Yesterday's Echo

by Matt Coyle

  Moretti sauntered into the room just as I stood up from Dan’s desk to leave. He ignored me and took the sketches from the artist and headed over to the copy machine next to the coffeemaker. I’d started to turn to leave when I noticed Moretti stop and stare at one of the sketches. He gave a quick glance in my direction and then went into the chief’s office, closed the door, and shut the blinds.

  I didn’t wait around to find out who he’d recognized or why the chief had to see the sketch in a sealed room. It could have been a suspect in a high-profile case they wanted to keep the lid on. It could have been an ex-cop they knew. It probably had nothing to do with me. But when that door shut and those blinds snapped shut, the memory of Santa Barbara Police Department and another sealed room rushed back at me. My body flashed hot and my breath caught in my throat. I bolted out of the squad room, down the stairs, and out of the station house.

  Muldoon’s

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I shut down Muldoon’s early and was home by eleven thirty. Three or four beers and then bed was the plan. I’d had enough excitement for one day. And one night. I had a Ballast Point Ale in my hand even before I opened the back door to let Midnight in. I put a hand out before he could jump up and knock me over again. I was almost knocked over anyway.

  Melody rushed in behind Midnight and planted her lips on mine before I could wipe the surprise off them.

  This time we made it to the bedroom. Despite the fast start, we took our time, explored and savored. The passion of last night was muted, but the feeling was more intense. Like it was more than sex. That it had meaning. Unlike last night, her eyes allowed me in. When I looked into them, I saw desire, yet vulnerability. A vulnerability that I shared and hadn’t felt since the early days with Colleen. It scared me, but in that moment I loved her for it.

  I rolled onto my back when we were done, and Melody nuzzled against my shoulder.

  “What happened to your face?” She traced a finger along my scab in the dark.

  The hair lifted off the back of my neck. Those were the first words Melody had spoken to me tonight. Her voice floating in the dark sounded so much like Colleen’s that I could have been back in Santa Barbara lying in bed with her eight years ago. Or standing over her grave, her voice accusing, coming up through the earth. Guilt flooded in through the cracks of my memories.

  “Hey, come back to me, Rick.” Melody gently squeezed my chin. “Where did you go?”

  A place that’s always there, no matter how far I run from it.

  “I’m right here.” I took her hand off my chin and held it in my own. “I’m not the one who disappears in the middle of the night.”

  “Ouch. I guess I deserved that.” She rolled onto her back but kept hold of my hand. “And you deserve an explanation.”

  “If you hadn’t come back, that would have been explanation enough. But you did.”

  “I wasn’t going to.” She blew out a deep breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye last night or leave you a note. I thought it would be best for both of us if I just disappeared. I wanted you to forget about me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my life is—complicated—right now.”

  “You mean there’s a man in it.”

  “No. My career. Things.” She squeezed my hand. “It just seemed that a relationship didn’t make sense right now.”

  “Then why did you come back?”

  “Because all the reasons why I shouldn’t have weren’t enough to stop me.” She rolled over on top of me and kissed me. “And I wanted to see if you felt the same way.”

  “Am I going to wake up tomorrow to an empty bed?”

  “No, but you might wake up to breakfast in bed. I make a mean stack of pancakes.” She rolled off me and rested her head in her hand. “Now, what happened to your face?”

  I told her about my adventures with the hard boys and the cops. I left out my trip to Shell Beach Motel. My pride didn’t want her to think that I’d crawled after her when she left me behind.

  “Rick, I’m so sorry about all this.” She ran fingers along my scalp and kissed my forehead. “You tried to protect me and look what happened. Why didn’t you just tell them what they wanted to know?”

  “I didn’t know where you were, so I couldn’t have told them if I wanted to.”

  “But you could have least told them the truth. That you knew me. Maybe they wouldn’t have hurt you.”

