Guilt

by John Lescroart

  Dooher kept up with questions. 'So what did Christina say? What did you talk about?'

  'Soybean futures, Mark. Maybe some pork bellies. Famous killers we have known.'

  Dooher put his hand on the door. 'You've always been a funny guy, Wes.' He popped the heel of his palm against the frosted pane. 'Where is she?' Another shot with his palm, rattling the window. Loud. 'Where the fuck is she?'

  Suddenly Sam was around Wes, slamming the door shut, turning the deadbolt. 'Keep the hell away from here!' she yelled through the door.

  Bart set up a racket and Wes leaned over, patting him, holding him by the collar, getting him under control. When he looked back up, the shadow was gone. He slumped against the wall. Sam had her back against the opposite wall. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I just didn't want…'

  'No, it's okay. He's gone now. That was a good move.'

  She came toward him, into his arms. 'What did he want?'

  'Christina's left him. He thought I'd know where she went.'

  'I don't want him coming around here.'

  'I don't either.' They started up the steps, arms around one another. 'You don't have to worry,' Wes said. 'He's just looking for her.'

  'I do worry. He didn't have to come by here. He could have called you at work tomorrow.'

  Wes thought about it. 'He's not going to do anything to me. He doesn't perceive me as a danger.'

  'This was a threat, him coming by here. He was threatening you.'

  'I don't think so. What for?'

  'For talking Christina into leaving him.'

  'I didn't do that. She did that on her own.'

  'She did it on her own after she talked with you at your office. It's a fine distinction.'

  Wes shook his head. 'There's no way.'

  She stared up into his face. 'You want to promise me one thing? You thought you knew him before. Remember that, would you? Remember that.'

  He kissed her. 'Okay, I'll remember.'

  Ravenwood Street in the dark.

  Slumped behind the wheel of his city car, Glitsky had the lights off but had left the motor running and the heater on. His hands encircled an oversized cardboard cup which had once held hot tea. The driver's side window was down an inch.

  Across the street, Dooher's house appeared and disappeared in the shifting fog. Fifteen minutes before, Glitsky had knocked on the front door and returned to his car to wait.

  He was thinking about Flaherty, wishing he hadn't come on so aggressively back long ago when he'd interviewed him. But then again, that's who Abe had been back then – a cop with a chip on his shoulder over Flo, over his life. Ready to explode at anybody, even people who might help him. Alienating everyone. Ineffective.

  The Lexus pulled into the driveway. Glitsky got out of his car and reached the front door at about the same time a light came on in the back of the house. He pushed the doorbell and listened to the eight tones: Lord we thank thee. We bow our heads.

  Another light inside, then overhead on the porch. When Dooher opened the door, Glitsky put a foot against it. 'I thought you'd be interested to hear that we're looking into Mr Trang's murder again. I wanted to give you the opportunity to confess to it now, save us all a lot of time and trouble.'

  'Get a life, private.' Dooher moved to close the door, but it wouldn't go.

  Glitsky kept talking. 'You've been through one trial. You know the heck it plays with your life. You don't really want to go through that again. And I'm betting you don't get bail this time. Just a hunch, but I'd go with it.'

  'What the hell are you doing here?'

  'I just told you.'

  'You got a warrant? You don't have a warrant, Sergeant, get off my property.'

  Glitsky moved his foot. 'I'm going to take that as a "no" on the confession, but you're making a mistake.'

  Dooher, disgusted, closed the door and turned out the overhead light. Glitsky, thinking he'd burned up his Friday-night fun quotient, decided to go home. He was almost across the patio when the light came back on. He heard the door open, the commanding voice. 'Glitsky.'

  Reaching inside his jacket for his.38 – you never knew – he revolved halfway around. Dooher stepped out on to the porch. 'It was you brought the Trang file over to Farrell's, wasn't it?'

  'He asked so nice, I couldn't refuse.'

  'And you saw my wife?'

  'Here's the thing, Mark. In my business, I generally ask the questions. You want to talk about Victor Trang, I'll listen all night long. But I've got nothing to say about your wife.'

