Yesterday's Echo

by Matt Coyle

  “Sit down and don’t move.” I sat down and Parks walked over to Heaton’s fallen body.

  “What did you do with Kim?” Time was my ally. If I could get him talking, I might have a chance of surviving. And if I didn’t, maybe the extra few seconds would save Kim.

  Parks opened the backpack with his free hand and looked inside, then back at me. “You killed her.”

  Tears welled in my eyes and washed the trickle of blood. “You motherfucker!” I rose up to start a suicide charge when Parks stopped me.

  “Whoa! You haven’t killed her yet. She’s in the trunk.” He nodded over to the Crown Vic parked ten yards away. “You set yourself up nicely, Cahill. Some of your hair, extra from the hat you left in Windsor’s hotel room, will be found in Heather Ortiz’s house. I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble if I’d known you were going to walk all over the crime scene on your own. I just heard it on the scanner. Some citizen saw you fleeing Heather’s house. You are one stupid son of a bitch, Cahill. Just like your old man. You have to be stupid to get caught.”

  “You don’t think you’ll get caught?”

  “You just brought me the evidence I needed.” He pulled Windsor’s ledger out of my backpack and waved it at me. “Goodbye, Cahill.”

  “What about Windsor’s book?” I braced for impact. “I copied it on a flash drive and mailed it to a friend. If I don’t show up at his house on Monday, he’ll send it to the police and the newspaper. Windsor named names. Like Scarface.”

  “You don’t have any friends, Cahill.” He pointed the Glock at me.

  “Hey!” Turk burst through the fog.

  Parks spun and fired at Turk just as I dove at him. The Glock went off again and pain ripped through my left shoulder and my left ear went deaf. Turk, Parks, and I all hit the ground at once. Only Turk had stopped moving.

  I lunged across Park’s body and grabbed for the gun with my live hand. But it wasn’t there. It was on the ground ten feet away. Parks clamped his hands around my neck and squeezed, digging his thumbs into my Adam’s apple. Rage burned in his black eyes. I choked out a cough and fought for air. None. I shot a right to his nose and his hands released, but one found the hole in my shoulder and tore at it.

  Pain blast furnaced through me. Parks pushed me off, scrambled to his feet, and lurched to his gun. I sprang backward toward Heaton’s body and spotted his Smith & Wesson. I grabbed it, spun around on my back, and fired five rounds at the dark shape my one good eye could see just as the Glock went off and punched a hole in the Caddy next to my left ear. Parks was still upright and I pulled the trigger again, but the cylinder was empty. I dove over Heaton, expecting the last gunshot I’d ever hear.

  Silence.

  I looked up to where Parks had been standing. He wasn’t there anymore. I lowered my eyes and found him. Laid out on the asphalt parking lot, black eyes staring at nothing, the gun off to the side. I walked over to him, bent over and picked up the weapon. The ground started to roll as I rose. My ears felt clogged with cotton and the night closed around me in a narrowing pipe. I wouldn’t be conscious much longer.

  Turk lay still, face down twenty feet away. Parks’s car with Kim in the trunk a few strides in the other direction. I started to turn toward Turk when I noticed the holes. Two bullet holes in the trunk of the Crown Vic. Right in my line of fire when I emptied the gun at Parks.

  I bent down and got the keys out of Parks’s pocket and staggered over to the car. The night kept rolling in on me as I fumbled the keys into the lock and threw open the trunk. Kim lay still inside, blood pooled below her head.

  I fell to my knees, saw a floating rainbow above two fuzzy orbs of light rolling toward me, then slid down onto my back. The last thing I saw was the forty-three-foot cross looming over me like a giant dagger.

  Muldoon’s

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  I opened my eyes to bars of shadow across a wall. I figured I was in a jail cell until a nurse’s face appeared in front of mine. She said something about window blinds and I closed my eyes.

  The next time I opened them, I saw Detective Moretti frowning down at me. Maybe I was in jail. Or hell. I checked the off-white walls, mounted television, and IV needle in my arm. No, still the hospital.