  “What happens between you and me is no one’s business but our own.” I rolled up on an arm so that we were face-to-face. “But if there is going to be an ‘our,’ I need to know why these men are after you.”

  She didn’t say anything and I waited. Her face was outlined in the dark, but her features hid in shadows. Finally her voice came out of the night. “They must be working for Peter.”

  “Stone?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So, he’s more than some jilted lover. What’s going on?”

  She turned away from me and rolled onto her other side. “I don’t know.”

  “Melody. These guys are dangerous. If you won’t tell me what this is about, then go to the police.” I laid my hand softly on her hip. “Or I will.”

  She was silent again. Then her voice, barely above a whisper, drifted over her shoulder. “I think my source is blackmailing Peter.”

  “I thought he was giving you information about Mayor Albright. What’s that have to do with Stone?”

  “He knows a lot of things about a lot of people. I don’t know what he has on Peter, but I don’t want to be the person who brings the police into it.” She sat up and faced me. Her eyes still pools of shadow. “Peter is a very vindictive man and knows a lot of ways to hurt people. Please stay away from him, Rick. I don’t want him to hurt you, too.”

  I didn’t want him to either. Stone had already pushed some pain my way through the restaurant before he even knew me. Now I was probably on his to-do list.

  “Who was the other guy?” I asked.

  “What other guy?”

  “Red soul patch with a prison tat on his neck. I saw you talking to him in the bar last night.”

  “Oh.” She turned slightly, her profile shadowed by the night. “He was just some guy hitting on me.”

  At that moment Midnight banged his head against the door from outside the bedroom. He had no qualms about being a third wheel. I got up and let him in and he went over to Melody’s side of the bed and sat in front of her.

  “Midnight has a crush,” I said.

  “We bonded while I waited for you to come home.”

  “Do you always make your entrances through the back door or were you hiding because you’d been followed again?”

  “I don’t think I was followed.” She scratched Midnight behind the ear. “Midnight started barking when I knocked on the front door, so I went in the backyard to quiet him.”

  “It looks like it worked.”

  “I’ve tamed my share of wild beasts.”

  The next morning was déjà vu of the one before. Midnight wagging his tail in front of me, empty sheets next to me. Well, most mornings started that way, but not with the essence of Melody lingering in my empty bed.

  Game over. I wouldn’t try to track her down this time. Fool me once, fool me twice. There were only two strikes in this game. I got up to let Midnight outside.

  The smell hit me as soon as I left the bedroom.

  Pancakes. A whole new ballgame.

  Melody stood next to the stove barefoot in my T-shirt, hair in a ponytail. Breakfast never looked so good. I wrapped my arms around her tight belly and kissed her neck. She purred. I could get used to that.

  “Smells fantastic,” I said.

  “I told you I have skills.”

  “Yes, even in the kitchen.”

  I grabbed Midnight’s bowl and filled it with dog food from the bag in the broom closet. After he’d chomped down his breakfast, I let him out and then went and got dressed. It was Turk’s turn to open Muldoon’s, so I
had the day to myself. And Melody.

  Breakfast was waiting for me when I returned to the kitchen. Steaming pancakes, melting butter, and Vermont maple syrup from my pantry. I sat down and noticed there was only one plate.

  “You’re not eating?” I asked.

  “I’m going to get dressed first.”

  “Not on my account.”

  “Then on mine.” She smiled. “Your skillet only has room for three pancakes at a time, anyway. I’ll get the next batch.”

  She lingered at the table waiting for me to take a bite. I did and fell in love.

  “You weren’t lying about your skills. These are fantastic!” I rubbed my thumb and fingers together. “There’s a layered richness to them.”

  “I used brown sugar instead of white.” She bounced slightly on her toes. “Glad you like them. I’ll be right back.”

  I finished my pancakes and dropped three dollops of batter down onto the cast-iron skillet Melody had pulled down from my pot rack. I had them flipped and on a plate for Melody by the time she returned. She wore the same jeans and green blouse that she’d had on only briefly last night. A touch of makeup around her left eye covered the residue of the fist to the face her source had given her two nights ago.

