to shoot me, then get those women."

  I stepped through the doors. The smell of blood was thin, and raw, and the great black desert flies had already found their way into the house. Pike was out in the center of the floor, but I did not go to him. I stayed near the walls, trying to see as many doors as possible.

  I whispered, "Just us, buddy."

  The blood trails arced through the kitchen and into a laundry room, where they stopped at a closed door. The voice was behind the door. Maybe Sobek was sitting in the garage talking to the bodies. Lunatics do that.

  Here's what you do: You open the door, or you walk away and wait for the Palm Springs PD. If you walk away, then

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  whoever is in the garage bleeds to death and you have to live with that, and with knowing you didn't go in because you were scared. These are the choices.

  I closed my eyes, and whispered, "I don't want to get shot."

  Then I hammered back my pistol, took six fast breaths, and went in.

  Sobek's red Cherokee was parked directly in front of me, the sheriff's car next to it, both engines ticking. The two deps were in the front seat of their car, the remains of their heads slumped together in death. The voice was coming from their radio. I looked under both cars, then glanced into their backseats. Sobek wasn't there.

  I closed the utility door behind me, and went back into the kitchen. Krantz had freed Paulette and her daughter. They were behind him, just coming into the family room from the hall. I thought we were going to make it. I thought that we'd get them out of there, and safe, but that's when Jerome Williams shouted something from somewhere outside, and two fast shots cracked through the house.

  Krantz shouted, "Jerome!"

  Laurence Sobek ran out of a doorway at the end of the hall and in that crazy moment might have been Joe Pike; large and powerful, and dressed as Pike used to dress, even down to the sunglasses. But not. This was a mutant Pike, an anti-Pike, distorted and swollen and ugly. He didn't look like Curtis Wood now; he looked more like the inbred villain in a slasher movie.

  Paulette, Evelyn, and Krantz were in the line of fire between me and Sobek. I yelled, "DOWN! GET DOWN!"

  Krantz shoved Paulette out of the way, aimed past Evelyn, and fired tw
ice, hitting Sobek in the big torso both times.

  Sobek came off the wall firing blindly, his bullets hitting the floor and the ceiling. One of his rounds caught me under the right arm with a hard slap, knocked away my gun, and spun me into the refrigerator.