  'You saw her at Farrell's. You know where she is now?'

  'Another question about your wife.' Glitsky tsked. 'And here I thought I'd made it so clear.' He shrugged. 'Not that it hasn't been a good time, but I've really got to go. I don't have a warrant and I've been ordered off the property. Unless you want to invite me in?'

  Dooher seemed almost to enjoy the moment. 'You're nearly as funny as my friend Wes – you know that, Glitsky? And I admire that in a man. Really, I do. But you can't touch me. You should realize that by now. The fact is – you just don't seem to be able to do your job, do you? Though I guess being black and all, that's not much of a problem. You don't actually have to perform, do you? Actually get anything done?'

  'Sometimes,' Glitsky said, his scar tight now – he could feel it. 'You might be surprised.'

  'Well, you do your best, then, would you? Give it your best shot. Or was that what you did with Sheila? No. That couldn't have been your best shot, could it?' Dooher took a few steps toward him, made his own tsking sound. 'Oh, that's right. You'd lost your own wife back then, didn't you? That must have been a hard time. That would explain why you couldn't touch me then either, why everything you did…' the voice got harsher, rasping '… was such a total fucking waste of time. You were sad, weren't you? Poor guy. That was it. That was why you were so incompetent. See? There's always a reason if you look hard enough for it. I wonder what it will be when you screw this one up.'

  'It'll be fun to find out.' Glitsky wouldn't take the bait. It did his heart good to see the real man for the first time. He half turned, then stopped, facing Dooher. 'Oh, and hey, good luck finding your wife. I wonder why she'd leave you.' A beat. 'Must have something to do with performance.'

  Dooher couldn't sleep.

  He kept coming back to Farrell.

  What made a man valuable was imposing his will on the world he lived in. It was winning. Big risk, big prize. And he was the Alpha Male. He'd won. He'd beaten Glitsky, beaten Farrell, beaten the whole system. And it got him the mate he wanted, the prime female. And now he's supposed to feel guilty? Please. Peddle that twaddle to one of the sheep.

  He kept coming back to Farrell, the whiner selling his loser's vision to Christina. By making Mark's guilt the big issue, he'd got her to leave him, tearing apart what Mark had earned.

  Naked, he wandered through the big house – the library, the kitchen, the living room where he'd fucked Wes's wife.

  He wondered if he knew. He should tell him.

  Outside, it was freezing. But he liked it, liked the midnight stroll down his driveway without his clothes on. He was untouchable – he could do whatever he wanted.

  He let himself into the garage. His M-16 was tucked into its shelf high up over his workbench and he took it down, unwrapping the cloth, shooting the bolt, sighting down the barrel, an idea forming.

  But no, he couldn't use anything as obvious as a rifle that could be traced to him. He put the gun down on the workbench and picked up a crowbar, hefting it against his palm.

  Doubts had tossed him from side to side on the bed for hours. Doubts about who he was. Doubts that he'd gotten himself to here by wanting too much, by lying, by lust, by murder, by all the cardinal sins. Now this – his world imploding, Christina leaving him – was his punishment.

  And maybe he deserved it.

  'Fuck that.'

  A violent shiver ran through him. He felt some coil release inside him and he brought the crowbar down in a deafening crash,
shattering the wood, scattering hardware and the now-broken glass from the storage jars over the M-16 and the rest of the workbench.

  Farrell was the prime mover here. He'd brought Glitsky back into it again after it should have been long over. Somehow Farrell convinced Christina that she had to move out.

  The self-righteous son of a bitch. Farrell, who'd never succeeded at anything, who believed in fair play and the goodness of man, was a slinking dog compared to the men who walked on this earth. How dare he presume to judge what Mark had done?

  But now it was clear: Farrell wouldn't rest until he had brought Dooher down to his level.

  He needed a lesson in where he belonged, in what his station was, in who made the rules.

  Dooher wasn't going to let this continue. He'd take care of it in short order, set the world back straight.

  Then go reclaim what was his.