  She complimented me on the flapjacks, making it seem like I’d been the genius behind the batter. After we’d each polished off six, we pushed aside empty plates and lolled, full bellied, at the kitchen table.

  “Rick.” Melody’s eyes dropped to the bleached-oak kitchen table before they met mine. “I’m flying back to San Francisco today.”

  “Okay.” Well, we’d always have pancakes.

  “I’m filling in on the anchor desk.” She almost sounded apologetic. “It’s a great career opportunity.”

  “That’s great.” I tried to sound sincere. I don’t think I pulled it off.

  I was happy for her, but sad for myself. Melody had a career and deserved success. But, I had finally met someone who made me remember what life could be like before Santa Barbara.

  “This isn’t the end, Rick.” She reached for my hand across the table. “It’s the beginning.”

  Midnight’s growl from the backyard sounded right before a loud knock on the front door. I thought about letting him in to play bodyguard. But I headed out of the kitchen alone. I didn’t think the tough guys after Melody would make another play in the middle of suburbia while the sun was up.

  I opened the door and realized that I’d been thinking about the wrong tough guys.

  Muldoon’s

  CHAPTER NINE

  Dan Coyote and Tony Moretti stood together crowding my porch with their police presence. If given a choice between them and the two hard guys, I might have gone the other way. They flashed their badges like we were all strangers. I wished we were.

  “Mr. Cahill, we have a few questions we’d like to ask you involving a police investigation.” Moretti’s voice had none of yesterday’s contempt in it. I liked the new version better, but braced for an angle.

  “Did you get a hit on one of the sketches of the guys who jumped me?” I couldn’t think of any other reason, in my new life, that I’d have cops on my porch to start the day.

  Moretti’s eyes squeezed down and his lips went tight. Dan examined my welcome mat. I’d struck a nerve without even intending to. The sketch that had stopped Moretti in his tracks and sent him into his chief’s office was the nerve. How it was connected to LJPD, I didn’t know and the cops didn’t want me to. That was fine by me. Anything that kept the police out of my life was my first choice.

  But here they were, hiding their truth and wanting to know mine.

  “We’re here on another matter, Mr. Cahill.” Moretti hid his obfuscation under his new tone. I changed my mind. I liked his old voice full of hate better. At least I knew where I stood.

  “And what would that matter be?”

  “Rick,” Dan finally found his voice and then my eyes, “why don’t you invite us inside and we’ll explain.”

  I liked cops in my house even less than on my porch. But I didn’t want to give Moretti a reason to dislike me more than he already did. I waved them inside. Dan grabbed the morning newspaper off my porch and handed it to me as he passed through the door. I dropped it on the end table. Melody was still in the kitchen, quiet beneath Midnight’s huffing outside the back door.

  Moretti surveyed the living room. His pursed lips showed he was unimpressed with the maple bookshelf, mismatched furniture, department store entertainment center, and dog-worn carpet. He wasn’t in La Jolla anymore. Had to slum it in North Clairemont with the common folk. I maintained the manners of my class by not offering the cops a seat or anything to drink.

  We stood, an abbreviated football huddle, in the middle of my living room. I figured Moretti would want to play quarterback. The short ones always do. I shut up and waited.

  “Do you know a Melody Malana?” Moretti finally asked.

  I thought they’d come by to bullshit their way through a few questions to find out what I knew about the man in the sketch they were protecting. Not questions about Melody. And how had they linked Melody to me? The man in the sketch? Or, had the police themselves been following me? I flashed back to the cop who’d stopped Melody and me Sunday night and had hidden behind his floodlight.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Don’t try to play smart, Cahill.” He stepped in under my chin and drowned me in his cologne. “You don’t have enough practice.”

  Now we were back on familiar ground.