  “Is Kim alive?” The words were sharp in my throat and came out raspy.

  The image of Kim wedged in the trunk of Parks’s car, lying in a pool of blood, hurt worse than the hole in my shoulder. I held my breath and waited for Moretti’s answer, as if the verdict of Kim’s life was at his command.

  “Yes.” Moretti’s frown flattened into a straight line. “She’s going to be fine. She sustained a blow to the head from her captor and was knocked unconscious. She has a few stitches, but no lasting injuries.”

  “She wasn’t shot?”

  “No. She’s very lucky.”

  “Thank God.” Tears welled in my eyes. The first tears caused by joy since before Colleen was murdered. Then I remembered Turk lying still, facedown, on the asphalt parking lot below the cross.

  “What about Turk Muldoon?” Again, I waited for Moretti’s verdict.

  “He’s alive. In ICU. The bullet fired by the assailant lodged next to his spine. The doctor says he’ll survive, but may never walk again.”

  The tears of joy dried up and a dark hole opened up inside me. Turk had set aside our war to help me when I was in trouble. He’d saved my life and paid for it with his freedom. He’d no longer be able to view life from eight thousand feet up, dangling off a granite face.

  “You want to tell me what happened up there, Cahill?”

  I figured Moretti hadn’t shown up in my hospital room to hold my hand. I told him about the whole night, but left out the evidence I’d taken from Windsor’s locker. And Stone. I’d deal with him on my own.

  “That’s quite a story, Cahill.”

  “It’s the truth.” But not the whole truth. “Kim can verify it.”

  “I talked to Miss Connelly.” Dark eyes bore into me. “When Mr. Muldoon’s conscious, I’ll talk to him, too.”

  “Okay.” I waited for what he hadn’t told me yet.

  “People died because of you, Cahill.” The rage built in his eyes. “You withheld evidence in a murder investigation. If you would have turned that evidence over to me, Heather would still be alive. Now the fucking media is going to make you out to be a hero.”

  “You don’t have to worry about the media, Moretti. I don’t want anything to do with them.”

  “Shut up.” He closed the door to the hospital room, then moved a chair next to my bed and sat in it. “You’re a grade A asshole, Cahill. You stick your nose where it doesn’t belong and leave dead bodies and broken lives in your wake.”

  I couldn’t argue with him.

  He continued. “Well, there are sixty-seven lives hanging in the balance because of you now. The people employed by LJPD and the District Attorney’s Office.”

  Now I understood why he’d used “captor” and “assailant” when referring to Kim’s and Turk’s injuries. This wasn’t about justice. This was about survival. LJPD’s survival. If La Jollans knew the police chief had died a three-time murderer and not a hero, they’d surely vote to disband the department when the proposition went on the ballot.

  “Let me tell you the official story.” He leaned in on me, his cologne reminding me of the man I’d killed at the cross. “Stamp Heaton and Adam Windsor used to be partners when Stamp was on the force. Heaton protected Windsor from arrest when he was running women in La Jolla. Then Windsor got out of prison and decided to blackmail his old partner. Heaton killed him, then killed Heather when he learned she was on to him. Then he kidnapped your old girlfriend to lure you to your death because you knew too much.”

  “That’s quite a tale, Detective, but it doesn’t explain Chief Parks’s showing up at the cross.”

  “Parks had Heaton under surveillance and got to the cross in time to save you and Miss Connelly, but unfortunately died in a shootout with Heaton.”

&nbs
p; “What if I don’t play along with your bullshit story?”

  “Right now, Heather’s case is open and you’re still a suspect. We have a witness who is convinced he saw you fleeing the scene.” He gave me a smirk. “Of course, he could be mistaken and some compelling evidence that Mr. Heaton committed the crime could come to light.”

  Moretti had built a house of cards that could be brought down by the slightest bit of investigative journalism or me opening my mouth. But when those cards came down, I’d be at the bottom of the pile again, a suspect in another murder. I’d need a lawyer, and I’d be under the spotlight again.