  CHAPTER FOURTY NINE

  Diane Price volunteered at the Center on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings. She picked up the phone when it rang at 8:45. 'I'm looking for Samantha Duncan's number.'

  'I'm sorry,' Diane said. 'I can't give that out over the telephone, but I can call her and have her get back to you.'

  A frustrated sigh. 'It's just I've been awake half the night and I'm starting… well, never mind. That would be good, if you could ask Samantha to call me.' She gave her room number, the motel.

  'And who should Samantha ask for?'

  A long hesitation. 'Christina Carrera.'

  'You're Mark Dooher's wife,' Diane said.

  'That's right.' And clearly Christina had no idea to whom she was talking, who Diane was. She wondered briefly if she should tell her, then decided against it. What would be the point?

  'Oh…' On the phone, the woman gave a low moan, followed by a succession of quick breaths.

  'Are you all right?'

  The breathing slowed. The voice was normal again. 'I think I might be starting labor. Can you call Sam?'

  'I'll call her right away.'

  Irene Carrera walked out on to the pool deck where Bill was taking his morning laps. She watched the effortless glide of his body through the blue water, then her gaze went up and out over Ojai – the peace of it, the order.

  She pulled up one of the moulded-iron chairs as Bill executed a swimmer's turn and headed back up to the deep end. She'd let him finish his workout, a few more carefree moments before she disturbed him.

  Their daughter was in trouble again. Irene had just gotten off the phone with Mark. He told her he hadn't been completely truthful when they'd talked last night. Christina hadn't been home at that time. In fact, she hadn't come home at all. She was staring again out over the serenity of her valley.

  'What's that look for?'

  She hadn't noticed that Bill had finished and was walking toward her, toweling off, his usual easy smile in place. There was no avoiding it. She had to tell him.

  A puppet whose strings got cut, her husband slumped into another chair as she spoke to him. Irene continued. 'Mark said she called him last night. Told him she needed some time to think, but wouldn't say where she was. She's hiding out.'

  Bill let out a deep sigh, staring into the space between him and his wife. 'She's delivering his baby any time now and she's hiding out?'

  Irene nodded. 'Mark said she'd been acting unstable the last couple of weeks – skittish, crying jags, seeing ghosts everywhere…'

  'He called to ask us what we thought he should do. He sounded a wreck.' Anguish, now. 'Bill, why wouldn't she have called us?'

  He barely trusted himself to speak. He would go up and find her. Somehow. Help Mark if he had to, though he'd never warmed to the man. 'I don't know, hon.'

  'But wasn't it going so well? Hadn't she-'

  Shaking his head, interrupting. 'She didn't want us to know,' he said. 'She didn't want to disappoint us.'

  'So she won't call us?'

  'She'll call.' But his face betrayed his words.

  'Bill?' She stood and came up next to him, put her arms around him. 'I know what you're thinking, but we've got to keep Mark in this picture.'

  He said nothing.

  'He's her husband. He still believes in her -I heard it in his voice. If we hear from her, we have to tell her that. You don't leave. You don't always leave.'

  'We don't know the whole story, Irene. Maybe Mark drove her in some-'

  But she stepped away, fire in her eyes. 'No! That's always been her excuse and-'

  'It wasn't an excuse with Brian, Irene. The bastard was married to somebody else, knocked her up and dumped her. That's not an excuse.'

  'All right, but what about Joe Avery? What about all the other men?'

  'Maybe they weren't good enough for her.'

  She glared at him. 'Spoken like a true father, Bill.'

  'What do you mean by that? I am her true father.'

  'And every time she left some man, it was always okay, because they weren't good enough for her. And every time, it broke her heart a little more, but it was okay, it was okay. She was still Daddy's little girl.'

  'Irene…'

  'No, listen. She's almost thirty years old. She's picked a good man, I'm convinced of that. A good man.'

  'I don't know that.'

  'Bill. You do.'

  'Then tell me why she's left him?'