  “Rick.” Dan’s voice was calm against Moretti’s sudden agitation. “It’s important that we talk to Miss Malana. Please tell us where she is.”

  “What’s so important?” I wasn’t just going to roll over.

  Maybe Moretti was right about my level of smarts.

  “You going to lie to us again? You’re just itching to wear the bracelets. Aren’t you, Cahill?” He stepped in so close that his nose almost bumped my chin. “We’ll start with obstructing a police investigation and see what else sticks.”

  “Aren’t you a bit out of your jurisdiction to be slappin’ on handcuffs, Detective?” I looked down my nose at him. “This is San Diego PD’s beat.”

  “Try me.”

  The sound of a cabinet door closing came from the kitchen before I could say something else smart. All eyes shot to the doorway into the kitchen. Melody walked into the living room. She wore the same leather shoulder bag she’d had on last night when she surprised me with a kiss at the back door. The kiss suddenly felt like a fond memory from a long time ago.

  “What can I do for you gentlemen?” She smiled, her voice calm. She made it seem like starting the day with cops in your living room was as normal as sunshine in San Diego.

  Moretti eyeballed her up and down before he spoke. “Miss Malana?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Detective Moretti.” He showed her his badge and nodded toward Dan. “This is Detective Coyote. We need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Okay.” Melody joined our huddle.

  “Do you know a Mr. Adam Windsor?” Moretti asked.

  “Yes.” Melody said, the smile now tight on her face.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you that he was found dead yesterday morning.”

  Melody sat down on the sofa and stared at Moretti, but I don’t think she saw him. Some of the tan had washed out of her face, but her eyes revealed nothing.

  “Are you okay?” I sat down next to her.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Who’s Adam Windsor?”

  “Mr. Cahill,” Moretti interrupted, “we’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “My ex-husband.” Melody said, her voice flat like her emotions.

  Ex-husband?

  “What happened to him?” Melody asked, still under control. “How did he die?”

  “Undetermined at this time.” Moretti’s eyes bored in on her, a cardsharp looking for a tell. “His body was found at the Shell Beach
Motel.”

  Melody gave away nothing. I tried to do the same.

  Adam Windsor. Heather Ortiz’s DB. Melody’s ex-husband. Found dead at her motel. You didn’t have to be a cop to raise an eyebrow at Melody. She hadn’t necessarily lied to me, but she hadn’t been free with the truth. Maybe her ex staying at her motel would have come out eventually. I’d done my own share of withholding. But now there was a dead body, and I was still dealing with one of those from my own past. I wasn’t sure I knew Melody well enough to handle hers, too.

  Moretti said Windsor’s death was undetermined. But, Heather Ortiz had already labeled it an overdose yesterday after talking to Moretti. Maybe he was waiting for the coroner’s official determination before he told the whole truth. When would Melody do the same?

  “Miss Malana.” Dan stood over the sofa. “It would really be helpful if you’d come down to the station with us.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Melody’s eyes widened.

  Dan shot a look at Moretti and so did I.

  “No.” Moretti gave her a compassionate cop smile. “We just need to ask you a few more questions in a more appropriate environment.”

  “I’ll make coffee if you like.” I stood up. Moretti could smile all he wanted; nothing good ever came out of a station house talk. “But Melody stays here.”

  Instinct. Stupidity. Masochism. Any or all could apply, but heavy emphasis on stupidity.

  “I warned you, Cahill.” Moretti resumed his position as a wart on my chin. No compassionate cop smile for me. “Miss Malana may or may not be joining us, but you are.”

  Moretti reached behind his back on his belt and I heard the clink of handcuffs.

  “Detective Moretti?” Melody stood up. Her voice was high and caught in her throat. “Please let Mr. Cahill stay here. I’ll go with you to the police station.”

  Moretti snapped one cuff around my left wrist and shot hard, black eyes up at me. “You remember this feeling, don’t ya, Cahill? Cold steel pinching your wrists?”