  I’d lived with a lie for eight years, I could live with another one as long as innocent people didn’t get hurt. Heaton wasn’t a murderer, but he wasn’t innocent either. But I wouldn’t ask Kim to lie for me. My self-preservation had its limits.

  “You’re going to have a hard time convincing Kim that it wasn’t Parks who kidnapped her. That’s the one loose end that unravels your little yarn, Moretti.”

  “Like I told you, Cahill.” He leaned closer. I could make out the cleft lip scar under his mustache. “I’ve talked with Miss Connelly. She understands the seriousness of your situation, as I’m sure Mr. Muldoon will when he regains consciousness.”

  Kim, still looking out for me even after all I’d put her through.

  “Detective Coyote going along with all this, or haven’t you told him yet?”

  “Detective Coyote is taking an early retirement.” He dropped his eyes.

  “There’s one man with a conscience. What happened to yours? Is it tough to sleep at night, Moretti?”

  “I sleep fine. It’s not like Stamp Heaton was a saint, Cahill.”

  “Neither was Parks, but now you’ve made him one.”

  “Where he’s going, it won’t matter.” He grabbed the guardrail of my hospital bed. “Do we have an understanding, Rick?”

  I nodded my head, but I didn’t think I’d get much sleep tonight or anytime soon. Moretti stood up to leave, but I stopped him. “And the evidence you found in the backpack of Melody and Angela Albright.”

  “Doesn’t exist.” He walked to the door and opened it.

  “One last thing, Moretti.” He turned hard eyes back on me. “When you questioned Melody about how my Callaway hat ended up at the Windsor crime scene, what did she say?”

  He told me and left.

  An hour later, Kim came into my room. Her head was wrapped in a bandage, but her green eyes were clear and beautiful. Joy and guilt hit me hard in the gut all at once.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Tears welled in her eyes, emeralds in pools of rain. She came to me and delicately hugged me, avoiding my bandaged shoulder, stitched brow, and cotton-packed nose. Hot tears dripped on my neck.

  “How can you say you’re sorry?” She unwound from me and pulled back. “You saved my life and almost died because of it.”

  “I put your life in danger. If I had just taken what I had to the police instead of playing hero, none of this would have happened. Heather Ortiz would still be alive.”

  “You didn’t have a choice, Rick. You did what you thought was right. You always do. You’re a good man.”

  Kim had always believed in me. She’d only brought up Colleen once, early in our relationship, just to let me know she’d listen if I ever wanted to talk. I never did. I let her believe that I was an innocent victim who’d been unjustly hounded by the police and the press.

  “I was supposed to pick up Colleen from the library the night she died.” I looked up at the blank television screen in the corner of the room, not wanting to see the change in Kim’s eyes that was sure to come. “It was a ritual we had. We never broke it. No matter what. She’d study at the library until closing, and I’d come by in my radio car to pick her up and take her home. It was against Santa Barbara PD procedure; just one of the rules I broke back then.

  “We’d had a fight before my shift started that night. We had a lot of fights back then, but this one was bad. Furniture thrown, broken plates. She didn’t like that I spent so much time with my ex training officer, Krista. She told me that I’d changed from the guy she’d fallen in love with after I became a cop. That I’d become short tempered, callous, and full of myself. I could have blamed it on working the streets, seeing what depraved people did to each other. But she was right. I was just too puffed up behind the badge on my chest to see it then. When I finally did, it was too late.”

  I dropped my head, and Kim put a hand on my arm. I shook it off. I didn’t deserve her sympathy.

  “I was still pissed when I went on patrol that night and knew where I could find a sympathetic ear. Krista and I did spend a lot of time together. We’d bitch about the job and our spouses over lunch or a beer. The things only another cop could understand. Not a civilian, like Colleen. Strictly everyday bullshit. But there’d been a different, unspoken, undercurrent at our last couple of meetings. I knew her detective husband was out of town on a case and convinced myself I’d only go over to her house to talk. We did talk. For a little while.

  “When I got out of her bed, I caught my reflection in a mirror and saw for the first time that Colleen had been right. I didn’t like the person staring back at me.”