  'I don't know. But he called us. This isn't someone who's beating her. She's never said a bad word about him. He doesn't know what to do, so he comes to us. Doesn't that tell you something? Isn't that a good sign?' He didn't want to hear it, but it needed to be said. 'Bill, she married him. It's time she learned that's where her life belongs, with her husband. Not with us. We love her, but she can't keep coming back to us. She'll never grow up. She'll never have a life.'

  They faced each other in the calm Ojai morning. Blue jays were fighting for territory in the air above them. One of the canyons off to their left echoed with the howl of a coyote.

  They went on the assumption that you always made mistakes, which was how they thought they'd catch you.

  Dooher had to admit that even he had made a few.

  Well, to be honest, he'd made none with Nguyen.

  But there had been a couple of small errors with Trang – the cellphone business, how could anybody be expected to know about that? But with Trang they'd only gotten as far as an investigation.

  With Sheila, they got him all the way to trial, so by objective standards, he supposed he was slipping. He'd been forced to hurry his plans after Avery had gone down to LA. If he didn't move fast, he ran a risk with Christina. Someone else might have come along and distracted her and he would have been back to where he started. So he'd had to strike when he did.

  But the lack of planning had showed.

  The knives were one of the problems, though he favored a knife because you had control. You put it where it needed to go and held it there, feeling the life slip away, until you knew you'd done it.

  But a knife was too much trouble. Too dirty. He'd had to throw the bayonet off the Golden Gate.

  He'd thought he'd solved the problem with the kitchen knife, the gyrations with the blood and the glove and the botched burglary. But that had been close – his cleverness had nearly done him in.

  He'd really learned a lot – the trial had been instructive that way. There were phone trails, paper trails, evidence trails, eyewitnesses, and trackers among the police for each of them.

  So this time, from the moment he began to move, he wouldn't leave any hint.

  Glitsky would know. How could he not know? But there would be nothing he could do.

  He wasn't going to leave any messages on answering machines. All Saturday morning, no one answered at Wes and Sam's, and he hung up as soon as he heard the message begin.

  After he'd made his decision last night, sleep came more easily. Indecision was the ruin of lesser men. He'd set his body clock for around 9:00 and called the Carreras down in Ojai. If he was going to locate his wife, he would need Irene.

&
nbsp; Sam didn't pick up, and Diane Price called Christina back at her motel and asked if there was anything she could do. 'How far apart are the contractions?' she asked.

  'Not close. Seven minutes. They warned us about this in Lamaze. They won't admit me until it's two or three minutes. It's going to be a while.'

  'Why are you in a motel?' Diane asked.

  'That's a long story.'

  'Is there anybody with you?'

  'No.'

  'I could come.'

  'Why would you do that?'

  'You used to volunteer at the Center here, too, didn't you? Us guys ought to stick together, don't you think?' Diane thought saying anything about the further connection between them at this moment would be counter-productive. She heard the breathing again. When it returned to normal, Diane spoke again. 'I've been through this with two kids of my own, Christina. I could keep you company. We could talk. You need somebody with you. How are you getting to the hospital?'

  'I don't know.'

  Diane made up her mind. 'I'll be there in ten minutes.'

  Christina opened the door to her motel room. The woman was bundled for the chill – heavy woolen coat, enormous leather carry-all, designer ski cap pulled down over dense graying hair. But she smiled warmly, projecting a calm confidence that Christina found comforting. She had beautiful gray-green eyes.

  There was also something familiar about her. 'Do I know you? How did you know I was Mark Dooher's wife?'

  The smile remained. The eyes seemed to know everything. She didn't move forward, but seemed content to wait out in the cold until this was cleared up, until Christina had accepted it. She might not, after all, want her around after she knew. And that would certainly be understandable. 'Sam said you were smart.' A proffered hand. 'I'm Diane Price. It's nice to meet you at last.'

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  At 12:45, Wes picked up on the second ring, heard Mark Dooher's voice. 'I'm going to start by apologizing.'

  He didn't reply. Dooher continued. 'I was out of line. I shouldn't have come by your house, made cracks about your girlfriend.' He paused. 'Look, Wes, Christina ran out on me. I freaked out. I'm sorry.'