  I looked at Kim, but she wouldn’t look at me. I didn’t blame her. She must have now wondered if I’d betrayed her while we’d been together. I didn’t. Only Colleen. The one time. On the last night of her life. It had cost me my only love. It had cost Colleen everything.

  That night in Santa Barbara came back at me and filled me with the same dread. Back in Krista’s bedroom, a huge hole opened up in me for something I’d once had and now had ruined. I wanted it back. I wanted to be the man Colleen had fallen in love with again and realized I never could. But I had to try. I’d go to counseling, quit the force. Whatever it took.

  I needed to see her, to hear her voice. To confess.

  Kim still couldn’t look at me, but I had to get it all out. Finally. “Colleen had called my cell phone twice while I was in bed with another cop’s wife. My calls back to her went to voice mail. Panic gripped me. A graveyard shift’s sixth sense. I knew something worse than my sin had happened. I raced to the library, but got there an hour late. Colleen was already gone. Forever. Her body was discovered on the beach the next morning.”

  Kim didn’t say anything for a long time. When she finally spoke, the hint of affection in her voice that I’d always taken for granted was gone.

  “Why didn’t you give the police your alibi when they arrested you?”

  “I should have. Then the police might have looked for the real killer instead of focusing on me.” I looked out the window, but saw only the sun’s glare. “I told myself I was protecting Krista, but I knew deep down that I didn’t want my fellow cops to know that I’d committed the unpardonable sin of sleeping with another cop’s wife.”

  “You were willing to go to prison for that?”

  “No. If it had gone to trial, I would have shown the world who I really was. But the DA dropped the charges because they found unknown hair on Colleen’s body that wasn’t mine. Detective Grimes was still convinced I’d killed her, but the DA didn’t think he could get a conviction. But none of that changes what I did that night.”

  I finally looked at Kim, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “That isn’t who you are now, Rick. And it doesn’t change the fact that you risked your life to save mine.”

  But I knew from the sound of her voice that something had changed in her. I missed it already.

  Melody came by the next evening. Freedom, or maybe a tanning booth, had brought back the caramel color to her skin. Her dark eyes, as smoky and sexy as the first night I saw her.

  “Oh my God, Rick, are you okay?”

  She kissed my forehead. Either because it was the most likely area that wouldn’t hurt, or because I wasn’t worthy of deeper affection.

  “I’ll live.”

  “I can’t thank you enough
for what you did. Without you, I’d still be in jail.”

  That was probably true, but I didn’t feel like a hero.

  Melody sat with me for a half hour. She told me she had to fly back to San Francisco for work, but would be down next weekend, as she had a job offer in L.A. to host a daytime talk show. The benefits of celebrity victimhood.

  “If I take the job in Los Angeles, I’d only be two hours away.” She stroked my hair. “We could see what life’s like without the police trying to put me in jail and without you getting shot.”

  She kissed my lips this time, and the memory of our first night together rushed back at me. She said goodbye and stood up to leave.

  “When the Detective Moretti questioned you about how my Callaway hat got in your motel room the morning Windsor died, what did you tell him?”

  If the question surprised her, she didn’t show it.

  “That I’d grabbed it by mistake out of your closet.”

  “So you didn’t tell them you didn’t know how it got there?”

  “No.” The lie wouldn’t let her eyes meet mine. “Why?”

  “I just wanted to be sure.” And I was. Melody had let me dangle on the edge of the Windsor murder as a potential suspect. Another option in her feral instinct for survival.

  “I really do care about you, Rick.” She turned and left.

  In her broken way, I believed she did.

  She didn’t come down to see me the next weekend, or ever again.

  Muldoon’s

  EPILOGUE

  Three days after I got out of the hospital, against doctor’s orders, I drove my car over to Elk Fenton’s office. I got what I needed and then went to Turk’s house. He was still in the hospital, but out of ICU and on his way to recovery. Not recovery of his former life, but of some kind of life. I sifted through his mailbox, found what I was looking for, then headed over to San Diego Gun.